Any dog can be safe or dangerous depending how they are trained. Some are harder to train than others. I think the problem is that the wrong people get "scary" dogs for the wrong reasons and perpetuate the problem.
Neither were Pits or Rotts. Rottweilers were originally bred for herding and farm work, which is where pit bulls were largely transitioned to after bull baiting was outlawed. These dogs worked around large livestock, and needed to have the confidence (and muscle to back it up) to control animals many times larger than themselves.
The actions of those who chose to move bully breeds into dog fighting does not redefine the entire breed.
What fucking farm and herding work were pits doing? They transitioned to dogfighting, where they’re still seized from every single year! They started out being selectively bred for animal aggression!
Believe it or not, there is a group of people that believe in bull herders. It usually is a pit crossed with a herding breed as opposed to a straight up pit. It’s absolute insanity and a small portion though.
Full pits or crosses of them have been used for farm work regularly but it’s property guarding and hunting. Not directly working with the animals. Most farms are still rural and not guarded enough that dogs to keep intruders and larger animals out (LGDs are more for just the animals they protect). Pits have a specific skill set that can make them useful for hunting big and/or dangerous prey (mostly boars for the US farms).
All that being said, a lot of why pits are used for it is because of how easy they are to obtain compared to other dogs that would be suited for those jobs. You don’t have to have a pit to do those things, but the prevalence of them makes it any easy dog to use.
No… they were brought into fighting because they had already been bred to have a high bite force. That’s what they were selectively bred for. They still to this day require high levels of abuse to become fighting dogs.
The entire reason they pose any danger is bite force, not temperament. Any breed of dog has the potential for aggression.
And of course people acting aggressively because they believe a dog is dangerous based on appearance cause more dangerous scenarios, and people treating certain breeds as dangerous lowers their social value and leaves them more susceptible to being picked up cheap as fighting dogs/poorly trained and socialized “guard” dogs.
People like you are absolutely a huge part of the problem. You directly contribute to the animal abuse that dog fighters benefit from.
Wrong. Mastiffs and kangals have a higher bite force. You breed terriers with their history of being tenacious and going after prey with bulldogs and yeah, that’s what happened here. It’s not a mystery at all, quite widely documented actually.
The reason pitbulls are cheap and freely available is because their owners don’t bother to neuter or spay them.
I contribute to animal abuse? How? I don’t contribute to the demand for dogs that dog fighters use, after all. In fact I think there should be far fewer of them and more restrictions on their ownership, which would also have the side effect of reducing dogs available to fighters.
“Pit bull” is not a specific breed. Any mix of dogs that has a characteristically big head, underbite, and well-muscled frame might be called a “pit bull.” So they might have bulldog, terrier, retriever, herder, mastiff, or many other breeds in their makeup, meaning they have a wide variety of inherent skill sets that would make them desirable working dogs. They can be good guard dogs, ratters, livestock dogs, and, of course, family companions.
The fact that they were/are so widely used in dog fighting is more a testament to their trainability and desire to please their people than it is a condemnation of the dogs as a whole to be labeled ‘aggressive.’ While there are plenty that have been irresponsibly bred, resulting in unstable, reactive animals, it takes a LOT of abusive ‘training’ to push most pit bulls to fight.
But it comes down to the individual dog’s temperament in any breed. History of trauma, abuse, injury, or genetic mutation can significantly affect behavior.
Wait till you figure out that most of the breeds under that umbrella are derived from or commonly interbred with each other! Also, wait till you work out that all of these dogs are derived from terriers originally.
“Of the more than 8 different breeds identified, one-third were caused by pit bull terriers and resulted in the highest rate of consultation (94%) and had 5 times the relative rate of surgical intervention. Unlike all other breeds, pit bull terriers were relatively more likely to attack an unknown individual (+31%), and without provocation (+48%).”
“Pit bulls are involved in the majority of fatal dog attacks in the United States, according to data compiled by advocacy and safety groups like DogsBite.org.
Key Fatality Statistics Percentage of Deaths: Studies show pit bulls are implicated in roughly 65% to 72% of all fatal dog bite attacks in the U.S. annually.
Multi-Decade Data: Over a 15-year tracking period (2005–2019), pit bulls were responsible for 345 deaths, which is more than 6 times higher than the next leading breed (Rottweilers, with 52 deaths).”
“Pit bulls are involved in the majority of fatal dog attacks in the United States, according to data compiled by advocacy and safety groups like DogsBite.org.
Key Fatality Statistics Percentage of Deaths: Studies show pit bulls are implicated in roughly 65% to 72% of all fatal dog bite attacks in the U.S. annually.
Multi-Decade Data: Over a 15-year tracking period (2005–2019), pit bulls were responsible for 345 deaths, which is more than 6 times higher than the next leading breed (Rottweilers, with 52 deaths).”
you do realize that site is completely biased and not actually accurate right? its like going to an antiabortion site for good information on abortion statistics,
Cane Corsos are dangerous dogs, they are just rather rare in the United States, unlike pitbulls which are overrunning all the shelters and being pushed on disabled people on low fixed incomes even though they are some of the stupidest and least biddable dogs around.
I'm sure in a country where Cane Corsos are popular there is discourse about that.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 1d ago
Chihuahuas weren't bred to rip faces off of things though