Pit Bulls and their bad rap

[llovelace]

At an 84.2 pass ratio the American Staffordshire Terrier ranks above many more popular breeds such as the Beagle at 80.9%, Collie at 79.9% and the Dalmatian at 82.4%Intelligence, human attenuation, energy, and affection are characteristic of the breed.

The Am Staff is a people-oriented dog that thrives when he is made part of the family and given a job to do. Although friendly, this breed is loyal to his family and will protect them from any threat.

enough said

[wytchling]

When it comes to Pit Bulls, the monster is quite often the two legged animal on the other end of the leash.

I believe firmly that any breed of dog that is constantly poked, prodded and aggravated will be come increasingly agitated over time. And I DO believe it is all in the owner. Yes, Bully breeds in general do have the instincts they were born with, and there are a select few who do in fact snap simply because their instincts override any sane reasoning. But for the most part an owner with a firm but loving, caring hand can and will keep those instincts under wraps.

It's really simple, start requiring people to have a license to own a dog just like they have to have one to drive a car. LOL.

I have a Red Nose Pit and an American Bulldog/Lab mix. They are by far my most well mannered, sweetest dogs. I also have an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier (who bless his heart is 17 years old) and the only thing he's ever bitten is a lawnmower tire. I worked for a vet for years and every time I got bit by something it came from a little yappy dog (no offense to any ankle biter owners ) and only once by a chow. Never got bitten by any of the APBTs, Staffies, Am. Bulldogs, etc. They were all big lovers but their owners also kept them under control.

It all boils down to punishing the deed and not the breed. Sorry for the short novel.

[mommanessy247]

i'm another one with the "its the owner, not the breed".
although its sad that a breed is getting all the bad rap i am deathly afraid of the breed only cuz of the power they weild with little to no effort. i do know any dog, small or large, can do damage, but the power in a pit's jaws scares the hell outta me.
i have met a couple very sweet pits who wouldnt think to hurt a fly.
i'm a little less threatened by the pit mixes but if its a straight out pit i tremble somethin' feirce.
my younger sister was bitten by our then neighbor's english bull dog. it was not the dog's fault though, the neighbor was swinging my sister around in a circle by her arms & the dog got excited & jumped up & latched on to one of my sisters ankles. took the 3 guys (the neighbor, his teen son & my dad) to get the dog's jaws open. although there was no serious injury to my sisters ankle, it was an eye opener for all of us especially the neighbor, who'd never imagined the dog would ever do that. buddy (the dog) was everyones buddy, even after all that, we all just learned that he had an excitement threshhold & we unfortunately found it.

[jason_ladouceur]

idk if many people know it but back in the old days down here in the south pits were raised to be baby sitters for children. not hunting, not fighting, baby sitting. if thats not a good dog idk what is

i think pits may be the most patient baby sitters in the world. i know mine is awsome with kids.

[Bellabob]

I have a Blue Brindle pit. Sweetest. Dog. EVER. She would never hurt anyone. She's even afriad of the vaccume cleaner!

The media makes everything they percieve as "dangerous" look bad. Not just pit bulls, but reptiles, and other exotic animals. They are really starting to piss me off.

[pbjtime8908]

im thinking this should have been a poll on what ppl believe about the situation.

im definitely in the its the owner not the dog category. i had a red nose pit a few years ago that i had gotten from a family who was abusive towards him. they had tried cutting his ears to make him look tough but failed miserably so he always had trouble with them, but thankfully they left the tail intact (well maybe not so thankfully since that thing hurt when he hit you while he was excited, and he was exited a lot). but despite being abused by the previous owners he turned out to be one of the best dogs ive ever owned, him and a female siberian husky/wolf mix i had are pretty much tied. he never growled, bit or barked in a mean spirited way towards anyone and there was always someone new for him to meet. he loved playing and being in a happy mood and was a great companion for us. i only got rid of him because we moved and werent allowed any pets there but i do miss the guy.

but i do have to say that i agree in a small part that pits do have it in their genes to be aggressive but thats because ppl only bred aggressive pits to aggressive pits to make aggressive pits and unfortunately theres an abundance of those offspring around but as time goes by more and more ppl are less worried about aggressiveness and more concerned about furthering the breed in a positive way.

