[X] My Assistant

[Kai Reddtail]

I'm going to try and help dispel some myths about these dogs, I'll try and address whatever happens to come up along with a few points of my own beforehand.

1) Some people believe pitbulls to be inherently violent and vicious dogs from birth, others believe it to be a matter of nurture, not nature.
I myself believe the latter, these dogs are just like any other dog. If you abuse them, they will react like any other breed of dog and become distrustful and aggressive. The media just loves them too much, and many myths have come from this media attention, such as the idea that their jaws "Lock." They are the same as any other dogs.

http://www.dogwatch.net/myths/lock_jaw.html

2) They also make terrible guard dogs unless violently forced (like any other dog could be) because violence towards humans was bred right out of them. Referees in dog fights sometimes had to separate two fighting dogs, any dog that attacked a referee was culled.

3) Most 'pitbulls' (in reference to the actual American Pit Bull Terrier) are misidentified.
http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html
(See for yourself, can you find the pitbull? This is one of many tests you can find with a simple google search.)
There are several breeds that look very similar, and rarely are attacks by labs ever reported.
Why is this?
Which is going to grab more attention?
"Labrador attacks young boy" or "Pitbull attacks young boy"?

4) Personally, if you asked me whether I'd trust a pitbull or a chihuahua, I'd say the pitbull.
I'd be more worried about the small dogs because sometimes they can be spoiled. People tend to encourage aggressiveness in small dogs.
If a big dog gets aggressive, people are on it RIGHT AWAY. But if the little fluffy chihuahua is growling people have a tendency to say "Aww its trying to look tough."
And then people have a tendency to bring those little dogs up near their faces and throats.

5) All the regulations will affect is the responsible owners, making their lives and their dogs' life hell. People who have them for the worse reasons obviously aren't going to follow the law because dogfighting is illegal anyway.
The people owning the dogs for fighting are just going to move on to a new breed. Years ago people were complaining about Rottweilers and Dobermans. Every time you ban, they just switch. Soon we'll only be able to own little shih tzus and poodles.


6) Animals don't attack for no reason.
If you make an animal, any animal, feel scared or threatened it will attack. If you corner a little bunny rabbit and make it feel threatened it'll bite you.
Children can be terrible to animals and for the sake of both the dog and the child, a child should never be left unsupervised with any dog. There was once a dog that was put down for attacking a child, and it was only later they discovered a pencil shoved into his ear.


7) Pitbulls are actually more tolerant of harassment than many other breeds. They were bred for a high pain tolerance, so they will put up with a lot more tail pulling/ear pulling/eye poking from the aforementioned children.

IMO, it's little more than racism in canine form.

So, what do the people of GTS+ say?

[Kaname Madoka]

I completely agree with you. It IS racism in canine form. Pitbulls, or correctly, American Staffordshire Terriers, are just like any other dog. If you abuse it, you deserve to get your hand bitten off. But too bad the dog has to suffer for your stupidity.

The vast majority of people get a pitbull because they want to seem macho and tough, but they make no effort to actually train the dog, and thus the dog becomes out of control, and can even become aggressive. And I won't even get into the fact that most of these people get the dogs to fight them, which is an entirely different atrocity altogether.

The fact that these dogs get such a bad rap is terrible, and even worse, is that some idiotic people actually BELIEVE it. Come on everyone, we're humans, not sheep. Don't think that just because you go to an animal shelter and see pitbulls snarling at you, means that's how every pitbull is. Pitbulls in animal shelters come from abusive homes or homes that just didn't want them because of the problems the dog developed due to their negligence. Take the time to go out and meet a well-loved and well-trained pitbull, then maybe you'll get a little more educated.

[GregariousGengar]

Heh I took the test and got it right on the first try :P

I love pitbulls, I've had two and they were both the sweetest, silliest high energy dogs a 12 year old tom boy could hope for.

Breed Specific legislation is terrible and I wish it would go away.

[Zoreta]

Really, it is stupid to ban the breed, because the dog fighters don't care. In fact, the only reason they get used in fights is because they have an incredibly strong drive to please their owners. Even if it means doing something they do not naturally enjoy- fighting- they will do it if it means getting praise by their pack leader. Eventually, it becomes a habit, however, and it is a hard habit to break. Their natural aggression was bred out of them when bull baiting became illegal, but their drive to please was left, making them good all-purpose dogs.

It is also an issue that people identify any breed looking like a pitbull as them, even though it is likely another breed. The first time I saw a cane corso, I thought it was a docked pit mix. The minute I got closer I could tell it was not, but that is largely due to exposure to my sister's pitbull several times a week. If a person is unfamiliar with the other breeds, they would probably say the breed they know, rather than the true breed.

