The only "pit bull" is the American Pit Bull Terrier. NOT Staffordshire Bull Terriers (Staffy's), NOT American Staffordshire Terriers (AmStaffs), NOT American Bullys. These are NOT "pit bulls." They may have a resemblence, but they aren't APBT's.
Eh...it's nit-picky, but that's not really true. American Bullys are NOT pit bulls, you're right. Amstaffs and Staffy Bulls ARE pit bulls though, along with the APBT. "Pit Bull" is a general term encompassing those three breeds, and it can mean any of them.
The ones that you see when you type in "pit bull" in your search engine, and up comes a website that has massively sized dogs that look like hippos, are NOT "pit bulls." Usually these backyard breeders will promise you that when your "pit bull" grows up, he/she will weigh 90+ pounds, along with the promise that the head circumferance will also be enormous. That, folks, is NOT a "pit bull." THAT is an American Bully with some APBT in it's background. I know the standard for APBT for females is 30-50 lbs. The male is btween 35-60 lbs.
This is very true, people do have strange concepts of what size a TRUE APBT should be (we're talking APBT here, not Amstaffs, which are larger, and Staffy bulls which are smaller) and most of that can be blamed on American Bully breeders. Until recently, American Bully breeders just straight up called them APBTs. It took a lot of pressure from APBT people to get them to admit what they were- mutts, with APBT backgrounds- and they came up with the name "American bully" for them. Sadly, thugs dragging around their overweight American Bullys on chains are the general image the public has of a "pit bull." Whenever I take Culley out in public, people ask me what's "wrong" with him. Nothing is "wrong" with him- he's the proper size for an APBT, but people are so used to overbred hippo dogs that that's what they expect when they see a pit bull.
This is an American Bully:
I think it's apparent that that dog is not a purebred anything. It is mixed with English Bulldog, American Bulldog, Mastiff, and who knows what else. APBTs are overall very healthy dogs. American Bullys have all of the health problems of poorly bred english Bulldogs, and then some. They are completely non-athletic, can't work, are generally pretty dim, and a lot of them are human aggressive.
And THIS is "UAG2 UCD UWPCH CH "PR" Matrix Morpheus Finds the One CGC TC OFA
Morpheus is the 7th UKC ABPT to earn SuperDog status, and the 16th Superdog of any breed. He is what an APBT is supposed to be. How anyone can confuse the genetic mess above with something as amazing as a true APBT is beyond me.
Instead of worrying about the exact identification of the dog breed you (collectively) should really be worried about all the severe bites that are occurring and the reasons behind them."
Seriously? What kind of statement is that? What exactly would you have us do? Responsible pit bull owners make sure their dogs are never in situations where a bite COULD happen. Further, I want to make this very clear, a true, well bred pit bull would never, ever, under any circumstances, bite a human. The original fighting pit bulls were bred to have such strong bite inhibition that their owner could jump into the pit with two fighting dogs, and pry the jaws of one dog off of another with their bare hands without being bitten. This was actually proven to me the other day, and it was pretty amazing. Butter and Culley play very rough, and sometimes it escalates. Usually once they start to get too rough I crate them both until they have a chance to cool down.
The other day, it escalated before I had a chance to calm them down. Culley pissed off Butter, and Butter chomped down on Culley's throat and would not let go. There was no blood, Butter just chomped and then went limp. Culley was choking and couldn't get away. Say what you want about what a bad idea it is to get in the middle of a dog fight- but Butter does springpole and we work on him letting me put my hands in his mouth and get him off of things no matter how focused he is. So, I treated this exactly as if he were playing springpole- I grabbed the top part of his jaw in one hand, the bottom part of his jaw in the other, and pryed them apart. I then told him "leave it" and he instantly sat, as if he were waiting for a chance to have another go at his springpole. It was all a game to him, and he NEVER redirected the bite onto me. Butter is only HALF pit bull, but it's a good half. I now know that if a fight ever occurs- and they DO occur, with six male dogs, no matter how vigilant you are- play just gets too rough and you're not always going to be quick enough to break it up- I can get in the middle of it and stop it without being injured myself. That is how proper pit bulls behave.
A pit bull that bites a human is a cur and should be culled, period, no questions asked. In my opinion, any pit bull that bites a human should be euthanized, and all dogs that even show signs of human aggression should be carefully evaluated and euthanized if necessary. But to say that we, as responsible pit bull owners, should "do something" about bites...well, OUR dogs are not the ones biting people. We can't exactly go out and force every irresponsible pit bull owner to now be responsible owners. IMO, there should be carefull screeing before ownership of ANY dog is allowed, and harsher penalties for the owners of dogs that bite. That, unfortunately, is unlikely to happen...it is far easier just to pass unenforceable legislation against breeds than it is to promote responsible ownership.