A few days ago, I made a post to inquire about the perspectives of those that believe in investing resources into aggressive/bite risk dogs. The post got a lot of responses and I learned some perspectives from the other side of the viewpoint. Eventually, though, the responses became focused on the tangential issue of Pitbulls. In the hopes of having a similarly engaging conversation, I wanted to make a separate post.
The specific questions that I’m interested to hear from the dog rescue community:
- Why are pitbulls and pit mixes the majority type of dog that fills the shelters?
- why are pitbulls and pit mixes seemingly the majority of behavioral problem dogs?
- and perhaps the nucleus of the question: do the problem dogs have these issues because they are pitbulls?
- should there be more stringent regulations on pitbull adoption and lower threshold for behavioral euthanasia?
- is there a place in society for dogs from fighting bloodlines?
While I am not involved in dog rescue, I am involved in dog sports and I’m generally interested in canine topics. But my opinion on rescues and pitbulls is admittedly uninformed. That said, I’ll provide my thoughts:
I think the over representation of pitbulls in shelters is due to primarily social reasons and the relationship between pitbull ownership, socio economic disenfranchisement and the effect on responsible ownership. I do think that pitbulls are inherently more likely to seriously bite given their history as fighting dogs and breeding for gameness, however, I also think that there are a lot of pitbull and pit mixes that are extremely detached from their gamebred ancestors. Additionally, I think a lot of “bully” mixes nowadays really aren’t pitbulls.
I am curious to hear from more experienced people in the rescue industry who agree and disagree.
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I’ve been involved in rescue for a long time, and I think there are a few different things getting lumped together here.
Pit/bully mixes are overrepresented in shelters largely because there are a ton of them, a lot of irresponsible and accidental breeding, high stray populations leading to more litters, and they can be harder to place because of housing restrictions, stigma, size, etc. They are often frequently surrendered.
I’d want to see the data showing that pits are the majority of behavioral problem dogs. My 25 years in rescue don't line up with that statement.
“Pit bull” isn't a single breed. It's a giant bucket for blocky-headed dogs that look vaguely similar. But sure, genetics matter. If we're specifically talking about a purebred APBT and its historical purpose, traits like dog selectivity/aggression and prey drive absolutely have a genetic component. That's very different from assuming every random shelter “pit mix” has the genetics of a purpose-bred, gamebred APBT.
I support appropriate adoption requirements for lots of breeds, not just pits. Working breeds need homes prepared to meet their needs. High-energy dogs need appropriate outlets. Breeds generally unsuitable for inexperienced owners shouldn't be handed to first-time owners just because they filled out an application.
I don't support a lower threshold for BE based purely on breed. It should be about the individual dog. If a dog poses an unreasonable risk to people or other animals and can't safely be placed or managed, it shouldn't be rehomed. Breed doesn't change that.
I think OP is confusing Pitbull with Pitbull-type mixes. Pitbull is a breed. Pitbull-type is any dog that visually resembles a Pitbull or bully breed regardless of their genetics. So many variations of genetics can lead to a pup resembling a Pitbull because they generally have such a generic/default dog body shape. I think part of the mass reports of problem “Pitbull” dogs are that people (understandably) make that same mistake.
I myself and my dogs have been attacked by 5 different dogs in my life. Twice were from yellow labs, once from a poodle, once from an Australian shepherd, and once from a pitbull-type mix. The pitbull-type mix (border collie x lab x gsd) was the only one that was a true accident. He jumped their new fence. The others were direct owner negligence aka “oh he’s never done that before he’s friendly I swear he usually has a good recall”. People underestimate how powerful and dangerous ANY medium/large dog can be REGARDLESS of breed. Imo any and all dangerous dogs should be dealt with humanely.
I’m using pitbull as the colloquially understood umbrella term for pitbull-type dog that has the classic phenotypic expressions and has fighting dog ancestry. It’s a disingenuous argument to say “well that isn’t a real pitbull so it doesn’t count toward bite stats (or whatever) “ when the modern interpretation of pitbulls is not limited to purebred APBT but rather an umbrella term for a type of dog with shared lineage.
If I was talking about a specific breed, I would have said APBT, Amstaff, etc
It's equally disingenuous to ask "why are there more pitbulls doing x" and not clarify that by pitbull you mean Apbt, AmStaff, AmBully, AmBulldog, all bully mixes and all mixed breeds with at least 1/3 pit (or whatever you're including). Because nobody combines German Shepherds with mals, Aussies, Dutch Shepherds and Shepherd mixes when they compare the numbers.
Also any bite statistics registry I've ever seen was made by people looking at the pictures from the attacks themselves and guessing the breed. It has nothing to do with the breed the owner reports (unless there's proof the dog was purebred). I've never seen one that separates Apbt/AmStaff/pit mixes. And the people maintaining the bite stats seem to have a very anti -pit slant based on the website imo. So it's absolutely untrue to think dogs are not getting counted in bite stats based on this.
You have very fair points especially about comparable breed classifications and grouping. But I think you could group the bite statistics of all shepherd dogs and they would still be much much less than the bite stats of all pitbull type dogs, which essentially brings us back to square one.
Its still important imo to be accurate. I do think pitbulls are over-represented in shelters and in some bite statistics even when talking into account the numbers and breeds grouped together. However, I think the confusing groupings do make the numbers/difference exaggerated and make it harder to tell the differences between the specific breeds. For example, I personally don't think Apbt for example would be over represented in bites/serious attacks on humans if we were able to control for environment and numbers. However, we currently don't have the statistics to determine if that's correct either way.
I also think insisting that so many breeds are all the same under the label of pitbull can be confusing to potential adopters. I have a 40lb half-Apbt, half mini Aussie and Chihuahua. He is honestly the easiest, most naturally friendly, naturally happy dog I've ever had. He loves every person and every dog he's ever met and would 1000% let anyone in to rob my house and assume they are there to play with him. Imo you can definitely tell he's mixed, but he does heavily favor his pitbull side looks wise. When I've posted him on one of the guess my dog's breeds Reddits the anti-pit crowd all told me he was definitely a purebred and if he wasn't it doesn't matter because he's still a pitbull. That's a terrible attitude to tell people, because if I believe that and tell my friend who knows him that's what pitbulls are like. Then they might not have the same experience when they go get an 80lb Apbt/Bully XL/Rottie mix. Not that there's anything wrong with that mix either, but people should definitely be prepared for it.
Breed misidentification is certainly an issue but I don’t think it changes the content of the original post. We can agree that pitbull type dogs cover a few breeds and mixes - but the question is still the same. Why are those dogs problematic?
I agree with most of your points. I’d also add that i think another issue is the extremely powerful lobby of pushing pitbulls as companion animals/nanny dogs. It comes from a good place but I think it ends up causing a lot of failed adoptions and dogs needing to be rehomed because it tries so hard to distance pitbulls from their fighting ancestry that it obfuscates the fact that many of these dogs have intense aggressive drive and prey drive. I wish there was more of a movement toward placing pitbulls in hunting and working homes. I think it would lead to much happier dogs placed in much more fitting environments.
I think there are too many people lobbying on both extremes about pitbulls. The people who think they are nanny dogs and the people who think all pitbulls are killing machines. Neither is true ime and both groups use a lot of loaded language and manipulation that just ends up pushing each other further to the extremes. Which is not helpful to anyone.
Imo each dog in a shelter should be evaluated as an individual. One, because you can get a decent guess sometimes, but you can never know a dog's breed for sure by just looking at it. And two, because not all dogs of any breed are the same. Some pitbulls do make good pets and some labs are aggressive (even if that's less common, it happens). When the dog is already in the shelter, you can just evaluate the dog in front of you. You don't have to guess what they might be like based on breed. However, imo the size and strength of a dog should be taken into account.
I do agree that more effort should be made to place dogs in appropriate homes based on their personality, energy levels, etc. And also into homes with owners who are physically strong enough to handle them.
This absolutely. These dogs are wonderful when trained and have handlers. Unfortunately the breed and their needs are not respected like other breeds such as Mals, shepherds, Corsos, even huskies. Homes are screened for proper placement. But they will send a bully home with a first time dog owner and no support. I take mine to group agility and obedience and it’s all labs and shepherds and Mals. She’s the only bully and she outperforms most of those other dogs.
It’s back to are they really that problematic or are the same problems as every other working or guard breed there’s just exponential more and the media sensationalizes it? I will tell you I have 2 mixes in my house right now. Both have staffy pit husky and malamute. One also has boxer chow and shepherd in them. The second one with half as much bully dna is the one you need to be concerned about….. but they aren’t going to say husky, or chow, or boxer, or shepherd. They will call it a pitbull. I can tell you it’s that 7% chow that is the issue.
But when you count the numbers of bully dogs to the number of shepherd like if they did bite per 100k dogs bullies would not be at the top of the list. I think cane corso is at the top of the list this year with 2 fatal attacks. But there’s about 60 times as many bullies as cane corsos in this country so bully type dogs would have to have 120 fatalities to be even. These number aren’t even real statistics. You can’t compare one population to another of a different size without having some way to make them comparable.
Way off. We 've averaged over more than one fatality per week in recent years in the US. Off the top of my head it's in the 60's or 70's I believe. Pit bull are generally around 3/4ths of those incidents, so to be proportional they'd have to be a full 75%+ of the overall dog population. There shouldn't be much question that they're overrepresented. The question is what can we conclude from that.
Interestingly enough, this chart from an AVMA article shows that they were killing more people than other breeds back in the 80's and 90's, when we were supposedly vilifying dobermans, shepherds, and rottweilers. Rotties did overtake them in the mid to late 90's, but as you said, population matters. The ratio of Rotties to Pit Bulls in the country at the time was likely not very close at all.
Also on your chart mixes are separated from purebreds. Which no longer happens. And current estimates are 18 million bullies and 2 million rotties. So 9 times as many bullies than rotties. So multiple the rottie statistics by 9 then you can have an accurate comparison.
The argument being presented is just “what-aboutism”. Okay, even if we agree Rottweilers and Cane Corsos are also dangerous, it still doesn’t address the questions about pitbulls and irresponsible ownership and shelter flooding.
I've most definitely seen people refer to generic "shepherds" before, without knowing the specific type.
In the end a lot of it comes down to shuffling categorization and statistics in ways that aren't all that meaningful.
The number of breeds grouped together is not going to be that relevant most of the time, compared to the number of dogs.
If we had 2 each of 5 different breeds and 1,000 of a 6th breed we'd be comparing 10 dogs to 1,000. The 10 dog category wouldn't be as highly represented just because it had 5x as many breeds (barring some really extreme numbers).
I have never seen any other groups of breeds put together in things like numbers of dogs in shelters or bite statistics, only pitbull-type breeds. People will sometimes use the term Shepherd or shepherd mix genetically, but almost exclusively to refer to dogs that look very mixed or aren't identifiably one type of Shepherd. A German Shepherd is never considered to be the same as an Aussie or a Mal.
I do agree that statistics should take the total numbers into account, but unfortunately none of the ones people normally cite do that. Apbt is already by far the most common breed in mixes and that's found in DNA tests. Grouping it together with even more other types of bully breeds only worsens the problem of that category being too big.
Of course they are. When someone says doodle they aren’t specifying any differences between a bernadoodle and a labradoodle. When people talk about Chihuahuas they haven’t all been DNA tested. I’m sure some portion of Huskies have Malamute in them and a shepherd may be of the German variety, Dutch, or some combination of the two.
The differences isn’t that other breeds aren’t at times lumped together or misidentified. The main difference is that no one is protesting it.
That do get lumped together in most bite statistics, which to my knowledge at generally heavily dated at this point. I don’t think we have any good data tracking by breed, do we? There’s info pertaining to dog bite related fatalities, but I would say the umbrella argument goes in their favor.
To my knowledge we do t really know ANY proper numbers for population by breed. I’d reject the use of DNA because, well, we don’t know how many dogs ARE’T DNA tested. We certainly don’t know if there’s bias in the sample, especially since it’s self selected. What if the majority of DNA tests were done by owners terrified that their dog might have pit bull in its DNA? We would expect to find a lot of DNA results with pit bull in them, even if it was not remotely representative of the overall population.
Despite that, pit bulls are responsible for more human fatalities each year in recent history than all other breed combined. They’re like 5x higher than the next highest breed. In order to be proportional to the overall population, they wouldn’t just have to be the most common breed, they’d have to be the iverwhelming majority of ALL dogs in the entire country.
Split them into 4 breeds and list them separately. Ok, now if there’s an even split then we’ve got the top 4 breeds that kill people. Staffies aren’t killing people? Well then APBTs and AmStaffs have the same number of incidents, but the population drops.
Listing multiple breeds together is unfair? Let’s see if Labs, Goldens, Chihuahuas, and Doodles agree. Group the 4 of them together and you’ve got a massive population, yet no huge spike in human fatalities. It might even be zero.
We may not have a lot of great numbers, but there’s reasonable estimates we can make and the math just doesn’t work out in their favor.
There are a lot of different statistics out there and I don't think it's clear at all that pitbulls are the most dangerous. For example, this one separated out dogs that were less than 50% of any one breed. So in that case it looks Rottweilers and German Shepherds are the most dangerous breeds. Another study I looked at has pitbulls as the top breed at 66%. This is clearly a huge difference, but I could not find any statistics from sites without a huge obvious either pro-pit or anti-pit bias. Which leads me to believe that unfortunately there likely are not any accurate statistics out there.
The one statistic that is clear is that there is an average of about 43 fatal dog attacks every year in the US, it is a very, very uncommon cause of death. When you compare that number of attacks to the total dogs of any one of these breeds, it is very hard to believe that they aren't many, many other exacerbating factors and things wrong with the dog or environment before a dog reaches a point where it will attack fatally. I think it would be much more productive to find and address those factors, then to argue about the breed when we don't have the data to support and it's clearly not the decisive factor.
“The one statistic that is clear is that there is an average of about 43 fatal dog attacks every year in the US, it is a very, very uncommon cause of death.”
Higher, at least in recent years unfortunately, though I agree it’s a very small proportion overall. I’m hesitant to write the information off as useless though, when it’s so disproportionately slanted towards a fairly narrow type. I’m curious why it’s almost non existent for virtually every other breed/type.