It could also be an issue of not training them correctly. While they are not naturally aggressive, they are naturally very playful, and they must be trained not to play-nip or jump on someone. Most pits I've encountered were 50 lb +, which is a lot of dog, and I can see what is meant to be playful being seen as aggressive. Like all large breeds, they need to be taught their place in the family, as well as among strangers.

[Blake]

I would have to agree with you, that this is absurd. My boss had a pit for over 11 years. He would bring this dog to work and the dog would chill in the back, let you pet it, give you kisses, the whole nine yards. To think that someone would hate him for the way he looked seemed out there to me since this dog was amazing.

I have an all black dog, who's not fixed, and male. I understand perfectly well about the whole "stereotype" dog thing works. If the (hypothetical) golden from next door bit a stranger, the stranger would most likely remember the black dog right next door. This ties into the "lab vs. Pit" argument that the OP stated. This whole "banning breeds" goes a lot further than breeds. It goes into color as well since black dogs look all mean. I can vouch for my all black dog, he's a pushover XD I can do almost anything to him (within reason) and he doesn't care. And most Pit's are the exact same way. Though they may be high energy and stubborn, they are very good tempered dogs.

Also, why ban the breed when it's HUMANS who are making the problem?

[Kaname Madoka]

I agree with the all-black dog thing. I own a German Shepherd who is completely black, and anyone who doesn't know her is always scared of her. I was on vacation once, and some asshat actually had the nerve to say to me "You shouldn't have a dog like that, it's an insult to Jewish people, what are you, a Nazi?" (in reference to the fact that the Nazis often trained black German Shepherds to attack the Jewish people during the Holocaust.) I'm sorry, but F*^@ you very much, dude. My dog had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

Edited because I can't spell..again. xD

This post has been edited by Hikarii: Apr 26 2009, 06:30 PM

[Naegi Makoto]

Agreed. I work at a pet store, and plenty of people in the area have various forms of pit bulls and bulldogs they bring in. One of them is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever known. The rest are all pretty well-behaved, too. If we're going by breed, it's the terriers that I usually tend to watch, because terriers are hunters and bred to be aggressive--at least the ones out here are. And well, when I covered my friend's paper route, the only dog I really had to watch was a mutt with not a speck of bull in him.

[Bluecrow]

Im sorry, I love critters, but pit bulls, like mastiffs and labs, were breed to accentuate certain traits. I don't think they need to be banned but it needs to be acknowledgment that these dogs weren't breed to be a lady's lap dog. They have traits that with proper handling and a good home makes then fine dogs, but misshandling makes then dangerous.

[Apocalyptic Chic...]

Have you ever notice that almost 100% of Dog Bites are when children are unsupervied? Your right, all dogs jaws do have the "Locking Mechanism".

Pitbulls do not deserve to be treated horribly simply because their taken advantage of by a bunch of idiots. Dog fighting is cruel and sick, and should be stopped.

Pitbulls are great family companions, too! My friend has the sweetest pitbull who licks complete strangers. My cousins had a pitbull that was extremly gentle towards everyone, even the little babies in the family who would crawl all over her.

I agree with you on the little dogs tibit. Everone pampers smaller dogs and only giggle when they growl and snip, larger dogs very rarley bite for no reason, its the annoying yappy dogs that love to bite. Well, I personally believe their annoying.
My neighbors have a Doxin that bites whoever goes near her, and yet my cousin had a huge pitbull that never bit anything other then her rubber squeaky toy. Pitbulls and other "Dangerous" dog breeds need to be treated just as any other dog, with love and care. If you kick a Golden Lab, what will it do? Bite. If you kick a Pit, what will it do? Bite. Same as any other dog. Animals only really attack when feeling threatned or scared... just as a human would.

And have you ever noticed how its usually the bigger dogs that are gentle and rarley bite unless threatned? The smaller dogs are always the ones biting, and people just laugh. But when a bigger dog growls, thye flip out. Makes no sense to me, for some of the sweetest dogs I know are Pitbulls, Rotties, Great Danes and Bull Mastiffs.

My cousins dog, Mush, is just as his name suggests. A bit push-over. His mother was a pitbull and his father was a golden-lab bull mastiff mix. He has the dense muscles of a pit, the size of a mastiff and the pelt of a Golden lab but he is the sweetest dog I've ever met.

Its sick and wrong what people do to Animals to make them fight they way they do.
Punish the deed, not the breed. Its the humans that are causing all of the problems.

[ZeroVX]

I find the whole thing to be a bunch of BS. One thing I noticed about the reports is that it only focused on the fact that it was a pitbull attacking a child. You don't often see reports of a different breed of dog attacking an adult, do you?

This is because of the old belief in the news industry: "If it bleeds, it leads". In other words, because it was a dog with a reputation of being a "fighter", attacking a minor, and severely injuring said minor, it showed up on the news as a huge story. They never go into details, like what the owner of the dog was like, if the dog had a history of abuse, where the parents of the child were....

