THE PITBULL CRAZE; THE SOCIAL MEDIA BATTLE FOR NARRATIVE CONTROL; AND THE MOMENTUM OF UNNECESSARY “FEEL GOOD” POPULISM OVER DISCRIMINATING CHOICES

I’ll begin all this by saying that I am in total agreement with those who may ultimately disagree with the rest of this in one respect… the problem with pit bulls and other dangerous dogs originates with humans and animals are not to blame. Now…

If you had said to me a few years ago “It’s not the dog. It’s how the dog is raised and trained that determines whether it is a danger or not”, I probably would have shrugged and said, “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.” Sure, I had heard of and even had personal knowledge of Pitbull, Rottweiler and other “muscle dog” attacks. But those are those dogs that asshole criminals who operate in a world of violence, selfish disregard for life, impingement of others’ space and rights and sadistic entertainment owned. It was easy to believe that it was the owner, when such assumptions about that owner seemed fitting. The classic Nurture vs. Nature debate always tipped toward Nurture as the culprit. Bad actors are victims of their environment. Right? Couple all that half-assed philosophy with personal experience. For me, pretty much every Pitbull-type dog or mix of that I had ever met was pretty laid back, easy-going and pleasant company. Maybe not always with other animals, but lots of dogs are competitive and territorial like that. Right? And, of course, we are each inclined to base judgments of the entirety of things in THE world on our experiences in each of OUR worlds. A microcosm. A sample. What we know is clearly the way of things.

Having been given reason to dig deeper beyond the façade of common suggestion and do some research, I discovered that things weren’t quite that clear. I now find that with even further research and consideration of documented truths, the picture IS that clear. But it is a far different one from what I had lazily accepted before.

PUBLIC PERCEPTION AND MEDIA NARRATIVE CONTROL

Pitbull = bad choice. Pitbull = wonderful choice. This debate may have already devolved into a battle of tit for tat, or positive testimonial answered by negative in endless volley. After perfunctory observation, the existing literature and common man commentary would probably seem roughly evenly numbered in terms of pro and con. I have found the difference is that the more accessible sources, those lying on the water’s surface, and thus the general sentiment accepted by the majority who have given the questions little thought and zero research, lean heavily pro-pitbull. Pieces like this Kennel to Couch offering, low in source-cited research information and high in fluffy sentiment, make up the majority of what fills Google search returns related to pitbulls. These are repetitive dispellings of the same “myths” and “misconceptions”.

This SRUV blog ran for 5 years initially in response to a poll conducted by Sue Manning of AP and discussed in this article. This poll simply asked consumers what they “believe” regarding the nature vs. nurture question when it comes to dogs, lacking any research information, with 71% responding bad behavior is dependent on the owner. More articles in reverence of pitbulls were to follow. The blog references other pieces by other AP writers, suggesting that these efforts seem to reflect a biased choice to focus on the pitbull positives while omitting the larger picture one would think journalistic integrity would obligate. The reason, they pose, could be one of simple marketing. The perceived blooming trend of pitbull adoration, they suggest, could be lucrative for any content creator or publisher seeking click-based monetization.

So where do the regular people, the rank-and-file consumers who occupy the social media landscape, gravitate? I have found that for each resource I have suggested which raises awareness of the potential dangers of pitbull ownership, there are countless social media groups and youtube channels devoted to the defense of and/or warm adoration of the same. The query of “pitbull” in a Pages search on Facebook yielded exactly 3 out of the first 70 entries promoting anything negative in regard to the breeds; an identical search in Groups found 0 out of 70. What better way to identify the populist position and sentiment than a round-up of all these like-minded groups on that particular social media platform? Youtube provided a more even mix, but the cynic in me suspects the motive for some of these postings of negative pitbull exhibitions (just search “pitbull attacks” or some variation) could simply be the appeal to the human fascination with real videos of a sensational nature ( I hope not). There is an audience equally eager to watch graphic violence as that for indulging in the entertaining and heartwarming displays of the pitty playing chummily with the pet kitten or bird (yeah, I saw this) and the like.

The TV version of the media vibe is exemplified by productions like Pitbulls and Parolees, a regular show running on the Animal Planet network. I came across this and watched one full episode which left me incredulous at every turn. The central pitbull crusader/caretaker hires parolees, hence the show’s name. But what is the relevance of this marriage? Are we obliged to construe that this show is about finding humans and dogs, whom society looks on as behavioral outcasts alike, a place where they can be appreciated and help fix each other? The most stunning arc was the one in which a woman brings her behaviorally-challenged blue nose pitbull seeking rehabilitation. She goes on to explain how the dog, Gwato, is both animal and human-unfriendly and how it snapped at her child’s face, the child’s quick reaction preventing serious damage. As she expresses her love for her dog and sadness at the suggestion that she may have to give this dog up (the conclusion which the show’s host ultimately broke to her – as if this shouldn’t have been obvious to her right about the time IT SNAPPED AT HER CHILD), the visual includes pictures of this dog on the floor and in bed with the child. My jaw dropped. Did anyone in this show recognize the disgustingly twisted arrangement of priorities? I found myself asking out loud as I’m watching, “Why? Why are you people doing this?” All the problems in evidence and people are STILL dead-set on owning such a dog because of an obsession with the breed? The very existence of a show devoted to this subject is more media evidence of the size of this epidemic of irrational sentimentality. In addition, I couldn’t help but notice the parolee’s T-shirt with the message “Racism is the Pits” and pitbull picture beneath. What could that possibly mean? I think I might know but I’ll rant on that later.

Any rundown of relevant television fare is probably not complete without mention of Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer”. A figure of some controversy among dog training practitioners, Millan reportedly had legal problems with regard to his own pitbull, Junior, who allegedly attacked the daughter of an employee. This report, and others, alleges that his initial reaction to the charges was a claim that the girl was aware of the dogs history of danger and had somehow acted negligently (people-blaming discussed later). He provided no more on the matter and eventually settled the suit. Another suit involving Millan and a vicious pitbull attack ended with the court recommending euthanizing. His position on pitbulls generally aligns with the pro-pitbull group rhetoric.

I use the term craze. If you don’t think the sentiment for rallying in defense of pitbulls hasn’t gone far enough overboard to be considered crazy, consider this excerpt from a Time Magazine article from 2014:

As pit-bull attacks become more and more common, they’re getting increasing attention on social media, but not always in support of the wounded children. In March, a Facebook petition to save Mickey, a dangerous pit bull in Phoenix, got over 70,000 likes. Mickey was facing euthanasia for mauling 4-year-old Kevin Vincente so badly that he cracked his jaw, eye socket and cheekbone. Kevin is facing months of reconstructive surgery, but more people were concerned with saving the dog than helping the boy. Mickey’s Facebook page has now become a social-media landing page to save other dogs that are considered dangerous.

Or this story…

Pit Bull Who Mauled 82-Year Old To Death Reunited With Owner In Lucknow (thequint.com) The title here sums it up. This is one of the most outrageous stories I have yet to read. Yes, the 82-year old was the owner’s mother! I am speechless here. Euthanizing? No, retraining?! Are humans afforded this same pass in India? What kind of person is this dude that he would want this animal back?! A truly dumbfounding example of humans valuing an animal’s life over a human’s. His mother!!

So even if you think the numbers I’ll be quoting throughout are manufactured or manipulated in favor of some unfair and fanatical anti-pitbull campaign, isn’t it hard to ignore the frightening insanity demonstrated in these stories? But are these cherry-picked mischaracterizations? Anyone seriously considering the question of pitbull nature vs. nurture and the legitimacy of concerns over breed must take a close look at the primary sources from which virtually all comprehensive social media information springs.

Says Who?

The determinant behind how the public perception is molded isn’t found in the battle of one collection of gathered social commentaries against another, which the casual observer may encounter online or hear in conversation. It is a well-structured campaign which positions its tentacles solidly and strategically so that it is capable of shaping a universal public mindset of great magnitude and fortitude, even in the face of rationality and documented facts. This requires focused intent, a purposefully woven network, and capital. Such is the profile of the Animal Farm Foundation along with the National Canine Research Council and other agents in a well-funded network. The AFF saw a revenue intake of $2.2 million (largely through donations from well-to-do pitbull proponents in the literary industry) in 2015 and $5.3 million in 2019. (Source) An explanatory dissection of this campaign can be found at National Pitbull Victims Awareness. An even deeper exploration of these organizations is Daxton’s Father. These exposés alone should make the reader at least question the validity of the patently accepted pitbull “expert” wisdom and encourage the responsible animal owner/lover to look in other directions for a more balanced analysis of contradicting proclaimed truths. While sites like National Pitbull Victims Awareness, Animals 24-7 and dogsbite.org do exist as alternative informational resources, how many serious animal lovers might ever be motivated to seek them out? By contrast, the NCRC and AFF, with their bold anagrams ringing non-suspect scientific legitimacy, are inextricably linked to many of the pitbull defense publications one curious about the pitbull breed and all the buzz will find. Add to this army a brigade of lobbyists, like the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and Best Friends Animal Society, pushing hard on the political, rather than consumer, front.

Let’s take a brief roll call of the main players primarily source-cited both here and throughout the internet.

Pitbull: The Battle of An American Icon, a book by Bronwen Dickey, has been looked upon as a modern one-stop source for all one could hope to consume in their education about any pitbull debate. It is well-researched and pretty fairly diverse in its consideration of viewpoints. She also draws conclusions of her own on the matter which will be fleshed out as we go here. This is the transcript of a brief email interview done with Dickey as published by Chapter16.org. In it she states, “My main goal in writing the book was to provide readers with a set of critical thinking skills that they could apply to other scientific ‘controversies’ and to other stereotypes, whether they be racial, cultural or class-oriented.” I will need to be referring back to the book as context in this deems appropriate. Some of the conclusions drawn were unexpected, to say the least. I’ll get to that later.