Yeah, I said from the start our data tracking sucks. In lieu of such data I have to go off the information I have available.
Nearly every experience I’ve had with them has been negative. I’ve seen incredibly disruptive levels of dog reactivity/aggression in my own neighborhood. There’s been multiple attacks in my area, all involving pit bulls. A little girl was killed not far from me. The next community over recently had noteworthy attacks on others dogs. Their neighborhood group was discussing multiple attacks on pets, some that lead to pets being killed. I was in a responsible pit bull owners group for a while, as you may recall, and found that most of the folks there had there dogs attack or attempt to attack other dogs and people. One nearly resulted in the other pet’s death. My wife has a rescue contact that specializes in pit bulls. She’s had more than one attack her. One that she adopted attacked multiple of her other dogs, killed her heart dog, and had to be BE’d as the result. I’ve seen more than one advocate talk about the high prevalence of dog aggression. You yourself mentioned in one of your other replies. I’ve seen multiple shelter workers discuss disproportionate rates of dog aggression. The two I’ve come to trust most have both said somewhere between 70-80% would fail their behavioral evaluations due to dog reactivity/aggression.
That’s all data as well and when it all lines up with the flawed bite and fatality data, which lines up with the breed standard and history what am I to think? 🤷🏻
Yes I actually highly agree that pitbulls (specifically purebreds) are prone to dog aggression. Just based on my own experience both pet sitting and fostering dogs. Not all of them, but there's definitely a correlation imo. My disagreement was just that I haven't personally seen them be more prone to human aggression than other large breeds and imo if the statistics/data isn't there then my own experience is the best thing I have currently. Ime dog aggression seems to be a separate instinct from human aggression in most dogs. And I don't think one predicts the other well tbh.
For example, if I'm in a situation where the dog will be in a group setting or around other dogs or around my own dogs, I'm 1000% paying extra attention to screening pitbulls closely. But if I'm doing pet sitting visits 1-on-1 with a dog in their home, I'm not concerned about pitbulls any more than any other large breed at all. Tbh most of my rougher experiences in that situation have been German Shepherds (I think because some Shepherds seem to have more of a house guarding instinct). That said, I do think there's environmental factors disproportionately influence a lot of pitbulls/bully breed dogs that I don't see. Because my clients are all people who are willing to pay for a (not that cheap) pet sitter. People who abuse/neglect their dogs don't do that.
How do you distinguish which pit bull type dogs have fighting dog ancestry? I embarked my "pit bull" and she has almost no ABPT or staffy and she very much looks like a pit bull type dog.
I got no further than "pitbull is a breed." Pitbull is not a breed. Look it up -it's not an opinion. Ypu're wrong. Pitbull is an umbrella term. MuttButtWiggle is correct.
Well, yeah.... LOL. Pitbull is the term so many use thinking that's the breed. I thought you MIGHT be referring to the American Pitbull Terrier but.... then again, it's just such a common misconception. No hard feelings, I hope.
If we really want to get caught up in semantics this is a Pitbull.
The singular breed is the American Pit Bull Terrier, APBT, or Pit Bull.
I've come to see these discussions mostly as a red herring over time. In the same conversation when we pivot to discuss a Lab or Chihuahua there's never a single question about whether it's a *real* Lab or Chihuahua. Could be a related breed, or a mix, but we see Poodle, we say Poodle and we accept Poodle. As for grouping them we refer to shepherds or hounds or terriers in certain contexts as well. If we said a dog was some sort of medium sized hound mix no one would bat an eye.
In your example you apparently identified 4 dogs that you as pure breds, unless they were all DNA tested? Yet the Pit Bull was a type/mix? Why wasn't it a "Lab type dog," "Poodle type dog," or "Aussie type dog?"
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that. I’ve seen shelters discuss adopting out bite cases. The most egregious example was a pit bull that bit a child in the face. It’s not all breed discrimination. Bite reporting and responses pretty much suck across the board from what I’ve seen.
I'm not surprised two were labs. In my pet sitting business, I was bit by my best client's dog who was a purebred black lab. This usually surprises people. I know more chihuahuas that have bitten people than any bully breed.
It’s that people just think “oh well labs are pure hearted good dogs so I don’t need to train or socialize them at all”. I think any large dog regardless of breed can be dangerous if not trained.
These answers are just my personal observations from fostering dogs, working as a pet sitter, adopting my own dogs and wasting too much time on dog reddits lol. But I've realized I have a lot to say about this lol. So this comment is just to the first question. ** The first 2 bullets are by far the most important and biggest effect imo. Cats for example have almost none of the other points going for them, but they are still everywhere as strays and in shelters much more than dogs because they are very good at point #2.**
First, there are a lot of pitbulls and pit mixes in general, not just in shelters. They are the most common breed I see among my pet sitting and dog walking clients too and Embark (the dog DNA testing company) says pitbulls are by far the most common breed to come up. So just statistically, more pits= a higher chance of some ended up unwanted, having oops litters, escaping, etc.
Pitbulls and especially pit mixes seem good at surviving as strays. Traits like gameness/stubbornness, ability to win fights, and also people friendliness are huge positives for a stray fighting to survive. This is specifically why it makes no sense to me when people compare the number of pits to the number of small dogs in shelters. Small dogs generally don't survive as strays and definitely not long enough to breed.
People have a very wide definition of the word So, Apbt/AmStaff, American Bullies, Staffys, American Bulldogs breeds and any mix containing like 30% pitbull or more all get considered pitbulls, especially by people who don't like the bully breeds.
Pitbull looks tend to come through very strongly in mixes. I've learned from the doggy DNA sub and my dogs that any dog that's even 40% ish pitbull looks mostly pit. And even smaller percentages of pit are very obvious, so if the dog is very mixed overall. Aggressive or reactive mixes are also extra likely to get considered pitbulls by a lot of people whenever the mix is unclear.
To be clear, I do still think there are more pitbulls than other breeds, I just think the amount also gets exaggerated a lot on Reddit specifically for some reason.
A lot of rentals have breed restrictions making it harder for some potential adopters to choose/keep pitbulls. This also applies to some of the other more common breeds in shelters such as huskies and GSDs.
Pitbulls in general can be high energy and need more training/boundaries than other breeds and not everyone wants that or has time for that.
Pitbulls (and the other bully breeds) are genetically more likely to be dog-reactive or dog-selective, so the a lot of pit owners only have 1-2 dogs. Where as there are more people who have 3, 4, 5+ herding dogs or shepherds or especially small dogs. (This one mostly applies to dogs that are mostly or pitbull/bully breed, not to a lot of the mixes ime)
Pitbulls, especially in some areas, are more likely to be owned by people who are poorer or live in rougher areas. This means a higher likelihood of instability or finicial troubles for the owners which may lead to having to give up the dog. And it sometimes also means that the dog was neglected/abused/around more violence that had taught them the wrong things and makes them less likely to be adopted again.
Pitbulls and bully breeds are generally very strong, muscular dogs and not everyone is strong/fit/healthy enough to control, walk, play with that size dog safely and enjoyably. For example, I love my pit/herding dog mixes now, but when I'm 65, I will probably opt for something else
I’ll also add that dogs that look visibly “bully” - mind you, there are a decent number of pit mixes that don’t and some not-pits that do (like dogo argentino) - tend to have larger jaws and a strong bite, which means a single bite from one is more likely to do damage than one from, say, a chihuahua. Most dog bites are not reported, so there is a bit of selective bias happening. This is partially by design, as they were bred as fighting and hunting dogs.
Lots of dogs get labels without knowing their actual genetics... See if your library has "Pitbull: The Battle over the American Icon" by Bronwen Dickey, she has some interesting information on how mixed breed dogs that have absolutely none of the "pit-bull type" dog breeds in them can have many of the same characteristics like blocky heads, etc. within a couple of generations.
For the sake of not getting sidetracked on a peripheral debate, I think it’s reasonable to accept “pitbull” as the umbrella term for dogs that display the hallmark physical characteristics of pitbull-type dogs and have shared fighting ancestry.
I disagree - including or excluding dogs just because they have "hallmark physical characteristics" is part of the problem. When a dog doesn't look like a "pit" it is going to treated differently than one with a stocky build or blocky head...
I'm recommending that you check out the book where she shows a multiple generation breeding study that resulted in those physical characteristics in dogs with ZERO pit-type breeds in them.
Fair point, but what % of those misidentified dogs had no pit? Since we’re talking about a shelter situation, it isn’t realistic to DNA test every dog so we’d have to accept a small standard deviation of error on identification.
But for better or worse, we can agree that “pitbull” is nowadays an umbrella term for a type of dog and not a single breed.
I don't know if there is more recent data, but a 2016 study found that 67% of shelter dogs were mis-identified by shelter staff. A 2015 study using 4 different shelters found that staff and vets identified 52% of the study dogs as pit bull types, when DNA testing was done only 21% of the selected dogs were.
That’s really interesting data but I think it needs more clarification to parse. Specifically, what DNA result was constituting a “pitbull type dog” and at what percentage? For example if it the threshold for qualification was only APBT dna at 30 percent or higher (just a random example), then it’s going to disqualify a lot of dogs from being considered pits.
I do think misidentification is an issue, but I also think pitbull type dogs are typically pretty easy to identify (within a reasonable standard deviation of error) as their gene expression is very strong. Sometimes I feel like the “is it really a pitbull” issue is a red herring because you could theoretically add up fatal bite stats from every other breed combined and it would still not not exceed fatal bites from pitbull type dogs.
That’s a part of the problem, if we define it as “You’ll know it when you see it” situation then every dog with a blocky head or muscular body is a presumed pitbull. Sure, there are a lot of pitbulls regardless and a lot of dogs that have some pitbull dna, but a percentage of the dogs labeled pits are mastiff mixes, boxer, Rottweiler, bull terriers, even Akitas. I have a chihuahua/bichon/ min poodle/min pin mix (I have the dna test to prove it) and for whatever reason he is short fur and kind of muscular (kind of a Boston terrier build) and people have asked me if he is a “pitbull”, he’s 19lbs. A client adopted a dog that was labeled a pit mix, as it grew that became less likely and they got a dna test Akita, Mal, German shepherd, and Rottweiler. A very intense combo, but not “pitbull”. It sort of has turned into a “one drop” thing, where if a dog might have a whiff of pitbull and it does something aggressive it’s a pitbull. Not a GSD or whatever else it’s mixed with. I’ve volunteered in shelters since I was 10 and managed group play for a large doggie daycare/boarding/training facility for 10 years, so I’ve worked with thousands of dogs at this point in my life. I have a lot to say about the subject but I don’t have time right now. It’s such a complicated topic and people get so heated, but like many issues it’s not black and white and there isn’t one answer
Belgian Shepherds are another example of how things work sometimes. The AKC decided to split them into separate breeds, while much of the world treats the four varieties as one breed.
Other breeds, such as GSDs, have multiple show and working lines, but neither breeders nor the AKC decided to register them as separate breeds, even though there are differences in physical and temperamental characteristics between the lines. A lot of people think any pointy-eared dog is a GSD; however, nobody is asking to split bite stats according to what type of GSD was involved and to account for mixes. Labs also have the English show line and American field line.
I think misguided breed advocacy is also partly responsible for the crisis in shelters and the mass slaughter of Pit Bulls, but I'll write about this in a separate comment to OP when I have more time. In my opinion, heavy promotion of the dogs to overcome the stigma, coupled with the “breed doesn’t matter” message and discouragement of breed research, badly backfired, contributing to massive and careless breeding; people acquiring dogs without understanding their needs and potential challenges; and the abandonment of unwanted litter remnants and animals their owners were not equipped to handle, which then end up filling shelters. Some of the biggest advocacy organizations could also have put far more emphasis and funding into spay/neuter, particularly for owners who could not afford it, rather than focusing so heavily on promoting the breed.
In my opinion, heavy promotion of the dogs to overcome the stigma, coupled with the “breed doesn’t matter” message and discouragement of breed research, badly backfired
Absolutely. It's always really wild to me that people who own any other dangerous breed will freely admit the cons and limitations of owning that breed. I will openly tell anyone asking about my Akita that the breed has issues with dog aggression and can be dangerous with an unprepared or otherwise clueless owner. Yet for some reason I rarely see people who own bully breeds and their mixes who are willing to acknowledge the same. I really think the "it's all in how you raise them" messaging is doing the breed a huge disservice.
Thank you for sharing this. I was referring specifically to the breeding study that she mentioned, but which I can't find a reference for online and don't have access to the book resources. Do you know what that study is she is sharing?
Hi. I think you're referring to her mention of Scott and Fuller's Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, in which they crossed a Basenji with a Cocker Spaniel and bred the F1 offspring together; the F2 puppies looked strikingly different from one another despite having ancestry from only those two breeds.
That's a good illustration of recombination and the unpredictability of mixed-breed appearance, but it does not show that dogs with no pit-bull ancestry commonly develop a pit-bull phenotype within a couple of generations. Recombination might produce a broader head, but it could produce a narrower, pointier, or shepherd-like head depending on what the animal inherits. Scott and Fuller demonstrated variation, not a tendency toward blocky-headed dogs.
Modern genetics also shows that individual traits such as broad heads, short coats, ear shape, etc. are not unique to any one breed, but that, of course, applies to other head shapes, coats, etc. as well. So yes, a dog can display a "pit-bull-like" feature without inheriting it from a pit bull, just like a dog can display a GSD-like feature without inheriting it from a GSD, but that's different from saying that overall phenotype tells us nothing about ancestry or that dogs unrelated to pit bulls tend to end up looking like pit bulls.
Dickey also cites Boyko et al. (2010), which found that many canine morphological traits are influenced by a relatively small number of large-effect genetic variants that can occur across different breeds. That supports the point that individual features are not breed-exclusive, but the same study also found strong human selection for breed-defining morphology and substantial phenotypic uniformity within breeds; it does not show that overall appearance is unrelated to ancestry.
Gunter et al. (2018) actually found that, when they looked specifically at pit-bull-type ancestry, the more pit-bull ancestry a dog had, the more likely shelter staff were to identify it visually as a pit bull (r = .75), and they identified 92% of dogs with ≥75% pit-bull-type ancestry as pit bulls. Among 270 dogs with no detected pit-bull-type ancestry, only four were visually labeled pit bulls. One caveat: Gunter used an older 321-SNP Wisdom Panel test that did not report ancestry below roughly 12.5%, so "no detected ancestry" is not the same as proving absolutely zero ancestry.
