In the 1980's we were living at Vista Rainier apartments in Tacoma WA. on "Hill Top". When we moved down the street to "K" street. We used these two dogs to move from one house on hill top to another. Using a cart with wheels and a wagon we had the dogs pull our appliances from one house to the other. The 1972 Nova was used for the little stuff, but with out a truck we had no other way to get our refrigerator, washer, and dryer, to our new home. For many years we lived on the hill top of Tacoma WA and moved three times this way.
The two dogs were hooked up to the cart by their walking harness with D rings on the sides and they would pull on command. This was no big deal cause we always would walk to the store with the dogs pulling the wagon with kids. We always walked to the store to buy food, the dogs always brought it home by pulling the wagon. Walks were an everyday event and pulling was just natural for them. When we were camping we used the dogs to pull logs from the woods for the camp fire. Our dogs were a part of the family they were like kids, just like the ones we have today.
Weight pull happened then cause it was a way of life for us with limited means. There was no sport, there was no competition, just our life, our daily life. Who the hell would get a dog, hook it up to pull a washing machine down the road when they had a perfectly good truck to hall stuff?
How ironic that Over 30 years later, the dogs we have today weight pull for points and trophy's, not to help the family in everyday life. .... This was our way of life and the dogs were our faithful companions for years and fell right in to our life style.

Harry S. Truman
"Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads."

Below is a play set at Mc Carver Elementary in Tacoma WA were we trained the dogs

For kids during school days this was a play ground to run, swim, slide and just be a kid. But on the week nights after work we would take the dogs for a long walk. Then this school would became our course for training the dogs. Our two pit bulls would run a course. I would walk them trough what I wonted them to do, Just with verbal commands the dogs would run the course, stay, sit, jump, slide, and go on as told. After about 45 minuets of training it was time to jump into the water. The waiting pool was always' locked with a four foot fence at night. The dogs were well trained and when told to "Over" they would jump the fence and fetch until told to "come" lets go.
We would always end up with a group watching us and the dogs. People were amazed that pit bulls could be trained like that.
Some never seen dogs trained so well and listened to every word that was told to them. The most amazing thing to them was they were pit bulls off leash and minding and healing on verbal commands. (NEVER SEEN ON THE HILL TOP.)

Our dogs were very well trained in hanging on command and healing at our left sides.When our dogs worked out on the tire to hang it was controlled. They would be healing to the left and waiting for the command. They would release, drop and heal to the left within seconds of saying the word "OUT, LEFT SIDE". The dogs knew the difference between pull, shake, hold it and Out.
The "OUT" command was the most important command of all. "OUT" is used for many things for us with the dogs. It is used for them to release food we do not wont them to eat, the toy when retuning from a fetch, to let go of the tire and heal, and even used to get them not to sniff at anything. Of all the things you can teach your Pit bull to do, the word "OUT" in our opinion is the most important! Plain and simple it means STOP NOW!!!

On a hot July night we were out lighting off left over fire works. A ground bloom spun out of control and flew into the house right at my face. It hit me and I of course screamed. Rebel was just being a dog laying around, but when he heard me he was at my side in a heart beat. Before I could say out he had the ground bloom in his mouth and shook it until it was out. Rebels mouth was burned by the ground bloom but he had no fear of the fire what so ever. The dog did what was natural to him and that was to protect his master.
All week we had been around the fire works neither dog could care less about the booms and fire they made. After that he was at my side and was protecting me.
I knew both dogs were smart enough to be trained to bark and make a fuss at the smell of smoke. A dog will be the first response in an emergency like this, we as humans would just sleep thought it.
I would light small fires in a steel can and hide it from the dogs they would look for it. Too easy for them cause of the keen scene of smell dogs have. They Just thought it was fun and did exactly what was asked of them. Proud of them Yes, but never thought it would ever be needed. About 10 years later we were living in a small home with a old wood burning stove. It had a small crack on the side so we would keep the wood away. One night I woke up to dogs going off. I thought someone had just broke in, I sat up in bed to see the light from the fire dancing on our bedroom walls. I jumped up yelled fire! Johnathen went to put out the fire, I ran to the kids got them out of the house, and out into the field. As I came back I grabbed the garden hose and headed in to help Johnathen. Both dogs had rolled on the logs trying to put the fire out. They were both still trying to put the smoke out when I walked in. Both dogs mouth were burnt from trying to bite the logs when it got to much for them to bite they rolled on it. The hard wood floors and a few logs were all that was on fire that was more then the dogs were ever trained for. How did they know to roll on it and how in the hell did they remember something taught to them only a few times and years before? Both dogs sleep beside our bed and teaching them about fire years before, saved our lives many years later.
A simple trick, just something taught for a brief moment, something I personally forgot was trained to them.
Johnathen and I are totally grateful to what these to pit bulls gave us. Hours of loving devotion days of a loyal family pet, guardians of my children, and our lives.
In all our years with this breed and the years in the show ring We have Never seen any dogs as well trained as these two dogs. From locating drugs, fighting fires, healing, weight pulling and agility, these dogs could do it all.