The numbers on pitbull-dealt fatalities, maimings and hospitalizations published by Merritt Clifton of Animals 24-7 have come under intense scrutiny. Bronwen Dickey paints an invalidating picture of him and criticizes his assumed authority and methodology. There is also this rather scathing treatment, or “debunking” effort, of the guy. The accusations are manyfold: His research is woefully incomplete and, likely, an act of cherry-picking (This could very well be. But it could also be that his incomplete research, if honest, represents an accurate sample of a greater whole.); his analysis is made through a lens unscientifically and narrowly-focused on breed while wholly ignoring other factors which may be far more relevant to results arrived at; his sources are strictly based on flimsy, often erroneous, media reports. (He does state that police, medical and court reports are used – acknowledged by Dickey. I’m no journalist, but short of visiting each site at the moment of incident, I’m not sure how much more extensive research of past events can be. The scientific method is a practice performed in the present. Not sure what that would look like when studying dog breeds brutally attacking people. Does the absence of this exercise mean that an analysis of the past is useless?); some of his conclusive statements which seem groundless and rather nonsensical (like his defense of German Shepherds using mitigating factors never afforded attacking pitbulls). To my chagrin, and in Dickey’s defense, she reports that he declined to be interviewed by her. While this may be a blow-off of yet another “pit nutter” who wanted to argue, in his mind, I disagree with anyone who chooses to put themselves out there the way he has refusing to engage in face-to-face conversation. For all the criticism leveled against it by the pro-pitbull crowd, Animals 24-7 does not appear to exist solely to advocate for the eradication of pitbulls, but rather for the care and well-being of all animals.

Dogsbite.org founder, Colleen Lynn, has been criticized for having no formal background training as an investigator or statistician and a lack of credentials on the subject matter, instead seeming to have been compelled to this crusade after her turn as a dog bite victim. Ad hominem attacks leveled against her by Dickey (page 186) based on her alleged “fortune-teller” and web designer backgrounds, while due some consideration, didn’t detract from the information presented on the site, nor should its alternative investigations be roundly diminished as simply preposterous. Further reprovals included her conclusions being contradictory to the more “legitimate” and scientific institutions (like the AVMA); and her reliance on Merritt Clifton’s numbers for much of her argument. (While there are references to Animals 24-7 within the site, dogsbite.org clearly conducts its research independently and is pretty descriptive about their own methodology and findings.) Outright lies should be exposed as such. Anything short of this should fall short of grounds for cancellation from the discussion. This online discussion might allow you a chance to develop your own opinion of her.

National Canine Research Council/AVMA: NCRC co-founder, Karen Delise, worked in the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office, giving her some perspective from the law enforcement position, and as a veterinary technician. Like Lynn, she took up the researcher role in a personal call to action but without any formal training. Her flagship criticism of media-based statistics is that the information initially presented to or by law enforcement is often subject to change after already having been counted, making validation of the overall picture unreliable at best. She also sees testimonials from practitioners within the field of human medicine as flimsy due to their originating from a position lacking in expertise with animal breed. The AVMA is a legitimizing conduit used to publish all studies conducted by the affiliated NCRC. Most of these, referenced in the following and in related online discussions, are headed by Dr. Gary Patronek, an active dog defender. You may find this scrutinous treatment of the AVMA at least balancing of its inflated profile.

Animal Farm Foundation (Jane Berkey – sometimes Jane Rotrosen) Jane is a literary agent who parlayed her position within that circle of the wealthy ideologues to garner financial support and political voice. This is the profile page for her canine “creative team”. Interesting. The background page on the website refers to the National Canine Research Center as the organization’ “subsidiary” giving us an idea of the core that exists made up of what might, on the surface, appear to be an array of diverse and independent players.

Best Friends Animal Society (Ledy VanKavage) Attorney by trade, pitbull-lover by passion, this woman utilizes her professional sphere of influence to do battle in the legal and political forums where much of the power in the debate comes to decisively manifest. An investigative documentary linked to later provides a more intimate peek at her character with regard to her pitbull-supporting passions.

National Pitbull Victims Awareness does not name or profile any of its site builders and coordinators. It is, instead, a resource which gathers information from various other organizations and individual contributors into one place. They do list a number of friends and partners though.

Suffice it to say, anyone who believes that all these paranoid social media commentators and random self-publishers who just seem to hate and fear pitbulls due to ignorance and misunderstanding control the general public perception may just have it backwards. It seems the powerful coalition of like-minded and focused pro-pitbull crusaders behind the unquestioningly validated sources holds the high ground, banners waving. It becomes clearer once we dig into the players behind all this information we hope to parse that there is no such thing as a bona fide “expert”. For both Animals 24-7 and the AVMA, law enforcement agencies were solicited and records obtained for information. The difference is that any mention within those records of breed is roundly discarded by one investigation, but not the other. I suppose more “scientific”-sounding names, like AVMA and NCRC, inherently command more credibility, even though reputable ones like the NIH might not? Would that be due to their expertise being human- rather than animal-centric? Look these sites and sitemakers up and make your own judgments about the persons and their motives and methods. That is your due diligence if you find yourself in a position where you need to know about these things.

THE HISTORY OF THINGS

Most would agree that all dogs (Canis Familiaris) derived from wolves (Canis Lupus), with greater than 99% of the genetic makeup shared among all breeds. It was the worldwide intervention of humans which shaped the various breeds into existence, all to serve human needs.

The History of Pit Bulls – Love-A-Bull This title is an immediate announcement that the content will in no way push a cautionary agenda regarding pitbulls. The article is prefaced with a shout-out to the Dickey book which one can assume then is Love-A-Bull’s main history source. Our timeline begins with the use of old English Bulldogs for bull and bear baiting, indicating a demonstration of breed designed for aggression toward other animals from the early 19^th Century start. This activity was followed by ratting which introduced the stealthier terrier to the mix. The World Animal Foundation in the historical treatment of the Blue Nose Pitbull provides this bit of the history:

Soon, bull-baiting was outlawed, and people (without a conscience) started fighting the dogs against each other. Breeders then turned to terriers to mate with the larger canines to produce a dog with better agility. They bred the terrier with the bulldog creating the Pitbull Terrier. . .

This description of part of the breeding and developmental process from Love-A-Bull particularly piqued my interest: Through selective breeding and culling, bite inhibition towards humans was greatly encouraged. Gamblers had to be sure that they could enter a pit and handle their dogs in close proximity without the danger of being bit themselves. If a dog bit a human, it was usually culled. This is suggestive of grounds for both the human agreeability and animal disagreeability noted in the present-day stories. We’ll get into the significance of that later.

Dogs used for bull baiting and pit fighting were carefully fine-tuned for “gameness”. Any truly “game” dog was (is) the pride of the owner. This term survives today and means simply that they are well-suited to the “game”. (MMA fans are likely familiar with Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal.) Is it any secret what the game is?

Bark Post tells us that localized dogfighting bans started in the US, where the sport had spread to and grown, in 1867, but a federal ban was not imposed until as late as 1976. Anyone paying attention knows that this continued underground until present day. This article also includes this bit:

If you love Pit Bull-type dogs as much as I do, you’ll no doubt come across some misinformed or spiteful person on the Internet positing that Pit Bulls are used by dogfighters because they’re just naturally more vicious or demonic than their non-Bully counterparts.

This is complete nonsense.

There are, of course, obvious reasons for Pit Bulls being the dogfighter’s dog of choice. They’re strong, fast, tenacious, and athletic, and it’s not unusual for them to be dog-reactive (though there are certainly many who love dogs). But then, all of the above could be said about a number of breeds. So why do dogfighters tend to single out Pit Bulls* for their twisted games? The author goes on to cite the previously-mentioned history of breeding to ensure that these dogs could be handled by humans as another reason they were chosen to be fight dogs.

A baffling take. Dog of “choice”? As if the breed just naturally possessed these qualities which made them ripe for dogfighters to pluck? All of this is nonsensical backwards history. The very name the author agrees to use, “pitbull”, suggests the very purpose of the breed’s existence. This, like all breeds, was a dog of “creation”, not choosing from pre-existence. Human creation. This is a pretty stark example of stalwart passion suppressing any inclination to take a rational look at documented fact. (But it is not unique.)

Michael Worboys, author of Invention of the Modern Dog, explains here that a cultural recalibration started in the 1830s around the time of bloodsport outlawing such that dogs were being evaluated based on aesthetics and less on the traditional functionalities which had originally been the goals of their crafting. Impromptu competitions developed into more formal ones as John Henry Walsh developed a set of breed-specific delineating standards in the 1870s.

The United Kennel Club in England was founded in 1898 by Chauncy Z. Bennet and, among its recognized breeds, was one dubbed the American Pitbull Terrier. This name was given to the traditional fighting dog in a post-pitfighting society which still acknowledged the breed’s distinct existence. It should be noted that the choice of “American” at the front of the title suggests the shifting of the breed from its turf of origin to assignment as a New World thing, although it is similarly unclear if or how the purity factor of gameness was bred out of the bloodlines for non-practicing fight dogs in the Old World.

