why continue to breed APBTs and other breeds that can't do their original job anymore?

Spotnik, as a APBT owner I can know all to well where you are coming from. Let me assure you that none of the pit bull owners on this forum are of the kind you speak of. So without turning yet ANOTHER topic into a pit bull discussion let me just say if you educated yourself on the breed more we would be better able to converse and discuss with you. I dont say this to be rude nor do I let my love for the breed get in the way of their true nature BUT you'd be surprised to know that pit bull score higher on the atts temperment testing then Dalmations.

For my fellow Pit Bull owners......Spotnik mentioned something about other pit bull forums.....have any of you ever been on one? It is the saddest disgrace of dog owners you have ever seen. The things they discuss and their macho attitude is enough to make any dog owner puke. If you havnt visited one yet I suggest you take a peak even if its to help combat what a lot of uneducated dog owners think about such breeds. There is pit bull talk dot com and many more just google.

But just to put it out there AGAIN- if more positive time and resources were put into cleansing the APBT lines to what they used to be-to a time before Dave Wilson and his Razors Edge monster pit bulls then they could defintly be bred to be healthy fun loving dogs as they were ranked in the top 10 FAMILY dogs 60 years ago. Back in a time when Sony picked a pit bull as its mascot.....remember the lil white dog by the megaphone or whatever it was. When Petey was the kids dog on Lil Rascals, when TIME magazine chose the APBT to be the only dog in history to grace its cover 3x! Those were real pit bulls.....never to exceed 65lbs and some of the best family dogs. Humasn made them the way they are but the dogs are the only ones getting blamed.

polarexpress

 Do you have a breed that outlived its original purpose?

 The Vizsla is known for its versatility and I can attest to that. Gunnar is a hunting breed and we do use him for that purpose and that was the purpose for which he was bought. He has also made a great family pet, a wonderful companion and friend and has done well at agility, obedience, coursing, and would do well at other activities if I only had time to teach them all to him. So to me this breed is a great example of one that would never need to die out even if hunting were a thing of the past.

 The Dogo is also a hunting breed and is bred for more intensity in the hunt since his primary game is wild boar and his job is to grab and hold the boar to the ground until the hunter can disptch it. It is dangerous work so the dog must have the mindset for it. They are stubborn, willful and once committed (to the boar) they do not turn loose. They are also know for their extreme gentleness with their family. IMO some of the qualities that the Dogo must have in order to be the hunter he is meant to be are qualities that if left unchecked in society can get him into trouble. Thus I believe they are not for everyone and noone should ever have one that is not committed to training and raising them in the correct manner.

 I am torn between a great love for the large and bully breeds, Dogo's Pitbulls, Rotts, Fila's, Cane, Bandogs, etc. and my desire to never see them gone from this world and my fear that too many fall into the hands of those not well suited to raise them. IMO all of these breeds and many others need the right kind of owner and can fall into mischief if not provided with leadership and supervision. I do not know what the solution is to the problem.

Breeders must breed less and be very selective about whom they sell puppies to. Being a very nice family with good money and great personalities does not make you a potentiol great owner for some of these breeds. Also IMO breeders must require spay and neuter contracts on their offspring and noone should be allowed to purchase breeding animals without first proving to all that they are the right type of people to be allowed to breed.

  I cringe whenever I see any puppy in a petstore, or when I see ads in the paper for different types of dogs, it saddens me that those who breed refuse to take the time and research where their puppies are going. I saw an ad yesterday for a female Rott and it read something like this "

 year old female Rott, ready to breed! Must sale , moving $500

  All dogs sold in this matter sadden me but when it is the larger, bully or hunting breeds that I love the most it makes me cringe.

I can only hope (and pray) that the pit will pass out of vogue like the dobermans did.  Remember when they were in every 80s action flick and Magnum PI?  They were the "vicious, attack guard dogs" and everyone was afraid of them.  Unfortunately, people with small anatomy and inferior egos will always (it seems to me) be drawn to the masculine, dominant breeds of dog for machismo factors and it is only the dogs who ultimately suffer as a result.  It seems to my simple mind that this issue (pits and dogfighting) has rallied more to the cause of ending it and educating the public than almost any other.  I hope that it helps stem the tide of the misuse and abuse of breeds who possess those traits that make them good guards and protectors.

