Just got an American Pitbull

congrats on the Pit! I work for the Humane Society in my county and most of our sweetest dogs are Pits. I try to educate people about Pits since a lot of people think that they are horrible dogs http://www.pitbullproblem.tk/ thats the website i normally give to people..

Congrats! I 12th what all the others said! Pitts are wonderful animals, but the people who CHOOSE them as pets often mistreat them and train them to be aggressive. As with any large dog it is important to train, good on you for looking into the classes.


My German Shepard is an awesome family dog, my kids can attempt to ride him like a pony, poke his eye out while saying "eye" for the first time, and even play with him in his food bowl. While this may sound crazy I know my dog and we have trained him from puppyhood to never be protective over food (which luckily he was never prone to do anyway...the little glutton is a husky, muscular 100 lbs). We always "train" the kids too "it's not nice to climb on Ka-zar's back, please don't take his toys that's not nice"...they even have to hug and apologize to learn to treat animals with the respect they deserve. Thankfully, shepards are very family oriented animals by nature...

Sounds like a lovely pooch, but he is killer protective and has bitten once when someone came into our yard and approached him (while on leash) without our permission. All the pitts I've ever met were as tame as kittens compared, and all due to responsible owners who worked with their dogs. Highly recommend crate training, best babysitter when none are present! Mine actually was sad when I took his away! Good luck and congrats again, enjoy all the fun rambunctiousness of puppy hood!

Owned two American Pit's in my time. Had both ends of the stick. One was a buckskin and the most sweetest tempered and loyal dog in the world, he never (as far as I know) ever locked his jaw. He was just a @@@@@ cat....Loved him very much. I also had a brendal (sp) female that was very loyal but could not be trusted with outsiders. She had a mean streak that wouldnt go away and the odd thing is, they were siblings.
Unless you have plans to breed him, I would recomend having him fixed. Not only will it beef him up it should also make him more docile. It sure did for my male. You can also try a muzzle while you are away to keep him from chewing everything up. Both of mine had a habit of chewing things up when they were young and I used muzzles. It got to the point that all I had to do was pick up the muzzle and they would drop what they had and go lay down. They are VERY intelligent dogs.

Whatever you do, Good luck with him.

The jaw locking thing is just a myth. It's amazing what stories and tall tales are spawned over these dogs.

Not to say they don't have strong jaws!

Well I call it locking thier jaw, but all I know is that my female could latch onto a motorcycle tire suspended from a tree and hold on for a over a half hour while the whole time trying to tear it down. VERY strong jaws. My male would never even play tug of war with us.

congradulations on your new pitbull. I just got an american pitbull puppy last month. They're great dogs but often misunderstood.They don't have locking jaws but they do have alot of determination,and they are VERY STRONG!!!