. . .When immigrants came from the British Isles to America in the 1800s, their dogs accompanied them. They were initially used for herding, guarding, and hunting. Then, in the 1980s, other Pit bulls fighting their own species were unearthed and exposed to the public. Pandemonium broke loose with public scrutiny, and irrational fears developed. (WAF)

American Pit Bull Terrier Dog Breed Facts | Hill's Pet (hillspet.com) again, with apparent sudden historical disconnect, lists hunting and driving livestock as the purposes of its breeding, still with no documentation of these supposed efforts by breeders at a time when dog-fighting was alive and well in America.

Thesmartdog.com echoes more of the same with this: The Pit Bull that people once knew had been reinvented into a completely different dog. But unfortunately, the old stigma had latched on to these dogs in many cases. As a result, they’re still viewed as aggressive dogs to those unfamiliar with the breed. Reinvented? So the stigma alone remains but all else was somehow overhauled, with no evidence for how this was achieved and by whom.

The suggestion that a breed created for fighting “gameness” was just uprooted and moved across the ocean to be repurposed as a herder and hunter is a headscratcher. No statistical evidence is provided to show that pitbulls were a significant presence on the range or the farm. Couple this with the knowledge that many breeds, already effectively cultivated for these duties, were in abundance in Western Europe from which the immigrants primarily came. Along with their experience for farming and herding, would not immigrants have brought their farming and herding dogs also? Scots brought their Collies (Border, Bearded and others) in the 19^th Century. Basque immigrants from the Pyrenese brought what would become the Australian Shepherd into the 20^th Century. Herding breed ancestors of the Old English Sheepdog (which may have included the French Briard, also known to the US in the early 1800s along with the Great Pyrenees) would also make the journey overseas. But dogfighters would have brought the dogs of their trade. I find no evidence that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier or the American Pitbull Terrier have ever been recognized by any source primarily considering historic herding breeds.

Even the highly-regarded Britannica posits this: In the United States the American Staffordshire Terrier has been bred for a stable temperament and adapted for hunting rodents and other vermin, for pursuing game, and for farm work. . . This seems odd considering any specific breeding research we find only mentions the synonymous American Pitbull Terrier as being bred for “gameness”, or fighting prowess and the sanitary-labeled American Staffordshire Terrier has been bred to at least appear “game” to those making aesthetic judgments. It is unclear where rodent-hunting might fit into all this. Not to mention that Rat Terriers (or rat dogs) were already being bred for this function in the early 20^th Century. One has to wonder if this is another suspicious example of a suggested, yet unsupported, claim of more benign repurposing in the interest of image protection. Repeat it enough and it becomes bona fide history.

Researcher Neylor Zaurisio’s postings provide a scattering of names of both the biggest breeders and their most successful fighting dogs along with photographs. These records and bloodlines are laid out with the same admiration and fascination one might have for champion thoroughbred horses and their breeders and trainers. Distinguished persons like Charlie Lloyd, Con Feeley and John P. Colby rise above the crowd as importers and breeders of the premier lines of fighting dogs. Their work, ranging from the 1840s into the 20^th Century would form the foundation of the American Pitbull Terrier. While ingredient dogs were imported from “all over the world”, it would seem the bulk of the stock came from Ireland and England (the Old Country). The tradition of preserving respected bloodlines continued with noted breeders like William J. Lightner, Robert Hemphill and Joe Corvino.

This more detailed and supported research referenced above shows unequivocally the focus of the accomplished and respected breeders. The staged photos of the pedigreed pets and their makers illustrate the pride with which the birthing of a fighter of proven gameness brought, and the esteem bestowed upon them. Yet still so many published articles void of any documented support make fantastical claims in an apparent attempt to present some Cambrian Explosion-like new nature for the breed as farmer and herder instantaneously out of the ether while feigning legitimacy.

This is from the United Kennel Club’s page laying out the expectations and qualifications for the American Pit Bull Terrier presented for show competition:

The American Pit Bull Terrier has a long history of being a physically active, muscular, very agile breed, and has maintained breed type for over 150 years. Any departure from the following should be considered a fault, and the seriousness with which the fault should be regarded should be in exact proportion to its degree and its effect upon the health and welfare of the dog and on the dog’s ability to perform its traditional work.

It’s traditional work? That would be fighting by all documented historical account. But they go on to repeat this historically unfounded “traditional work” profile, presumably to avoid tarnishing any of the organization’s earned respectability.

The American Pit Bull Terrier’s many talents did not go unnoticed by farmers and ranchers who used their APBTs as catch dogs for semi-wild cattle and hogs, to hunt, to drive livestock, and as family companions.

And again, where is the record of farmers and ranchers who devoted the time and effort they somewhere found in their busy days to retrain pit fighters to restrain themselves from killing the cattle and hogs they were “catching” and the livestock they were “driving”? As opposed to just using their traditional herding breeds? What an awesome undertaking this must have been but none of these alleged transformational breeders/ranchers are named among the celebrated bloodline masters.

As a final note, entrants are warned that, although some level of dog aggression is characteristic of this breed, handlers will be expected to comply with UKC policy regarding dog temperament at UKC events. That shouldn’t be a tall order given that, as explained previously, this has been a safety necessity of fight dog handlers from the beginning.

What’s In A Name?

Today, four breeds considered under the “pitbull” umbrella in the public consciousness are: American Pitbull Terrier; American Staffordshire Terrier; Staffordshire Bull Terrier; and American Bully. (A fifth, the American Bulldog is sometimes added to the group, although this is less an “official” classification and more likely a matter of a broader sense of identification by appearance.) But are there really differences?

A case can be made for the American Bully which was a relatively late derivative. Anneka Svenska attempts to clarify any differences between the American Bully and the American Pitbull Terrier in this video. It is rather unclear why we should so easily accept the idea that any classic characteristics which might be deemed negative have been bred out of this sub-breed without more scientific evidence simply because it bears more of a resemblance to the Bulldog, from which additional genes were purportedly included. Perhaps it is because we can find more video examples of how funny and chummy those particular pets are.

While the name Staffordshire Bull Terrier implies this is the mix of bulldog with terrier to achieve the better-performing animal baiting and fighting dogs, there is disagreement about the history of the name:

Animals 24-7 states: Contrary to pit bull mythology, there was no dog line in Britain called a “Staffordshire” before the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 banned American pit bull terriers, occasioning British pit bull fanciers to abruptly change their dogs’ papers.  This is easily verified just by searching the multi-century archives of British newspapers accessible at NewspaperArchive.com.

The Staffordshire Bull Terrier Heritage Centre claims that the breed attained UK Kennel Club recognition on 25 May 1935. Staffordshires were imported into the US during this time. Though very popular in the United Kingdom, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier has not gained the same fame in the United States. They also explain that all of the breeds placed under the umbrella of “pitbull-type dogs” had their origins in what was originally called the Bull and Terrier. Some today insist that the breed should properly be referred to as the “Pit Bulldog”.

The detailed further work of Neylor Zaurisio here explains:

By not registering fighting dogs, but yielding to the commercial pressure around the American Pit Bull Terrier breed, in 1936 the AKC (American Kennel Club). . . recognized about fifty (50) American Pit Bull Terrier, naming them “Staffordshire Terrier”, after unsuccessfully attempting to register under the name “American Bull Terrier”, removing the word “Pit” and disassociating the word that refers to dog fight, however, English Bull Terrier breeders for fear of the “reputation” of APBT dogs did not allow the use of such a similar name.

A comparison of these excerpts creates some confusion as to whether the dogs bearing that breed name were being imported into the US; owners saw fit to adopt the “Staffordshire” name for their current stock; or both. Anyway, he goes on…

Some historical Pit Bull breeders of that time found a way to profit by selling his dogs under the name of “Staffordshire Terrier” which had a better commercial appeal because of the dissociation of the word “Pit” and the recognition of the breed by AKC. However it is common knowledge that many dogs of this short period of time (1950–1960) were actually game dogs…

Dogtime explains things this way: In 1898 the UKC, Britain's equivalent of the AKC, named these bull dogs the American Pit Bull Terrier. The AKC decided to recognize the breed in the early 1930s — but under a new name. Intending to separate it from its pit-fighting past, the AKC named it the American Staffordshire Terrier. This is inconsistent with other sources which state that “Staffordshire Terrier” was the original classification before being changed to “American StaffordshireTerrier” in the early 1970s. Regardless of disagreements as to the when and by whom, it would seem the nature of the beast was simply obscured by painting it with a new name. No mention is made of an attempt to actually alter the breed into something fitted for anything different from its original purpose.

This badrap.org article picks up the history: The American Staffordshire Terriers have been developed since that time for conformation, while the APBTs have been developed for working drive, in addition to conformation. The two styles are basically mirror images of each other, with slight differences in build and character that have started to show over the past 65 years. 

So the AKC assures us that the derivative of the fighting dog known as American Staffordshire Terrier is a refined version just for show with all threat of aggressiveness bred out of it. But how certain can we be that this genetic composition has indeed been so successfully and profoundly overhauled in each and every specimen simply because these show dogs are not put to the fight test? Let’s note that the AKC, in distinguishing between the refined bloodlines and the American Pitbull Terrier, voiced no definitive position regarding any negative allegations against the latter. But they are somehow something different with a problematic image to be avoided – the cousin no one wants to talk about.

