OMG.
I just found this horrible web site, that touts itself as a "responsible dog ownership" site, but is in actuality (not that they really go to much trouble to pretend) an anti-pitbull and other dogs arbitrarily chosen because of isolated incidents or scary pictures they found off the internet. I do acknowledge that pitbulls are a very energetic and physically strong breed, and I agree with the few good and important points that this so-called organization hits upon. Unfortunately, it only hits on a FEW of them, just a FEW times, and then spouts of self-righteously about a bunch of other silly things, while grounding their self-righteousness in the fact that they happened to mention "owner responsibility" once. All dogs deserve good owners, not just pitbulls, you twats.
Pitbulls are not an actual breed. There is the American pit bull terrier aka American Staffordshire terrier, but the name "pitbull" has grown to include mixed dogs, or mutts, that display certain qualities, physical and behavioral, that the general public believes to be characteristic of a pitbull. The general public in my opinion is intellectually bereft on a lot more issues than dogs, so that should tell you something.
Truths mentioned in dogsbite.org:
- Pitbulls have a "prey drive": they stalk things, when things move fast or seem to be fleeing, they'll go for it, or at least really really want to.
- Pitbulls are bred to fight, and thus they usually, normally, do not to like other dogs.
- Pitbulls are very intelligent. This means they can usually figure out a way to escape confinement.
These are all true. The way dogsbite.org presents these facts, however, is distorted at best, and utterly ridiculous and ignorant at... well, what it actually is.
Pitbulls came into existence through dogfighting. They are bred to fight. This is why a responsible owner would never trust their pit NOT to fight with other dogs, but it also means a lot more than people think. It takes a damn lot of work to raise a fighting dog. Dogfighting in the ghetto today most likely has little in common (other than cruelty) with dogfighting back in the day when it was organized and legal. So let's think about organized dog fighting, since that is the origin of the "breed", and the original breed's characteristics are still considered their natural, normal temperament in the present.
Organized dogfighting = betting = money = people putting in lots of time and effort.
Trainers would spend most of their time with their dogs. They trained them to attack on command, fight well (this means teaching the dog technique), and stop on command. Point? Pitbulls listen and obey. Wikipedia explains:
They were also bred to be intelligent and level-headed during fights and remain non-aggressive toward their handlers. Part of the standard for organized dog-fighting required that the match referee who is unacquainted with the dog be able to enter the ring, pick up a dog while it was engaged in a fight, and get the respective owner to carry it out of the ring without being bitten. Dogs that bit the referee were culled.
As a result, Victorian fighting dogs (Staffordshire Bull Terriers and, though less commonly used as fighters, English Bull Terriers) generally had stable temperaments and were commonly kept in the home by the gambling men who owned them.
There is another pitbull tendency that dogsbite.org does not mention-- pits really like people. And by like, I mean LOVE. And by people I mean ALL people, not just owners, not just nice people, not just big or small people-- EVERYONE. Which makes sense because they were trained by humans, surrounded by humans all the time, taken care of by humans when they got hurt in fights, and rewarded by humans when they won. Pits that bit the hand that fed them, or any other part of the body, were NOT bred. Humans are, socially, their scene. Other dogs are not.
Dogsbite.org also bashes pitbull owners who don't know how to control or confine their dogs properly. The kind of "control" and "confinement" that they're envisioning is not the meaning of responsible ownership. A responsible dog owner understands their dog's breed, and its expected temperament. A responsible dog owner also understands his/her dog's personal temperament and quirks. Thus, a responsible pitbull owner would never keep their pitbull chained up in a tiny yard, nor would they keep a bunch of them all together, nor would they leave them without supervision. So when you hear stories about people getting mauled by 10 dogs that all came from the same yard, or someone getting too close to a pit that was chained to a post, you have to look at the owner, and NOT the dog. What kind of person keeps a pitbull chained for full days? What kind of person keeps a whole bunch of pitbulls in a yard, when pitbulls are naturally inclined to fight each other? Stupid people, that's who. And it's more than likely that they own the pitbull in the first place for a bad reason-- to dogfight or to scare people off.
When dogs are cared for improperly, they will become aggressive and a little bit psychotic. They're just dogs-- it's not that hard to mentally break them down, which why they're so vulnerable and need us so badly. This is true for ALL dogs, which I think is a crucial fact that people tend to or, in the case of the vapid, petty people who run dogsbite.org, actively choose to ignore. I've been bitten by a pomeranian and a yorkie, and my sister was bitten by a chihuahua. I know a lot of owners of little dogs who get nipped by their pets regularly, for no reason at all. I'm not bashing little dog breeds, but there are quite a few of them who are just plain batshit crazy, not because of bred temperament, but because they're not raised properly. Dogs need to experience discipline, boundaries, and acknowledge the authority of their master. Owners of little dogs usually don't provide enough of this kind of training because their pets are so small. Even if they do show aggression, prey drive, biting, herding, or guarding, it's just cute and doesn't appear to be a problem. So no one fixes it. It's clear from such examples that any dog that is improperly handled will become unstable, from massive mastiff to useless yorkie. Pits were not bred to be crazy killing machines. In fact, it's not how ANY dogs were bred. Dogs were domesticated from the wild so that they would contribute positively to human society, not kill us all.
Dogsbite.org isn't just mean. It's short-sighted, misinformed, and worst of all, LOUD about their misinformedness. Someone should sic a dog on them or something. Just kidding.
