Take the test...

Responsibility shouldn't only be directed towards people who own pitbulls but all breeds, but come on, this is the day and age that no one needs to take responsibility for themselves.  It's all over the news...people constantly screw up, get into trouble, but it's not their fault, it's society, or their parents, or their teachers, or their peers, or the alcohol, or the drugs, or the president of US, or the preacher in their church, or the bug on the flower, or the fly on the poo, it's never them!  Right???  Don't you hear that almost everytime you turn on the news or read the papers?  I know I do.  It's not even just here in Pgh., it's all over...It's a shame, but it's come to that people are allowed to shirk they're responsibilites and get away with it.  Your right, you need to take more responsibility as citizens and vote people into your "local" governments who think the way you do.  I love people here in Pgh., they blame the Bush, but he has no jurisdiction or say in the PA laws, that's our LOCAL government!  Changes have to start at home, it's not always our US Gov., as much as it is our local, people just don't get that.

there's a curve ball in there... pit bulls (or if you want to be nit picky pitty types, or APBT BEFORE a written standard) all had a hand in creating more than a couple of those breeds.. and visa versa...  and the thing that irks me most is the American Bulldog they chose... historically ABDs are supposed to be predominantly white.. and there is a whole lot of breed history mumbo jumbo. a lot of ABD enthusiast like to say you can tell how pure the bulldog is by the amount of white. the more colouration the more likely he is to have recent outcrossing..

DumDog

 

Jennie, i can see how some might see pit bull in a JRT. i think JRTs had a hand in creating the pit bull.. or some types of terrier did. but isnt the dogs history they're considering... they're only looking at the compact body, tight short coat, and spunky attitude.

It is thought that there was some early outcrossing with small terriers and Staffies to create the JRT. Emma's a pretty doggy bitch. She has a very strong, well muscled skull. She's a power chewer, and wide across the jaw. She also walks around grinning, a lot, when she's happy. I can definitely see the family ties, but she's 18 lbs! LOL  

Janet808

it's not their fault, it's society, or their parents, or their teachers, or their peers, or the alcohol, or the drugs, or the president of US, or the preacher in their church, or the bug on the flower, or the fly on the poo, it's never them!  Right???

didnt that philosophy come about during the 60's hippy movement? "Trust no one over 30"? or something? along with a lot of other sayings, movements, therapists(spock, right?) and political screw ups?

i think you get a better concentration of that in certain areas..  the way i grew up if a person did something stupid, like tried to pet a strange dog that was growling and got bitten.. he would be laughed at, called every name in the book. the dog would patted on the head by the owner and coddled and probably given a treat.

an old woman i worked with a few years ago told me a similar story.. she was in her twenties, newly married to a preacher.. they traveled statewide to different churches... at one point while at someones house for a meet and greet she saw an old shaggy collie dog walking among the guests. being the dog lover that she was she tried to pet the dog and was savagely bitten on the hand! the dog's owner said "Dont you know better than to pet a strange dog?" then he walked off with his dog.... she got to bandage her own hand too.

can you imagine if someone did that today in NYC or Chicago?? 

jennie_c_d

DumDog

 

Jennie, i can see how some might see pit bull in a JRT. i think JRTs had a hand in creating the pit bull.. or some types of terrier did. but isnt the dogs history they're considering... they're only looking at the compact body, tight short coat, and spunky attitude.

 

 

It is thought that there was some early outcrossing with small terriers and Staffies to create the JRT. Emma's a pretty doggy bitch. She has a very strong, well muscled skull. She's a power chewer, and wide across the jaw. She also walks around grinning, a lot, when she's happy. I can definitely see the family ties, but she's 18 lbs! LOL  

yeah but some of the gamest pit bulls in history are small and solid! lol i think the ideal working weight is a lean 35lbs.. Kaydee is like Emma... she is masculine than Ben is... always has been. you can see nothing but muscle tone on her.. nothing but angles where as Ben is mostly soft curves. SHE is the pit bull - so says JQP, and Ben is the Pure Bred American Bulldog - but they're the same height and weight. it just goes to show you the diversity though.... pit bulls have always been bred to suit the job though.. whether its hogs or dogs, man stoppers, or yard ornaments.. someone is always trying to create a better pit bull. Am Staffs and Staffy Bulls are apart from pit bulls to get away from the negativity.. and from what i've heard.. Staffordshire isnt even the correct location for the founding of the breed itself and probably the worst choice out of all of the UK... so i've been told.