Name games and deception appear to be rife in this industry. Yet another breed-glorifying article, nonetheless, provides these little anecdotes: The fighting reputation of pit bull-type dogs led the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1996 to relabel pit bull terriers as “St. Francis Terriers”. . . so that they might be more readily adopted; 60 temperament-screened dogs were adopted until the program was halted after several of the newly adopted dogs killed cats. The New York City Center for Animal Care and Control tried a similar approach in 2004 by relabeling their pit bull terriers as “New Yorkies”, but dropped the idea in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

There is really no need to dig into all this name confusion too deeply. It mostly appears to be a verbal shell game played to achieve public and commercial appeal. This history seems to clarify what the name-making elite have purposefully muddied. The same breed was granted a label of respect by replacing the functional implicating “pitbull” with the elegant “Staffordshire”. Suffice it to say, all of these dogs, with whatever name they are labeled, were created with the same characteristics. Breeding continued honing toward that goal well into the 20^th Century, even if for two separate purposes as claimed.

The Modern History

Let’s jump back on the timeline for the final, and perhaps most craze-defining, period.

Zaurisio’s compilation of historic interviews with the later generation breeders, celebrated within the community, confirms that the intent of these figures was the continuance of a reputable line of fighting champions well into the 60s. With a reverence for these bloodlines so well established, what would be the motivation for successive breeders to abandon that respect for purity when the very qualities they had sought in their fighting dogs was exactly the same as those recognized as champion-worthy in the show circuits? We hope that some, if not most, owners and breeders practiced some respect for the law. But we already know that the dogfighting practice remained alive and well, albeit retreating to darker corners. The main point here, however, is the idea that no alterations in the breeding modus operandi were ever practically warranted. This would mean that the gene pool so carefully cultivated over 150 years remains in circulation, unaltered for posterity.

This TIME Magazine article is a wide-ranging exploration on the topic of Pitbulls, including its own timeline chart of pitbull attacks and maimings from 1982 to 2013. One event is plotted on the chart from which point the numbers begin to skyrocket. That event was the well-publicized conviction of Michael Vick, according to dogsbite.org founder Colleen Lynn. Vick’s high-profile trial for dogfighting and cruelty to animals roused a growing sympathy for pit bulls, which led more people to adopt them and bring them into their homes. The chart shows that attacks numbered less than 100 in 2007 and steadily rose to around triple that count in 2012. The number vaults in the next year, almost doubling.

Merritt Clifton points to the significance of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, prior to the Vick event:

Pit bulls are especially popular in Louisiana and Mississippi, and many of the volunteers responding to Hurricane Katrina found themselves saving stranded dogs. Most of the pit bulls they saved had been kept inside and behaved well around the rescuers, Clifton said, because they knew their survival depended on it. The dogs who were rescued were good pit bulls, he says, and “the real badasses, the ones chained outside, were drowned.”

Clifton said that many of the volunteers, who had very little experience with dog rescue, became attached to the breed and involved in pit-bull advocacy. And that helped galvanize the pro-pit-bull movement in the wake of Michael Vick’s 2007 dogfighting scandal.

Thus began the Pitbull Craze and its continued escalation.

THE STAT WARS

The bulk of the pro-pitbull rhetoric will involve endless cozy testimonials and cutesy videos all in support of how wonderful and family-friendly the pitbull choice will be. All this usually absent any addressing of statistics. Those come only as defensive responses to any presentation of numbers which do not paint so positive a picture of the breed choice. The necessary defusing of these statistics invariably involves either a re-interpretation of them; a dismissal of them as erroneously calculated; or a rebuke of them as false propaganda from biased and hateful sources.

How many dogs are we talking about?

For starters, just how many pitbulls are there as compared to other breeds? The reported percentages seem to vary in both methodology and result. This is no surprise being that a true number is virtually impossible to obtain. What’s more, any existing bias would guide the statistician toward a number higher or lower such to support any follow-up argument or claim of dog-bite-by-breed percentages. That is, the higher the percentage of pitbulls in existence appears to be, the less striking and more expected would be a higher number of attacks ascribed to the breed. A lower number, of course, more striking when coupled with a higher number of bite associations.

Pitbullinfo.org estimates that pitbull-type breeds make up about 22% of the US dog population. Since a reported number of pitbulls owned is unavailable, this estimate is arrived at by taking the national percentage reported as German Shepherds from this AKC breed registration information (6.3 – and this data only goes from 1991 to 2008) and multiplying it by 3.6. Why 3.6? Because the number of pitbulls taken in by shelters is 3.6x greater than that for German Shepherds. Intake numbers, they say, would be a more reliable factor to use than adoption since all dog breeds are taken in while not all are adopted out equitably. The population of pitbulls must, therefore, be about 3.6x greater than that of German Shepherds. Did you get that? If this seems like a logical estimate, you may first want to ask if the greater number of pitbulls being given up is a result of a disproportionate number of owners finding some reason to u-turn on their original choice of breed. In other words, this method of estimating assumes that the displeasure with all breeds is equal and so the numbers of breeds taken in by shelters must simply be commensurate with the population percentages of all those breeds.

This estimate of astronomically high pitbull popularity pulls its data from ASPCA sources including this Banfield Hospital veterinary data which found Pitbull to be the 5^th most popular breed. Cross-referencing that with their own shelter intake data and the AKC percentage of German Shepherd ownership, they come to their estimate of 22% pitbull makeup within the total dog population. A bit dizzying. The Banfield piece reports the Chihuaha, Labrador Retriever, Yorkshire Terrier and Shih Tzu (pretty consistent with other sources) are even more popular. By Pitbullinfo.org’s calculating methods, these 5 breeds combined would make up in excess of 110% of the dogs owned in the US. This leaves negative space for all other breeds combined. Doubt of this percentage now established, I think it is probably fair to accept that the ASPCA and Banfield numbers inform us that Pitbulls are the most popular dog for shelter intakes and the 5^th most popular to receive veterinary care. Not much more.

Animals 24-7 utilizes a different methodology in attempt to estimate dog population by breed. This organization researches and logs dogs both for sale through advertising (readily accessible source data) and also through adoption availability. However, it considers only the for-sale data in calculating the percentage of dogs that exist by breed. The rationale being that including dogs up for adoption would be counting a dog, previously offered for sale, twice thus skewing the results. Adoption data, according to them, is more useful in determining which breeds were discarded and at what rate. While this method can’t know how dogs given away through personal channels or birthed to expand the numbers within the progenitor household might factor in, it seems far more reasonable than the convoluted mixing of half-baked and unrelatable data used by Pitbullinfo.org. The relevant statistics they propose are a 4.8% representation of dogs for sale identified as pitbulls and a wildly disproportionate 42% of dogs offered for adoption by shelters are of this same type. They admit that the latter number was arrived at by evaluating pictures of the shelter dogs and claim that only 1 out of 6 are identified honestly as pitbulls, instead mostly being referred to as some sort of “mixed” breed. (We’ll get into the problems of both misidentification and purposeful mislabeling later.) Suffice it to say that this method also leaves much to be desired since it relies largely on observation rather than inarguably confirmed fact, while Pitbullinfo.org’s method relies on impossible math results rooted in flimsy suppositions.

The roughly 4.8% estimate offered by Animals 24-7 is accepted and repeated by Canine Journal, World Animal Foundation and Pawsome Advice. Some sources settling on 6% depending on the range of years from which data are obtained for calculation. Dogsbite.org claimed 8% for 2019. The ASPCA suggests no figure for overall population by breed.

So what of the AKC (American Kennel Club), with its reputation of rigidity and legitimacy? The main problem with the organization as a statistical source is that it is not very inclusive. Only certain breeds are recognized and only dogs registered with them, all strict standards met, are counted for anything. In addition, and in light of reports that mixed breed dogs make up the greatest percentage of dogs out there, only purebreds are worthy of their count. That is, unless you choose to register your lesser animal in the AKC Partner Program (kind of a Division B created so as not to appear as discriminating, I guess). It is safe to say that the popularity rankings by breed only consider (registered) purebreds so as not to necessitate any confusing math. Their disregard of mixed breeds alone renders them ineffective as a basis for any broad statistical figuring. The organization’s 2021 popularity rankings (which did not include guesstimate percentages of population) listed the Staffordshire Bull Terrier all the way down at 75^th and the American Staffordshire Terrier just behind at 81^st. The American Bully was unrecognized.

In the aforementioned perusal of Facebook groups dedicated to pitbulls, I found two which sought to provide a safe haven for owners with unregistered dogs. Not only does this hint of a dishonesty within the community (which we’ll get to later), but it indicates unreported ownership status could be another blurring factor when attempting to ascertain population numbers. (These groups also sought money for their pitty defense fund from their members.)

Profiling a community outreach program, Pets for Life, Bronwen Dickey (chapter 16) writes of the apprehension of many dog owners in denser communities to advertise the identities and very existence of their pitbulls. The vast majority avoided contact with shelters or other authorities, even veterinarians.

While arriving at a population percentage with confidence is a futile pursuit, other more relevant and tangible endeavors make up the crux of the matter.

Attack Frequency Question

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention approximates 4.5 million dog bites per year, most incidents unreported, with roughly 19% requiring medical attention. This article provides a chart laying out statistics for both reported dog attacks and those causing fatalities by breed. The data were compiled by Animals 24-7 from all reports of such events from 2014 thru 2020 that they could find through extensive research. It places Pitbulls far and away at the top as accounting for both attacks and deaths with 3,397 and 295 (65% of the total), respectively. A distant second is Rottweilers with 535 attacks (8 kills) followed by German Shepherds and Presa Canarios with 113 (15) and 111 (18), respectively.