So the nuanced conclusion seems to be: some physical traits are not breed-exclusive; some mixes may not resemble one or more of their ancestral breeds; and dogs with lower percentages of pit-bull-type ancestry may not look recognizably pit-bull-type. However, it's worth noting again that visual misidentification can go in both directions: a dog without detected pit-bull-type ancestry can sometimes be labeled a pit bull, while a dog with some pit-bull ancestry may not look recognizably pit-bull-type. But as Gunter's results show, recognizable pit-bull-type morphology becomes substantially more predictive as pit-bull ancestry increases.
in my experience working in a shelter, pitbulls are not the majority of behavioral cases. Thinking to who are in bite quarantine literally right now, we have 1 pitbull and about 4 small dogs. Which we dont usually have so many small dogs at once (but usually at least 1 and they are usually REALLY aggressive too lol, and about the least cooperative about moving to the right side of the divider in their run. I always hate dealing with quarantine little dogs the most cos its not like you can just go in there and move them where you need them. And they never frickin eat to boot. Smh) but I have seen a lot of pure bred dogs back in bite quarantine more than pits/pit mixes. Im talking like not "lab mix" but like purebred aussies. or purebred mal. We had some dog a couple weeks ago back there that was probably a husky mix but looked like a wolf lol. And I think all these dogs have come and gone and its been just the 1 pitbull back there the whole time cos hes been there a hot minute because he is involved in a dangerous dog investigation in court right now so hes gotta just sit there until the court has ruled (hes probably going to be euthanized after because he does not seem very nice and he is a particularly large pit mix. 80 pounds or something. And based on some behavior ive seen from him I really dont see the court determining him not to be dangerous..).
I feel like a lot of pitbull behavior problems are not aggression but theyre just generally a high energy breed and not always raised or trained well and just react poorly to overstimulation. One of my old favorites bruised the hell out of me because he got over excited and ramped up his puppy mouthing to like 100. Didn't bite down or break any skin but just knocked his teeth into me quite hard and it hurt. Which not to say that this dog is 100% fine just because he didnt mean it, he did injure me lol. And we do take those things seriously (and take action once things get to a certain point, because if a dog cannot be handled without causing injury, intentional or not, that dog is not safe to adopt out and we will euthanize for that), and we try to be as honest as possible with adopters. But I think dogs like that can be saved as long as theyre caught before the stress of the shelter causes their behavior to devolve too far. And this particular dog did get adopted not long after he beat me up that one time lol, and he hasnt come back. He went with some young athletic guy so it seemed about a good a match as we could hope for.
Also another factor is like, if youre just walking through a shelter reading kennel cards and dont really know how things work in the back I can see how one might then think pits are the ones with the worst behavior problems, but that is really survivorship bias. The worst cases are never seen by the public because we do not put known aggressive dogs on the adoption floor. And we really dont skirt around the aggressive labeling either. Like I do not work at some tiny little "no kill" type of shelter, i work at animal control. If we think a dog is a public safety risk it is kind of our duty and responsibility to handle that and keep the community as safe as possible, by opting for humane euthanasia for those dogs.
Also as for why there are majority pits in shelters, large dogs in general are more likely to be surrendered and less likely to be adopted because of housing restrictions. For a while the #1 reason for owner surrendered dogs was housing. It was actually very heartbreaking to see beloved family dogs, with people who loved and cared for them dearly, come to the shelter just because their family was faced with the choice between losing their dog or becoming homeless. Its still bad now but my state had some legislation pass limiting breed discrimination in housing which did help a lot but with the economy the way it is right now it still happens. I also think there are purely just more pitbulls in the community than other breeds of dogs, but i couldnt really tell you why that is. thats not really the type of thing I get any information about from my position lol
Anyway. thats really just my shelter. I mean we are a huge municipal shelter/animal control so my sample size of dogs is massive. We have like 100 dogs at any given time really, being rotated out relatively quickly because we have a decent amount of dogs coming in and out all the time. But in terms of policy we might be quite different from a privately run shelter, idk. Big dog sample size but small shelter sample size for me lol
When looking at bite risk, I think we also need to discuss the bite severity. All bites are unacceptable, but a small dog bite or a herding dog nipping is very different from a pitbull bite.
I feel like a crazy person trying to follow your train of thought here. Are you trying to troll? You do know that the dog doesn't kill the duck, right? I'm not a hunter so I'm prepared to be wrong here but like, I'm pretty sure the hunter shoots the duck and then the dog, y'know, retrieves.
Don’t worry, it was just a random ad hominem attack from someone that, I think, didn’t really understand my original post. But I’m always happy to discuss opposing views and there’s few things more enjoyable than debating dog stuff on Reddit on a Saturday lol
Bird dogs retrieve dead birds. They don’t kill them, it’s very much against the intended and wanted behavior for a well-bred sporting bird dog. Which if OP is training their golden to be a bird dog then the dog probably comes from parents and lineages with good hunting traits.
a herding dog nipping is not what I would consider aggression and falls more under what I was talking about with some dogs not handling overstimulation well. Which is again also something I see a lot in pitbulls, theyre high energy and sometimes were just never taught that thats not appropriate. They may do more general mouthing than targeted herding nips but functionally its almost the same thing.
Yes, a pitbull bite does more damage than a chihuahua, but thats a size thing, not a breed thing. Pits do not have stronger bite force relative to size, its comparable to other similarly sized dogs. They can do the same damage any large breed dog can do. So when im talking about malinois, Australian shepherds, huskies, they can all do the same damage as a pit if they bite. And end up in bite quarantine more than pitbulls do, at least in my community.
I used to handle a few hundred animals a year, and pitbulls were not the ones I worried about. As my vet said at the time, the good thing is they are sincere. They rarely will clamp down on you in situations where they don't start off looking anxious and aggressive. So they're pretty easy to find and isolate. Whereas a lot of other breeds are harder to handle.
There are a lot of chihuahuas around, but they’re limited by their small size, they can’t survive outside for very long (coyotes snd weather) + their litters a small. But pits can have large litters (and small ones!) while also surviving outside.
So in the sense, they have more of an opportunity to “explode” in population vs chihuahuas (just, as an example).
Then you have the fact that a lot of vet clinics have been purchased by big corporations and prices are sky high. So now, people who pick up that stray they found in their yard, cannot afford to have them fixed/spayed.
Then there’s the people who believe they can make a quick buck, but with the economy in shambles er.. Good luck selling anything, let alone a 10+ year commitment 😅
And if an irresponsible owner doesn’t manage to sell off all the puppies, but they can’t afford to fix/spay- Well… Wait a few months and you’re back at the start, and it sort of snowballs from there. Whether the intentions were good, or if it’s some (word I will not say here, I will be polite) breeding them… The outcome is the same.
There’s also a lot of “misinformation” about them online. I’m putting that in quotes because some of them are indeed couch potatoes who just want to nap all day. But the issue is, they were bred to have very low arousal levels, they can be aggressive, and sometimes they resource guard. Some of them require very intense daily exercise + mental stimulation. And so- They end up in shelters because someone expected an easy dog.
Some rescues are also very dependent on staying “no kill”, so they have to say no to challenging intakes. Otherwise they can lose funding. So the shelters get filled with the dogs that rescues can’t take (in some areas, not all).
We are also still suffering from the puppy boom from covid, so there are simply too many dogs vs homes. Add to that: A lot of pits are dog aggressive or same-sex aggressive. So if you take one, you might not be able to take any more. That limits the number of available homes in a way.
Personally I live in a country where APBT, amstaffs, and american bulldogs, are all banned. As are mixes thereof. It was not because they were bad dogs that they were banned, it was because they did not fit into today’s society. That’s okay. I am not advocating for putting them all down, that would be horrendous. I do wish the breeds would die out, much like the old bulldogs did when there was no longer a use for them. I.E.: I wish no one would breed them. But that is unrealistic, so instead of that, I at least try to let people know that they might need to put more work into their pup vs other puppies. I try to give heads up about their allergies. I try to warn them about their generic predisposition for aggression (which doesn’t make them bad dogs btw! But people should be aware so they can work on it!, and I try to tell them about how a lot of pits develop pretty bad anxiety.
I believe there isn’t enough appropriate information out there on them, which certainly does not help. It is setting them up for failure, and it is putting them in shelters.
This is a very balanced take! I’m a huge advocate for people being honest about what these dogs need and the power behind them. People need to understand that these were dogs bred for certain things that can make them challenging dogs for inexperienced owners. As you said most require a lot of physical and mental exercise and can be difficult to handle around other dogs, and that takes much more responsibility than most people are aware of or are prepared for and lying about these things aren’t helping the dog, the adopters/owners, or the people and animals around them.
I have a layman's response that influenced why I, personally, avoided adopting a bully breed when I was looking for my dog:
I was looking for a young puppy specifically because I have two cats who never lived with a dog before, so I knew there would be some training on both ends to get them to live together. There are a lot of adult bully breeds in shelters and rescues, but not many puppies.
I am a small person, so I didn't want a dog that would weigh more than 50 lbs as an adult. Many bully breeds are stronger and heavier. I'm sure this is why many people avoid bully breeds.
I have extended family with small children and they have absolutely no experience with dogs. They are exactly the type of people to believe bully breeds are aggressive genetically. I did not want drama during holidays, so I went with a classic "family breed" just to avoid any conflict. Tbh I know a bully breed is fully capable of being good around small kids with the right socialization and training, and I also know my beagle mix is just as capable of being difficult around small children. I know the work on my end would have been practically the same. But a lot of people don't really understand dogs and I could choose to have to explain repeatedly to my SIL that bully breeds aren't all dangerous or just get a different breed. I chose to avoid conflict.
I was a renter for 11 years. Every single apartment I lived in had breed restrictions.
My sister has a pitbull Akita mix. He's a wonderful dog! He has very mouthy play. Hes never been aggressive or bit anyone before, and he's 8 years old. But I've seen the mouthy play scare people. The fear is based in ignorance but I chose against that battle.
Honestly, it feels like the stereotype around bully breeds is so strong that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are assumed to be dangerous, they're treated like they're dangerous, they end up under socialized from that treatment, and they get way fewer chances in moments of bad judgement. A play bite from my beagle is seen as a play bite, but a play bite from the same age bully breed may be branded as "aggression" when it's not.
Question 2 & 3 (Why are more pitbulls problems and is it because they are pits)
I think I covered most of this in my answer to question 1
The biggest factor imo is the number of pitbull/pit mixes/dogs that get considered pitbulls. Even if everything else was completely equal (it's not imo), there being the most pits means they will be the highest percentage of behavioral problems too.
Environment. More pits proportionally come from homes that may have been neglectful, violent, abusive or just in a bad area which taught the dog to be protective. Some pits also come from fighting rings where they were literally taught to fight (this is a smaller number imo but still a factor).
Genetics. Ime a lot of pitbulls do have a tendency towards dog aggression or at least dog reactivity or selectivity. Most likely because dog fighting is what they were originally bred for. A lot/the majority of pitbulls are no longer bred for this purpose, but that doesn't mean the tendency isn't still there. Ime pet sitting this tendency mostly seems to come through in pitbull that look to be all or mostly pit/bully breed. (I personally look for the thinner fur/skin and denser body and this normally correlates with at least 70-80% pit based on what I've learned from r/doggydna. Vs the facial features that seem to come through at a much lower percentage than the personality traits the majority of the time.
I don't think the standards for BE should be any different for pitbulls compared to any strong, medium-large size breed.
I do think the standard for BE should have a lower threshold than it would be for a small breed like a Chihuahua. That's because a Chi is unlikely to be able to seriously hurt a person or other pet.
I do think that some (definitely not all) rescues adopt out dogs that should not be adopted out. Based on what I see on Reddit, I think this may happen more in the NE and Northern states were there are less strays/dogs in shelters. I have never lived there tho so I'm not sure tbh. My areas shelter is pretty high kill just for space, so it's not really a thing here to try to save the more difficult dogs. Except for a couple of the more niche smaller rescues.
I do not think dogs showing signs of human aggression should be adopted out or generally dogs with a bite history (I do think it's ok to look at what the specific incident was,but any exceptions should be rare). I do think the large majority of shelters already avoid adopting out these type of dogs.
I don't think any dogs with pro-active dog aggression should be adopted out. As in a dog that will try to run towards another dog for the purpose of attacking it. Especially if they will try to escape to do this.
Dog reactivity is different than dog aggression imo and should be evaluated on a case by case basis. For example, dogs that will occasionally escalate to fighting during play or that will fight over food or toys. This is honestly very common in a lot of dogs of a lot of breeds. And not an issue if it's not severe and the owners are at least somewhat responaible imo. However, adopters should be made aware and if the dog needs a single dog home or to be fed separately this should be made clear. Also, imo adopters should be screened more carefully for dogs with dog reactivity to make sure they understand, don't have other dogs and are physically capable of controlling the dog if needed. (These requirements may make dog reactive dogs less likely to be adopted and eventually eu for space and that is ok imo. But if space is not a consideration I don't see it as a reason for BE on its own, except when severe)
Aggression towards cats, chickens, etc is not a reason for BE imo. Many dogs of many different breeds have prey drive towards cats or small animals, will chase cats and will even kill them if given the chance. However, if aggression towards any species is known it should be made clear. Also, I don't think people with cats should be able to adopt large,adult dogs that haven't been cat tested.
For some reason, some people on Reddit seem to think a dog just barking at fences/doors or other dogs is traumatic or a reason for BE. I don't understand this at all, it does not hurt anyone and generally does not indicate anything else about the dog. Tbh I taught my own dog to bark at the door/windows if people walk by because I live alone in a somewhat sketchy area and my neighbor is on meth. (It's working, he no longer comes to my door with weird random paranoias in the middle of the night and I feel safer that the people that walk by to go to their house late at night do not come close. & Yes, I'm trying to move, but I can't do that immediately.)
Question 5
I don't think a dog's bloodline should have any effect on the decision. Each dog should be evaluated as an individual.
Well said. We have slightly different tolerances, but very common sense guidelines.