[RyanT]

I LOVE Pits. They're the most amazing dogs in the world and they DO have an undeserved bad reputation. However...it gets difficult to incessantly defend them when they kill their pregnant owner, as happened in San Francisco a couple weeks ago...That really sucks.

[mainbutter]

Yeah, pits are tough.

lol.. our neighbor's purebred is a HUUUGE baby. You walk up to him, and the first thing he does is roll right over on his back so you can rub his belly.

[mommanessy247]

lol kinda hard to be intimidated by that huh?

[Jaxx]

These are a couple of articles I have seen in the local news and one in the Ontario news since I have started reading this thread. I believe that it comes down to the owners of these animals on how the dog will behave. It seems that it is only newsworthy most of the time if the animal doing the attacking is a Pitbull. I have several friends who owned or have owned pitbulls and they have never had any issues with these dogs, been around children, other dogs, cats horses, reptiles ,you name it and not once have they ever shown any aggression.


Bitten woman urges ban on pit bulls
Halifax animal services says charges are possible
CBC News Posted: Aug 30, 2011 7:24 AM AT Last Updated: Aug 30, 2011 8:13 PM AT Read IN

Kathy Martin points to one of the bites she suffered Monday evening at Martinique Beach after a pit bull that was off-leash randomly attacked her. CBCA Dartmouth woman is calling for a ban on pit bulls after she was randomly attacked at a popular beach.

Kathy Martin was bitten on the face, ear, and neck by an off-leash pit bull Monday evening at Martinique Beach, a provincially owned park on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore.

She said she was in a grassy area near the parking lot when the dog lunged at her.

"I was on the ground and this dog was snarling and lunging at me and lunging at my neck and face," she told CBC News.

'It all comes down to responsible pet ownership'
— Andrea MacDonald, manager, HRM animal services

Martin was treated at a local hospital and released.

She said the attack came out of nowhere and she did nothing to provoke the dog. She feels the breed should be banned.

"If the dog is aggressive to begin with, then he never should have been off-leash. If it had shown no signs of aggression before then that's more of a statement for banning pit bulls, if they can just flip like that on you," she said.

Dogs at all provincial parks are required to be leashed. Owners who let their pets run free face a minimum fine of $167.71.

RCMP said the case has been handed over to Halifax Regional Municipality animal services.

Andrea MacDonald, manager of animal services, said the investigation is in the early stages.

"There will be potentially charges laid. We have been in contact with the dog owner, as well as the victim," she said Tuesday.

Investigators can give a warning, issue a ticket or seize an animal, which could lead to the animal being put down.

MacDonald said it's too early to know what will happen in this case.

Dog attacks
There have been 96 reported dog attacks in HRM this summer, and 17 of those involved an injury to a person or another animal, according to animal services.

Earlier this month, a child in Dartmouth was rushed to hospital after being bitten by a pit bull.

Last week, an off-leash dog attacked and killed a Jack Russell terrier. Police said the aggressive dog appeared to be a pit bull.

MacDonald said only six of the 17 dogs that caused injury were pit bulls or a pit bull mix.

"It all comes down to responsible pet ownership," she said. "As we've seen in the past, it's not just pit bulls that attack."

MacDonald said the number of dog attacks this summer are on par with last year.

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Owner sought after dog kills terrier:

Police are looking for the owner of a dog that attacked and killed a smaller dog in Dartmouth this week.

The dogfight happened Monday evening on Dorothea Drive, near Eric Graves Memorial Junior High School.

Police said a woman was walking a Jack Russell terrier when three people approached with their two dogs.

One of the two dogs was not on a leash, police said, and the one that was running free attacked the terrier.

The terrier was so badly injured that it had to be put down.

Police said the aggressor was a red short-haired dog that looked like a pit bull.

Const. Brian Palmeter, spokesman for Halifax Regional Police, said the owner of that animal could face charges for having a pet off-leash.

Police were looking for a woman and two men on Tuesday.

The woman is described as being about 25, with shoulder-length blonde hair and wearing glasses.

The two men with her are believed to be in their mid to late 20s. One had short dark hair and was wearing a white T-shirt and black baseball cap. He had tattoos on his right arm.

The second man had dark curly hair.

Police said anyone with information should call animal services at 490-4000.

Last month, a Shih Tzu died after it was attacked on Spring Avenue in Dartmouth. Two dogs were seized and their owner was charged.

