Pit bulls etc.

Pffft.. I'll take a pit bull any day. 8) :P

Don't you mean, American Staffordshire Terrier?? :wink:

LOL........i have one......well, a pit bull mix

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Originally Posted by sophie42204

Don't you mean, American Staffordshire Terrier?? :wink:

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Staffies are cool too. If you mean pits aren't officially a breed, the UKC (united kennel club) accepts them so.. :P

I thought I read somewhere that the Staffs got the nickname Pits b/c they were fought in 'pits' in the old days...of course, they are still used for fighting illegally now as well, but that's a whole different topic.

Yeah im pretty sure thats why they are called pit bulls.

LOL they fought in pit's.....just like bulls.... ?

No, am staffs were taken in a different direction (in the beginning pits and staffies were the same dog) The staffs were bred more for the show ring, and the pits for gameness, so there is a difference. The staffies tend to be more uniform in type than the pits, but pits excell in what they were originally bred for.. and I don't mean only dog fighting. Originally they were bred to help butchers get control of the bulls for slaughter.. bull baiting sprung off from that. But nowadays there are more humane uses for their gameness... weight pulls agility etc..

Ok I'm rambling now. lol

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Originally Posted by Shelby

No, am staffs were taken in a different direction (in the beginning pits and staffies were the same dog) The staffs were bred more for the show ring, and the pits for gameness, so there is a difference. The staffies tend to be more uniform in type than the pits, but pits excell in what they were originally bred for.. and I don't mean only dog fighting. Originally they were bred to help butchers get control of the bulls for slaughter.. bull baiting sprung off from that. But nowadays there are more humane uses for their gameness... weight pulls agility etc..

Ok I'm rambling now. lol

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I stand corrected, they (The American Staffs, Staff Bulls, and American Pits) are all commonly referred to as pit bull dogs, but are different breeds. They do all originate from the same stock in England though. Now, back to pix of US! :)

Yes, the temporary hijacking of the thread is now over. (I tend to do that)

No worries, Shelby, I kinda started it and I should know better!! *slaps hand*

Its good to see other people with knowledge about these awesome dogs beside myself, in philly these dogs get a bad rep

I guess we're not done hijacking the thread. lol

They get the bad rap everywhere. People never get to hear about all the responsible owners, just the idiots that abuse their dogs and make them aggressive towards people (something NO pit true to it's roots would do.. back in the day when dog fighting was legal, people aggressive dogs were immediately culled)

Ok no one else is brave enough to post their mugs, so don't blame me for hijacking! ;)

haha although the dog is cute, i could NEVER own something i could break. my doggies will always be biiiiig. no wimps for me :D

Ya i agree, my mother always insists on getting these little lap dogs like ****zu(sp) and dogs that you have to worry about steping on hehe. I mean they are cute and nice and all but when i play tug-of-war i dont want a dog that i can lift off the ground and have it hanging on the chew toy :). When i get my own place i plan to have at least 1 rottie, they are my absolute favorite dog.

Not to change the thread again but staffies where breed w/ terriers to make the breed. Pits, staffies etc all were breed from my personal fav American bull dogs which in turn were breed from Masfits ( excuse the spellings).
There is a site which gives the whole history and what they were bred for, I will try to find and post if anyone is iterested.
Reason I am up on this is in the spring I am buying an American bull dog. Great dogs and not in the AKC because breeders want to keep them true working dogs.
Now back to the regularly schd topic :)

Hey, thats kinda cool, they made this a totally differnt thread.

lol

(and just for the record i really dont care if people go a little of topic on my threads....no biggie :) )

Hey cool, now I don't have to feel bad about talking about pits. lol!

American bull dogs are very cool dogs. One of the ultimate working dogs. I just prefer the look of a pit. Yeah, you're right they were originally called 'bull and terrier' and most if not all of these working/guard/fighting dogs originated from the old english mastiff.. one of the most awesome dogs there are if I may say so.. if a bit drooly.

