If you think the idea of banning PITS is redic...

"Because they are big" Lol! Most people don't know what a true pit bull is even supposed to look like, they think pits are a 100+ pound monster with huge heads. Mine are 50 and 55 pounds with perfectly normal sized heads for the breed. I love how many people honestly believe they either have "locking" jaws or some magical amount of jaw pressure that other dogs don't.

Bad ownership and parenting cause the vast majority of "attacks" and seeing how most fatal attacks are on kids it really doesn't matter how big the dog is, heck that one baby got killed by a 6 week old puppy because they left them alone together and the puppy chewed like puppies do. But nobody ever seems to blame the parents.

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

But nobody ever seems to blame the parents.

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...but...but...but....that would imply that THEY could also be responsible for something bad happening through their own negligence! :colbert:

what I find funny too is that Staffies aren't really that much different in stature or behavior, and could be confused for eachother by everyday people.

....buuuuut it's okay for me to have an astaffie but not pitbull :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

There is one good argument that hurts pits.

Some 90% of dog-related fatalities in the US are caused by pits.

It's not because they're "more aggressive", it's just that they are stronger and deadlier when they do attack.

Just like with pythons, there are thousands of bites to people, but most are from small baby snakes and aren't more than a pinprick.

However I still do not agree with breed-banning of any sort.

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See, that is where many people are wrong... 90% of dog-related fatalities in the US are caused by bully breed like dogs.

The majority of people can't actually pick a pit out of a group of dogs. If someone can't tell the difference in different breeds when they are all behaving well, they definitely aren't going to take the time to stop and think about what kind of dog it was that just bit them.

We used to have two full blood pits, but they had both their ears and tails, and no one ever know what they were. They were on the smaller side, and we had people ask all the time what they were. There was actually a woman that was letting her son pet my girl, and we were talking. At some point she asked what kind of dog she was. When I told her she was a pit, the woman snatched her son, and dragged him away. Not two seconds earlier she was talking about how pretty and well behaved my girl was! But now that she knew the dog was a pit, she was a horribly dangerous dog! People amaze me.

There are so many people that thing my friends dogs are pits, and they are Borbel mixes... much bigger than any actual pit. I have also seen someone call an English Bull dog a pit.... o.O They all have big shoulders and thick heads, obviously they are pits.

And I may be wrong, but I had also thought that there isn't an actual "pit bull", but that they were just a collection of breeds (Staforshire Terriers, and American Bull dogs, and such) that were similar...

Well, the ultimate goal of a lot of these wackos is to not allow anyone to keep any kinds of pets or livestock because they might get abused/mistreated/eaten. So I'm not surprised someone's trying to ban bigger dogs first. Sorta like how they're going after us herp people; it's easier to get things banned that aren't tiny and cute and cuddly.

On the BSL debate, I'm torn. I love pits, I really do. When I worked rescue in New Mexico, we had so many come through the pound that had been fought, beaten, stabbed, and one poor dog had his mouth duct-taped shut and was left in the middle of nowhere to die. None of them showed an ounce of aggression towards me. Mr. Duct-Tape's face will haunt me forever as one of the sweetest, most trusting faces I've ever encountered. His scars told the story of a long life of dog-fighting, and so he was euthanized without a chance for adoption.

That said, in a society with somewhere in the ballpark of 70 million dogs, it's tough keeping a breed around that is still being bred to fight and kill other dogs. I have seen pits turn on other dogs without notice or provocation, and they don't have the same instinct to stop that other dogs do. A couple of my neighbors used to let their dogs play together, an Australian shepherd and a pit. These two dogs played together since the pit was a puppy, and always seemed to get along fine. One day, the pit just attacked the Aussie, and ripped out its throat before either owner could do anything.

There are some really good breeders of bully breeds out there, but anyone rescuing a pit from the pound should be very, very careful. Dog fighting is still a huge underground sport, and odds are decent that a rescue pit comes from a fighting bloodline. IMO, I wouldn't trust these dogs around other dogs any more than I'd trust a Jack Russell around a pet rat, or a greyhound around my favorite pet rabbit. It's in their breeding to kill, and training can only do so much to overcome genetics.

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Originally Posted by tweets_4611

And I may be wrong, but I had also thought that there isn't an actual "pit bull", but that they were just a collection of breeds (Staforshire Terriers, and American Bull dogs, and such) that were similar...

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there are staffordshire terriers, then there are American pit bull terriers. American bulldogs are a seperate breed, they're much larger. Mine is a little over 100 lbs, big ole baby ha

I'd rather have a dog aggressive dog than a human aggressive one. It's not difficult to keep a dog contained or on a leash. A lady on another forum has a Fila and a APBT and people are afraid of the pit but always want to pet her "bloodhound". Most people don't know a dangerous dog if it's standing right in front of them.

I highly doubt "most" rescue pits come from a dog fighting background, most are coming from idiot bybs breeding pits for money, realistically there wasn't much issue with the breed when dogfighting was legal, only once they become the stereotypical "bad" dog and overbreeding went nuts.

The last fatal attack in my state was a pit chained up in their basement with no food or water and a long history of attacking people, but what was down there too? A female and litter of puppies. How many human aggressive puppies you think they had pumped out before the dog killed their kid (that the parents let go down there alone of course). That's the kind of breeding that's causing problems. And that's the kind of "attack" that's the norm, dogs rarely "snap". It's either a vicious dog they kept around or a kid left alone with a dog which is never a good idea.

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Originally Posted by HypoPita

what I find funny too is that Staffies aren't really that much different in stature or behavior, and could be confused for eachother by everyday people.

....buuuuut it's okay for me to have an astaffie but not pitbull :rolleyes:

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American staffordshire terriers and American pit bull terriers are the same dog. back in the 40's when dog fighting was real big the people that showed the dog's went over to the UKC and register them as American staff's

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Originally Posted by morphious

American staffordshire terriers and American pit bull terriers are the same dog. back in the 40's when dog fighting was real big the people that showed the dog's went over to the UKC and register them as American staff's

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Not correct. UKC registers APBT and actually started as a fighting dog registry, AKC didn't want "pit" dogs so they changed the name, registered some, then closed the books so it's a pretty limited genepool and the type has changed quite a bit, Amstaffs tend to weigh more, bulkier build and head. There are dual registered Amstaffs/APBT but the standards are different and most people don't consider them to be the same breed anymore. UKC has headed that way as well unfortunately and most of their APBT look more like Amstaffs, whereas ADBA and AADR standards lean towards the working, athletic type pit bull.

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

Not correct. UKC registers APBT and actually started as a fighting dog registry, AKC didn't want "pit" dogs so they changed the name, registered some, then closed the books so it's a pretty limited genepool and the type has changed quite a bit, Amstaffs tend to weigh more, bulkier build and head. There are dual registered Amstaffs/APBT but the standards are different and most people don't consider them to be the same breed anymore. UKC has headed that way as well unfortunately and most of their APBT look more like Amstaffs, whereas ADBA and AADR standards lean towards the working, athletic type pit bull.

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my bad it's the AKC not the UKC but no matter how you look at it they are the same dog. One's breed to work and one's breed to be pretty but they both go back to the same dog's if you look back in ther pedigree far enough.