Notice that last part? Where were the parents? Naturally, no one thinks to blame them for leaving the child unsupervised, because they're infallible. They can do no wrong. And they don't investigate if there was something wrong with the child, or the parents, or whatever. They just assume it's all the dog's fault.

Why can't people remember that a dog is an animal? Regardless of whether or not it was domesticated, it's still an animal, which has roots going back to the old wolves and such of the caveman days. So, if you piss off a dog, it's going to attack you. It's common sense.

So yeah, saying that all of one breed should be banned because of one case is ludicrous. That would be like saying all Koreans should be shipped out of the country because of Kim Jong Il. It's ridiculous.

[Latee Hatori]

I agree that it's wrong to discriminate against the breed.

Honestly, no one makes a fuss when our Golden Retrieve mix gets out; but when our neighbor's Pit Bull puppy gets out people are freaking out, the poor dog (and he's also been mistaken for another Pit Bull in the area)...He's such a sweetheart! ...

[Annakyoyama358]

I did a paper on this in my journalism class last year.
My professor is a semi-retired writer for the Albany Times Union, and after reading my paper COMPLIMENTED me on the fact that I chose a topic that picked apart the way media uses stereotypes to sell papers in an internet age.

Basically, reporters regularly 'forget' to check the dogs actual breed, if they have conflicting breed statements they ALWAYS pick the doberman or pit or mastiff if they can. And they RARELY if ever print retractions. I found this out after months of research into articles and interviews with the reporters that wrote them!

The worst part is, when a pit bites a kid for pulling it's tail or hitting it with a baseball bat, the PIT is put down. But a lab did the same thing when the kid tried to PET HIM and got confined to his YARD. How fucked up is that?

Doggie racism indeed. Perpetuated by PETA the godforsaken hypocrites.
You know one of Micheal Vicks' pits is a rescue dog now? And another is a therapy dog in LA.

There's always a breed to demonize. They used to say that all German Shepards should be put down. Now they're 'lovable companions and brave police partners'. Bloodhounds too.

I'm ten times more afraid of those spoiled little Shit Szu's and Terriers bred to be foxhounds and guard dogs than I am of a big dog like a pit. Hell, PIT'S ARN'T EVEN THAT BIG. On average, 35-50 pounds and 18-22 inches. MY FUCKING LABRADOR IS TWICE THAT SIZE.

[Vade]

Pure discrimination.
And because of it, almost all of my friends are afraid of my Pitbull, Wallace, who's afraid of water, loud noises, and bright lights. Not to mention he wouldn't hurt a fly.
It's unfair that Pitbulls are treated this way by society.

[BlackCherry93]

Originally, I was going to disagree. NOW, however, I'd have to agree. It's just discrimination, and that's all there is to it.

[Reyo]

A dog is like any other animal on the face of this planet. They only get violent when they are hungry, or threatened. This includes pitbulls. Conveniently, both hunger and threat have to do with an outside source, ie ABUSE. I've heard stories of dog owners who have gotton attacked by pitbulls, and in every single one of them the pitbull's chickenshit owner waited untill AFTER the action to help out.

Someone's nature is based on the combination of ALL of the genes (I'm being collective now). You can breed for something like coat color, nose...strength, and size, but to breed for something like aggressive nature is completely impossible in ANY regards.






























Unless you have an everstone, but that's beside the point.

This post has been edited by Reyo: Jul 27 2009, 11:00 PM

[Zoreta]

You can breed for creatures to be more inclined to aggression, but no domesticated animal has aggression already set in stone in their genes. For wild animals you can make a case for genetic aggression, especially highly territorial critters (like Tazi devils and some hummingbirds), but domesticated animals lost their aggression a long time ago.

A pit bull can be a mean aggressive animal, or it can be the most loyal companion in the world- it's because pitties are a very praise-hungry breed that will do anything to please the leader of its pack. This can make for obedience champions and therapy dogs and all kinds of very enjoyable pets, but it also means that a pitbull will go against its natural instincts to please its owner. Pitties aren't naturally dog aggressive, it's something that has to be taught and reinforced time and time again until the poor dog is so mixed up inside that it turns against anyone and everyone- it isn't their fault any more than it is the fault of any other victim of abuse.

Pitbulls should not be blamed for the selfishness of people who have no business owning a dog. When someone adopts a pet, they should treat it like a member of the family, not like some kind of money-making machine.

This post has been edited by Zoreta: Jul 28 2009, 01:43 AM

[Reyo]

You can breed for creatures to be more inclined to aggression, but no domesticated animal has aggression already set in stone in their genes. For wild animals you can make a case for genetic aggression, especially highly territorial critters (like Tazi devils and some hummingbirds), but domesticated animals lost their aggression a long time ago.

