You don’t have to be a fan of Animal Planet’s Pit Bulls & Parolees to fall in love with the Villalobos Rescue Center in New Orleans. Tia Maria Torres founded the rehab and placement facility as a wolf rescue in Los Angeles in the early ’90s, but switched to pit bulls in 1994. Thanks to the double whammy of rampant overbreeding and dog-fighting rings sparking a kind of breed-specific Satanic panic, Torres got slammed. Pitties are one of the sweetest, most loyal breeds on the planet, but the public at large saw them as Enemy No. 1; they were being tortured and abandoned at alarming rates.
Torres moved VRC from California to Louisiana in August 2012; today it is the largest pit rescue in the country, housing more than 500 dogs. The intake covers medical treatment, obedience training, and spaying/neutering, and the adoption process is hella rigorous (as it should be). Not only does the center give the unfairly maligned breed a second chance, it’s staffed by parolees in need of work opportunities.
Volunteers are always welcome at VRC, but as a traveler just passing through town, you can still tour the facility and help walk the dogs. Twenty-minute tours run every Tuesday through Friday from noon to 3 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tours are free, but donations will of course be put to good use. Fingers crossed you get Earl as your tour guide—he’s funny as all get out, deeply knowledgeable about the rescue and its inhabitants, and a big, melty puddle of mush when he gets around his favorite dogs (“This one’s my girl… MY GIRL! Who’s my girl?! Who’s my girl?!”). The stories you’ll hear are both heartbreaking and heartwarming. If you don’t leave VRC wanting to adopt a pit, or at least hug one, you might want to check your pulse.
4525 N. Claiborne Ave., New Orleans, LA; 504-948-4505.
Additional photo by Cartogramme