I can't even imagine visiting one of those message boards, I think I would either spend the rest of the week crying or my head would blow off.   

BCMix's I too used to hope the APBT was a fad like Rotties or Dobies but the damage is far greater then those breeds. The rotties and dobes were not manipulated by mixing in other breeds like our pitties. All the pit bull lines like Razors Edge, Gotti and such have been bred with American Bulldog to make them bigger. Dave Wilson the founder of Razors Edge only recently admitted to it but that was in the early 80's and the UKC has been registering these 100lbs pit bulls for years despite the fact that they exceed the breed standard. They allow it because the APBT brings in more money with weight pull and litter registries then any other breed. The ABDA is now registering them as American Bullies beause finally a Pit Bull group on the east coast got p-o'd enough to ask them to stop advertising their overgrown mutts as Pit Bulls. Think....back in the day pit bulls were never as large as what we see today.

Here on the west coast all we see is fat low to the ground pit bulls who could never even perform the work they were originally intended for. You cant hunt with a 100lbs pit bull with those poor weak joints, flat noses, and bulky frame. They have no stamina adn can not be counted on to hold a pig and keep it at bay from the hunters. This is what we know today as a pit bull.......look how fat, wide and unathletic he is, poor thing!

and this great specimen of what fits the breed standard

look how lean and athletic she is!

 Wow, that's a huge difference!  It looks to me like the pits in Richmond more closely resemble the 2nd dog.  Does the introduction of the American Bulldog have a significant influence on temperament?  Geez, not to diss the AB, but they have enough problems (breathing, skin, etc) why would you want to introduce that into what appears to be a healthy breed?

Blah! The whole thing just makes me so sad.  And angry.  There just seems to be so little the law can do because anything you might legislate would infringe on other breed owner's rights.  On the weekend, our dog park was having some problems with obvious fighters using the park to network and spar on opposite sides of the fence.  The cops said they'd try to stop by more often to hopefully drive them off, but really there wasn't anything they could legally do.  It wouldn't be any different than me exchanging cell numbers with my aussie friend.  Only it was.  

Sorry for the hijack! 

I've wondered the same about the American Bulldogs temperment but I'm afraid I dont know enough about them to say. My small knowledge of the AB is that they should have wonderful temperments and be exceptional family dogs. However I cant assume these new breedings of the APBT were done with the consideration of healthy temperments becasue in the old days figthing dogs were immedialty culled if they were known to be man biters. They couldnt have a vicious fighting dog in the ring if a human was the one who had to break them apart. The dogs needed to be able to be called off. I theorize that the unstable temperments of the pits we know today are in direct correlation with the fact that fighting has changed. Nowadyas they find the meanest two pits, throw them in the ring and let them go at it until one is dead or they are tired enough to be able to enter the ring. So basically......new breeders who breed to fight will breed two of the meanest dogs were in the old days they still bred stable dogs.

The American Bulldogs came into play because they possesed the genes to make the pits bigger yet resembled them enough so as not to question their purity. But seriously questions should have been raised when in the early 80's a ton of bigger pit bulls were being made. Its not a natural evolution process unless human intervention is made. Dave Wilson just said 'Hey come get these cool extra large pit bulls". To give Dave some small credit I will say he was breeding bigger pits for weight pulling and not fighting but he could have had the foresight to see how it would turn up.

AuroraLove

re on the west coast all we see is fat low to the ground pit bulls who could never even perform the work they were originally intended for. You cant hunt with a 100lbs pit bull with those poor weak joints, flat noses, and bulky frame. They have no stamina adn can not be counted on to hold a pig and keep it at bay from the hunters. This is what we know today as a pit bull.......look how fat, wide and unathletic he is, poor thing!