I’m in the midwest (Ohio) and not long ago we had a huge bully mix in a nearby shelter that failed behavioral evaluations and was slated for BE. The shelter intended to put him down, but it was the rescue community that raised hell, up to the point of needing a police presence for safety. They went through multiple additional assessments with outside trainers, also failed. Eventually the outside rescue groups found someone willing to take him in and someone else willing to train him. They allowed him to be pulled. It’s dumb, but I can’t blame the shelter staff, that were literally being doxxed and receiving threatening phone calls.
My county’s shelter is no kill, open intake, and constantly massively overpopulated.
A few counties north is the “high kill” municipal open intake shelter.
I can only guess we’d find very different behavioral tolerances and BE related practices at each shelter. I don’t know how much is regional and how much literally varies from one shelter to the next.
I do know that I’ve seen firsthand on Reddit where shelter workers discuss adopting out dogs with bite histories. My readings from those workers is what most concerns me. I suspect it happens more than you may realize. I’ve seen one where a pit bull bit a kid in the face and the worker proudly explained how they found it a new home after it was returned.
If everyone in rescue followed your advice here we’d be a heck of a lot better off.
I don't understand the people who think every dog can be saved tbh, it's not realistic unfortunately. One thing my city does that I highly agree with is that they don't put dogs that are being euthanized for behavioral (or medical) reasons on the euthanasia list. They just make those decisions if they need to be made. When they put out the euthanasia list it is only for dogs that are being euthanized for space. Because those are the dogs they would like the public to help save.
I have seen a couple concerning comments on Reddit also, but they do seem to be in the minority from the replies I see though. However, some of those comments are definitely why I do think some areas must be different than mine though.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in the example by me it was a shelter staffer that couldn’t accept the decision who leaked it to the public. She was fired when all was said and done, but that dog is out there. Hopefully no one gets hurt.
My wife’s Golden rescue occasionally has to BE. There’s no announcement or fanfare. They just do it.
You want a really crazy example. Just the other day a large Great Pyr mix that had been declared vicious legally was BE’d. The adopting rescue and his owner had tried to appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court. I get the owner struggling to let go. I really do. But I don’t get why the rescue would fight it. Some of the commenters were claiming he should have lived out his life on some fantasy sanctuary.
It’ll always be wild to me how overtly some people are willing to disregard public safety. Once a dog has actually attacked multiple people it seems like the decision should, generally, be fairly easy.
-It'll always be wild to me how overtly some people are willing to disregard public safety. Once a dog has actually attacked multiple people it seems like the decision should, generally, be fairly easy.-
The other thing is that BE is often more humane for the dog too. The dog is basically being tortured having to be in a kennel, then passed around to different homes, then maybe living in the dog equivalent of a padded cell and straight jacket.
I used to be very pro no-kill but I have come to realize it’s a lot more nuanced and there are times when euthanasia is kindest for everyone.
I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, but fighting rings don’t “teach” them to fight, they just breed for it. Just like you said they have a genetic tendency towards dog aggression, this is exaggerated by magnitudes in fighting lines.
There’s elaborate systems for putting new dogs against older ones to see who will fight and has the most aptitude. Dogs that don’t want to fight are generally just culled, since dogmen see no use for them. Dogs with the most gameness are bred, especially if they’re winners.
Training generally consists of conditioning for strength and stamina. The dogs know and are motivated to do the rest on their own.
Sadly, there’s far more dogfighting occurring to this day than most people would ever guess. It’s ridiculously hard to prove so tons of goes on nearly in plain site. There’s groups all over Facebook of people discussing it. It’s easy enough to find videos. There’s magazines, websites with pedigrees, and pretty visible breeders.
Those aren’t generally the dogs we’re seeing in shelters/rescues, but it does muddy the waters when trying to assess how far removed they may be from purpose bred fighting lines compared to a world where the practice died off when it was made illegal.
It’s interesting that you’ve seen a strong correlation between phenotype and dog aggression. I’ve seen some anti-pit folks make the argument before that “the more it looks like a pit the more it’ll act like a pit,” but I’ve never quite been convinced. Even more interesting that this would seem to confirm the validity of visual identification.
I think they are both bred to be good at and want to fight and trained for it tbh. From what I understand, they have a system of building the dogs up with somewhat easier fights and then working towards the harder fights. And the dogs are rewarded/praised for doing well in the ring. That's training imo, fighting just like with people takes strategy/skill and dogs will learn to be better at it over time.
I do agree that it happens a lot more than people sometimes think, but I think it also happens a lot less than others think. I agree that a lot of those dogs are not the ones ending up in shelters, but for sure it likely does keep a higher level of dog aggression in the breed than would be there otherwise. Especially because most byb breeders are not specifically breeding for a different temperament.
The visual id is definitely not 100% accurate, but for me, if I pay attention to only the fur/skin thickness and density (which is hard to assess unless you see the dog in person imo), it gives me a good clue of which dogs to screen a little closer before allowing them into a group setting with other dogs. There are definitely dogs with those features who are very friendly and pass the screening (and dogs of other breeds that fail), but it is a noticeable shift to me. I think the density of bully breeds can also rub other dogs the wrong way too. Because it makes the pitbull much heavier/stronger than they expect in play and pitbulls often do not adjust their play style to account for their comparative strength. So that's also likely part of why that trait specifically seems to correlate with issues. However, I will add that I have not seen any connection between those features and aggression towards me in a 1-on-1 setting, like drop in visits in their home.
What you’re referring to is “rolling.” I guess in human fighting you might compare it to sparring, and in that regard you could call it training. In dogfighting there’s no way to instruct the dogs to go 70% though. There’s no pads, no gloves. It’s more like they put them an easier fighter that they know won’t just kill them. It lets them assess their desire to fight, puts just enough pressure to see if they’ll keep going and shows if they’re skilled.
I’m just not sure if that’s done extensively over time to advance the dogs skill or if it’s only for assessment.
The more common misconception is that the dogs don’t want or don’t know how to fight and have to be coaxed and instructed, but it doesn’t sound like that was your intention.
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I agree that a lot of those dogs are not the ones ending up in shelters, but for sure it likely does keep a higher level of dog aggression in the breed than would be there otherwise.”
You know, I’m honestly not sure about that one, but it’s interesting to discuss. Dogfighters have a vested interest in keeping their dogs out of sight, not commingling with the general population. If fighting dogs show up abandoned, tied to fences then police might start watching. They’d rather just kill and dump them.
On the other hand there’s been speculation about some folks in the ADBA rubbing elbows with dogfighters. Tom Garner breeds openly and it’s widely believed his dogs are used for fighting. There’s even times where dogs get bought from a breeder, presumed to be fought, then if they win enough returned to the breeder for more breeding. So long as the authorities don’t catch the dogfighting happening and can’t tie the breeder to the act then it just keeps happening.
There’s also the fact that many, but not all, dogmen would hard cull their undesirables. They weren’t fighters, but they also knew they wouldn’t make good pets. Other dogmen, because dogmen aren’t exactly individuals of high ethical standards, had no problem soft culling their unwanted dogs, giving them to friends, family, etc.
The “amateur” dogfights seem even less bound by ethics. I’ve seen groups on Facebook where someone asks what do with their pups and the reply was to abandon them in front of a shelter because people always want house dogs.”
I’m not sure if there’s any way for us to quantify the impact of dogfighting on the overpopulation. My instincts are the same as yours, that it has at least some impact, but in the end I don’t really know. It could also just be the genetic propensity of a big, strong bull and terrier breed that has characteristics of both those types.
That’s not how retriever hunt tests work, and they definitely don’t rip apart a duck/bird but i can try to understand your question:
No, I don’t think it’s bad because my dog was bred to do this. For better or worse, duck hunting is socially acceptable and the AKC and UKC have competitions for it.
Pitbulls were bred originally bred for dog fighting, which at one point was socially acceptable but no longer is.
The question of why one is still acceptable but the other isn’t, is a philosophical question that is irrelevant to my original post.
While I don’t think it’s an apples to apples comparison, I’m not sure I understand your contention. My original post made no mention about concerns of pitbulls killing prey animals and ,frankly, I think a good use of gamebred APBTs/pits is in hog hunting.
On your discussion of pit bulls: this sub will be in an uproar if a pit ( or dog that has similar looking qualities) retrieves or hunts anything living. The answer is BE always.
Terrier breeds were bred to hunt as with many breeds. But I guess you’re expecting the pit bulls specifically to understand what is breed appropriate and the workings of the AKC. 🤣
Why are pitbulls and pit mixes the majority type of dog that fills the shelters?
It's a combination of them being backyard bred very irresponsibly, many people not wanting to own them, and breed restrictions. In many areas they can easily be found unfixed, either for cultural reasons or lack of access
why are pitbulls and pit mixes seemingly the majority of behavioral problem dogs?
A proper APBT is a high drive working dog. Regardless of dog fighting and gameness, working dogs just don't make great housepets for the average home. Many mixes don't inherit fighting genetics, but just like herding mixes or hound mixes may still show watered down breed traits the same is true for pit bulls. Combine that with with irresponsible breeding and we've got even more problems. There's the fact that much of their community of ownership has tolerances for many behaviors that other breed communities would not accept. And, even if we disregard all of that they're still very large, muscular terriers. Terriers as a group were bred to kill things and control vermin. A lot of pit bulls have higher than average prey drive and will have instincts to grab, shake and not let go, in proper terrier fashion.
and perhaps the nucleus of the question: do the problem dogs have these issues because they are pitbulls?
Yes. And No. Dogs have genetics, just like humans have genetics. They're a huge influence on our temperament and behavior. Environment and experience play a large role too. One pit bull may have trouble because it was born with high levels of prey drive and dog aggression. Another may have trouble because of very poor breeding leading to lack of stability. (I've had a puppy mill papillon that had bad genetics too). Another may have no issues at all. Breed certainly plays a role, see previous answer, but it's far from the only factor.
should there be more stringent regulations on pitbull adoption and lower threshold for behavioral euthanasia?
Undoubtedly, yes. We need fewer dogs with behavioral issues across all breeds, with common sense standards relating to size and strength. I am entirely in favor of restricting/regulating ownership.
is there a place in society for dogs from fighting bloodlines?
Not exactly, but we have to ask how far away from fighting bloodlines and to what extent those genetics express themselves in the individual dog. Fighting dog inclined to act like fighting dogs have no real place in society. Dog aggression inhibits their ability to be safe companion dogs, but they don't make great working dogs either because so many jobs require working alongside or in close proximity to dogs or other animals.
Now, if you talk to true breed enthusiasts they'll tell you about specific characteristics of specific bloodlines. I've spoken to a hog hunter that sought out a specific bloodline known to be workable and able to work alongside each other without major concerns of dog aggression. There you get into the ethics of hog hunting and the hurdle that the same guy said his Dogo Argentino was still his best catch dog due to greater size and power.
I've seen videos of them trained and used for pest control, but I don't have much of a market there truly is for that style of pet control and whether we need pit bulls for it. We can also use Patterdales, Jack Russells, and other smaller terriers.
So, I say this as someone who has had five pitbulls, but also used to be super active in rescue.
Why are they the majority? They are underrecognized in the dog population, tend to belong to owners who are stigmatized but also not great owners, and once in the shelter they're also less desirable to the general adopting public.
Why are they behavioral problem blah blah blah? See above. Also, though, they are mostly dog aggressive. Which isn't insurmountable for experienced owners, but is often an issue to the general adopting public.
Do they have these problems because they are pitbulls? IMO, only mostly dog aggression. I've found them overall to be solid citizens.
Should there be....IMO, no. They're not inherently problematic. I would say if anything they should not be held over indefinitely, and shelters should not try to make exceptions for them if they do have issues. Because there are so many, and in such great need, that IMO it's not effective allowing ones with additional barriers to placement and all it does it take space from more placeable dogs.
Is there a place in society....yes. Their bloodlines don't determine their fates.
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FWIW, I've had 5 so far. Only one has bitten any humans, and only incidental to being attacked by another dog. One was by far the best dog that I've ever owned. She was a street dog, and stayed free and roaming for a very long time because she was a little wily but completely prosocial to all dogs, cats, and humans. Even guinea pigs. That dog was like Miss Congeniality, canine edition -- I used to have friends who visited just to see her.
I worked in vet hospitals for over 20 years, animal shelters for about 5, and switched career paths and volunteer with the "red" dogs at my shelter.
In 20 years of vet hospital work - the only dog that got BE was small.
The most aggressive dog I can remember, where we had to clear the entire hospital to let him in, was a Great Dane puppy. No joke.
At my shelter, if you're a pitbull, Pomeranian, golden retriever, rare blah blah - you bite, you likely aren't making it out. Currently, the small dogs out number the pits by a large margin and have for about a year.
The majority of the time the pits get returned is due to high energy - not mauling anything.
The bite confinscates can range from pits, Corsos, Shepard's, to Chihuahuas and terriers.
Sadly, for many people, spaying and neutering is still too expensive so breeding is out of control. There needs to be more resources for low income individuals.
Have you been around pitbulls? Volunteer! It's a great way to better understand all breeds.
Ps there are other dogs that were bred to fight like Akitas and Presas
Interesting to hear your opinion. I just wanted to mention that the reason I didn’t reference other fighting breeds like Akita’s or Presas is that they are just way less common and there is, undoubtedly, an epidemic of pitbull type dogs in shelters.
I understand - I typed that with one hand so let me circle back lol. I also worked in a lower income area at a spay neuter clinic so I have stories. Hang tight!
Ps there are other dogs that were bred to fight like Akitas and Presas
OP asked if there was a place in today's society for dogs with bloodsport lineage and this was going to be part of my point. There absolutely is! I have an Akita, my second one actually. My first was from a puppy mill/pet store and my current is from a preservation breeder. The breed is a great example of how dogs like this can thrive in modern society when the right people are involved. My first had horrible confirmation and was very wary of strangers. The one I have now loves everyone he's ever met because many breeders are working to improve the breed's overall friendliness since their original purposes (bear hunting and dog fighting) no longer exist and they are generally companion dogs nowadays. He's still hit and miss with other dogs but that's very manageable. They aren't murder machines like they were a few decades ago.
