So, are American Pit Bulls bad from the get go, or not?

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

I am a big fan of a reality show where little people promote pit bull acceptance and fight against municipal legislation to outlaw them


But, I hear also of stories where a pit which was not trained to attack, attacked, etc.

Either the breed has created some problems or it hasnt, or the breeding or what I dont know.

There has to be some science on this, by now?


this was the headline on here that got me thinking


http://abc7news.com/news/san-mateo-police-run-down-pit-bulls-following-vicious-attack-/485645/

SAN MATEO, Calif. (KGO) -- San Mateo police claim they had no choice but to use a patrol car to run down two vicious dogs that bit one woman and charged at several other people.

One dog was killed and the other is alive. Its fate will be decided by the Peninsula Humane Society.

The woman is recovering from bites and cuts inflicted by two aggressive dogs.

"It was a very out of breath, frightened male caller saying he had just fended off two large dogs that attacked him," San Mateo police Sgt. Rick Decker said.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.

Pit bulls have a certain reputation, so they tend to be selected by people who want a "mean" dog, either for nefarious dog-fighting purposes or to project a badass image. Those people will probably mistreat the animal, or train it to be aggressive. (Or, in many cases, owners who probably shouldn't have a dog in the first place don't properly train and exercise active, athletic dogs like pit bulls, and the aggression is the result of neglect.) However the issue with pit bulls is that while they may not bite as often as, say, chihuahuas or Jack Russells, when they do it's a lot more of an issue because of certain breed characteristics and selected behaviours. The pit bull was bred as a fighting dog; its ancestors were bred for bull baiting, and then after that was banned, dog-fighting. What that means is that certain behavioural characteristics have been selected for in breeding; one of those is "gameness"...the tendency to display aggression and not back down even when injured. In addition, the pit bull terrier is a cross between several breeds, including the bulldog, the English mastiff, and various terrier types; the terrier ancestry is responsible for one of the characteristics of a pit bull's bite...if they get something between their jaws, they'll worry at it. Ever seen a terrier with a rat? And the gameness means they won't let go. (I've seen a pit bull lifted up by a stick it had clamped between its jaws, and we're talking about a 90-pound, muscular dog, to give you some idea of the bite strength involved.) So I suppose the answer to that is that pit bulls aren't intrinsically bad, as such, but when they ARE bad they can be very bad indeed.

[hollowdweller]

3. That is not my experience.

I mean I know rednecks and drug dealers that have pit bulls and have trained them to be mean. Or dogs that have been abused that are mean. That's the same with all dogs.

However a significant number of people I know who have been injured, either the dog was theirs or their family member and lived in the same house and were around the dog all the time. The dogs were great, great with kids, friendly. Suddenly out of the blue they attacked either the owner or the family member.

In some, not all Pit bulls there is a switch, and usually the person has no idea what triggered it, and they go in the attack mode. Read the paper. A lot of the attacks the owners say first time ever showed aggression.

I think since so many are bred for pets these days maybe the breeders will breed it out the problem is that maybe the dog is 6 years old and has had 3 litters of pups before she goes off. That makes it hard to select for it.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I recently watched a couple of episodes of "Nature" on PBS that explored how the inbreeding of

dogs for a certain trait has actually hardwired that behavior into their DNA. These characteristics cannot be entirely "trained out" of the dog because they are inherent to the breed. Add to that, the dog which is referred to as "pit bull" bears very little resemblence to the original breed. Man has made them, man has to deal with them.

This is the episode that addressed this issue:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/dogs-that-changed-the-world-video-full-episode-the-rise-of-the-dog/8369/

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Yep, that's what generations of selective breeding will do.

I've seen border collies trying to herd cats and small children, for instance.

[TheBlackAdder]

2. My kids and I used to volunteer at a Zero Kill shelter--one that took in the county's Pit Bulls...

It got to the point where the volunteers has to be 18 or older. Parental permission was no longer allowed.

You could not even walk down the one corridor, where most of the pits were kept without losing your hearing. They would constantly lunge at you. There were a few that weren't overtly aggressive, but they all would have moments of intense aggression, if you've observed them long enough--even the nicest ones.

I felt bad for the other, more timid dogs who would be placed in the same area. You could see the other dogs cower and shake whenever the pits started to open up.

===

Now, I like friendlier animals (having owned a farm with over 70 various animals on it) who compliment each other. If a horse, llama, pig, chicken, etc... was aggressive, it was sold at the next farm auction. Seeing the potential of these dogs is an indication, that no matter how nice their homes might be, the people who take them are playing with dynamite--that night never go off. but they showed that they could off with little provocation.

===

When I was younger, I knew two people with pits. One used to keep baseball bats scattered around the home for if and when the dog would latch hold of someone. The other one raised them and swore how nice they were. Both people were bitten multiple times by their 'loving' animals and just dismissed it. I don't know if some kind of disconnect is going on, or if they accept these minor incidents as normal dog ownership? For me, that animal would be gone...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Not bad, but dangerous. The main problem isn't their temperament, it's their physiology.

Pit bulls are *less* likely to attack you than some other breeds - dachshunds, for example, are infamously aggressive.

But if a pit bull does attack you, it's much, much more likely to seriously hurt or kill you than just about any other sort of dog.

Pit bull type dogs are responsible for about 2/3 of all fatal dog attacks. But the fraction of all dog attacks, including non-fatal ones, that they're involved in is much, much lower than that (I don't know how much lower, because no-one bothers to keep data on dog attacks where no-one gets seriously hurt).

I'm not convinced that that warrants a ban on owning or breeding them (the right statistic is probably not "fraction of fatal dog attacks involving put bulls" but "fraction of pit bulls involved in fatal dog attacks&quot , but it certainly makes it not an absurd thing to consider.

(There's also the issue that some people keep pit bulls precisely because they have a reputation for being aggressive and killing people, and they like the machismo that comes with that, and that kind of person is more likely to train their dog badly and have it kill someone).

[Nye Bevan]

7. Owning a pit bull is like not wearing a seat belt.

Very probably you'll be OK, and there are plenty of people who have done it all their lives without a problem. But why take a risk that can so easily be avoided?

[Coventina]

8. No dog is bad from the get go.

Aside from the occasional sociopath, which happens in humans as well.

Most dog attacks, in any breed, come from situations where humans do not understand dog behavior and society.
It usually involves either food (or water, or other prized possession), territory, or fear (on the dog's part).

Because human society and dog society have so many similarities, we sometimes forget the important differences.

Human morality is not canine morality, and they don't understand our concepts of "good" and "evil".
They have a different set of values.
All dogs do, from the tiniest to the largest.

The best way to keep yourself safe from dog attacks is to understand how they see the world and what their values and standards are.

[smokey nj]

9. THANK YOU!!!!!

[Coventina]

10. You're welcome!

Dogs are incredible creatures.
Sadly, the majority of their human companions don't bother to educate themselves about the beings they have brought into their home, and are confused and angered when the dog can't read their mind.

I'm always happy to help out anyone with a question about dogs, as I've studied them pretty extensively.

[smokey nj]

11. I work with dogs every day, and if I didn't think my cats would kill me I'd have one of my own.

I've been a dog walker/pet sitter for going on 7 years now and it's the best job I've ever had. This one of my clients. Her name is Rose and she's a sweetheart. She's a rescue who was seized in a crime bust.