 

 When I see those dogs I can't help but see the English Bulldog is being created all over again.

dgriego

Breeders must breed less and be very selective about whom they sell puppies to. Being a very nice family with good money and great personalities does not make you a potentiol great owner for some of these breeds. Also IMO breeders must require spay and neuter contracts on their offspring and noone should be allowed to purchase breeding animals without first proving to all that they are the right type of people to be allowed to breed.

 Some breeds already have very low numbers and breeding less could mean the end of them.

AgileGSD

Some breeds already have very low numbers and breeding less could mean the end of them.

Yes I agree, it is a difficult problem and there is no easy solution.

 To bad we cannot just ban bad owners.

AgileGSD

Some breeds already have very low numbers and breeding less could mean the end of them

Most of us that have breeds that are in the lower registration rates are pretty happy about this, make no mistake.  It means that we can carefully plan breedings, screen buyers, and that rescues are sought after-what few rescues there might be.  The good thing about certain low number breeds here in N. America is that we network with breeders in Europe, adding fresh genes to the pool fairly often.  

For my breed, the one thing we don't want is popularity.  It would be nice to be able to register 10 or 12 more litters a year, but in reality, that would compromise the quality of breeding and could even include some of our dogs going to millers. 

I own Boston Terriers and a Rottweiler. Boston Terriers were orginally bred to be a small pit fighting dog. Needless to say, they don't do that today. Rottweilers were originally bred to be a cart pulling/cattle droving dog. Some still do that to this day. Mine doesn't. Do I think any breed of dog should go extinct because they don't do what they were bred to do? Absolutely not! For one, just because we don't utilize the tasks some breeds were originally bred for in this country(USA) does not mean they aren't used that way in another country. Then again, just because *I* don't use my Rottweiler as a cart pulling/cattle droving dog, doesn't mean that Jim down in Texas doesn't use his Rottweiler to help wrangle in his herd of cattle. And yes it's true that some breeds can wreak havoc in the wrong hands but as history as shown us, you take away one breed and it will be replaced with another. Macho idiots were drawn to GSD's. Then Dobermans. Then Rottweilers, Then Pit Bulls and it seems some have their eyes on Dogo Argentinos, Fila Brasilieros, American Bulldogs and dogs of the like. If we were to allow breeds to go extinct based on how some people utilize them, we wouldn't have many breeds to choose from. And quite honestly, some of these people have no business owning a plant let alone any breed of dog.

 Another thing to keep in mind is that dog maulings/fatalities, while horrific, are rare. They're just highly publicized. There has to be millions of dogs living in this country and I would say a good chunk of those are Pit Bulls and the like. If these breeds are such horrific ticking time bombs that are just awaiting the day they can eat your children, you'd be hearing about dog maulings/fatalities/attacks on an hourly basis. And just because Nug Nug walks around with Uzi Clip the Pit Bull with a huge chain and padlock on his neck and feeds him gunpowder because he thinks it will make him tougher doesn't mean that someone like our moderator Jaime shouldn't be able to own the beautiful American Staffordshire Terriers she has who are well maintained, do well in the show ring, live harmoniously with French Bulldogs and are well loved.

meilani

If we were to allow breeds to go extinct based on how some people utilize them, we wouldn't have many breeds to choose from. And quite honestly, some of these people have no business owning a plant let alone any breed of dog.

 Another thing to keep in mind is that dog maulings/fatalities, while horrific, are rare. They're just highly publicized. There has to be millions of dogs living in this country and I would say a good chunk of those are Pit Bulls and the like. If these breeds are such horrific ticking time bombs that are just awaiting the day they can eat your children, you'd be hearing about dog maulings/fatalities/attacks on an hourly basis. And just because Nug Nug walks around with Uzi Clip the Pit Bull with a huge chain and padlock on his neck and feeds him gunpowder because he thinks it will make him tougher doesn't mean that someone like our moderator Jaime shouldn't be able to own the beautiful American Staffordshire Terriers she has who are well maintained, do well in the show ring, live harmoniously with French Bulldogs and are well loved.