As much as I love REAL dogs, I want a toy poodle some day. lol! Of course it wouldn't be my only dog. I'll probably end up with somewhere in the vicinity of 5-8 dogs. Reason I like poodles is their hair! It's awesome. I do dog grooming as a side job.. I'd clip mine in a spiral pattern or something. heh.

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I'd clip mine in a spiral pattern or something. heh.

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LOL !

My mom wanted to buy a Yorkie or a toy poodle.But with KC (the pit mix) it really woulent work out.KC has attacked a few dogs and luckily they have all been bigger than her,otherwise i think they might be dead, she is very territorial and the size of the other dog does not intimidate her at all.She was a street dog in japan (we got her from the pound) and she had been living with this small pack of dogs and i guess thats where she learned to be so rough. We hate it becuase our freinds who have dogs will bring them over and we will have to put KC outside becuase if the dog doesnt lay down and do all that submission stuff to her she will get very rough.

And with maxx.......well like you all have seen, he is HUGE.

He goes to puppy playschool and loves running around with all the little dogs (chihuahau (cant spell) yorkies,poodles) but if he were to accidentally step on one, it would be over for that poor pooch,he loves to play with them and is very nice and tries to be gentle but one time he almost picked up this yorkie in his mouth !! (of course it was just playful though) WE just wouldent want to risk it with a very small dog in the house.....ohh well....no rat dogs over here !

We had a pet grooming salon and Mark's expertise was Poodles, he did some awesome styles, should've gotten into show grooming.

I just adopted a pit mix from the humane society... she is the sweetest thing. She doesnt look twice at other dogs or cats.
I am pretty sure her last owners abused her though. When you reach down to pet her, she cringes and lowers her head :(
poor girl...
She is starting to warm up though.

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Originally Posted by green_man

I just adopted a pit mix from the humane society... she is the sweetest thing. She doesnt look twice at other dogs or cats.
I am pretty sure her last owners abused her though. When you reach down to pet her, she cringes and lowers her head :(
poor girl...
She is starting to warm up though.

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Oh.. poor baby. Way too many pits are abused. How can you abuse such an awesome dog? They just loooove people, it's such a shame so many people believe that pits were bred to be people agressive, but it's these abusive owners that make them that way.

I'll get a pit someday.. I'd really like to rescue one, but since I want to have other dogs too, it may not be so easy. If you get a pup and socialize it extensively with other dogs and cats then you have a much better chance of having a peaceful household.

At least they let you adopt pits or mixed pits. Here in the DC Metro area most shelters put pits to sleep straight up, no adoption.
How sad :(

Same here in philly

I get so mad when I see (on Animal Cops, etc) on TV that people have been fighting their pitbulls. I really do not know how humans can be so evil.
My friend's family has a pitbull that was a rescue, I assume he had been used as a fighter, or at the very lest was a trained watchdog who was pretty much taught to kill anyone who walks by. He is OK with the family, but will spaz out with strangers; be OK one minute, then start barking and glawing your ankle. But my boyfriend's cousin has a pit, and he is the most lovable and gentle dog you could imagine. So not all of them are evil.
People should not hold grudges against one certain breed of dog. I know ankle-biter dogs who scare me much more than a gentle Pit would!

Right on, Genevive. Guardian dogs in general get a bad rap. A well trained one can be an indisposible friend of the family. They are wary at all times, but never use more than is necessary to keep their family safe. Most of the guardian work is instinct.. especially in Mastiffs.. once called the gamekeeper's night dog. They would pin the bad guy to the ground, but not attack to injure or kill.

BSL (breed specific legislation) is the worst enemy of pit lovers. They seek to ban certain breeds of dog, rather than individual vicious animals (a better plan for everyone involved)

I concur. Any type of guard dog must be trained and socialized properly.

One of my parent's akitas still has a bit of an issue with strangers coming into the house (she was born in the house, and wasn't around other people other than the family when she was a pup).

The pitbull my parents have is the dumbest dog I have ever known. Absolute sweetheart, but stupid :)

I wouldn't really want a pit, but it's more that I like other breeds of dogs better.