The problem with many bully breeds like pitbulls is that they are overwhelming from bybs who give zero fucks towards health and temperament so they likely end up passing on a lot of the more undesirable genetics like aggression. If there were actually ethical breeders working to preserve the breed while improving temperaments to create more stable companion dogs like there is with Akitas we like wouldn't see so many unstable pitbulls and would hopefully start reducing the shelter populations as well. Just like with Akitas, you would likely never get the dog aggression out of the breed since it's been so ingrained over so many generations but I bet you could at least end up with a more stable, controllable breed overall.
Why are pit bulls and pit mixes the majority type of dog that fills the shelters?
A big part of the answer is simply population size. Pit bull-type dogs make up a very large portion of the overall U.S. dog population. We see this reflected in data from dog DNA companies, rabies registrations, and, on a smaller scale, veterinary practices.
If a type of dog makes up a larger percentage of the dogs in the country, we're naturally going to see more of them entering shelters as well.
It's also influenced by geography. For example, I rarely see Shiba Inu mixes in my area, while they are extremely common in Korea. That doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the inherent behavior of Shiba Inus; it tells us something about how common they are in a particular dog population.
The current U.S. housing crisis also exacerbates the problem. Many rental properties either don't allow dogs at all or place restrictions on size and breed. Large dogs, including pit bull-type dogs, are particularly likely to be excluded by breed-restricted housing. Even properties that do allow them may charge additional pet fees or deposits.
So there are multiple factors contributing to the number of pit bull-type dogs entering and remaining in shelters. It isn't necessarily evidence that the breed itself is uniquely responsible for shelter overcrowding.
Why do pit bulls and pit mixes seemingly make up the majority of behavioral-problem dogs?
Again, population size is an important factor.
If pit bull-type dogs represent a large percentage of the dogs entering shelters, we're going to encounter a lot of pit bull-type dogs with behavioral problems simply because there are a lot of pit bull-type dogs.
I've seen this same phenomenon with other popular dog types. When pugs and puggles were particularly popular, I saw a lot of behaviorally problematic pugs and puggles. I saw the same thing with doodles. Labs were somewhat before my time in veterinary medicine, but I would expect the same basic population effect to apply.
A popular dog type can simultaneously be very common and have a lot of poorly bred, poorly socialized, or poorly managed individuals within its population.
Do problem dogs have these issues because they are pit bulls?
No. Behavioral problems are not inherently tied to being a pit bull-type dog.
Breed can be one factor in a dog's behavior, particularly when we're talking about specific tendencies that have been selected for over generations in a purebred dog. But behavior is also influenced by early socialization, environment, learning history, management, health, and the individual dog's temperament.
A dog's appearance doesn't tell us enough about that individual to make a meaningful behavioral assessment.
Should there be stricter regulations on pit bull adoption and a lower threshold for behavioral euthanasia?
I don't see a good reason to make euthanasia or adoption decisions based primarily on appearance.
If a dog is dangerous or genuinely unsuitable for adoption, then we should absolutely be willing to make difficult decisions based on its individual behavior and qol.
But applying a lower threshold simply because a dog looks like a pit bull-type dog means euthanizing dogs who may be perfectly safe and adoptable. While at the same time, it doesn't necessarily address the dogs who actually present serious behavioral risks.
Is there a place in society for dogs from fighting bloodlines?
Yes, although I think this is somewhat separate from the broader discussion about "pit bulls."
Dogs have existed in working roles that involved aggression toward other animals, and some bloodlines were deliberately selected for fighting. That history is relevant when we're talking about genetics and behavioral tendencies.
But we shouldn't automatically assume that a dog identified as a "pit bull" comes from a fighting bloodline. Most dogs being labeled pit bulls in shelters are mixed-breed dogs, and many have no meaningful connection to dog fighting whatsoever. They were not bred for fighting, were not trained for fighting, and may have no fighting ancestry that can actually be established.
Ultimately, I think the more useful question is not "What was this dog's breed historically used for?" but "What is this individual dog actually like?"
Breed history can provide context. It shouldn't replace an assessment of the individual dog.
Thank you for the detailed responses. I have to push back on your initial point about population size though. Every source I’ve located indicates that pitbulls make up around 6 percent of the US dog population - though arguably up to 20 percent depending on on the definition of pitbull. With that in mind, stats I found regarding shelter dog populations, estimated pitbulls to constitute 40-60 percent of American shelter demographics. This is not a proportionate ratio, so why do you theorize the over representation in shelter environments?
I think the 6% figure is where I would push back lol There really isn't a reliable national census of dogs by breed/type, and “pit bull” isn't a consistently defined category. Depending on whether you're counting only APBTs, or also AmStaffs, American Bulldogs, Bull Terriers, American Bullies, pit-looking mixed breeds, etc., you can get radically different numbers.
I also wouldn't assume that shelter visual IDs give us a clean denominator. A genetic study of 919 shelter dogs from two U.S. shelters found pit-bull-type ancestry in about 27–31% of the dogs, using a fairly explicit definition that included American Staffordshire Terrier, American Bulldog, Bull Terrier, and Staffordshire Bull Terrier ancestry. Another shelter study found that staff identified 52% of dogs as pit-bull-type, while DNA testing identified only 21%—which illustrates just how subjective the category can be.
So I don't think we can confidently say “pit bulls are 6% of the U.S. dog population, therefore 40–60% in shelters represents X amount of overrepresentation.” We don't have a sufficiently reliable national denominator for that calculation.
What I do think is well supported is that pit-bull-type dogs are disproportionately represented in many shelter populations. The more interesting question is why. Housing restrictions are one documented factor, but so are breeding, the number of dogs being produced, owner economic status, difficulty placing these dogs once surrendered, breed stigma, restrictions on insurance/housing, and the fact that a dog labeled a “pit bull” in a shelter can encompass a huge range of actual genetic backgrounds.
So I'd be much more interested in discussing those mechanisms than treating 6% as an established fact. The denominator itself is considerably less settled than that number makes it sound.
A big part of the answer is simply population size. Pit bull-type dogs make up a very large portion of the overall U.S. dog population. We see this reflected in data from dog DNA companies, rabies registrations, and, on a smaller scale, veterinary practices.
If a type of dog makes up a larger percentage of the dogs in the country, we're naturally going to see more of them entering shelters as well.
If I'm reading correctly, here you're confidently saying not only that there's a lot of pit bulls, but that the number of pit bulls makes up a large portion of the overall dogs in the country. Pit bulls being the numerator and total dogs being the denominator.
I think the 6% figure is where I would push back lol There really isn't a reliable national census of dogs by breed/type
So I don't think we can confidently say “pit bulls are 6% of the U.S. dog population, therefore 40–60% in shelters represents X amount of overrepresentation.” We don't have a sufficiently reliable national denominator for that calculation.
And if I'm reading this correctly, you countered your own assertation by saying that we don't actually know how many pit bulls there are in the country, or how many total dogs there are in the country.
Maybe 6% is the number for purebred pitbulls. But pitbull is the most common breed picked up by embark, the most reputable dog dna testing company out there. 15% of all dogs embarked have some percentage of APBT in them. And embark is one that breaks the pitbull breeds into their categories, amstaff and american bully are essentially the same thing, so when you add the occurrences of those to that 15% figure. That’s a lot of pitbull! Most people should just assume if they get a shelter mutt in the US it probably has some pitbull in it.
I do think I have a valuable perspective on this, I’m a shelter volunteer, I own a Pit Bull mix, but I also support BSL (not breed bans) in the form of mandatory S/N for Pit Bull type dogs that aren’t registered show dogs.
I think a lot of breeds (and mixes) could benefit from mandatory S/N laws.
Unfortunately there are so many bad bully breeders out there. And while ABPTs and staffy’s have the ability to be pretty healthy dogs, there are simultaneously XL bullies and pocket XL bullies and what not that are being bred to be so muscular they can no longer walk. Which is not only completely inhumane for the dogs themselves, but also means that most of these dogs are not being bred for temperament.
I saw on at my job that everyone else was fawning over. I’m sorry but she looked like a stunted chimpanzee. Her legs were so bowed, her skin was disastrous, her gait was terrible. I wanted to cry from how horrible she has it meanwhile everyone else thinks it’s the cutest thing ever.
A lot of them are intentionally inbred too. I overheard a client proudly telling someone how inbred his were.
Mandatory spay neuter on pretty much any and all dogs that don't have clean bills of health with good conformation. Too many people with two random dogs just letting them f*ck for a quick buck.
FWIW, I'm a trainer, and do specialized work with dogs who have fear, reactivity, and aggression toward unfamiliar people. The vast majority of the dogs I see are herding breeds, mostly Aussies/Aussie mixes, with a lot of border collies and ACDs, plus GSDs. Almost never pits. I see pits frequently in my other offerings, and there are plenty of them in the area, but they seem to be disproportionately unlikely to present with stranger-directed aggression.
Do you think there is also some level of selection bias in that reactive and aggressive pits can be over represented in populations that don’t hire trainers?
Sure! But not by that much--I see dog-dog reactivity clients as well, and would say I see pit-type dogs there at nearly the % at which they occur in the population. So the pitty owners are seeking me out, just not for this problem.
There is also selection bias in size of dog--I rarely see small dogs, because people don't see their behavior as problematic. And I am more likely to see dogs from nippy breeds (herding, working) than less nippy breeds that may bite fewer times but more seriously.
I will also say that I've run a puppy play and train group for several years now, and the pits are often dog-dog rude/have dog-dog issues, but they're rarely nervy about strangers.
I will say, when I see pitbull type dogs or mixes I’m generally not worried about myself. They weren’t bred to be human aggressive, in fact that was very much against the intention. However, I do get worried if my dog is near one for the same reason, they were bred to be dog and animal aggressive. I’ve never had a bully breed be outwardly aggressive to me, low arousal levels though which is always troublesome. But it’s other animals, I don’t trust them around them. The opposite of how people getting herding and guarding breeds ignore their human wariness and propensity to attack strangers. I have a GSD, she’s well bred, she’s dog with other dogs and small animals, she’s incredibly wary of people. Not aggressive or reactive, but she’s noticeably more “on guard” with strange people.
Edit: I will say, that’s part of why I got a GSD. I wanted and expected a dog that wasn’t overly people oriented and generally wouldn’t seek out other people. As such she views me and my fiancé as her world, anybody we like and have around is somebody she trusts and also attempts to keep eyes on. But we are her world.
-pitbulls and pit mixes are the majority of dogs that fill the shelters because they are highly misunderstood. people who have no business getting a pit, are the ones taking them home as puppies, then returning them at 2-3 yrs old, imo usually when they show signs of animal aggression. people see the sweet, loving, amazing side that pit bulls exhibit around people, and think that they are sweet all around. in my personal experience, these dogs are huge “people dogs” but not always “other dog dogs”. they get jealous, and don’t want to share their person with another. around 2-3 yrs old is when they mature into adults and hormones are fluctuating regardless of spay/ neuter. a pitbull that is 3 months old, will not act the same around dogs when they are 3 years old. around that age is when they need the most attention and care from their handler. they need reassurance and guidance, and someone who will stick through any potential tough times. sadly this is usually when people give up. they’ll see one instance of dog aggression, think their dog has “an issue”, and that they need a different home. in reality, boundaries just need to be laid in place from day one. practice makes perfect with these dogs. they need a strong determined handler who is confident in their abilities.
-pits and pit mixes are strong. very strong. they are like literal weapons when/if necessary. they have intense “drive” and when they set their mind to something, they will accomplish it. they are also very smart and intuitive. in my experience they tend to be selective with animals. a behavioral yorkie isn’t a big deal, because what damage can they really do? a behavioral pit can be life or death. i think due to their sheer power, their behavior becomes more of a topic of discussion than it usually would with another breed.
-it depends. i think it’s a bit of both. i think naive, reckless, irresponsible people get pits bc “the dog is cute”, “the dog is cool”, “the dog is badass”, and they don’t factor in the seriously intense traits that need to be taken seriously from day 1. i think someone having a “dog park pitbull” should be viewed as the major exception to the rule. pitbulls are too strong to not take them as seriously as possible. i do not believe they are the type of dog that you have wandering around at a kids birthday. not a dog you take to dog beach. not a dog you take to a cafe. of course there’s exceptions as i stated, but those types of dogs are very rare. and usually they belong to people who know what they are doing.
- i do not believe everyone should be able to own a pit bull. in a way, i think they should be treated like weapons. you should need to take courses on them in order to get one. then again, how horrific would it be to have the government overseeing dog ownership? probably pretty annoying. so i’m not sure.
-fighting bloodlines would have the genetics tracing back for generations. it would be interesting to see how many shelter pits have a legacy as such.
In Germany, pit bulls and other bully breeds end up in shelters much more often because adopting them can be difficult and expensive.
You have to pay a dog tax for certain breeds classified as dangerous, which can amount to €800–€2,600 per year. You also cannot travel with them to every country. Many of these dogs are illegally bred or imported from other countries.
The dogs also have to pass a temperament test before they can be adopted from a shelter.
They are not the breeds that bite most often—German Shepherds and Dachshunds are reported to bite more frequently. However, pit bulls and other bully breeds are associated with a disproportionately high number of fatal attacks. Around 70% of fatal dog attacks are attributed to fighting-type dogs.
Many pit bull mixes are labeled as “Labrador mixes” by shelters or owners to make them easier to adopt and avoid higher taxes
In Germany, pit bulls and other bully breeds end up in shelters much more often because adopting them can be difficult and expensive.
You have to pay a dog tax for certain breeds classified as dangerous, which can amount to €800–€2,600 per year. You also cannot travel with them to every country. Many of these dogs are illegally bred or imported from other countries.
The dogs also have to pass a temperament test before they can be adopted from a shelter.
They are not the breeds that bite most often—German Shepherds and Dachshunds are reported to bite more frequently. However, pit bulls and other bully breeds are associated with a disproportionately high number of fatal attacks. Around 70% of fatal dog attacks are attributed to fighting-type dogs.
Many pit bull mixes are labeled as “Labrador mixes” by shelters or owners to make them easier to adopt.
Similarly, breed-specific bans in rental homes/apartments are a big cause of homeless pits and “lab mixes” in the US.