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery:

Dog bite injuries are consistently one of the leading causes of non-fatal emergency room visits in children.^1–3 . . . Evidence supports that most dog bites occur during the summer months and affect younger children, typically less than 9 years old.^2–6 A majority of dog bites are a result of the child’s own pet, and within their own home.^7–10 . . . Seven studies specifically investigated and identified dog breeds as part of their analyses.^{6 9 15 17 25 28 30} Often only a fraction of dogs involved in a bite or attack not taking place in the home are identified. Additionally, due to the difficulty in determining a dog’s true genetics, most are defined as mixed breed, leading to a variety of breeds implicated in bite incidents. The tendency of a dog to bite is also known to be a combination of genetic predisposition, early socialization to people, training or maltreatment, the quality of supervision, and behavior of the victim.⁵⁰ After reviewing patient/family reports in the medical chart, Golinko et al identified 46 breeds in 31% of their cases. Out of 1616 dog bites, the three most prevalent were found to be Pit Bulls (also identified as Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, or Bull Terrier, 38.5%), mixed breeds (Pit Bull mixes, Labrador mixes, Pit Bull/Labrador mixes, 13%), and Labradors (8.1%).²⁸ Chen et al identified 58 breeds in 68% (366) of cases, with the most common breeds being mixed (23%), Labrador Retriever (13.7%), Rottweiler (4.9%), and German Shepherd (4.4%).⁶ Sribnick et al identified dog breed in 55% of cases where Pit Bulls were the most common (50.4%), followed by Rottweilers (12.2%), Labradors (8.4%), German Shepherds (5.3%) and Chows (4.6%).⁹ In 40 dog bite attacks, the most common breeds (n=15) were German Shepherd and German Shepherd mix, and the dogs involved in fatal attacks were two Rottweilers, one Husky, and one Akita.¹⁷ In a study using a local country health department, a listed dog breed was available for 54% of cases with 22.5% classified as mixed breed. The most frequently reported dog breeds who had bitten (and were not classified as mixed) were Pit Bull (27.2%), German Shepherd (10.5%), Labrador Retriever (7.2%), Boxer (4.6%), Rottweiler (3.9%), Beagle (3.3%), Jack Russell (2.9%), Bulldog (2.9%), Chihuahua (2.6%), Husky (2.3%), Golden Retriever (2.3%), Dachshund (2.2%), Mastiff (1.9%), Shih-tzu (1.9%), Poodle (1.6%), and Cocker Spaniel (1.5%). Eight additional breeds each representing <1.5% of bites were also identified (Yorkshire Terrier, Great Dane, Australian Shepherd, Doberman, Boston Terrier, Akita, Collie).³⁰ Though these studies identified dog breeds involved in bite injuries, it is difficult to draw conclusions on the involvement of specific breeds in pediatric dog bites as the overall underlying dog population is not available for comparison, and breed stratification is not possible.

The above suggests a few notable items which seem to contradict the assertion made in the Bronwen Dickey book (Chapter 11) regarding an anti-pitbull bias within the medical practitioner community which guides any further reporting by it. It acknowledges the difficulty in ascertaining an attacking dog’s genetic identity in most cases, with most information being obtained from patient/family reports. It also readily identifies socialization, training, maltreatment and victim behavior as potential contributing factors to an incident. It should also be noted that the analysis draws from studies of incidents occurring from 1980 to 2020. The studies referenced in her book are confined to the 1980s – before the onset of the Pitbull Craze.

Study published in the National Library of Medicine entitled “The Changing Epidemiology of Dog Bite Injuries In the United States, 2005 – 2018”:

Of the breeds identified in the data set (84.6%), pit bulls were the most numerous (33.6%), followed in order by Shih Tzu (5.3%), Chihuahua (5.2%), German Shepherd (4.1%), and Yorkshire Terrier (3.1%). This finding is consistent with previous research showing that pit bulls are responsible for more bites than any other dog breed (McReynolds 2019).

These are some statistics derived from Level II trauma center studies from 2011 to 2021: Most pediatric dog bite injuries afflicted male children (55.6%), ages 6 to 12 years (45.7%), by a household dog (36.2%). The most common offending breed was a pit bull or pit bull mix (53.0%) . . . Other frequently identified breed groups included Labrador/Labrador mix (10%), German Shepherd/German Shepherd mix (6.5%)

Facial injuries were the most common, 56.2% followed by extremities, 37.1%. Infants and preschoolers were more likely to sustain bites to the head/face. This targeting of the face is consistent with the traditional mode of attack for a dog facing its opponent in combat. It should generally be noted that nearly all of these studies focus on pediatric treatment data since children are most often the victims of attacks.

The AAHA reports that, in a study published by the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, bite frequency of children was looked at by breed. While the most common breed was “unknown”, pitbull was 2^nd accounting for 22.5% of cases. “Mixed breeds” were 3^rd with 21.2% and German Shepherds 4^th with 17.8%. One can only guess how many of the unknown and mixed breed designees included some amount of pitbull make-up.

I must say that, before looking up dog bite statistics, I expected to find that the frequency of bites (irrespective of severity) to be a little more evenly distributed among at least a handful of breeds. As it turns out, this was not so much the case. Pitbulls or “mixed breeds” still, more often than not, topped the lists.

The CDC estimates that 81% of all attacks are discounted as medically inconsequential. Could it be that pitbulls were far less responsible as a breed for those minor attacks? Very possible. But this suggests that the breeds (mostly pitbull) involved in the 19% may have more of a propensity for damaging, or consequential, attacks as opposed to the “reactionary single bite” variety.

Attack Severity Question – Dog Bite-Related Fatalities (DBRFs)

There is an urgent need here to distinguish between the overall “bite frequency” statistics and the graver statistical analyses of DBRFs.

All Pet’s Life here ruminates on DBRF numbers from the two prior decades. The jump from 213 reported deaths from 2000 to 2009 to 380 in the following decade (Source) is attributed to the expansion of media. Did the dogs get almost two times meaner in ten years? Probably not. The internet happened and the smartphone happened. More dog attacks are recorded and reported. Also, the reported data is more readily available . I would agree with that last statement and am grateful for that. But, excusing their conflation of “dog attacks” and DBRFs, the idea that deaths by whatever cause are only recorded because these records are more accessible is nonsensical. There has been a legal demand for human death documenting, including cause of death, since long before the internet existed. I can point out something that did happen consistent with the later decade. The Pitbull Craze.

An AVMA statistics chart arranges data from combined studies of investigators from CDC&P, Humane Society of the United States and the AVMA only from 1979 to 1998, prior to the real explosion of thePitbull Craze. The omission of data from further along the timeline is due to the CDC decision to no longer report dog breed information in attack and fatality cases. They apparently somehow deemed it irrelevant and/or unreliable (further thoughts later). Nonetheless, these researchers found that 76 human deaths involved pitbulls or pitbull crossbreeds (“death-based approach”), while 118 pitbull-types were involved in these deaths (“dog-based approach”). The difference in numbers is due to multiple dog attacks. If 2 pitbulls killed a person, the death would count as 1 with pitbull involvement, but 2 for pitbulls as killers. The tallies for Rottweilers were 44 and 67, respectively, and 27 and 41 for German Shepherds.

This AVMA journal (Patronek, Sacks, et al 2013) explores the ever-important ways in which such deaths are preventable by humans. This part of the conversation seems obligatory to the AVMA and others, always quick to point out that it is humans who are ultimately responsible for all tragedies. Factors like dog familiarity with victim and owner’s failure to neuter or general mismanagement are highlighted. Never do we find such suggestions as halting the production of a historically troublesome breed or encouraging those humans to look elsewhere when considering dog ownership. Quite the opposite. The determination by the canine crusading community to fit that square(jawed?) peg into that round hole is resolute. The National Canine Research Council steps up to expand on this original study of 2000 – 2009 data so as to cover a time range of 2000 - 2015. Their results followed suit with its predecessor study and the results seem to be, in addition to charting out the factors mitigating blame on breed, mostly concerned with downplaying the issue of dog-related deaths by comparing the relatively miniscule numbers with the statistical probabilities of other ways one could die. Diversion? This twisted application of statistics is wholly dismissible to me. If the topic of conversation is solely on whether or not one dog breed type makes a better or worse choice as pet based on potential dangers, why do I care if my survival chances are better owning a certain, or any, dog than running naked through a power plant in a lightning storm or driving blindfolded on the interstate? It’s a common and silly statistical game.

Dogsbite.org has similarly ventured to pick up the statistical timeline where the CDC has bowed out. Here they present dog bite fatality data from 2005 to 2017. As previously mentioned, they report a startling 66% (284) of all dog attacks resulting in fatality involved pitbulls. Within this period, deaths attributed to pit bulls rose from 58% (2005 to 2010) to 71% (2011 to 2017), a 22% rise. A look at the aforementioned charts presented by the AVMA suggest that this is a meteoric rise from the 1979 to 1998 period, in which the pitbull already held firmly the position of most deadly breed. This is all consistent with the escalation in Pitbull Craze fervor.

In addition, they state that the 13-year data set shows the combination of pit bulls, rottweilers and "baiting" bull breeds, fighting and guardian breeds -- American bulldogs, mastiffs, bullmastiffs, presa canarios, and cane corsos -- contributed to over 80% of all dog bite fatalities. This fortifies the concept that breeds man-made for purpose continue to perform as their creators meant them to up to the present day. What sets the pitbull apart from this company is the unparalleled passion exhibited for it in society today.

