I think this is utterly disgusting and ridiculous they want to change the name to something so similar to Yorkies! It had BETTER not catch on! They were named pit bulls for a reason! Not that I dislike all pitbulls, but some of the bad ones (or just bad owners) don't take care of them and don't know how to handle them in public. I wouldn't want any confusion between our beloved Yorkies and them pitbulls!
Here's the article:
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New Yorkers are renaming the pit bull terrier in an attempt to improve the dog's frightening image.
The city's animal welfare agency has decided to change all its official documents to rename the pit bull the "New Yorkie".
It is hoped that the image change will encourage more people to adopt the thousands of pit bulls taken in by the animal shelter each year.
Ninety per cent of the 6,000 pit bulls taken to the New York City Animal Care and Control centre each year are destroyed.
The name change was the idea of Ed Boks, the new director of the centre.
He said he came up with the idea because New Yorkers, like pit bulls, were often thought of as hard or mean, but are actually "some of the most generous and open-hearted people I've ever met".
While pit bulls have suffered bad publicity following maulings and attacks, the breed is actually well behaved.
Animal experts say pit bulls outperform the cuddly golden retriever on behavioural tests.
San Francisco tried a similar tactic in the 1990s in an attempt to get more people to adopt pit bulls from shelters.
The Californian city called the breed St Francis terriers, but it failed to catch on.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_852535.html