If you have limited funds and need to find a place in a specific area in a short amount of time, it is very difficult to find a rental that allows any pets, but even “pet-friendly” rentals will often have size or breed restrictions that ban pits, Rottweilers, huskies, chows and other breeds designated by insurers to be the most high risk.
So when a family needs to move and they have 2 big pits no one in their lives can take, they end up on the side of the road or in a shelter.
"Pitbull" is not a breed. But I'll use it here for ease of reference.
I believe there is a direct correlation between socioeconomics and pitbulls. They are less likely to be spayed or neutered and litters are sold off for quick cash. They end up with people who have no resources and/or no interest in training them. Then they end up as strays or surrenders.
I don't understand why you're asking if problem dogs have problems because they are pitbulls? That seems like a weird feedback loop. Any dog, any breed can have behavioral problems. AND ITS ALMOST ALWAYS THE OWNERS FAULT.
There is absolutely a place for dogs with fighting bloodlines. What I didn't see anyone else mention is that fighting bloodlines are bred to fight OTHER ANIMALS. Fighting dogs that showed an aggression towards humans were culled.
Pitbulls have tested better than labs and Golden's on temperament. People, including well-meaning people, consistently fail these dogs and it's so much easier to blame the dog than the owner.
The idea that fighting dogs with human aggression, or “manbiters,” were culled is only partially true. Dogmen are largely motivated by ego and greed. If a dog was winning and bit a human, they’d often keep fighting it, and breeding it. There are actually well known historical manbiters that were bred.
It’s concerning to me to suggest that not showing aggression towards humans is ok, as long as they ONLY show aggression towards other dogs. Is this to say it’s not problematic for one dog owner to live near another dog that would like to attack theirs?
I fear you’re referring to the ATTS regarding temperment testing? If so, that’s not an accurate conclusion.
I completely agree that there is a relationship between socio economic instability and pitbulls and the intersection of that leading to irresponsible ownership. That said, I think it’s disingenuous to say that practically every problem dog is the owners fault. I feel like that’s such a shallow argument that does a disservice to both dog and human. You can’t really believe that every single pitbull bite situation is due to a bad owner.
In terms of fighting bloodlines: yes - the idea was to breed dog aggressive fighting dogs with unrelenting drive, but the characteristics that lead to such behaviors often yield peripheral traits that are unsuitable for pet homes. Additionally, many documented gamebred APBTs with human aggression were heavily reproduced.
I don’t think it’s productive to go down the “pitbulls tested better on X, Y, Z metrics of friendliness than bunnies and baby birds” type discussion. Many of those temperament tests are dubious and it’s basically what-about-ism that doesn’t relate to the initial topic.
I work in rescue and when I read responses saying that they don't tend to have behavioral issues at the rate of other dogs, I can only assume there's a location-dependent aspect to this. There is a fair amount of underground dog fighting in my area and those genes do seem to be prevalent in our pit bull type dog population. Mix that with rampant backyard breeding whether due to negligance or in an attempt to get certain colors or sizes with no consideration for temperament and you will see behavioral issues. These are large terriers. It shouldn't be surprising.
Most I've worked with have not been dangerous. Many haven't been dog-aggressive. I personally know of one who helps raise Pomeranian puppies and another who helps raise orphaned kittens. I've also known some lazy Huskies, unintelligent herding dogs, and Beagles with high metabolisms.
My own first dog was a pit/hound mix. He displayed zero hound traits. His temperament was what you read about with some fighting APBTs. Very easy for a human to handle. I could inspect each of his teeth, trim his nails, etc. He was extremely dog-aggressive. He was the kind of dog you have to choke out to stop once he was engaged. It wouldn't surprise me if one of his parents was an actual fighting dog who somehow let romance override that when they came across a loose hound. I've seen that in plenty of dogs in this area. I read the profiles at other shelters and rescues and see a lot of "no other dogs, no cats, no small children". Makes sense, given their genetics. It's like saying a Great Pyrenees needs a secure fence. Breed traits are a real thing.
I don't quite buy into the "shelters don't know what a pit bull is, they just call any big-headed dog a pit bull". Yes, if you mix a Jack Russell Terrier with a Bullmastiff, you may indeed fool me. Most of the time, it's pretty obvious when a dog has a high percentage of APBT, AmStaff, AmBully, etc., and those dog breeds are closely-related.
Why are pitbulls and pit mixes the majority type of dog that fills the shelters?
They're commonly available for free or very little money. People don't understand the breed(s) and aren't prepared for raising and caring for them responsibly. People hear that they are just misunderstood underdogs and nanny dogs, etc. and are surprised when their dog grows up to behave aggressively towards their cats or other dogs. They don't expect the level of energy they can have. Breed restrictions mean it's hard to rent when you own a pit bull type dog. It's harder to have multiples of dogs that have a tendency towards dog aggression.
why are pitbulls and pit mixes seemingly the majority of behavioral problem dogs?
Large terriers being bred and owned irresponsibly is the main reason. We've had lots of news stories in this area involving an obvious pit bull type dog attacking and killing or severely injuring human beings in the past year. My Aussie was bred to herd livestock. He also likes to herd cats, other dogs and would attempt to herd chaotic children if I allowed it. His genes tell him to herd and make order out of chaos, but there's no magic gene that tells him "only sheep and cows". Labradors retrieve a ball, despite it not being a bird. It shouldn't be surprising when dogs originally bred to fight and kill other dogs sometimes point that in another direction, particularly when there's so little careful breeding happening. Make that double when people start mixing them with Mastiff-type dogs for size.
and perhaps the nucleus of the question: do the problem dogs have these issues because they are pitbulls?
Do Beagles howl because they're trained to? Some people find that to be a behavioral problem. My Aussie isn't good with children because he wants to herd them when they act like children. The kind of behavioral problem a dog has often does relate to what they were originally bred to do. Terriers were bred to kill things, so it stands to reason that their behavioral problems would relate to that.
should there be more stringent regulations on pitbull adoption and lower threshold for behavioral euthanasia?
I think there should be more education about what behavioral traits these dogs can have. Some of them truly can go to just about anyone because they lack the aggression issues, but others do need an educated and responsible owner. Behavioral euthanasia should be a judgment made regarding the individual dog in question. An absolutely furious Chihuahua can be owned safely. A large aggressive dog is a different level of risk. I don't think we should be adopting out an aggressive dog of any breed that can cause serious harm to people or other dogs.
is there a place in society for dogs from fighting bloodlines?
Not in normal pet society, no. I loved my first dog beyond all reason, but I had no business with a dog like that. I was very responsible with him and it only took one moment of imperfection in his 17 years for him to severely harm a stray dog. The only thing keeping every other dog in my vicinity safe was me being perfect, and that's not a fair thing to impose upon society.
In my area at least, our shelters are full of pits because of housing restrictions. Most apartments/HOAs don't allow them, so they just cycle through the system.
Terriers were bred with a high prey drive and if you don't know how to socialize them it's likely they'll get reactive or aggressive. The thing is, this can be an issue with any dog. Bite force is the biggest factor. Chihuahuas are pretty high in the aggression ranking, it's just that their bite doesn't do much damage.
They're very people-oriented and can be the sweetest dogs if they're raised properly. A lot of them just end up neglected which feeds into the stereotype.
Your observation checks out. In Houston several years ago and probably still today, the breeds with the most biting incidents included the usual ones - pits, German shepherds, Dobermans, then chihuahua!
Yup! Also taking into account that a lot of Chihuahua bites are not reported because they cover a small area and usually don't break skin. They're a lot more likely to nip and bite out of fear than most dogs, including pits!
That implies that you can "socialize out" prey drive. I'm not fond of the implication that every adult dog with prey drive or dog aggression was improperly socialized. The connection to their terrier heritage is that it's a genetic drive. Sometimes training and socialization can contain that and other times it can't.
Bit force is important, but it's not the only factor. I'd question if it's even the biggest factor. Most dogs can break skin. Most dogs over 15-20 could do pretty significant damage. Most dogs over 40-50 pounds could be deadly.
There's issues of bite inhibition, or the individual dog's willingness to put it's full force into a bite, and bite style. Bulldogs were historically used as catch dogs, so they can be more likely to grip and not release. Terriers were bred to shake and kill things. A bite, even with less force, is more devastating if the dog won't release and/or shakes and tears. A bite with greater force that is a snap and release can actually do much less, though obviously none of us want to experience either one.
You can, but you’re not necessarily eliminating the drive itself. And where does that leave the dogs that are well socialized and still have high prey drive. Are we going to assume they were socialized incorrectly?
I really think you should re read the paragraph you're criticizing. I said that they are bred for a high prey drive, and it's likely that they will be reactive and aggressive if not socialized. It's a factor meaning there are multiple components involved.
Can you still get the flu after getting the shot? Lowering the risk does not mean complete elimination. It just means lowering the chance. You're arguing a point I didn't say.
Some of the most heavily reproduced gamebred APBTs were documented as human aggressive, though. The notion that dogmen culled human aggression just isn’t true if the dog won. For example, I think Zebo is one of the most bred APBTs of all time and he was a documented “man eater”.
I don’t think this means all pits are dangerous to humans, but I think it’s important real world data as it relates to bite risk on humans.
I agree that a lot of the bully mixes today are super unstable and poorly bred.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say they were bred to be exceptionally friendly towards humans. Saying they won’t get freaked out if your kid drops a pan or pokes them is downright dangerous and tiptoes right up to the nanny dog myth. This is a situation where “any dog can bite” actually rings true. Kid shouldn’t be poking dogs. That’s how bites happen, regardless of breed.
It’s probably more accurate to say that dog aggression and human aggression are two different traits and, unlike guarding breeds, they weren’t bred to be wary of humans. Many non guarding breeds have affinity towards humans. That’s why we call them man’s best friend. So, while we didn’t actively instill them with wariness of humans, I don’t believe dogmen went out of their way to make them friendly towards humans either.
As someone else stated, the practice of culling manbiters has been overstated. More than one manbiter was fought and bred. One of the Colby family’s nephews was even killed by the dogs on his yard.
Bully type dogs have strong genes. The big blocky head comes through often in dogs that are only a small percentage pit. My dog has 30% American Bulldog and a big blocky head comes head, even with all the other DNA being prominent. Some people think he’s a pit mix (and some may argue he is because they consider all bully breed to be pits). A big part of pit bulls being a “majority” is that there are a number of breeds and mixes lumped into that majority. Poodle mixes don’t get lumped together as often because people don’t even always know when they’re looking at one, especially if they’re wire haired.
IMO until people stop lumping several breeds together (American Pit Bull Terror, English/Staffordshire Terrier, American Bulldog, American Bully and all the types like XL vs toad line) it’s an impossible conversation to have. Idk how you can compare the pocket and toadie bullies with French Bulldog and English Bulldog in them who can barely breathe to a purebred muscular gamebred APBT. But a Bulldog mix will be lumped in with the pit mixes as long as they have short hair, despite the fact that they have wildly different temperaments.
Pit bulls (Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, and American Bully) are big dogs with big mouths, which makes them physically more dangerous just because they have bigger teeth and more strength.
Their ancestors were bred for hunting boars, wild cattle, and bears for hundreds of years. Like, back to the 1300s. The behavior the hunters bred for was to bite down hard on the animal and not let go until the hunter came and dispatched the animal. Later in the 1800s they were bred to do the same thing to bulls/other dogs for entertainment fights.
(This genetic behavioral history goes very deep in dogs. Italian Greyhounds were originally bred to hunt small game like rabbits, but they've been bred exclusively as companion dogs for 250+ years. And yet, my Italian Greyhound chases squirrels across our yard all day, and would chase them around the neighborhood all day if she wasn't fenced in.)
The show line and companion line pit bull dogs have been bred for those purposes for like 90 years. American bullies only like 40 years.
Of course, tolerance of humans is important for both types of dogs. Hunters and pet owners both don't want their dog to attack them.
I think this history is why we have the public perception that pit bulls are aggressive and dangerous. Most of the time they're chill with their owners, but they are aggressive around other dogs and animals. When that aggression DOES result in a bite on a human, because that's inevitable, the bite is almost always going to be BAD, because they're big dogs bred for hundreds of years to not let go, even if they're in pain. When a dog bite is bad it's going to result in medical care, police reports, maybe lawsuits, etc. It's recorded. They have the physical capacity to do major harm and the behavioral tendency to bite and not let go.
Smaller terriers, like the Jack Russel or Rat Terrier are also known for their aggression and attempts to bite other animals and humans. The difference is, these dogs are small enough that most people can break the bite. The best way to break a terrier bite is to cut off their oxygen. It's hard to do that to a huge pit bull that's attacking you. Unless they're very frail, most adults can get a hand around a Jack Russel's throat to break the bite. These bites obviously result in less damage because the dogs are smaller and the bite can be broken faster. Less likely to require hospital visits and police reports. Less likely to be recorded. Like "Jack Russel bite requires 10 stitches at an urgent care" doesn't make a headline. "Pit bull bite requires hospitalization and facial reconstructive surgery" does make a headline. Smaller terriers have the tendency to bite, but not the physical capacity to do the harm a pit bull can.
Other dogs, like herders, might be "nippy," because they were bred to herd bigger animals by biting quickly at their heels. These dogs weren't bred to do damage with their bites. For the most part, they don't bite in ways that result in big injuries. Those bites usually aren't recorded. They lack the behavioral tendency to bite and hold on, even if the bigger herding breeds, like Australian shepherds, have large mouths that could more damage if the dog was behaviorally inclined to do so.
So when we take their size and breed history, we can see why pit bulls get the reputation that they have. Also there are just a fuck ton of pit bulls for reasons other people have mentioned, so that means more reports and headlines. Some people are okay with accepting the risk of a big dog that probably won't bite them, but if they do, it's bad. Personally, I would never take the risk of having a huge dog with that kind of breed history. I know American Bullies are specifically bred to be companion dogs, but only for about 40 years. I don't think you can counteract hundreds of years of breeding for aggressive behavioral traits in just a few generations. Not enough for me to feel safe with one as an adult human, and especially not around kids and small animals. I wouldn't adopt a smaller terrier into a house with kids or small animals either, but I'd have one in a household with just adults.