Breeding Business fields the question of whether or not pitbulls attack their owners. It provides synopses of the 3 somewhat-publicized tales of Bethany Lynn Stephens (mauled to death by her own 2 pitbulls); three-year old Victoria Wilcher (lost an eye after being mauled by her grandfather’s pitbulls); and Kameron Halstrom and Shawna Innie (attacked by a pitbull a day after being acquired from craigslist). The article is quick to include this bit so as, again, not to so readily excuse humans from any culpability in the Wilcher matter: Based on the grandfather’s statement, his Pit bulls had never shown any signs of aggressiveness. According to the Sheriff, people always use that narrative after dog attacks. The Innie/Hallstrom telling adds this: …based on the Manchester animal control officer, Pit bulls are strong dogs, ‘but not typically aggressive. However, the family stated that the attack was unprovoked. (I, perhaps unfairly, read a similar writer’s skepticism into that last part of the report.) These items are important to point out because the compulsion to provide similar excuses is evident in so many tellings of pitbull attack tales. The rather tongue-in-cheek sheriff’s comment is not accompanied by any facts that might counter the grandfather’s, or any of the other dog owners’ referred to, claims. Are some or all of them full of it? Who knows? But, lacking any personal or intimate knowledge of the claimants involved, why choose that assumption and not value the potential warnings their claims suggest? This discounting of the common cries of shock and surprise by pitbull owners after an attack seems unwise to me. I consider this now every time an adoptive savior tells me how harmless and easy-going their lovely pitty is. “Well… maybe… but…” The events that educated so many owners of their pitbull’s dark capabilities came too late and with great cost. I feel it necessary to include that, in just trying to find the ages of the 2 children in the last story, this source and this second source both spent more verbiage and effort dispelling the “myths” about pitbull aggression than simply reporting the facts of the case.

The Bethany Stephens story’s “yeah, but…” diversionary treatment goes even further. Bethany was found mauled to death and subsequently torn apart by her 2 pitbulls while out on a walk in the woods with them. Immediately, defense mechanisms are activated. The author is compelled to add that Stephens’ dogs went through drastic lifestyle changes before the accident. (Accident?) A link to this evaluation of the incident (not report so much) by a local news outlet takes up the defenders’ torch with an “expert’s” (deemed so by the courts in which she has offered multiple testimonies) explanation of the significance of these lifestyle changes. They went from being inside dogs doted on by Stephens to living outside in a kennel. This is hardly a lifelong history of neglect then, but is the drastic lifestyle change that ultimately led to the vulgar punishment of their less-than-perfect owner. Is this the penalty one risks for a lapse in strict diligence?

Valerie Paul, dog trainer and owner of Impawsible Pups, provided her analysis:

“Most dogs aren’t going to just turn on an owner,” Paul said. “As more and more details come out, I think there probably was some sort of outside influence, but not necessarily another animal or anything like that – just something that could have enticed the dogs to get overexcited and react the way dogs will.”

Overexcited?

Dog trainer, Robert Brandau, in reaction to this story, calms us with the insight that pitbulls and any other dogs attacking their owners is a very rare occurrence. He suspects an outside factor may have set the dogs off. Another expert (?) identified as Ben B. (a former Veterinary Assistant) lays out some deeper possible explanations as to why a dog might attack its owner in this dogvills.com article. It is some quick food for thought and can be summed up in the wisdom that humans must be conscious of dogs as instinct-driven creatures, unlike the humans trying to rationalize their behaviors.

Valerie Paul continued, "The fact that they are pit bulls doesn’t connect to what they did, it is a dog thing,". . . She said at the end of the day, dogs are animals, and in extreme circumstances, they can potentially view even their owners as threats or food sources.

"I've seen more non pit bulls breeds be aggressive towards people than pit bulls."

“Be aggressive”? Is that how this horrific mutilation is to be characterized? Are we, again, going to compress the entire spectrum of dog gesturing from a growl or a posture to body dismemberment and consumption into one simple package labeled “aggressiveness” so as to dilute the significance of the pitbull breeds’ attack signature? The glaringly important point here is that “most dogs”, by breed, don’t do this. Pitbulls have done this. Marina Verriest. Dennis Moore. Sadie Davila. Metlitta Sekole. A visit to National Pitbull Victims Awareness will provide an abundance of examples. PIT BULL VICTIM STORIES – Responsible Citizens for Public Safety (rc4ps.org) offers some more. A basic Wikipedia list of dog attack fatalities attests to this. On and on and on. This is what the breed is capable of.

But might the emergence of some testimonials be the result of strong-armed biases? Bronwen Dickey showcases the findings of Karen Delise of the aforementioned National Canine Research Council, whose diligent and grinding efforts here I have no reason to disparage. With suspicion of a previous study, which concluded that pitbulls accounted for 67% of DBRFs (from only 1983 to 1986, by the way), she found in follow-up nearly 3 times the number of DBRFs as her either feckless, or anti-pitbull-biased, predecessors. But the less than jaw-dropping revelation is that her unbiased findings show that a mere 32% of the killings were “questionably” pitbull –related. Dickey dismisses this still-strikingly high percentage (which is pretty close to the percentage reported by the Pediatric Surgery study) due to the “questionablitiy” factor (no doubt suggestive of the Misidentification mar to be discussed later) and the low sample number. I’m not sure how many items need to be sampled in order to make a percentage calculation relevant. Is this subjective? It seemed more important to both authors to point out the existence of a clear anti-pitbull bias in the prevailing research than to raise alarm at the enormity (albeit, half the original) of the 32% figure.

We can never seem to escape the bias allegation wars and battle for the rhetorical high ground. So the explanation for a general feeling that there is something just bad and different about pitbulls, seeming preponderance of illustrative tales and inflated numbers insisted on by Delise, Dickey and others is a simple engagement in the “cherry-picking” of stories for public consumption. Delise states that only the stories involving pitbulls seem to be pushed to the fore of public consciousness while those involving other breeds are ignored. What’s more, she adds, these events remain there even well after certain facts originally reported have been found riddled with inaccuracies. Dickey comments in an interview, “I’d tell any reporter covering a dog-bite or fatality case that all the information he or she gathers on day one could turn out to be completely wrong by day 10. When law-enforcement and animal-control officers finish their investigations months hence, they will often turn up a bunch of stuff that will never make the headlines.” Five or six examples of such occurrences provided by Delise are offered in the book to make the point. She similarly offers a few pictures of perpetrator dogs allegedly reported as pitbulls, which clearly are not. But are these few a simple matter of “counter cherry-picking”, if you will?

Dog-related human deaths have steadily shot up from 2018 thru 2021 (35 to 81, respective years) according to the CDC (Source) which ceased reporting breed type in 1998 because no centralized reporting system for dog bites exists, and incidents are typically relayed to a number of entities, such as the police, veterinarians, animal control, and emergency rooms, making meaningful analysis nearly impossible. (Source) In other words, rampant “misidentification” might mar any reported breed information. Bronwen Dickey adds (p. 169) The problem with tracking human fatalities by breed, the CDC researchers discovered, is that there will always be a “number one.” It is unlikely that we will ever eliminate DBRFs altogether, as there will always be a small portion of any dog population that is unsound. If Americans owned only beagles, poodles and Pekingese, such a breed-based ranking system would inevitably make one breed appear more “dangerous” than the others. For this reason, the CDC stopped tracking dog bite fatalities this way shortly after the twenty-year DBRF study was published, because epidemiologists did not believe it yielded any useful information. Huh? What problem is being imagined here? This sounds like yet another example of an organization of authority, relied upon for information, taking it upon themselves to abridge that information so as to curb any idea which the free-thinking consumer might infer. Why is simply relaying the data not the whole of their charge? After all, isn’t all reported data subject to some scrutiny?

To argue that PBRF (PitBull-Related Fatality) cases are few and far between would be an honest start to a rational conversation. But to cloud these confirmed realities in human-blaming excuses and a reduction to talk of “dog bites” is nothing more than a disingenuous and dangerous game and should never be seriously engaged in by someone considering dog ownership and breed choice.

THE LARGELY UNDISCUSSED STATISTICS OF AGGRESSION AGAINST OTHER PETS (EVEN BY “ANIMAL LOVERS”)

Personal story – what motivated me to even ask the questions and search for answers:

I’m not important but, as related to all this, suffice it to say I am someone who grew up in a household of practicing animal-lovers. I have shared residence with dogs, cats, ferrets, foxes, horses, ponies, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, a donkey, a sheep, a pig, all kinds of reptiles and more. I prefer to use snap traps for mouse problems because I see no need to have these health hazardous invaders suffer when being eradicated from my home. Quick and painless is the humane way.

Part one of the story that led to this rambling takes us back 13 years. One day a pair of pitbulls attacked two ponies. These ponies had already been the victims of neglect and abuse at the hands of humans (much like the many dogs a lot of you righteously stand up to defend). These harmless creatures are left with scars from an attack that would surely have been much worse if not for the intervention of a brave human who dared to retaliate against the invading pitbulls in a driven, call it foolish if you think, reaction of love for animals, her pets. This is a passion many of you only write or voice about from a position of academic humanitarianism.

Fast-forward 12 years for part two of the story, a repeat of part one involving different perpetrator pitbulls and with a far more tragic end. This time a pony and a donkey were viciously slaughtered by these animals. Not the smaller kitty cat or poodle nextdoor – a pony and a donkey. These were 2 pets with every bit as much character and lovability as, or more than, any dog I have ever met. I challenge you to find any other moderately popular breeds capable of this kind of damage to an animal of that size, regardless of how evenly you believe a propensity for aggressiveness among all dog breeds is distributed.

