New York Bully Crew Seeks to Educate About Pit Bulls

Few domestic animals are treated as inhumanely or have a reputation as negative as that of the pit bull, but one group in Nesconset is trying to change that image.

Outside of the KTFO Studio in Nesconset on any given day, one can find volunteers from the New York Bully Crew, a dog rescue group that specializes in pit bulls but is open to saving all breeds. Signs outside the studio advertise puppies – the largest source of donations for the group – and small enclosures are set up on the sidewalk with mixed breed puppies. Nearby, two older pit bulls nap on the sidewalk next to a foster parent for the group.

Craig Fields started NYBC this past December after becoming involved with another rescue group and seeing how many dogs were being put down in shelters each day while people bought dogs from puppy mills.

“We get most of our dogs from shelters, and many of them are from death row. They’re putting down seven-, eight-week-old puppies every day because they just don’t have the room for them,” said Fields.

Fields, who works in fixed-income investments and has worked on Wall Street for five years, also teaches at KTFO in addition to managing NYBC. He was formerly a professional fighter, from which he has taken a hiatus since he started the rescue group. Now he saves pit bulls and other dogs from shelters, and acts on tips about dog abuse in the area to rescue dogs from squalid conditions.

Nestled away at the old Montessori School on Lake Avenue is the NYBC Rescue House, where about 30 dogs are housed, trained and exercised by NYBC employees and volunteers as they wait to be adopted. Fields continues to add to the menagerie each day, as well as adding to the puppies housed by foster parents. Just the day before, Fields had adopted 30 puppies for which he is currently trying to find permanent homes.

Since October, Fields has been able to adopt out approximately 200 puppies and 125 dogs.

The stigma of pit bulls in the area is still prevalent, says Fields. Though families with young children stop by to hold and pet the dogs, occasionally people tell him that they “would never own a pit bull,” when ironically, a few stop by with a dog that is a pit bull mix. 

“I told this woman, ‘You don’t strike me as the pit bull type,’ and she said her dog was not a pit bull, when it was obviously part bully,” said Fields. “People are in denial about owning pit bulls.”

If you are interesting in meeting the dogs and volunteers of NYBC, call 800-276-3310, stop by KTFO, or had over to the NYBC First Annual Happy Hour and BBQ Cookout starting at 4 p.m. on Friday, August 12 at in Nesconset.