Pits certainly aren't the only dog I love. Main thing about pits is they love people so much, and they're so strong. It'd be fun to train it for weightpull. Plus that I'm a wimp and I want a strong mean looking dog to eat all the icky bad guys.. or at least make them think they'd get eaten. ;)

I also love bull terriers.. they're a mighty handful, but I think they're sooo cute.

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Proud owner of two American Staffordshire Terriers :D

AST's and Dogo Argintine's are the only two dogs i'll probably own for the rest of my life

Hey Green man, congrats on the new adoption,
The bully breeds in general are my favs. I tend to be very fond of American Stafordshires. I just helped with a c section on "Karma" A Black and white little American Pit that came into the CT Humane Society very pregnant and stray. We normally don't keep strays as that is Animal Controls department, but she was so sweet, and the truth be told we know what happens to pits (ecspecially pregnant pits) in the pounds. Anyhow she has been hanging around in my office for the last two weeks. She started nesting on Friday morning, and nothing was happening, so doc checked on her, and in the end had to Xray her as the babies just weren't moving along fast enough. The babies were just to big for her and the C-section became an emergency after reading the Xray. Luckily she came out of it ok, and all seven babies are big and healthy too. She is a great mom.
Anyhow that is my pit story for the day..lol
thanks
Rusty

I wanted to post this following link.
Please keep in mind that many of the scenes depicted here are graphic and can be unsuitable for children.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/11454716/

I found this incredibly moving and a powerful piece.
Rusty

Wow, Rusty, that was very powerful (brought tears of sadness and joy to my eyes). I've always said that it's the human to blame, not the dog. I love Pits, always have. One of my favorite 'clients' at our grooming salon was a pit named Jeega. She would come stay w/us when her owner would go out of town, otherwise she'd spend the entire day when she came in for a bath/nail trim, etc. When other human clients would come in that didn't know her you could see them cringe and I'd have to explain what a sweety she really was, some believed me and would give her a pat or two, but most would just shrug it off and I knew I didn't get through. The plight of the Pits, sad.

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Ya i agree, my mother always insists on getting these little lap dogs like p00(sp) and dogs that you have to worry about steping on hehe. I mean they are cute and nice and all but when i play tug-of-war i dont want a dog that i can lift off the ground and have it hanging on the chew toy . When i get my own place i plan to have at least 1 rottie, they are my absolute favorite dog.

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Whats a p00? Did you say shetzu and it changed it to p00?

p.s. the E in shetzu should have been an I, but it did the p00 thing when I posted that.

Wow.. the level of abuse. I have heard of rescues that were abused like that, and yet after they pulled through, they were still the most loving dogs. Pits are naturally in love with people, it's only the horrible people that abuse them that can make them aggressive.

Watching that made me realise how much I love pits. I sure hope we can disprove all of this bad information that goes on about them..

aww Rusty, thanks for that post. I am going to have to show that to several of my relatives that have kinda frowned on me getting a pit bull. It is stupid because she is the sweetest dog I have ever met.

She is underweight, cringes alot, is still slightly afraid to come inside the house even with us calling to her... She was definitely abused... Its so sad, I just dont know how some one could do that to such a sweet dog...

She is eight months old and they didnt even house train her...

It censors stuff on the site, you can say cra---p it changes it to p00

It also changes your letter _R_'s to are's

thats a great site rusty thanks for sharing

Green man, You'll have to post some pictures of her, she sounds like a great dog to be owned by.
Rusty

We had a sad expierance with an adult male german shepard we adopted from a couple we knew from church.

