Not a huge fan of pit bulls.....but I despise creeps on my property with ‘authoritarian attitudes’.
My late dog was VERY protective of our property. Once heard a sqwabble outside the back door and investigated. My eyes burned. The meter man yelled at me that he was going to SUE us because our dog took a plug out of his hand. Turns out, he FIRST sprayed my dog, and THEN our dog bit him after I grilled him. Lucky for us, we had “BEWARE OF DOG” signs posted at the entrances to our property. He couldn’t do $hit in the ‘lawsuit’ department.
Yeah, but a mailman delivering your mail is not an authoritarian on your property. If dogs aren’t docile, they should be leashed...or accept your mail on the sidewalk.
We had an old blind maltese female dog that use to bark at the mailman when she heard him coming toward the porch to put mail in the box. One day the screen door was not latched so she went out the door barking. The postman was a small Asian man about 60 years old. He backed down the two steps and then claimed the dog bit him. She could not see him and did not bite him. I got him to sit down and show me his “wound” it was an old scab on his leg that looked like it was scratched off. I think he brushed the side of the brick planter when he went down the step so it scraped his scab. It was about a 1/4” long. I asked him to wait and went and got some disinfectant and a band aid. Next thing I know the Post Office will not deliver our mail, demanding we get rid of our pet, a 8 lb., 16 year old dog that was pretty much in her last year of life. My husband took pictures of our dog to the Postmaster along with my written statement of what happened. We had to move our mailbox away from the porch. Never saw that postman on our route again. I think he was just going for a disability and early retirement.
I have a protective bulldog too (not an American pitbull terrier, Staffordshire terrier, no terrier blood) and I have signs on the gates, the front door, and the gates are all locked since the time the lawn spray guy left a gate open.
One day I heard a ruckus and went to the front door and he was hanging on to the mail lady’s arm. It was snowing and she had cracked the door to slide in a package.
He didn’t bite her. She was wearing a thick winter coat, no bruises, no broken skin. He thought she was an intruder and was holding her there until I told him it was OK to let her go. I didn’t train him to do that.
In any event I would rather he were pepper-sprayed than shot. If someone points a gun at him, I have a gun too. The US post office won’t bring packages to my door now and that’s fine with me. The census guys, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Girl Scouts and salesmen—all the Ding Dongs—they can leave whatever they want me to see in the newspaper box.