The pitbull question

[u/Ok_Ear_5266]

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.

[u/gilatio]

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

[u/IllLiterature1026 → u/gilatio]

I think all these points are valid.

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.