Owners of between 5 and 10 million pit-bull-type dogs in America Listen Up:

The dog wants to be sweet and docile, but well-meaning humans mess it all up.

On a10-acre stretch of land just outside Los Angeles, Villalobos Rescue Center, run by Tia Maria Torres, has found homes for thousands of pits since the rescue opened its doors 15 years ago. Some of these animals were abandoned. Some were shelter dogs slated for euthanasia. Others were confiscated in drug busts or fighting rings. And some are victims of nature, the so-called Hurricane Katrina dogs of New Orleans.

It's a 24/7 job... estimates show that there are anywhere from 5 million to 10 million pit-bull-type dogs in the U.S. today, out of about 61 million total dogs....pits have become popular and not just gangbangers and wannabe thugs who use a pit as proxy for toughness. About 20 percent of dogs in ASPCA shelters are pit mixes.

The trendiest pet owners spend thousands of dollars for a "blue" pits...profiting unethical breeders who contribute to the overpopulation problem.  Pets aren't purses, and people who jump into pit-bull ownership without the requisite training and education can often do more harm than good. Pit-bull experts say that some current owners are too easy to spook, are too ill-informed, and have unrealistic expectations of what pit bulls can do: Pits make lousy guard dogs because a well-bred pit is just too human-friendly to protect your property, as just one misconception about the breed.

Pit bulls are no longer being purposefully bred along fighting lines.  But pit bulls still can be dog aggressive (as are many other types of dogs). How that plays out will vary from pit to pit, and the dogs need a smart owner to keep them in line as pack leader.  Dog aggression can be managed by getting a pit into a training program that offers structured, controlled socialization.

Pits are also among the most human-friendly canines. In tests conducted by the American Temperament Test Society, which evaluates stability, friendliness, and other traits in several hundred dog breeds, the American pit-bull terrier scored 85.3 percent, higher than a golden retriever. Their human-friendly nature remains strong even in horrific circumstances. "I thought I was going to meet a bunch of Tasmanian devils," says Dr. Frank MacMillan, a veterinarian with Best Friends Animal Sanctuary who is working with some 20 pit bulls rescued from Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels. "I was stunned at how sweet they were."

That inherent sweetness toward people can lead well-meaning humans to be too permissive with their precious pooches. Because of its tendencies toward dog-on-dog aggression, Torres advises pit owners to keep their dogs out of mosh-pit, free-for-all dog parks. "If there's a fight, no matter what dog started it, the pit will be blamed."

At Villalobos, Torres does an exhaustive interview with potential adopters. She wants to know what kinds of dogs they owned in the past, whether there are kids in the house, if it's a multidog household, if they have a cat, and what they want from their pit. Once they answer those questions, Torres tries to match them up with the right pit bull.  "The good thing about a pit is that some of them can be high energy, others just want to watch TV. "

Despite laws in many parts of the country that place restrictions on pit ownership... if you want to rescue a pit bull, Torres's advice is simple: Make sure the dog is the right one for you, and you are right for it. Get the dog spayed or neutered, obey leash laws and any local regulations, and do ongoing training.