I must mention in addendum to that story the part about the perpetrator pitbull charging from the scene of its crime toward the oncoming human only to leap up at her face in an attempt to, not bite, but lick her. Keep that in mind.

So, for those scoffing at the idea of any current plight against human safety, and blinded by a need to protect beloved animals without a voice, consider the dangers to ALL voiceless animals. Explore this deep and hard because, frankly, it is a problem largely ignored by the animal stewards and defenders who have seemingly been lured in droves to the “pity-the-pittys” camp to spend all their humanitarian chips on a populist campaign which has monopolized the narrative.

These startling statistics from Animals 24-7 combines the aforementioned human death statistics with those of animals: Overall,  pit bulls accounted for 68% of the human dog attack deaths in 2017,  88% of the human disfigurements,  92% of the dogs killed by other dogs,  94% of the dogs seriously injured by other dogs,  96% of the cats killed by dogs,  and 74% of the farmed animals killed by dogs. The tallies from 2013 to 2021 of animals killed by dogs and, of those, by pitbulls shows an estimated 80% accounted for by the breed. These charts show that roughly as many animals are injured by dogs, predominantly pitbulls, as are killed for any given year, including other dogs.

The arrival at these numbers is dependent largely on extrapolation in addition to painstaking research, but for good reason. As they explain, we have learned from reviewing accounts of dog attacks on other pets and farmed animals that they are almost never reported unless either of three other circumstances were involved in the same incident:  a human was killed or disfigured in the same attack;  law enforcement shot the attacking dog or dogs at the scene;  or farmed animals valued at more than $1,000 were killed. Their formula uses a multiplier of 3x the reported numbers to account for unreported incidents within the owner’s household and those not meeting the aforementioned criteria. Even if one feels uncomfortable with the method by which the total numbers are calculated, it is reasonable to say that the total number of occurrences is far greater than the reported number. This elevates pitbull breeds to a concern class of their own.

Stories of attacks on animals can be found searching this database via Title search (horse, cat, sheep, etc.) at National Pitbull Victims Awareness. Sudden, Random, Unprovoked & Violent: Pit bulls in a Humane Society is a blog which here presents a timeline of 39 documented cases of pitbull attacks on horses, ponies and donkeys only from late 2013 until early 2016. Being most of these incidents do not involve harm to humans, it is unlikely that this is anywhere near all-inclusive, and just within a 3-year period. There is simply just not enough media buzz about the issue of attacks on animals, only personal testimonials buried on less-visited sites like these and smothered by the avalanche of pitbull defense rhetoric served out wholesale by the supposedly “animal-loving” crusaders.

In addition, I have spent hours watching videos returned on a Google search of “dogs attacking horses”. I was careful not to specify “pitbull”. After watching dozens of these, I took away a few observations. To acknowledge the pitbull story cherry-picking crowd, I will report that probably less than half of the dogs shown in these videos were pitbulls. But the overwhelming majority of videos reporting or showing actual attacks which resulted in the death or injury of the horse did involve pitbulls. So overwhelming that, in fact, only 2 of the stories (which had no actual footage of the attacks) involved another breed, specifically German Shepherds. The other observation was that footage, when described in the title as “attack” or some synonym, more often seemed like dramatic displays of playfulness by foolish dogs. Many of these dogs appeared to be some kind of herding-type dogs engaging in the instinctive circling and hock nipping behaviors. A few were actually attempting to sniff and mount the horse. Many of these paid a price for their mischief, aggression or titillation. While such behavior is surely annoying and a potential danger to riders, it never seemed to escalate once the horse made a firm statement. Not so with pitbulls. Once committed to a real attack, they were incessant, only stopped by either risky and strong human interference or a well-placed back hoof dealing a fatal or debilitating blow.

I searched for any commentary from veterinary practitioners regarding their experiences with the results of dog attacks on animals and general perceptions on the matter. Most entries centered on behavior of pitbulls as patients and regurgitated language about their threat to humankind. Several vets and others working in the animal care industry weighed in on this Reddit chain. (While there, check out some of the associated conversations on the right.) The recurring themes seemed to be the prevalence of pitbulls as attackers in the more horrific cases against other dogs. So these empirically-based testimonies only corroborated the statistical information. There was a professed love of the breed within the industry only by those with less hands-on experience (ie. not ER vets) and the consensus that pitbull patients were generally very sweet to work with – until, on occasion, they weren’t at which point they quickly became a greater concern than most other breeds reacting to an uncomfortable situation.

I guess it makes sense that the majority of people in the veterinary industry wear these softer lenses, dealing mostly with animals as casual patients (vaccinations, wormings, antibiotics, nail-clippings, general welfare, sometimes serious illness, etc.) and few having any real world experience with the damage they can dish out or even with the recipients of that damage. It would also stand to reason that these devotees, in exercising an animal version of the Hippocratic Oath, have a universal respect for all their animal patients and, thus, might see a seemingly rabid, destroy-all media assault on any breed of any animal as a call-to-arms. This sentiment, I suspect, is what obliges industry researchers (like Patronek, et al) to asterisk all research findings so to steer the angry, pitchfork-bearing mob toward their fellow flawed humans, not any creature seemingly victimized by rhetorical stereotyping.

What sense can we get from the online community itself regarding this issue?

Most animal activist organizations with an online presence seem to focus exclusively on love of dogs, maybe cats too. Yet most still seem to ignore the issue of dog-on-animal attacks, focusing on the reassurance that the unfairly maligned breeds (pitbulls) are really not especially a danger to humans. Those that do acknowledge a concern for animal victims, like this one, will give passing commentary like: Many dogs were bred with a specific purpose; herding breeds tend to display nipping behaviors and scent-hounds follow their noses. Pit Bulls were originally bred for work that included bull-baiting and dog fighting. It is not the “hate” of other dogs that drives some to fight, but an “urge” that has been bred into them.

I discovered the Facebook group Pitbulls Killed My Pet, but found no page devoted to other canine breed attackers. Is this proof of anti-pitbull bias within the community or a case of supply created to satisfy a real demand to therapeutically share traumatic tales?

Back to the pitbull jumping to lick the “unfamiliar” human in a show of chumminess and affection, moments after violently killing two larger animals. Remember the historical references to pitbull handling, like in this article? The breeding of old included the culling of dogs such to aim for two characteristic outcomes: The dog must have the instinct to kill other animals; and the dog must be manageable and safe toward humans. The licking killer dog is a nod to the success of the breed’s creators of old as it exercised both of these sought characteristics. Suddenly, we recognize reflections of this historical breeding elements in the modern day product. The highly applauded positive human interaction with these chummy-to-human killing breeds makes so much more sense.

The exemplary member of the breed should be subservient to the human master, but defined by animal-directed murderous aggression, no matter how much “pitty” lovers want to ignore it away. Attacks on animals, often disastrous, are usually viewed as freak and exceptional occurrences (when acknowledged at all by the community) and dismissed with a finger-wagging toward the owner (yet again) for not properly “socializing” the dog throughout the training process. When the “why?” time of blame is upon us, the consideration of established DNA makeup is readily exchanged for owner fault in modern-day consumer logic.

ALL THESE NUMBERS AND TESTIMONIALS MUST BE FALSELY CONSTRUCTED FROM A PLACE OF BIAS AND HATRED. MY PITTY IS THE SWEETEST DOG YOU COULD EVER MEET. I’M JUST NOT BUYING IT.

The AVMA-initiated studies, referenced by many sources found online, focus on mitigating data analyses and treatments which appear designed to counter any assertion that certain breeds are more dangerous than others. This approach to the questions of breed and danger correlation comes down to three resolving alternative conclusions: 1) the erroneous pitbull population numbers given distort and inflate the perception of the breed’s contribution to any dog bite problem (Breed is Non-Factor); 2) the rampant misidentification of breed in the majority of dog attack incidents is more than prevalent enough to make breed-specific blame illegitimate and discountable (Misidentification); and 3) there is a whole litany of more relevant factors which determine bad behavior for any dog (Human-Blaming).

BUT AREN’T ALL DOGS POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS? WHY PICK ON THE PITTY TYPES? (BREED IS NON-FACTOR)

For many, the unique history and purpose of the original pitbull breed already explored is not a good enough answer to that question. For many within that group, the inclusion of disproportionate and damning statistical numbers adds nothing to the argument when skepticism of their validity due to some alleged distortion, flaws or dishonesty is embraced. Those skeptics turn elsewhere, redirecting the debate to warrant updated study of whether or not breed is even a factor worthy of consideration with regard to any specific behavior or any individual dog. This addresses the Nurture over Nature philosophy or “it’s-how-you-raise-them” position.

Two answers to those questions are found in Dogs' Personalities Aren't Determined by Their Breed - Scientific American and Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes | Science, both examples of studies on the topic of breed as determinant of “personality” published in well-established scientific journals.

The research data for these studies (Kathleen Morrill, et al) was borrowed from a survey conducted by Darwin’s Ark in its effort to ostensibly isolate genetic profiles for diseases. Surveys completed by 18,385 dog owners were collected as individual pet profiles. In this study, 2,155 of those subject dogs actually had DNA testing done per the participant owners’ requests. The information culled was used for genetic coding analysis in attempt to match the reported behaviors with specific location in the DNA regions.

After running the survey data and sequenced DNA through a battery of statistical analyses, Morrill and her co-authors identified 11 genetic regions strongly associated with dog behavior, such as howling frequency and sociability with humans. But none of these behavioral regions was specific to any one of the 78 breeds examined in the study.