I can not agree more with your first comment, there are so many folks out there who have no business owning any breed of dog..or as you said plant The rest I had to think about... Possibly one of the problems I have with the concept of Pitt Bull attacks / publicity / rare-common? Is If we were able to research the last serious to fatal  attacks, dog attacks I would hazzard a bet many , if not most happened in my corner of the world.  I believe, when an attack happens locally you hear about it on every , and I mean EVERY channel or radio station, it is in every paper from the reasonably larger one to the little mullet wrappers. You can't go to the grocery with out hearing it discussed etc, etc .  Chances are you will know some one who knows some one related to the victim.  Your comment characterizing the owner and the dog while uncomfortably  amusing was not entirely inaccurate.  Our community was all farmers and shrimpers less than 25 years ago. My husband's company brought in the first large really big employment opportunity with training and a shot at a different future. There are many , many companies now, tourisim has discovered our area with a vengence, and that is good and bad news. About 11 years ago the first gang related grafitti showed up, it still took a couple of years before everyone began locking thier doors.   After growing up in Southern California I found the innocence endearing.

Low to Middle income families were as likely to buy a pit bull for the home as they would have a lab or springer the year before.  Sadly these were not folks that went to dog shows or read up on breeds they were folks who watched movies and liked that Bad **s dog that was terrifying.  Being kids who had grown up in in 4H competing in Rodeo and having raised cattle, sheep etc for ribbons to later be sold at auction.  I firmly believe they thought these would be yet another animal. One they would train and most likely keep outside.  The tragedy happens when they purchased them from BYBS ,  We still have Hog Dog Rodeos down here ! Where the bigger and badder your dog is the moer money you can earn and then command when breeding... this is where the "Old Dog Men" ponder the belief of feeding dogs gun powder, or how to train them to be rougher and tougher...  I know for a fact in the past 4 years there have been 7 attacks all involving Pitts, 6 involving kids. One involving a 53 year old neighbor who was brought down as he walked to his Mother's home for a holiday dinner. They lived a few houses apart from each other. The dog pulled him down and mauled him horribly.  I know also for a fact 2 of the kids died, the rest were life flighted to bigger and better hospitals for extended stays. If I am not totally wrong,  all of the children were attacked by the FAMILY dog.  Is it the breed?

No I don't believe it is the Show dog or a companion pupppy from a well bred litter.  It is the BYBs who produce the lovely dogs , have the ears cropped and brag about what a terrific deterrent to crime these dogs will be.  It is the morons who walk about wearing the Bad to The Bone t shirts with a nearly rabid looking animal on them wild eyed and pumped muscle.  If I can count 7 attacks in the time my grand daughter has been alive , all within 100 miles of our home then is my fear out of order? When allowing the kids to play at friends homes we used to worry they had a "funny Uncle" we now have to ask about what dog they may have in the back yard. 

I would NEVER say a person who is responsible and caring should not be allowed any dog they wish. I also have said before and will say again  Show dogs are a different species from BYB dogs.  Sometimes you get a bad dog from a well bred litter , but more often it will be found in an untested untrained house, only happy about the $75.00 + they can get for the pups.  In our Sunday paper there were zero dogs in my breed, zero Stafordshire Terriers but twenty or more lab and other sporting breeds, dozens of JRTS, dozens of small toys breeds a few , and I mean a few other breeds but the Pit Bull ads are tragically pleantiful. They may say as little as PIT BULL PUPS $50.00 and a phone number, to  "Pitt Bull DOGS For sale, adults - pups, prices vary. Fighting lines. Hang Dog lines. Serious Inquiries only" and the phone number.

Saying there are 100,000 dogs and only 50 attacks is not a comfort to the victims or thier families. Sharks attacks even more rare every year, and yet they were nearly hunted to exticttion without regard to species or the likely hood of attacks. Can you imagine an attack being classified whe a person goes to the er after stepping on and getting badly scraped from the sandpaper course skin?  Nothing is quiet as unsettling as arieal coverage showing a large school of sharks with in 200 feet of the beach.... can you imagine how unsetlling it would be to see redneck pit bulls on chains in  back yards??   I do not , I DO NOT want to see any breed vanish. BUT I do want ot see the ignorant people who should NEVER own one vanish !