I'm all for it, and I know some cities do have those types of programs in place. The problem is getting schools- and the general public- to realize that this is even an issue worth their "valuable" time. Think about it- if you brought up the term "breed specific legislation" to the average person on the street, they would have no CLUE what you were talking about. It isn't exactly a hot button issue for most of the public- if anything, they;re all for it, because they see it as a (misguided) way to protect their precious snowflakes from those VICIOUS dogs. We live in a time of zero personal repsonsibility- and it would take quite a bit of convincing and changing of mindsets in most communities to get people to even consider that this type of program is necessary- because, after all, it isn't up to THEM to make sure thewir children approach dogs properyl, it's up to the DOG owners to make sure their dogs are fine with being pounded on by strange children...right?

I agree with you, those prgrams are awesome, and we should absolutely try to ge tmore of them in place- but it's not just as simple as that. The concept that PEOPLE need to change the way THEY act around dogs is just too far outside of most people's mindsets for them to even consider, sadly. Yeah, we can keep trying to educate and push for these programs, but the going is definitely slow.

Jennie, i can see how some might see pit bull in a JRT. i think JRTs had a hand in creating the pit bull.. or some types of terrier did. but isnt the dogs history they're considering... they're only looking at the compact body, tight short coat, and spunky attitude.

I think, though I'm having trouble coming up with sources, that the now extinct English White Terrier and the Black and Tan Terrier were used in creating the first pit bulls- but I could be wrong. Very similar to JRTs, anyway. It varies from line to line, but there are distinctly pit bulls that definitely have more terrier build and personality than bulldog. Culley is one of those dogs- and his personality, movements, and carriage all SCREAM terrier to me. It's pretty interesting, considering how much it varies from dog to dog and line to line. In my *personal* opinion the more terrier-type pit bulls tend to be truer in size, shape, and personality to what a pit bull should be than those in which the bulldog is more predominant.

yeah but some of the gamest pit bulls in history are small and solid! lol i think the ideal working weight is a lean 35lbs..

Definitely! Culley is about 35 pounds and he is RIPPED. I have seen working pit bulls as small as TEN pounds. They;re not supposed to be big dogs! the ideal is considered to be between about 30 and 60 pounds, the smaller side being prefered by most.

pit bulls have always been bred to suit the job though.. whether its hogs or dogs, man stoppers, or yard ornaments..

Eh, people that breed human aggression into pit bulls are ruining the breed. Pit bulls should never, ever, EVER be used or bred for human protection, IMO. Taking away that human bite inhibition that was so important to early pit bulls is just creating something that is nothing like the REAL pit bull. Especially now, with all of the bites from poorly bred and poorly managed dogs- pit bulls should never be bred for protection. Heck, IMO, a good pit bull isn't even necessarily a decent watch dog- they are supposed to dislike other dogs, obviously- but they should always love people to the point of showing a burglar where you hide the silver. That's just what they're supposed to be. I really see no point in EVER breeding APBTs as protection dogs...there are plenty other breeds out there that do the job much better than they ever will. Turning a pit bull into a man stopper is ruining a good dog, IMO.

edit: Sorry for all of the typos in my posts today, I threw out my back and these muscle relaxers I'm taking are pretty wild.

A ten pound Pit? I'll take that! I bet it was freaking adorable, too. Wait til you meet Em, Brittany. You're going to love her:)  

All I see around here are grossly oversized Pits. There is one who is a very popular stud dog. His fee is $1000. He's blue, and weighs 100 lbs. He's a beautiful dog, but UGH. I only know one typey Pit, and her owner is an idiot, so... yeah... But people don't think she's a Pit, because she's SO SMALL. She must weigh.... 40 lbs? 

 So how many people die a year because of pit type dogs?

 Answer: not very many, on the scale of things.
 

jennie_c_d

All I see around here are grossly oversized Pits. There is one who is a very popular stud dog. His fee is $1000. He's blue, and weighs 100 lbs. He's a beautiful dog, but UGH. I only know one typey Pit, and her owner is an idiot, so... yeah... But people don't think she's a Pit, because she's SO SMALL. She must weigh.... 40 lbs? 

Heck, I get told that Sally is really small and she's 55 lbs.....

They should have a "find the lab" test.  One guy at the dog park insisted that Jack was at least half rottie.... 

Heck, check out Punchy and Culley... 

I LOVE Culley's size, and he's well within the correct size range for an APBT- and we *constantly* get asked whether he's a puppy (he's about 2yrs) whether he's a girl, whether he's a "runt," etc.