The foundation dogs of 1996 were nothing compared to these dogs above of 1980's
A breed of canine once used for fighting ; As responsible owners, we must now fight to keep our rights to even own them as pets.
It is the responsibility of anyone breeding a litter to place each pup into the hand of quality owners.
The breeder should be willing to make sure that the pup/dog they placed is still in the right hands even years later.

No animal should ever be sold for any illegal purpose but it is still happening all over the world today.
There is the saying ......
There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.
We, the Victorino's have always said, that saying is only part truth.
We have always said " There are no bad dogs just bad breeders."
~ Irresponsible breeders place the dogs into the hands of the owners ~
The breeder comes into the picture way before the owner even knows about the litter.
Where will that breeder place their pups, and how fast when they become a 3-4 month old problem.

Johnathen and I were getting ready to go to Ft lewis with the dogs.
To spend the day with the dogs and visit friends that were stationed their.
Before he got to the car he jumped and I snapped this photo.
Later that same day he had Rebel Jo jump from a sit just to see how high he could get.
I would have to give Rebel a score of 10 and have to give Johnathen an 8.5
Rebel's jump showed more difficultly due to the sitting position.
Johnathen's piss test showed his jump was chemically enhanced

1983 we moved to a home on 40 acres on Kent Kangley Kent Wa. Getting off Hill Top of Tacoma and not turning back.
This home was the last rental home we would live in. The next move would be to our home we bought from my aunt Elaine.
This place was a blast we had the run of the whole 40 acers for only $250.00 a month. We painted and did some plumbing. Fixed it up before moving in and that gave us 2 months free rent. Thank God Johnathen was a Jack of all trades. This would be the house were our son John was born in 1984.
This is also the house where the dogs saved our lives from the fire. Here is John climbing on the dogs dad just got home from work. John is trying to get to him even if it means climbing on the dogs to do it. This was the summer of 1984

There are a few females that will turn our heads, and I believe it is due to this black brindle female. Don't get me wrong Victorino's Ipo Lani is a wonderful dog and held many titles and produced grate titled dogs. The females Ipo lani, produced were totally awesome dogs.
But as a owner of some fantastic APBT for over 30 + years, Johnathen and I both agree that Rhoda was far superior to females we see today. Rhoda would be the dog I would reach back in time for, if given that wish. Deep Black coat with gentle red brindle shining though, made her an eye catcher. Her loving gentle nature and temperament was unbelievable. She just loved kids you could always find her with the kids in the yard. Ill tell you one thing no one thought twice about kidnapping our kids!

Carl my brother, took this photo of Rebel Jo, we had photos of the Sire and Dam but they were in a box that got missed or stolen during one of our moves.

Carl lived in the apartment unit next to mine. He wanted to get one of our pups for his daughters when they came over for the weekend. This little pup was the one he wanted and of course it was the one I wanted to keep too. Carl being the single guy on the go were ever he liked kind of man, decided he should not have a dog at that time. Few weeks after getting the pup he said that it was not the right time for him to care for the dog. So I had two pups to raise and love..
Only have these puppy pic's below and then before we knew it they got old.

After the passing of Rebel and Rhoda. We called some of the owners of pups we produced in the pass. People move and life changes fast, before we knew it the line was gone. Starting a new line, Oh my God there are so many different looks, short squatty no taller then a pop can. To over done fat pieces of Sh-poo, the only movement you see is the jiggle. Then there are the ones that over breed, for the money and have two to three litters at a time two to three times a year. No time for quality pups just the quantity.

