Posted on 09/02/2007 9:30:42 AM PDT by meandog
In the 27 years that Al Chille has been with the Niagara County SPCA, many dogs have had their day.
Lately, it’s been the pit bull’s turn to be notorious.
Between local incidents like the July 8 attack on a toddler, and national cases like the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, pit bulls have been in the headlines a lot lately.
“We’re getting all kinds of negative national publicity (for pit bulls),” Chille, SPCA executive director, said.
Chille said he’s very selective about whom he lets adopt pit bulls — though if someone was looking to adopt a pit bull for dogfighting or for breeding, they wouldn’t go to the SPCA, since all dogs leaving the SPCA must be spayed or neutered.
(Excerpt) Read more at niagara-gazette.com ...
LOL. I did, but the doggies seek out that smaller dog bed.
Second, I bet you could visit any shelter's page and find the majority of the dogs available are pit bulls and pit mixes. Why? Because they are so overbred, and certainly not carefully. BYBs will take two dogs and breed them over and over never giving consideration to the traits of the dogs they are breeding, thus producing unstable animals. Personally, I don't believe the breed should be banned, but that breeding them should be somehow be lawfully limited.
My profile page is pretty boring :-)
The dog tried to eat the bumper of my 86 F-150 work truck. :P
Although they have a fighting background, PBTs were not bred to kill people (after nearly 2 hundred millenia of domestication--and owning the distinction of the first known animal to bond with man--no breed of dog that I know of has an instinctive nature to kill people). They attack people for 1 of 4 reasons:
1. Some, mainly through bad breeding, are genetically defective and mentally ill (much like the human psychopath that comes from an otherwise good home). 2. They are abused and cruely treated by their owners. 3. They are neglected, unsocialized and untrained by irresponsible people who should never own them...or, 4. (the main reason) they are trained and encouraged to use their aggresive nature to attack (which is the same in my book as reason no 2).
I believe that people who are not responsible for proper socialization and training should NOT own a PBT just as I do not believe that everyone who does not take firearm training should own a firearm--there are obvious safety issues involved. But let those of us who know how to handle both alone.
Okay, Mr. Wordsmith, you got me there...they are indeed notorious but their notoriety is not always deserved.
I’m not trying to be an ass (it just comes easy).
No, I mean, I’m not trying to be an ass, but precision appeals to me.
Why would you not think a bully breed couldn't be trained well? I would not recommend that they run loose (the hatred for them is obvious) but they certainly can be and are trained by responsible owner.
Unfortunately, the bull terrier and staffordshire bull terrier are lumped in with PBTs over here.
For every PBT attack you can find, I can prove another which is in no way dangerous. Long ago, my vet (a woman barely 5 feet and no more than 100 pounds) owned a massive over-the-AKC standard American Staffordshire Terrier (75-80 pounds at least). If the dog bothered to move at all, it would greet each "patient" with a friendly, docile sniff; and each owner with massive amounts of tail-wagging and tongue licking. It mostly slept lazily in her office with its legs in the air and was loved by everyone the dozen years it was on this earth.
See post #107
See Post #107
Great post, thanks
Generations of breeding....to kill. It will take generations of breeding to reverse this bred in instinct.
If you really believe that kindness, proper training and handling will wipe out generations of killer inbreeding ... you are mistaken.
It is your choice to have these dogs but generations of genetic altering will not be removed because you are a nice guy.
Using your logic then, pit bulls who come from lines that have not been bred to kill for generations should be perfectly fine. Yes?
susie
No. There are none.
Pit Bulls have been from the beginning bred to kill.
The dog was selected from bull dogs that were aggressive by nature....I do not know why this is a difficult concept for people to understand. There are many breeds of dogs that did not exists even fifty years ago.
We have bred dogs for generations to be of a specific and sometime single purpose.
Can these traits be bred out over generations and still keep the look of the dog, probably but it will take generations of careful breeding to do so.
If you are speaking of dogs you have known that were the breeding products of and abuse by ghetto thugs, prison scum and gang members, I probably would agree with you. I say "probably" because I believe some of the dogs can be rehabilitated. But in no way are AKC Amstaffs, Staff Bullies, Bullies (or any other quality dog for that matter confused as a PBT) a "killer".
Dogs are not wild, wanton, vicious killers, they have been the most domesticated animal in the history of the world--archeologists have found their remains with the earliest of homosapiens. But ALL dogs have the wolf as its primal patriarch, therefore all dogs (untrained, abused, and misbred) can bite you. And the PBT bite will logistically be worse than that of a toy poodle, but no worse than that of a boxer who is intent on hurting you. My point is, don't be suckered by the press and fall into the category of hating the breed--hate the deed and the owner who allowed it.
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