A pit bull can be a mean aggressive animal, or it can be the most loyal companion in the world- it's because pitties are a very praise-hungry breed that will do anything to please the leader of its pack. This can make for obedience champions and therapy dogs and all kinds of very enjoyable pets, but it also means that a pitbull will go against its natural instincts to please its owner. Pitties aren't naturally dog aggressive, it's something that has to be taught and reinforced time and time again until the poor dog is so mixed up inside that it turns against anyone and everyone- it isn't their fault any more than it is the fault of any other victim of abuse.

Pitbulls should not be blamed for the selfishness of people who have no business owning a dog. When someone adopts a pet, they should treat it like a member of the family, not like some kind of money-making machine.

I rest my case. Though...you did...kinda sorta contradict yourself.

When you breed for something, you breed for genes. When you breed beagles, you're breeding dogs that have superior nose genes (whichever they may be).

My guess, with the pit bulls, is that they were bred for strength. They could've been bred to be watchdogs, so it'd be natural to want a strong dog, right? The problem could be that the dog is trained to bite now and ask questions later.

Hang on. Does anyone here have a pitbull at home? As in they've had the dog since 1 or 2 years old. How is it around children and small animals?

I ask because this is purely hypothesis. (except for the first sentance. That was a little logic problem.)
I know little about dogs.

[Zoreta]

The aggressive instinct genes were bred out pretty early on, though, and while it is easy to breed a gene out, there isn't really a way to breed a gene back in when all domestic dogs came from the same aggression-gene-less ancestors. We've passed the 'point of no return,' as it were, and even breeding dogs with wolves doesn't always result in an aggressive canine. Some dogs do have a shorter temper than others (which is something that can be bred for), but auto-aggression has to be trained.

I don't have one, but my sister has a female brindle pitbull. Very sweet dog- you might get knocked over in her effort to lick your face off, but she never bites people, and she is very smart- they've trained her to do everything from cleaning up her own toys to all kinds of tricks.
If a stray cat goes in to her yard in her territory she might go after it, but intent to intimidate, not with intent to kill- she has killed one stray cat (because it tried to attack her) and an opossum (it fell off the tree right on to her head, and it was over before she saw what the thing was)

[Reyo]

The aggressive instinct genes were bred out pretty early on, though, and while it is easy to breed a gene out, there isn't really a way to breed a gene back in when all domestic dogs came from the same aggression-gene-less ancestors. We've passed the 'point of no return,' as it were, and even breeding dogs with wolves doesn't always result in an aggressive canine. Some dogs do have a shorter temper than others (which is something that can be bred for), but auto-aggression has to be trained.

I don't have one, but my sister has a female brindle pitbull. Very sweet dog- you might get knocked over in her effort to lick your face off, but she never bites people, and she is very smart- they've trained her to do everything from cleaning up her own toys to all kinds of tricks.
If a stray cat goes in to her yard in her territory she might go after it, but intent to intimidate, not with intent to kill- she has killed one stray cat (because it tried to attack her) and an opossum (it fell off the tree right on to her head, and it was over before she saw what the thing was)

Ok, thank you for clearing that up.

Basically:
The phenotype for a pitbull = nature
The tendency to bite people's face off = nurture.

The fact that your sister's pitbull is such a sweet dog is a great way to prove that.

[Usagi Zakura]

It is fully possible to breed by nature, my first pet rabbit was a living example.
She was a right little monster who bit anything that came near her cage, and guess what...her siblings are the same.

Yes pitbulls are sometimes bred for aggressive-ness, but unless you buy a puppy from a dog-fighter they make just as good family pet as any other
Its not like any RESPONSIBLE breeder breeds for dangerous dogs!
Dog-fighting dogs are often raised in bad environments, and taught to be aggressive to other dogs.
Another pitbull from a responsible breeder may grow up in a loving family home where it plays with the kids and the family's other pets (like chickens...I saw an adorable video of a pit affectionately licking a bunch of tiny chickens.)

Plenty of people even discriminate dogs that LOOK like pitbulls, that's like putting someone in jail because they look like a wanted murderer..

The whole thing is ridiculous.
The breed (as well as amstaffs) are banned in Norway, but at least the ban was done reasonable. No one is allowed to breed or import the dogs, however KEEPING them (as long as they were born before the ban) was okay. The dogs would just die out on their own.
I did once read a story in the news about a terrier who got out and accidentally impregnated an amstaff-female, and the female had to be put to sleep... that just made me WTF?
Well okay, so they're not allowed to breed but why couldn't they just neuter her or something??
There's no point in killing a dog because she would give birth to puppies that just so happened to be of a breed-mix that people don't like!

Canine-racism. Big time.