Bonita of Bwana

Bonita of Bwana

meilani

If we were to allow breeds to go extinct based on how some people utilize them, we wouldn't have many breeds to choose from. And quite honestly, some of these people have no business owning a plant let alone any breed of dog.

 Another thing to keep in mind is that dog maulings/fatalities, while horrific, are rare. They're just highly publicized. There has to be millions of dogs living in this country and I would say a good chunk of those are Pit Bulls and the like. If these breeds are such horrific ticking time bombs that are just awaiting the day they can eat your children, you'd be hearing about dog maulings/fatalities/attacks on an hourly basis. And just because Nug Nug walks around with Uzi Clip the Pit Bull with a huge chain and padlock on his neck and feeds him gunpowder because he thinks it will make him tougher doesn't mean that someone like our moderator Jaime shouldn't be able to own the beautiful American Staffordshire Terriers she has who are well maintained, do well in the show ring, live harmoniously with French Bulldogs and are well loved.

I can not agree more with your first comment, there are so many folks out there who have no business owning any breed of dog..or as you said plant The rest I had to think about... Possibly one of the problems I have with the concept of Pitt Bull attacks / publicity / rare-common? Is If we were able to research the last serious to fatal  attacks, dog attacks I would hazzard a bet many , if not most happened in my corner of the world.  I believe, when an attack happens locally you hear about it on every , and I mean EVERY channel or radio station, it is in every paper from the reasonably larger one to the little mullet wrappers. You can't go to the grocery with out hearing it discussed etc, etc .  Chances are you will know some one who knows some one related to the victim.  Your comment characterizing the owner and the dog while uncomfortably  amusing was not entirely inaccurate.  Our community was all farmers and shrimpers less than 25 years ago. My husband's company brought in the first large really big employment opportunity with training and a shot at a different future. There are many , many companies now, tourisim has discovered our area with a vengence, and that is good and bad news. About 11 years ago the first gang related grafitti showed up, it still took a couple of years before everyone began locking thier doors.   After growing up in Southern California I found the innocence endearing.

Low to Middle income families were as likely to buy a pit bull for the home as they would have a lab or springer the year before.  Sadly these were not folks that went to dog shows or read up on breeds they were folks who watched movies and liked that Bad **s dog that was terrifying.  Being kids who had grown up in in 4H competing in Rodeo and having raised cattle, sheep etc for ribbons to later be sold at auction.  I firmly believe they thought these would be yet another animal. One they would train and most likely keep outside.  The tragedy happens when they purchased them from BYBS ,  We still have Hog Dog Rodeos down here ! Where the bigger and badder your dog is the moer money you can earn and then command when breeding... this is where the "Old Dog Men" ponder the belief of feeding dogs gun powder, or how to train them to be rougher and tougher...  I know for a fact in the past 4 years there have been 7 attacks all involving Pitts, 6 involving kids. One involving a 53 year old neighbor who was brought down as he walked to his Mother's home for a holiday dinner. They lived a few houses apart from each other. The dog pulled him down and mauled him horribly.  I know also for a fact 2 of the kids died, the rest were life flighted to bigger and better hospitals for extended stays. If I am not totally wrong,  all of the children were attacked by the FAMILY dog.  Is it the breed?

No I don't believe it is the Show dog or a companion pupppy from a well bred litter.  It is the BYBs who produce the lovely dogs , have the ears cropped and brag about what a terrific deterrent to crime these dogs will be.  It is the morons who walk about wearing the Bad to The Bone t shirts with a nearly rabid looking animal on them wild eyed and pumped muscle.  If I can count 7 attacks in the time my grand daughter has been alive , all within 100 miles of our home then is my fear out of order? When allowing the kids to play at friends homes we used to worry they had a "funny Uncle" we now have to ask about what dog they may have in the back yard. 

