“Once In A Lifetime” is a documentary film series exploring the complicated history surrounding pit bull dogs, weaved through a real life fairy-tale about a once-in-a-lifetime dog named Preston.
Woven through this complicated story about pit bull terriers, is a love story chronicled in one account of the human-canine bond. It’s a tale of how fate disguises itself as coincidence.
This documentary is about a once-in-a-lifetime dog named Preston, and his filmmaker human, Jeff. We don’t find the dogs you want; the dogs we need find us.
Learn about the complicated history of pit bull dogs through vintage photographs, newspaper articles and other original artifacts in this special blog series – The Archives.
For centuries, dogs have accompanied our ancestors in performing a variety of tasks. They assisted in working roles – such as hunting, herding of livestock and the guarding of property. They also offered general companionship.
However, in the case of pit bull dogs, their development is oftentimes muddied with controversy and uncomfortable conversations about the purpose of their creation.
Nevertheless, one thing is clear – the ancestry of the American Pit Bull Terrier is the byproduct of crossing an Old English Bulldog with a variety of terriers. This produced offspring that possessed the desired amplified traits of both in one complete package.
These half bulldog-half terrier crosses – often referred to as bull-and-terriers or half-and-half’s, were the foundation that will later become the Pit Bull Terrier.
Most historians of the American Pit Bull Terrier agree that the majority of the originating stock of dogs came to the United States with their English and Irish immigrant families during the 19th Century.
Even though most states outlawed dogfighting, interest in the activity continued to grow underground.
This led to a well publicized match in October 1881 between Lloyd’s Pilot (28 lbs) versus Kreiger’s Crib (27.5 lbs.). This event has largely been identified as the turning point in the popularity of dogfighting in America.
After several decades of somewhat obscurity, news stories about pit bull dogs and their association to dogfighting began circulating in the mid-late 1970s.
By the beginning of the 1980s, reports about violent tendencies of pit bulls became national news, prompting some communities to debate banning the dogs.
In 1980, Hollywood, Florida passed the country’s first legislation targeting pit bull dogs. It was quickly struck down in court for violating constitutional rights. But, by the close of the decade, breed specific legislation spread rapidly like wildfire across the country and around the world.
On the late morning of April 25, 2007, news quickly spread about NFL star quarterback, Michael Vick, being a suspect in running a dogfighting operation.
Federal agents and humane investigators raided his rural Virginia property, discovering dozens of pit bull dogs and evidence of dogfighting. This horrified the general population, who were given their first glimpse into the underworld of animal fighting.
Watch the “Once In A Lifetime” Pitch Video, which highlights the reasons why this documentary film series was born.
