Actually, the reason pit bulls aren’t used for those jobs is because they are not, nor were they ever, a guardian breed. They do not possess the naturally suspicious attitude other dogs that have been bred for guarding have. They are the most stolen dog because of this. Their intelligence is not near the top of the list, but they are not at the bottom. They are considered smarter than boxers, which have been used as police dogs historically.
“Where there are no pit bulls, as you point out, there will not be pit bull bite cases. That is a very astute observation. As a breed, however, their attacks are out of proportion to their numbers but also in severity”
Let me rephrase what I said. Dogs in low-income areas are more prone to be dangerous because of the lack of educated, responsible ownership. Because pit bulls are cheap and easy to get, they are the most popular for these areas. They are also popular in other places, but they are kept inside and cared for, and many of these dogs are rescues or well-bred purebreds. The dogs on the poor side of town are generally purchased from a byb or at a Wal-Mart parking lot as a theft deterrent or a lawn-ornament/macho thing. That is why attacks almost always happen in these areas.
Their attacks are absolutely not out of proportion, according to estimates on their population combined with health records. They have an extremely low percentage of attacks compared to their population. I am not sure where you are getting your facts, but there’s a lot of great information out there from unbiased, respectable sources. The severity of their attacks range from zero injuries to death, just like many other breeds (over 56 breeds have killed). Just like other dogs, sometimes their “attack” is just a single nip that, if it had been from a lab, would have been disregarded. I have seen news stories of pit bull “attacks” where not a single person was bitten or even scratched! I’ve also seen a recent story whose headline read pit bull, but the story was about a rottweiler! They do not attack at a higher rate than other breeds. They are, however, over-represented in media reports, which are also responsible for misidentification of breeds and skewing of facts.
By the way, many of our most popular breeds were once used for dirty jobs. Any terrier was a vermin killer back then, dachshunds hunted badgers, boxers and boston terriers were fighting dogs, bulldogs were bullbaiters, mastiffs were people, lion, insert anything else here killers, etc. And pit bulls were bred to fight other animals, but never, never, never people. As for fighting unconscious animals and dogs that have submitted, yes, that was something that happened in the ring, with trained, conditioned dogs. The vast majority of dogs bred to fight were culled for being “cold”, or unwilling to fight/giving up too soon. Dogmen would say it was pretty random. Dogs from champion parents would be useless in the ring, and some pups from “cold” parents would be the best fighters. This means that it had much more to do with the training/environment than the breeding, and still does today. Otherwise, we would have five to ten million people killed every year by dogs instead of 25-30.
What other breed of dog kills people every year, here in America?