I would NEVER say a person who is responsible and caring should not be allowed any dog they wish. I also have said before and will say again  Show dogs are a different species from BYB dogs.  Sometimes you get a bad dog from a well bred litter , but more often it will be found in an untested untrained house, only happy about the $75.00 + they can get for the pups.  In our Sunday paper there were zero dogs in my breed, zero Stafordshire Terriers but twenty or more lab and other sporting breeds, dozens of JRTS, dozens of small toys breeds a few , and I mean a few other breeds but the Pit Bull ads are tragically pleantiful. They may say as little as PIT BULL PUPS $50.00 and a phone number, to  "Pitt Bull DOGS For sale, adults - pups, prices vary. Fighting lines. Hang Dog lines. Serious Inquiries only" and the phone number.

Saying there are 100,000 dogs and only 50 attacks is not a comfort to the victims or thier families. Sharks attacks even more rare every year, and yet they were nearly hunted to exticttion without regard to species or the likely hood of attacks. Can you imagine an attack being classified whe a person goes to the er after stepping on and getting badly scraped from the sandpaper course skin?  Nothing is quiet as unsettling as arieal coverage showing a large school of sharks with in 200 feet of the beach.... can you imagine how unsetlling it would be to see redneck pit bulls on chains in  back yards??   I do not , I DO NOT want to see any breed vanish. BUT I do want ot see the ignorant people who should NEVER own one vanish !

Bonita of Bwana

 

If you think about it, responsibly bred dogs are in the minority. The majority of dogs out there are from BYB's. While dog attacks are horrific, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, they aren't as commonplace as the media likes to portray them. The news likes to hype things up and it gets people into frenzys and these are the people who are calling for breed bans and would love to see the extinction of certain breeds and it's all based on emotion and rarely on facts. For example, a few years ago in a town near me, 2 boys were attacked by a pair of Pit Bulls. There were so many red flags in that situation beginning with intact dogs, dogs who weren't properly maintained, run in's with animal control and it ended with 2 boys getting attacked. Thankfully they weren't killed or seriously injured but the whole town went buck wild and called for a Pit Bull ban because Lord knows, we don't want these savages lurking around awaiting to eat someones children. Upon review of the towns dog bite history, it has shown that the majority of dog bites came from Labrador Retrievers. So what good would a Pit Bull ban do if your neighbors chained up neglected Labrador flips his lid and decides to put the chomp on you? And as I try to explain to people who are anti-Pit Bull is that BSL and the like are band aid solution to the real problem and that's stupid irresponsible people. Unfortunately, it's much easier to ban certain breeds of dogs instead of stupid irresponsible people.

I get pretty specific about the kind of dog I want as I have some unique needs. So I think it's good to have a lot of choices. My specific requirements led me to a couple of rare breeds, at least in this country. So I'm forking out the cash for the rare breed that best suits my situation. I consider that to be my contribution to responsible breeding. If that makes any sense.

I would just like to point out that sometimes a dog that was bred for one job is discovered to be quite good at a brand new job that's only just come up. For example, Lagottos were originally a gundog, I think, but ended up having all the prey drive bred out of them and became truffle-hunting dogs. Lapphunds started off being herders (and still are in some places) but turned out to be wonderful companion dogs and now are generally kept as house pets.

Interestingly, I read something recently about a bear sanctuary using specially trained Karelian Bear Dogs to teach the bears to stay safe. Karelian Bear Dogs were originally bred to hunt bears, but now it turns out they're really good at helping bears survive as well. So I think if you decide a breed no longer has any use and let it die out, you could be crippling yourself in the future. As long as there is interest enough to keep the breed going, why not encourage that? You never know when a brand new, related job is going to pop up. I mean, Labs didn't start out being guide dogs, and german shepherds didn't start out being police or military dogs, and beagles didn't start out finding drugs in people's baggage at airports. They all have really important jobs now, though, and the ones in pet homes do a good job of keeping blood pressure low, encouraging physical fitness, and reducing the risk of heart attack, not to mention reducing stress levels and providing friendship and teaching empathy.