Needless to say we were looking for another Pit bull for our family. Checking all the local papers for the adds. We came across many people selling litter after litter. Nothing really caught our eyes. Now we were looking for the same type of dog we had. Hell we thought it would be easy to find a new pup after Rhoda passed. NOT... not of the same caliber. Breeders need to take their time and not breed every female in their yard and surly not every male..... Now I'll get to the point -- Photo above is a prime example of the mess breeders have done! A friend for many years heard that I lost both my old dogs. She called and let me know that her neighbor had a pit he needed to get rid of. Knowing me she knew I would not take a dog unless it was real young, bad habits are hard to brake. Johnathen and I talked it over and stopped by to take a look. Okay he was about 4 months old, cream colored male....lots of extra loose skin. Oh no back dew claws... heard about it on other breeds and mixed pit bull breeds. But personally have never seen it before. Johnathen and I looked at each other, we asked where he got the dog. He told us the breeders name but over the years we have forgotten ... that's a good thing for some breeder now! This poor guy got taken bad, he paid $900.00 for this dog with papers.
Now he was out to find a home for this pit, and we knew he had to get ride of it. He let it run the neighborhood and a few folks got after him. Classic case... wanting a dog but not wanting the responsibilities. He said he would give us the dog but sell us the papers. We said no, we would never breed this dog so we had no use for any papers. His name was Bear so we left it, Bear was not what we were looking for. But until we could find something at least bear would have a place. Bear lived with us for two years then one of my brothers needed a dog. He's place was out in the boonies and his place was broke into. He needed a dog for the yard. Our family always comes to us for dogs, and we have always been able to take care of them.
Well that left us with out a dog again, we started on our quest to find a grate dog. We went back to a breeder we had been to before and by mere accident seen a pup they had purchased. At first site it was better then anything we had been seeing and it was not blue! The information to the unknown source would be hard to get off this breeder, we were a potential sale. It took us two days to get the information on where they bought the pup from. As soon as we got the information we were on our way to order up a pup or two..... 1996

Jr. Lewis, one of the many younger kids that hung out with us manly due to our dogs. In this photo he is looking very brave holding his fist up at Rebel. He is joking around about hitting him. Rebel is tugging on a piece of green garden hose. At one point this boy would not come into our home unless the dogs were put in the bed room. Most kids on Hill Top knew of this breed only as fighting dogs. It took us almost a year to get him not to be scared of the dogs. He knew we could get them to attack on command and many other things. He wanted to be around us and learn the good in the breed as well as learn how to train them. He would come over and say " Madelyn what the hell have you trained those dam dogs to do today" One morning he came by and asked John that, John said they find drugs. No way. Yes way, she taught them last night.

When we took off to the lake we would always have two or three kids with us. We would go to point defiance for a picnic and we would have the car full just spending the day with kids and dogs. Parents got to where they would ask are you going to be at John and Madelyn's house. Most of the kids on hill top owned pit bulls and when they met us were scared to death of our dogs. They never seen pit bulls trained before, our dogs they could pet and tell to sit and lay. This was truly a different world some of these kids were seeing for the first time ever. It was hard for us to understand why, Why lose so much of this breeds potential by placing it on a chain only to be let lose to fight. They really loose the value of a good dog,
Jr. could ask Rebel to sit and he would, then hold a cookie and ask him to sit pretty he would. This dog could be in the house and be a part of the family. This kid and many more like him never seen that until they met us. Our work with these dogs changed a few kids out look of the American Pit bull Terrier, showing them a side they would not have seen unless I took a chance and made our dogs family.
We helped kids that would have normally fought this breed decide to learn to train them.

We did what we called "The Wall". Jr would be at the top of a concrete wall with a stick, I would be at the bottom with a dog at the left side unleashed. Jr would hit the wall with a stick. The dogs would not go even though they were excited about the sound of him slapping the stick on the wall. They would wait until I told them to get it. Then the dog would run and leap up (about 9 feet) onto the wall grabbing the end of the stick.

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The photographer had a fear of ....of course pit bulls and asked that we would at least hold the big brown one in all the shots. To please him we held on to Rebel's choke chain. You can see in the shots Johnathen is holding the chain very gingerly. We wanted one shot of the dogs by themselves. It took some convincing on our part but it happened. He wanted Johnathen to stand by him and for me to be as close as I could be to the dogs. We understand others fear of the breed, it is not their fault. As owners we have power to change the minds of many.

Johnathen is taking a brake from his job. In this old photo he is one of the maintenance men at the apartment. No I didn't need anything fixed. That's not how we met. .... He's first job at the age of 16 was to help his mother with the bills. He would work and hand his check to his mom. His mom's eye's were on me, of course to see if I was right for her son too.

I knew then he was a keeper. A man that thinks of others before himself. Johnathen is a wonderful person with a heart of gold. My life with him has been a blessing and I would not change it for anything.

We want the same things in life!