When he was a puppy he was kept by a japense couple in the bathroom (that they didnt use) of thier apartment,( the wife was scared of him) and so he was not properly socialized at a young age, then they gave him away to another couple who didnt know much about dogs and they taught him to be "the gaurd dog" and overly agressive towards people,Then......they had to move away and we offerd to adopt him to his third and final home.....it all started out well but after time went by he was just to hard to control, somebody would knock on the door and he would go CRAZY and if you tried to get him away from the door or restrain him he would turn on you (try to bite)

To make a long story short......he ended up attacking my mmother a few weeks before we were suposed to move and we just couldent deal with a dog like that, we under-estimated his agression, he was a great family dog but when other people were around it just wouldent work, we couldent have people over our house out of fear he mmight attack somebody.We tried to place him with a special program they have in japan for dogs like that but for some reason they were being shut down, it killed us but my parents took him to the vet and had him uthinized, there was just nothing else we could do for him. :( it still makes me pretty teary eyed to this day, he was the most beautiful German shepard.

That's a sad story.. sometimes they are just too aggressive.

German shepherds went through the same thing the pits are now. Seems to me people aren't so afraid of them as they used to be.. and as they are of the pits now.

I have a shepherd/lab mix. When I told the insurance company (was applying for renters insurance) what kind of dog I had they wouldn't insure me b/c of the 'shepherd' part! I even had our vet write a letter stating that she is non-agressive. That learned me to just say 'lab mix' on stuff like that. My uncle is a Buffalo Police Officer w/the K-9 corp. I grew up around his dogs (some you couldn't go near though) and that's where I found my love for the GSD's. They are awesome family pets and so beautiful, but get the same bad rap as Pits.

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but get the same bad rap as Pits.

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They sure do.

Alot of times me and all of my freinds (and whoever else might be with us.......my friends and thier other friends and people i dont really know) will be hangin out somewhere and we'll decide to go back to somebodys house and they usually pick mine, word gets around that i have a GSD and when we all eventually pull up to the house a whole bunch of people are asking me if my "attack dog" will bite them. Im like "first of all, hes not an attack dog, and no, he wont bite you" although he does sometimes let out a very intimidating bark, just to let my mom (or me and my sis) somebody is at the door, but once we open the door and show him those people arent going to harm us and we want them in our house he calms down and exepts it, but he always keeps a watchful eye on the person ( GSD's are known for that)

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Originally Posted by sophie42204

I have a shepherd/lab mix. When I told the insurance company (was applying for renters insurance) what kind of dog I had they wouldn't insure me b/c of the 'shepherd' part! I even had our vet write a letter stating that she is non-agressive. That learned me to just say 'lab mix' on stuff like that. My uncle is a Buffalo Police Officer w/the K-9 corp. I grew up around his dogs (some you couldn't go near though) and that's where I found my love for the GSD's. They are awesome family pets and so beautiful, but get the same bad rap as Pits.

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Sophie, that is a crazy thing. I have seen insurance give you a DISCOUNT if you had a guard dog species. I can't remember if that was renter's or homeowner's though. I should get some renter's insurance.

I used to have a German Shephard.She was the nicest dog I ever knew.She somehow found out how to tie a knot and she found a chain outside and tied it around my brother's feet.But she passed away from old age.RIP Sabrina.I can't beleive what some people will do to make themselves happy.Venemoids,Drugs,Fighting Dogs,waaaaaaaaaay to much.

I want to say thanks to Rusty for posting that link, it truelly shows the cruelty I have personally witnesses being done to pit bulls. I have had pit bulls, they have been some of the most loving dogs, trustworthy and incredicble dogs I have ever owned. Currently, that is the only breed I am not "allowed" to have by my hubby because of ppl treating them that way and because he thinks they are all like that. Someday- I hope to change his outlook on that breed, because it truelly is my favorite of many breddeds I have had the pleasure to work with and be around.

In Arizona, I was part of Border Animal Rescue, out of Bisbee Arizona. We sat right on the border of mexico and arizona. We would get alot of stray "pit" type dogs, most of them abused and wounded. Alot of them, I would nurse back to health, and they were wonderful loving comapnion animals even after all they had been through. It is amazing how much love they can and will give in the right situation after a hard beginning for them. I urge everyone to watch that video that Rusty supplied the link to, and pass it on, it makes ppl more aware of the situation and reality of the fact that it is not the dog that starts out that way- it is the animals owner that makes it that way.

(Wipes tears from eyes) :(

Thank you Jeanne
Rusty