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Banning the breed: The debate over pit bulls:

They seem to come in bunches: attacks by dangerous dogs.

Saturday, Aug. 28, 2004. Toronto police fire more than a dozen bullets into two pit bulls that had turned on the man who was walking them as a favour for a friend.

A week earlier, Fredericton, N.B. A family is out walking their :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r:zu. A Rottweiler, recently acquired by a neighbour, attacks and kills the dog.

A week before that, in London, Ont., a woman and her seven-year-old son watch in horror as a pit bull latches onto her husband's arm as he tries to keep the family puppy out of the dog's reach.

On Oct. 15, 2004, Ontario's attorney general, Michael Bryant, announced that his province would be the first to ban pit bulls, calling them "ticking time bombs." The ban took effect in the summer of 2005.

The new law faced its first legal challenge in May 2006. Catherine Cochrane, who owns a pit bull-type dog named Chess, said the law is vague and doesn't promote responsible dog ownership. Lawyer Clayton Ruby will argue in Ontario Superior Court that the vast majority of pit bulls are just like Chess – friendly, loving animals.

It's not a new debate. It tends to be renewed after particularly vicious attacks, like one that killed an eight-year-old Stouffville, Ont., girl in 1998.


Marketplace: Dangerous dogs

Winnipeg became the first Canadian city to ban pit bulls in 1990, a year after an attack left a young girl badly disfigured. Since then, incidents involving pit bulls have fallen from about 25 a year to one or two.

Dr. Norma Guy teaches animal behaviour at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown. She says banning certain breeds of dogs is a stopgap measure that doesn't address the real issue: people behaving irresponsibly with their dogs.

"I'm in favour of really promoting responsible ownership and passing legislation to enforce that," she says.

Guy says one big problem with banning breeds like pit bulls is that once you get into a courtroom, identifying a dog as a specific breed can be very difficult.

"We have to get at the people [who keep vicious dogs]. If you take away the pit bulls, they will move onto another breed. You have to look at stopping individual people who have proven themselves to be irresponsible owners from keeping dogs."

But pit bulls do have their backers. Many have organized to fight against breed-specific legislation.

Sandra Always, the president of the Golden Horseshoe American Pit Bull Terrier Club, has owned and bred pit bulls for 16 years. She's also the vice-president of the Dog Legislation Council of Canada, an organization that lobbies against laws that ban specific breeds of dogs.

"A dog needs responsible ownership regardless of breed," she told CBC Radio. "You train it, you contain and you socialize it. If you ban these guys, what's next? Italy started with a banned list of 13 breeds. They're up to over 40 now. They just banned Welsh Corgis!"

Jennifer Segal is a dog trainer who chooses not to work with pit bulls. She says years of improper breeding have made them not only aggressive but deadly.

"There are a number of young people, particularly male, particularly under the age of 28, who find it to be some type of cultural element to have this type of arm jewelry, pulling them around. It's the macho appearance."

Pit bulls were originally bred in 19th-century England to fight other dogs in pits. That's now rare, but Merle Blaine of the Etobicoke Humane Society in Toronto says it still happens.

"People arrange fights in parks. But by the time you get there it's pretty well over. The dog that loses the fight is left behind, usually a mess. [This kind of thing] makes the breed a bad breed."

But she's not convinced breed-specific legislation is the answer.

"Probably what should happen is there should be a special licensing fee for pit bulls and their owners should be required to take special training. It should be more difficult to own one."

Dr. Guy agrees. "It is too easy owning a dog. [People don't realize] it's like having a toddler for 12 years. A toddler with teeth. We never say we've cured a dog with an aggression problem. All we say is we've lowered the risk of an aggressive action happening again."

She favours stronger legislation aimed at dog owners – and the teeth to back up those laws.

"It takes some investment," Guy said. "Dogs are always going to be here. If we want to continue having dogs with us, we are going to have to have some legislation in place and a way to enforce it so we can control what happens when people don't act responsibly."

In the end, the issue may come down to economics. In March 2004, a Calgary man found himself without home insurance when his insurance company decided it would no longer cover people who kept Rottweilers, German shepherds, pit bulls or Doberman pinschers. Allstate said even a mongrel with any of those bloodlines is considered unacceptable.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says it's a growing trend in the industry.