Now, notice how MASSIVE Punchy is- I have no clue how big his parents were but he's only 4.5 months and he's very rapidly approaching Culley's size. He's definitely going to be hugely oversized- I'm betting 70-80 pounds- and people STILL comment on how small he is for his age. PEople expect pit bulls to be around 90 pounds and anything smaller than that is a "runt." It's sad, because larger pit bulls have more health problems, and just in my personal experience, the larger the pit bull, the further from the breed standard it gets temperament, drive, and personality-wise. Of course that's not ALWAYS true, but I definitely see a correlation. I wish I could just pound it into people's heads that the true, working pit bull is a small-medium sized, athletic, terrier-esque dog- not a bumbling 100 pound bulldog that can't cross a room without knocking down bookcases and chandeliers.

A ten pound Pit? I'll take that! I bet it was freaking adorable, too. Wait til you meet Em, Brittany. You're going to love her:)  

Heck yeah! I met her at a park, and she was AWESOME. Apparently she came out of two 20ish pound parents- small, but not THAT tiny- and at 3 years old, she hovered around 10-12 pounds. She was the coolest dog ever, and her owner said she did weight pull!

Obviously she was a really extreme dog- but I still think that illustrates the fact that pit bulls are supposed to be nowhere NEAR 100 pounds. I think someone on a pit bull forum I lurk at also claimed to have a dog that small.

And, I definitely have to meet Em. I luuurves me some terriers.

Ratsicles

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.

Thank you. I call my sister's dog a "pit bull" because I don't KNOW which of those he is. I have a feeling he's a mix of amstaff and APBT, he's a badly bred Baltimore pit. I doubt they were terribly worried about whether the pups were 'purebred', as long as they're "pit bulls". He's not a hippo, he actually isn't too far off in appearance from show APBTs and AmStaffs both, which is why I suspect a mixture of the two. But he's big. 75 pounds and 20.5 inches at the withers. And he's not an agile dog. At all. It's sad really. He's this lumbering, awkward idiot.

Ratsicles

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.

Very well written!  Thanks!
 

Ratsicles

pit bulls have always been bred to suit the job though.. whether its hogs or dogs, man stoppers, or yard ornaments..

Eh, people that breed human aggression into pit bulls are ruining the breed. Pit bulls should never, ever, EVER be used or bred for human protection, IMO. Taking away that human bite inhibition that was so important to early pit bulls is just creating something that is nothing like the REAL pit bull. Especially now, with all of the bites from poorly bred and poorly managed dogs- pit bulls should never be bred for protection. Heck, IMO, a good pit bull isn't even necessarily a decent watch dog- they are supposed to dislike other dogs, obviously- but they should always love people to the point of showing a burglar where you hide the silver. That's just what they're supposed to be. I really see no point in EVER breeding APBTs as protection dogs...there are plenty other breeds out there that do the job much better than they ever will. Turning a pit bull into a man stopper is ruining a good dog, IMO.

edit: Sorry for all of the typos in my posts today, I threw out my back and these muscle relaxers I'm taking are pretty wild.

i didnt say i condoned it i downright disagree with it, just like you. but these ding bats are supposedly "creating" a more versatile pit bull.. why why?? American Bulldogs and several other breeds already have that job down to a science... why add a crazy neurotic game bred pit bull terrier? a pit bull's purpose has always been to kill.... and they're good at it. sorry if folks dont like the truth... but there it is. and as a result someone breeding for human aggressive pit bulls should probably be put in prison for possession of a deadly weapon or endangering the public.

There are some out there- and i wish they would PLEASE step into this conversation - that defend the protective/guarding potential of a pit bull.... i know there have been a few thankful would-be victims that were protected, rescued, and defended by their pit bulls... but MOST of those cases were purely accidental. the dog was merely a pet! never having bitten a sleeve, or stepped foot inside a ring.... thats just canine nature i think.. protect the pack.. protect the master/alpha and any dog of any breed is capable of that instinct. But because someones pet bull proved his mettle suddenly everyone wants a brave protective pit bull... just like the Lassie complex... everyone wanted collies to rescue their children from harm... or German Shepherds like Rin tin tin to rescue the family while the house is burning down.... or what have you..

tell you what... i'm always tempted to write up and print fliers to staple to light poles around the city with some pit bull/bulldog facts written on them... along with some links and resources of course..  thats one way to get the message out!