Pit Bulls and their bad rap

[Redneck_Crow]

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

When I was a kid, there was a pit bull in our extended family. Wonderful dog. He only fault is that sometimes she got so happy and excited to see someone she knew that she would pee a little bit. She wagged her entire body when she saw us and ran around in crazy little circles.

Kids that could barely walk yet wooled over that dog. We dressed it up in clothes. She pulled our wagon with us in it. She accompanied us to the bus stop and to the swimming hole. She never harmed other dogs, cats, horses, cows, baby chicks, or humans. Prissy was a perfect lady, peeing aside.

I remember when I got my Doberman, and how my father was so wary of Rex at first. At that time the Doberman was the current favored dog of those suffering from being assertiveness-impaired. Is that a good enough euphemism for cowards? Those of us who had Dobes because we appreciated them for their intelligence and gentleness were for outnumbered by the people who got themselves a big oleDoberman because they though it made them look tough. Many Dobes were ruined by people who thought that they could "attack train" a Dobe by tormenting it and encouraging it to be mean.

It took about ten minutes of Rex snooting his head under my father's hand and sitting on his foot and looking back at him with that "c'mon, pay attention to me!" look for my father to decide that Dobermans had gotten a bad rap that they didn't deserve. He never had the same misgivings about pits because he had grown up with them around. Everyone just knew that the pits were friendly dogs.

Nothing more unfortunate can befall any breed of animal than for it to be adopted as a symbol of the "toughness" of it's owner. Yeah, pits are tough. But if they haven't been turned into a caracture of a pit by some idiot trying to shore up his own bravado through ruining a brave animal they are among the kindest and most loyal and gentle of dogs. They do have an innate aggressiveness toward other dogs which was understood way back when and people took the time to teach their pits that they were expected to behave a certain way. The pit bull breed was not selectively bred to be aggressive toward humans. When you see one that is, the problem is on the other end of the leash.