All that being said, I respect that many pit bulls are good, loving dogs. However, with their genetic history and capacity to do damage, I do support breed specific legislation like they have in the UK. There are dozens of other dog breeds that don't have the combined behavioral tendency to bite and physical capacity for damage that makes pit bulls so dangerous. Other breeds should probably be included in these laws, I'm just less familiar with breeds that aren't common in the US. I don't really think they have a place in our society anymore. We've all basically agreed that dog fighting is an evil thing to do. I guess if you're hunting feral pigs then a pit bull can make sense, but how many of us are hunting feral pigs? Certainly no one I see in American cities/suburbs is using their pit bull for that.
I don't want all the pit bulls currently alive to be euthanized all at once. I support the UK model of having dogs that are alive right now allowed to live out their lives, while also being neutered and having strict leash laws. Anything a pit bull can do as a companion dog, a different breed can also do, while being less risky to own.
I've really enjoyed reading other people's perspectives on this, especially those who work at shelters. You've raised some points I hadn't considered before.
I've previously owned ovcharka, they were bred to take on a bear single handedly. A siberian bear, not your little American grizzlies.
They are renowned for their guardian abilities and are not typically fond of other people in the way that cane corsos are not fond of other people but ovcharka are too smart and too big to care about social conditioning. You don't want to make them unhappy.
Nobody bat a bloody eyelid, people just wanted to constantly take selfies with him. 'OH MY GOD IT'S SO CUTE!!!' And he weighed more than my wolfhound hybrid does now when he was six months.
Let's not pretend that people dumping all over pitbulls has anything to do with risk.
Because if that were true nobody would own shepherds. Or mastiffs. Or wolf dogs. Other dogs have just as much potential for violence and have advanced needs but nobody cares about those.
They aren't owned by idiots nearly as often as pit bulls are, though Cane Corsos are starting to compete in that arena and that's a nightmare. I was surprised to discover that we have a few Caucaisan Shepherd breeders in my state. We don't see them at dog parks or in shelters. They aren't on the news for killing an elderly woman who was tending her garden. There are breeds that would be FAR more dangerous than a pit bull if they were as popular. I want to see pit bull type dogs gatekept and owned like those breeds are.
Okay, then let's stop hating on the dogs and hate on the idiots. And actually push for some kind of change. Like strict dog licensing.
The bigger the risk, the more expensive the license and the stricter the terms. I'd have happily paid through my every orifice for my ovcharka. It will also weed out those who really can't afford to take proper care of large breeds and ensure that they only go into homes that are willing to invest into the dogs' care and welfare.
But we can't talk about that (at least here in the UK) without somebody screaming about classism and discrimination of 'vulnerable' parts of society. Don't blame the dogs because people are unwilling to stand up against a bunch of bullies.
Oh trust me, I do put the blame 100% on people. I've adored many a problematic pit bull, including my own. We have been harming these dogs since the beginning. They have always deserved better than we've given them.
Thank you. Thank you, I'm sorry if I came across as full of impotent rage (I am lmao). Thank you for also being there for all the bullies, especially the problematic ones.
I mean, every type of ovcharka is illegal in my country, and they’re a pretty rare breed overall. I’d be sounding the alarm as well if I saw a shelter post one, but since they aren’t massively backyard bred that (thankfully) isn’t happening. The chances of Edith, the 80 year old, finding one at a shelter are close to zero in the US as well.
Most people don’t know anything about obscure breeds, you can’t exactly blame them for seeing a big fluffy dog as cute. 😅
I am not a breeder and haven’t done extensive research into aggressive breeds. I just know from 2 similar experiences that I don’t believe their aggressiveness is due to the pet’s owner and care.
I’m sure poor ownership can contribute to their aggressiveness, but in the 2 incidents I witnessed, the dogs had loving and attentive owners. So their aggression seemed to be more of a matter of their instinct taking over.
With that said, my dad’s cat also killed our family chihuahua so freak accidents can occur no matter the breed, genetics and such.
I feel sorry for pitts, they’re just a risk I am not willing to take.
I have volunteered in the Toronto shelter system for a number of years. Contrary to what you say, bully breeds don’t seem to dominate the shelter system here. However, I suspect you may be correct regarding the southern USA.
I have been bitten a number of times in the shelters, but never by a bully breed. In fact, the dogs most likely to look for a cuddle have been bullys. Sadly, the biters are almost always just really frightened.
Animal rescue is complicated. Most of the small, “cute” dogs get fostered, so the shelters seem over-represented with dog breeds or mixes that are considered more difficult or intimidating. Shelters are not good environments for most dogs, but my impression is that the bully breeds handle them better than most. The GSDs and huskies seem the least tolerant of the shelter environment.
There are a variety of breeds that are by reputation difficult to manage and hard to train or require very specific exercise and stimulation regimens. However, I’ve never seen professionals refer to bullys as belonging to this group.
In full disclosure, I have 2 dogs: a pure-bred lab and a lab/husky rescue, but I wouldn’t hesitate to adopt a bully.
Very popular impulse purchase dog. Very popular "Let's have puppies!" Dog.
They are terriers, all terriers are/were created/bred to kill, could be mice and Rats, could be other dogs. That cute Scotty will kill your cat in 1 shake. The killing of vermin helped people have enough food.
Pitts/Staffordshire Terriers can have issues due to breeding and/or how they were raised.
The high percentage of Pitts and mixes in pounds already has them at a high euthanasia rate.
With the right handler there is a place for any dog. If you get out in the wings with something like an Ovcharka, the handlers with the capability and places would very limited. That is a dog that is best off away from humans, just hanging with its livestock, and fighting brown bears.
Pitbulls were bred for bloodsports. Sorry, but that’s one of the main reasons, no matter how many people try to plug their ears and deny it. They’re a VERY strong and powerful group of breeds that have a high gameness gene. Funnily enough, well bred pits don’t have human aggression. Since their original purpose was bullbaiting and dogfighting, human aggression wouldn’t be beneficial since their owners would need to recall them or break them up. The issue is, though, that a vast majority of people who breed dogs (ESPECIALLY people who breed dangerous dogs like pits, huskies, Belgians, etc) are stupid and irresponsible. (I’d honestly go as far as to say people who breed dogs who purposefully breed out of standard and don’t have RIGOROUS health/genetic testing are horrific animal abusers, whether they know it or not.) So you end up with a lot of idiots who poorly breed dogs that end up with behavioral issues and intense anxiety.
TLDR, you take a big, strong dog with a very high prey drive, backyard breed its genetics to the point of crippling anxiety/misdirected aggression, compound it with exploitative people who breed for the wrong reasons AND people who are delusional about the breed, and you have a recipe for absolute disaster.
My first question is: how do you define pit bull? It's not a breed.
My second question is: what is the base of your claim that they have the majority of behavioural issues?
In my country the most fatalities are caused by german shepherds. That's one specific breed. Ppl don't question the breed.
German Shepherds used to be a hated breed, labeled as aggressive. Same for Rottweiler and doberman.
America has statistics on dog bite fatalities with pit bulls, but they are IDed by bystanders and it's not a breed, so it could mean anything.
All bulldogs were bred for bloodsports, including the french bulldog, but no one is worried about them. Depending on the definition of pit bull, frenchies are pit bulls.
It's just a mess.
When Dalmatians became popular, shelters got flooded. When shiba inus got popular, shelters got flooded. When Huskies became popular, shelters got flooded.
Many bully breeds are strong and have guard dog traits. They aren't easy, but they aren't more dangerous than other guard dog breeds.
Can confirm, I've got a cane corso x mal and people think he's super pretty and badass and always want to pet him... nope lmao. He takes his guard duties very seriously.
On the flip side, I used to have an English bull terrier x pit who was the daftest, most loving animal put on gods' earth and people would cross the road to get away from her.
I've even had it out with my husband, because he gets twitchy whenever we run into friends who've got their bullies with them. I've said to him 'you do realize that we've got the special forces of dogs living in one of the bedrooms but you're dragging me away from Cocoa because you think she looks scary!?'
I'm legally blind but I've had fewer incidents with bullies than other breeds. Particularly shepherds/mallies because they don't like people in dark glasses. I have ripped my glasses off several times to de-escalate situations, and it's near always shepherds although I did have one with an American bulldog but that was a rescue situation.
And yes, I have had incidents with bullies of various kinds because I've worked and still work in rescue although obviously the kind of stuff I can do has changed. But have I had more or worse incidents with bullies? Absolutely not.
We had an almost 180lb great dane cross something come in. He liked to launch himself at you in mid air. One session and I handed him over because I can't play blind dodge-dane with his giant ass. Application after application.
We had a very calm bully lurcher (the most mistreated and abandoned dogs in the UK) come through who I adored. If I'd had room at the time I would have taken him in a heartbeat. Super chill, great with cats and kids, just wanted to curl up with someone and be loved.
Zero applications.
Then I'm left standing around holding a giant mess of a great dane because people keep thinking 'oh he looks like a cool dog' but then they bring him back because he's a wrecking ball. And do the supervisors listen to the trainers? You must be joking.
I'm so sick of hundreds and hundreds of dogs being PTS and never being given a chance and it's partly because every time someone brings up dog aggression, we end up talking about pitbulls.
I love great danes, but all I have encountered are wrackingballs.
Yes to all of that! I have seen so many ppl getting dogs without even learning that they need daily walks.
And ppl stuck to what they like, what is convenient and if they find someone who kept the type of animal for a long time, or somehow works with that type of animals, who agrees, they stick to it hard.
Like alpha theory...
It has been debunked by the person creating it and it was about a different species, but ppl who like that sentiment apply it to humans and dogs.
Now what happens when you raise very strong dogswitth basically aggression?
It's a mystery.
I answered this earlier in the post, and while I agree it isn’t perfect, I think we have to accept that “pitbull” has become a colloquial umbrella term for a type of dog that displays uniform phenotypic traits and shared fighting dog lineage. I will also acknowledge that I’m in the American south, which is likely the epicenter of the shelter pitbull epidemic - and we also likely have the highest concentration of actual gamebred pits as dogfighting certainly exists here.
Regarding danger comparative to other guard dog breeds, I think that’s an interesting question but it’s worth noting that pitbulls ARENT guard dog breeds. They were bred for fighting other dogs to the death, this is very different than guarding breeds in my opinion.
Regarding your point about German shepherds having the highest bite stats in your country - I must ask the same question: why do you accept that it’s German shepherds not shepherd mixes or shepherd lookalikes? I always found this to be a bit of a double standard on the pit side: If a pitbull is mentioned in a bite statistic, it becomes a point of contention about the identification but I never hear this about shepherds, Rottweilers, etc.
But what are those anyway?
Every state of every country defines them differently. Which actually turns moving from one state to another in my country into a gamble, if you have a dog that might be interpreted as a pitbull, because not even the law defines it clearly in all states.
The French bulldog was bred from bloodsport dogs.
German Shepherds were bred for herding sheep, then bred to kill ppl, then bred for police work, then for companions.
Many bullybreeds have been bred to kill rats, bait bulls, kill dogs, guard properties, companionship. That applies to the unofficial american pitbull terrier as well.
Some mastiffs are sometimes thrown in the mix and partially part of the bully family. Many of those are guard dogs.
So defining Pitbull matters a lot.
Because German Shepherd is one breed. Pitbull refers to 1-10+ breeds and sometimes mixes. Like mixes actually get counted as Pitbull, notmmix.
So even if you had statistic where every dog was IDed correctly, there would either be no Pitbull, because it's an undefined umbrella term, or you would compare 1-10breeds+mixes to singular breeds.
If a bite fatality statistic lists "Pitbull" but otherwise only singular breeds, it's already messed up.
It's like listing " shepherds " instead of german shepherd and comparing it to Rottweiler and doberman.
If a statistic would list the singular breeds then it becomes compareable.
Bystander Id is a problem, because ppl tend to id "aggressive dogs" they see briefly as "aggressive breeds", so currently they will id an agentino, or canecorso, great dane, sometimes even a labrador as pitbull.
When the shepherd had s bad rep, most dogs attacking were ided as german shepherds.
I think you have a valid point but I also feel like it’s a bit tangential to my original post. We can agree that pitbull is an umbrella term that encompasses a fair amount of dogs and it’s not just a single breed. The issues referenced in my original post still aren’t changed. In an apples to apples comparison, we could group all herding and sporting type dogs together and (for America) their fatal bite stats would be a fraction of the fatal bite stats from pitbull type dogs. So we’re still in the same place. The question is why? I don’t think the answer is because pitbull is an umbrella term. Why are those types of dogs covered in that umbrella term problematic?
If you can't define what a pitbull is, you can't determine how many fatal bites are theirs,
or what the group has in common.
I have briefly looked up fatal biting statistics of the usa just now and the first one said 50+% is mixed breeds.
After that follows Rottweiler at 9%.
German Shepherds 4%.
American pitbull terrier 3%.
So, the reason I want a clear definition of pitbull is so that there is a proper comparison.
Apparently the american pitbull terrier, isn't problematic, at least not more than Rottweiler and german Shepherd.
If that is accurate, your question becomes impossible to answer, since they aren't responsible for the majority of fatal bites.
If they aren't on the top of that list, why would you consider them problematic?
Honestly I think this is a disingenuous argument. If you can’t even acknowledge that pitbull type dogs are responsible for the majority of fatal dog bites in the United States and also compromise a majority of dogs in the shelters, then we are just going to be so far apart to even have the conversation. It’s a red herring to pretend that you don’t know what type of dogs these are yet every other breed is easily identifiable somehow.
I took percentages from a study. How is that disingenuous?
Breeds are define able because they are breeds. A vague group of mixes and breeds no one defines is not define able. That's why you can compare a german shepherd to a stafford terrier.
Also defineable and id able are two different things.
Every single source I can find says that pitbull type dogs are responsible for 60-70 percent of fatal dog bites and comprise 50-60 percent of dogs in urban shelters. Pitbull type dogs refers to a handful of bull and terrier originated breeds. There is always going to be a standard deviation of misidentification with any breed or dog type. Assuming we normalize that error margin across all denominations, the pitbull type dogs still are much more prevalent in these categories.
My post originally was to discuss the reasons for these stats, but if one just hides behind “but what are pitbulls?!” when it’s been defined over and over, then the conversation can’t really progress to anything meaningful.
You couldn't define it. It's not defined and that is part of the problem. You can't properly analyse a group that isn't defined.
