Scooter the pit bull exchanges life of crime for life of romps and belly rubs .

Courtesy of Born Again Pit Bull Rescue. By Jasmin Aline Persch

TODAY.com contributor

Life hasn't always been this good for Scooter, a pit bull once used to intimidate robbery victims. “She just needed a chance to be a dog,” said one of her rescuers.

Scooter never did anything wrong. But last July when a father and his teenage son strolled with their bikes along the Willamette River in Portland, Ore., a robber used the gray and white pit bull to mug them. It worked.

“He knew that the public generally is scared of these dogs,” Angela Adams, who rescues pit bulls for a living, told TODAY.com. “He knew he could scare them because of the stigma. He just used fear.”
Officers nabbed the robber and Scooter was taken to animal services, where shelter workers quickly ascertained that the bandit’s best friend — his “weapon” — wasn’t aggressive. Today, Scooter is a deliriously happy family dog and a specially trained therapy dog — but her journey from a life of crime to a life of romps and belly rubs wasn’t an easy one...Read here...