It's difficult to find the original studies though. The only source study I found for any statistic started with "this study has not been done by the health institution xy but individual efforts and cannot be taken to determine aggression in breeds, despite what media says". The article said it had been done by Institute xy and was determining aggression. I can't even get the source study for this one.
If you want to discuss the group and it's issues, you have to define the group clearly and question your input.
For example, even the study I show contains multiple bully breeds. If there was a proper source this could be reasonably discussed "why are there so many bully breeds among the top 10 fatality bites by breed?". But this is very different to " 50+% of all fatal bites are made by pit bulls. Why are they so problematic?". After all multiple informations are missing without the source study.
If the presumption is each breed is far more likely to cause fatalities than non bully breeds, that's a completely different discussion, to why so many bully breeds are high difficulty breeds.
So defining what pit bulls are and what the problem is, how true that problem is, is important to actually have the important discussions as for why these problems exist.
I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I feel that I’ve defined pitbull type dogs repeatedly but somehow you won’t accept it. I also think you cherry picked probably the only study (or just random pie chart?) that doesn’t list pitbull type dogs as responsible for 60-70 percent of fatal incidents. I’m not really interested in litigating minutia about identification of every individual types of pitbull breeds as my question related to all of them.
If most human fatalities were caused by dogs with long floppy ears who do a lot of baying, would we really be here arguing that hound dogs didn't cause the most damage? Would we be arguing "Just because it looks like a Beagle doesn't mean it's a Beagle"? "Sure, it was 50% Beagle, but it was also 25% Bloodhound and "15% Treeing Walker Coonhound, so you can't say that hound dogs cause the most fatalities. You guys just see any floppy-eared dog and make assumptions."
What method of identification is used in your country? Seems contradictory that GSD's are identified to the point of "Ppl don't question the breed." while in the US ID'ing a pit type dog becomes nearly impossible.
You seem to mix things up.
My statement that ppl don't question the breed, was that ppl don't ask "why are german shepherds so aggressive? Are they genetically aggressive?".
Ppl don't consider german shepherds aggressive, just dogs with high requirements.
That was also not limited to my country.
The method of IDing depends on the study, not country.
IDing pit bulls is nearly impossible, because they aren't defined. So in each study that says "Pitbull" you have to look up what pit bull means in that study.
And if it's a serious study the breeds under "pitbull" are defined. Would be better if there was a widely accepted umbrella term other than pitbull to reduce the endless obfuscation about pitbulls, apbt's, american bullies, staffies etc. Something like bully-breed dogs, BBD's.
No, changing the name doesn't change anything. Yes, serious studies define them.
And "these five breeds and mixes, compared to singular breeds" makes it rather flashy.
I looked at the first fatality bites study in us that came up googling.
The breeds with the most fatal bites are Rottweilers, followed by german shepherds, followed by american pit bull terrier.
If you sort it by breeds apbt is suddenly not the ultimate toddler killer, but less problematic than a german Shepherd. A breed no one wants to ban and simply aknowledges as a breed with high requirements.
People still know GSDs, Rottweilers and Dobermans can easily be problematic dogs. If their populations grew out of control, we saw incidents involving them spike, and there were irresponsible campaigns aimed at downplaying their risks we see protesting against them again.
Of course, even when those breeds were problematic, we still never had as many fatalities attributed to them. In fact, even during the times people reference them being vilified pit bulls were still responsible for the most deaths.
And yeah, we can’t say that GSDs, Rotties, Dobermans can be visually ID’d, but then when it comes to pit bulls bystander ID is suddenly unreliable. Let’s at least be consistent.
I am consistent.
Compare breed to breed. Not group to breed.
I didn't say doberman can be reliably ided and pit bulls can't. I said pitbull is undefined, doberman is defined.
If a breed is villanized and the is method is bystanders, expect their identification to become over representative.
Exactly. No one wants to ban Rottweilers. They are just accepted as breed with high requirements. So is the Stafford terrier.
The first study to pop up said the Stafford terrier is responsible for 3% and Rottweilers 9% apparently.
So why are ppl saying an undefined group of dogs is more aggressive than any other breed? That group needs to be defined, or it can't be compared and don't compare s group, to a breed.
But if we compare group to group, pitbull type dogs are still problematic and the original questions are still unanswered.
Compare pitbull type dogs to all herding dogs.
Compare pitbull type dogs to all sporting dogs.
Compare pitbull type dogs to all other working dogs.
The pitbull type dogs still represent greater fatal bite statistics no matter how you change the denominator.
That’s why I think the constant debate over analyzing every single type of pitbull type dog is ultimately a useless exercise as it doesn’t answer any questions and brings us to the same place anyway.
One of your criticisms was that pit bulls are identified by bystanders. But you also said GSDs kill the most people in your country. Are we to believe all those GSDs had breed confirmed by DNA, or do you not take issue with them being identified by bystanders?
There’s a reality that most dogs are not pure bred. Most dogs are mixes. It’s quite common to refer to dogs as the most prominent breed or two visually in their mix. Over the years my family has owned a beagle that probably wasn’t a full beagle, multiple labs that weren’t proper labs, a Doberman that almost certainly wasn’t a full Doberman, a border collie that I’m certain had other things in his mix, and a shepherd mix of some sort. I’ve never felt the need to refer to any of them as an undefined mixed breed just because we didn’t have DNA tests. They each looked, and in at least some ways acted, like the breeds I listed.
The breeds commonly accepted as falling under the “pit bull” umbrella are the American Pit Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, and American Bully. They’re closely related genetically, from the same bull and terrier origins. The APBT and AmStaff are essentially the working and show line of the same breed, to the point many of them can be dual registered with certain kennel clubs. The APBT was directly used as foundational stock for the AmBully.
When using the colloquial term “pit bull” it’s clearly indicating a type. Like if someone says hound, shepherd, retriever, or herder.
It’s a valid point that it’s not the best way to group them together for statistical purposes, but a) I’m not convinced that doesn’t impact other breeds as well (see the point about whether all the killer GSDs in your country were actual GSDs) and b) I don’t believe that separating the breeds has a meaningful difference in the end numbers. You’d have the top 2-3 breeds that kill people instead of the top 1 type. You’d also have to move some number of Rottweilers, GSDs, Huskies, etc to the meaningless mixed breed or misidentified categories, since that argument applies to those breeds as well.
There’s just no way looking at news stories of obvious pit bull type dogs being carted off by animal control after they’ve attacked someone and asking if it reeeeally a pit bull improves things. It just comes across as gaslighting.
One of the issues is there are so many pitbull type dogs. Estimated about 18 million in the United States. When you are comparing them to the 300k cane Corsos or 4 million shepherds or other large powerful breeds there is just so many of them and the media has latched on to spreading panic fear and misinformation.
As someone else mentioned there is also a spectrum that there’s not a one size fit all discription. Some are couch potatoes that like to sun, some need physical and mental stimulation. I’ve fostered 2. One I would have had no problem approving adoption in a home with children, she ended up with a single lady looking for a playmate for her other bully. The one I ended up adopting (so she didn’t end up somewhere I’ll equipped) is on the more extreme side that needs a handler, a no kids, no cats home and is extremely dog selective so that one would be iffy. She learned to coexist peacefully with my resident dog but it took work. So screening for appropriate homes is absolutely necessary.
None of those are reliable. Several of them link back to an obvious pro pit site, which doesn’t make them wrong, but they have a clear agenda. The closest they get to unbiased data is vet visits and DNA tests, both if which are problematic.
I think met life is pretty accurate considering they insure them. But you get the point. Regardless there is exponential more bully breeds than other breeds. Also dog bite statistics are self reported so they aren’t really accurate either.
It’s not these dogs fault at all. Rather it’s been the overwhelming number of horrible owners with bad intentions in the past.
For a long time Pitbulls were selectively bred based on fighting traits and gaminess. Over the decades it’s just led most pitbulls now to have incredibly heightened predispositions to violence. It’s just in their genes.
I think that’s why you see so many reports of pitbull attacks where it comes out of the blue. They’re just normally regular dogs, but something just snaps and they into kill mode. I don’t think most really choose to be violent, but sometimes genetics and instincts take over. Unfortunately for them when a pitbull snaps it’s going to do a LOT more damage than a corgi or a lab
Pitbulls are popular among people who don’t necessarily give their dog the best care. They don’t spay or neuter and the dog often lives outside in their yard where another dog can jump the fence and mate. That means there is a lot of random breeding. As far as hospitalizations for dog attacks go, pitbulls are as frequently the culprit as mutts. I think that speaks more to how random their breeding is than to the breed itself being an issue. They’re a big dog and they’re bred randomly instead of being bred for health and temperament. If you get a small mutt, it can be aggressive without sending people to the hospital.
In terms of dogs bred for fighting, temperament works on a spectrum like height or skin color. That means that even when pits are deliberately bred to be aggressive, the litter will have a variety of temperaments. They’re also not being bred for human aggression. It’s not particularly useful in dog fighting for the dog to go after a human. They need to go after other dogs. When the experts temperament test pitbulls the trait that is increased is specifically dog aggression, not human aggression.
I don’t know what the magical fix is for reducing dog bites and hospitalization but I do think it needs to not be breed specific because any dog whose head is at face height for a child can be dangerous. I think that funding animal control, spay and neuter programs, and shelters can help because getting dogs off the street prevents bites. Getting rid of aversive and fear-based training is important. Educating people on best practices for training manners and having kids around dogs safely would likely also help.
Hello. I work at a rescue and have handled and cared for a lot of pitbulls. We also have a lot of pitbulls. I think to answer a few of your questions part of it is just bad breeding. The majority of pitbulls are backyard bred. I can't even think of hearing anything on the wind of a breeder trying to breed the reactivity out of these dogs. People get them for good and bad reasons. Some want a guard dog or a fight dog. Some just want a pet. But I wouldn't consider them "beginner" dogs. Dog reactivity is usually the norm with pitbulls. Most of them are not cool with other dogs. They also have a big prey drive and are powerful. But one thing I haven't seen is that a lot of them have a low stress threshold. What I mean is that it doesn't take a lot for them to get over aroused and frustrated. And when they get over that threshold they become a redirect risk and may take out that frustration on the owner. This is how myself and a few of my coworkers have gotten beat up pretty bad by pitbulls because if you are not ready for that it can escalate into an attack. So people realize they have more dog than they can handle and set them loose, surrender, tie them to a tree or whatever and they make there way into the shelter system. The dog is usually not fixed and may have bred before it gets to the shelter. Pitbulls also sit longer in shelters because of above reasons. You really just don't see this in other breeds of dogs. It happens but not nearly as much as with pitbulls. They don't have these issues because they are pitbulls. They have these issues because they are horribly bred and raised by people that can't handle them. And NOBODY is trying to do anything to make they breed any better except the fighters. There is already a pretty good regulation at least where I am on pitbull adoptions but the BE threshold does need to be lowered. I understand people don't like it but if you have a dog that can't be around other animals, can't be around kids, hates men, is a redirect risk and has already bitten two people, a resource guarder and has to be medicated with anxiety medication to get through the day somebody needs to sit down and ask what is the likelihood of this dog being adopted and is it ethical to keep it in a shelter environment for what could be the rest of its life. There isn't a place in polite society for fighting dogs but people still fight dogs underground so they will still be here regardless. I hope I answered all your questions. They are born what they are and that is all they know how to be. We did this to them. They are not horrible monsters but people need to know what they are doing when they get them.
I agree with your sentiment. I do think there can be a place in society today for gamebred fighting dogs though, it just needs to be in real working homes that can handle them and give them an outlet such as hog hunting catch dogs.
They're not great at that either, at least not the best choice.
If you've never seen hog hunting it usually involves a pack of baying hounds that will corner and control the hog, barking and dodging any attacks from the hog. When the hog is semi controlled the catch dog is released to grab it's face and pin it down. The hunter then manually dispatches the hog, typically via knife.
They're great at grabbing and controlling the hog, but there's potential issues.
The catch dog is still working alongside other dogs. Dog aggression can interfere with that role. If they redirect onto one of the other dogs there's problems.
I've spoken to a hunter that was invested enough he had APBTs from a specific line, Sorrells. The line is known to be less dog aggressive and quite workable. He trained his dogs from pups, gave them pig skins to get them used to going after the hogs, had climate controlled kennels, worked all of his dogs daily for hours.
But his best catch dog was still his Dogo Argentino, because it's bigger and more powerful.
So if they're too aggressive in some cases and there's bigger, better options in others, are we using them because they're good at it, or because we have nothing better for them to do, or because someone simply has affinity for the breed?
Then, setting my own bias aside, there are debates out there about the ethics of hog hunting.
Hogs will gore and literally gut a catch dog. They typically wear kevlar vests, if the hunter is concerned enough about his dog's safety.
If the dog succeeds in catching the hog it must suffer a dog gripping onto it's face while it is stabbed and bleeds out.
Alternatives, that I've heard, include shooting them. I've even seen videos of people with helicopters and machine guns. The wildest I've heard is using a pile of feed to lure them into a cluster and then using explosives to blow them up.
I saw you're a bird hunter, so I'll assume no ethical obligation to hunting. My dad was a deer hunter. I'm not ethical opposed either.
But there is discussion to be had about whether this particular style of hunting is ethical and, assuming one believes that it is, whether pit bulls are truly a good fit for the role or simply able to do it.
To answer a lot at once: pitbulls were popular in underground dog fighting. They got bred very willy nilly to other dogs and a lot ended up in shelters, which compounded any and all genetic issues along with extreme boredom causing behavioral issues.
I don't think pitbulls themselves are causing the behavioral issues. It's a large mixture of bad breeding and shelter systems so overrun it's just compacting the issue.
I do believe fighting line dogs can have a place in society. You could likely get them into bite work and guard dog jobs fairly easily. True apbts are not pets though. They're a tool and I do believe we need to crack down on just anyone being able to breed any dog. Some dogs are very genuinely dangerous and bred to fight bears and lions.
I think focusing too hard on a dog with a small percentage of pitbull is going to elad to a lot of issues. Instead just inform the family and recommend some baseline reactivity training (potentially even a government set up reactivity class that's less money if you have pit, mastiff, cane Corso, etc etc mixes).
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