It is unclear whether the survey data, or reported behaviors, came from the 18,385 owner-provided profiles, as it seems to suggest, or only from the 2,155 for whom a DNA-confirmed breed identification could be made.

What behaviors were actually deemed worthwhile for study? Were propensity for howling at night and refusal to follow commands (biddability) the most negative on the list? Short of one faking dog ownership in order to fraudulently request a survey, the only accessible answers are the few offered as examples in these articles. So, what are the chances that any voluntary survey participant reported that they were involved in a lawsuit because Brutus attacked the local mailman? I’m willing to bet they took a pass. It is more likely that some cheery subject owners were eager to report the companion qualities of their adoring pitty (or other breed) who slept vigilantly by Little Sally’s bedside and warmed Mommy’s lap during many a Netflix binge. Would chasing the neighbor’s cat or squirrel in the park be relevant enough information to volunteer or just passing, insignificant and forgettable acts of play? It is unfair to assume such omissions were made, consciously or not. But it is certainly fair to question how unnaturally chlorined and filtered was the pool from which these subjects were drawn, given participation was owner-initiated. How many of those owners, post-bad incident were lining up to offer such grim data to Darwin’s Ark or any other organization? If a subject pitbull engaged in any egregiously violent behavior, it might also have happened post-survey. Remember too, publicized attacks are typically, or allegedly, not repeat behaviors, preceded or telegraphed by other behaviors per the majority of testimonials. (To those skeptical of the honesty of these testimonials, you must already be somewhat skeptical of questionnaire answers.)

The second study (Ancestry…) references a few examples of their measured behavioral traits. Biddability, defined as “responsiveness to direction and commands”, is deemed a heritable behavioral trait, while agonistic threshold, defined as “how easily a dog is provoked by frightening or uncomfortable stimuli” is deemed non-heritable. We propose that behaviors perceived as characteristic of modern breeds derive from thousands of years of polygenic adaptation that predates breed formation, with modern breeds distinguished primarily by aesthetic traits…

Modern domestic dog breeds are only ~160 years old and are the result of selection for specific cosmetic traits… Before the 1800s, dogs were probably primarily selected for functional roles such as hunting, guarding, and herding. Modern dog breeds are a recent invention defined by conformation to a physical ideal and purity of lineage.

So they seem to be suggesting that behavioral traits (or functions) were not a thing that modern breeding was interested in, rather the focus was on aesthetic (physical) traits. As we have learned looking at the history of pitbull breeding and its function (as with the Doberman), this is far from true. Things are not so long diluted with time. Instead, as mentioned, the desire for the “appearance” of an efficient fighter does nothing to encourage an adjustment to breeding practices, even if the intent to not exploit the original functionality of the breed is no longer present. This could be said of many, if not all, breeds whose “aesthetic” characteristics were aligned with respective functionality. The non-racing greyhound with the racing physique. The energetic and high endurance Dalmation who no longer has to keep up with the horse carriage. The pointing posture of the non-hunting Pointer breeds, and so on.

While agonistic threshold (or point of provocation to action) is explored via the survey and measured in this analysis, it is unknown (but doubtful) that “unprovoked” actions, where no apparent fear or uncomfortable stimuli are present, is inquired about or attempted to be measured. The majority of pitbull attack testimonials paint pictures of these most ferocious outbursts occurring against a victim who poses no real threat to the attacker and/or requiring the attacker to make a decisive move toward an unengaged target with clear initiative. Of course, these claims are scrutinized by anyone skeptical of the victim or witness’s honesty about things.

It must be pointed out that reputable and well-circulated publications like Smithsonian redistribute this study and a few similar ones. This is important because it is a reminder that references to the very few actual studies by multiple reputable organizations gives the illusion that there is massive, independently-produced confirmation for assertions, such as breed inconsequentiality, derived from these few original sources. It is the re-publications that lend to a greater sense of legitimacy than might be deserved. Once these foundational studies are identified and scrutinized, the whole PR structure so visible on that media front suddenly seems flimsy and shaky.

Perhaps a more relevant but similar study was done and published on Scientific Reports. This study focused more specifically, starting with its questionnaire, strictly on aggressiveness of subject dogs and an analysis of various factors including breed and environment. In the introduction the logical assertion is made that an owner-questionnaire can even be a better method to study aggressive behaviour than behaviour tests, because all dogs that have behaved aggressively in daily life do not show aggressive behaviour in test situation. While touting questionnaires as a valid data source, it simultaneously discredits the oft-referenced “temperament tests” as nonsense.

This study goes on to parrot much of the same factors contributing to an aggressive gesture as voiced elsewhere. Many of these are obvious, such as reaction to strangers and reaction by fearful dogs. Others are some version of the human-blaming rhetoric. Then we get to the more relevant chart regarding aggressiveness by breed. This shows that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier scored relatively low in aggressiveness markers.

I have a few problems with this study. First, this is yet another wide-scope analysis of “aggressiveness” with no attention given to the severity spectrum. A growl, snarl, snap and mutilating mauling can all be dressed in the same “aggressive behavior” label. Second, “aggressiveness” is measured solely within interaction with humans and aggressiveness toward other animals doesn’t seem to be worthy of measure. These issues are important to point out because these omissions in such hailed and referenced studies are consistent throughout most of the defensive literature put forth.

This Special Report is a combination of studies by the CDCP, Humane Society and AVMA. They felt it necessary to begin with this disclaimer: In contrast to what has been reported in the news media, the data from this study CANNOT be used to infer any breed-specific risk for dog bite fatalities (e.g., neither pit bull-type dogs nor Rottweilers can be said to be more “dangerous” than any other breed based on this study). To obtain such risk information it would be necessary to know the numbers of each breed currently residing in the United States. Such information is not available. That caveat having been laid out, figures are charted out which are less than normalizing of either of those breed types.

Yet another study on breed aggressiveness all but exonerates pitbulls of the charges against them. This study found that smaller dogs tend to display signs of aggression more often than larger dogs, positioning the Long-Haired Collie, Poodle and Miniature Schnauzer at the top of the list. Of course, none of those breeds are involved in deaths or mutilations for obvious reasons. The American Staffordshire Terrier was placed at 19. Similar to previous tests, the data were collected via surveys of 13,715 dog owners. Other determining factors were cited, including dog’s age and gender and first-time owners.

This 2008 study published in Science Direct titled Breed Differences In Canine Aggression examined 30 different breeds for aggression in 3 criteria sets: toward strangers; toward owners; and toward other dogs. Breeds with the greatest percentage of dogs exhibiting serious aggression (bites or bite attempts) toward humans included Dachshunds, Chihuahuas and Jack Russell Terriers (toward strangers and owners); Australian Cattle Dogs (toward strangers); and American Cocker Spaniels and Beagles (toward owners). More than 20% of Akitas, Jack Russell Terriers and Pit Bull Terriers were reported as displaying serious aggression toward unfamiliar dogs.

The assignment of positive characteristics to breed per the lay person seems rather common and non-divisive, even alongside these more recently compelled studies. “German Shepherds are smart and easy to train.” “Border Collies are good workers.” “Golden Retrievers are great companions.” Not a peep of disagreement. Mind you, none of these characteristics are of the “appearance” variety, as modern breeding is allegedly solely focused on. But at the suggestion of negative pitbull stereotyping, the forces are called to action, even if the positives are to be sacrificed in their wake. A Google search for “positive dog breed stereotypes” only inevitably gravitated toward mention of the studies referenced above. But it seems clear that the driving motivation for any such study is the dispelling of unfair negative stereotypes of pitbulls, in particular, since no special warnings that some Shepherds might be stupid, Border Collies lazy, Goldens unfriendly, etc. are stated. As for questionable positives? Even Google doesn’t care.

The NCRC summary of the AVMA study dismissively addresses that question of breed relevance this way:

Breed was not a factor that could be reliably identified for either the ten-year period studied by Patronek et al. (2013), or the six-year period from 2010-2015. For the entire sixteen-year period, reliable genetic evidence or pedigree documentation that a dog was a purebred member of distinct, recognized breed was available in only 18.2% of the incidents (Table 2). Media sources disagreed with each other regarding the presumed breed of the dog in 30.6% of incidents. Media sources disagreed with animal control sources in 31.8% of the cases (Data not shown). In 87.1% of cases, at least one source applied a single breed descriptor to a dog, implying that the dog was a purebred member of a recognized breed (Table 2). Given that demographic surveys report that almost half of dogs in the United States are mixed-breed dogs,13 it is highly unlikely that 87.1% of the dogs were purebred members of recognized breeds.

Let’s add this to the mix: Breed "absolutely" influences a dog's behavior and is one of several factors that shape an animal's temperament, explained Dr. Sagi Denenberg, a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists and the European College of Animal Welfare and Behavioral Medicine. Is this expert’s statement, taken from an AVMA journal piece, of lesser value than any one of the author’s conclusions in the AVMA study? Or this: Expert Opinions on Pit Bulls: – Responsible Citizens for Public Safety (rc4ps.org) Both give voice to veterinarians and professionals in the animal shelter and rehabilitation industry who disagree with those responsible for the AVMA paper, whom Dickey has held up as more weighty opinions than the uneducated pitbull-hating lot.

The 13-year data set shows the combination of pit bulls, rottweilers and "baiting" bull breeds, fighting and guardian breeds -- American bulldogs, mastiffs, bullmastiffs, presa canarios, and cane corsos -- contributed to over 80% of all dog bite fatalities.(Source) If one was to argue that there are other dangerous breeds who keep popping up in all these statistical charts, I would agree that one should shy far away from bringing any one of them into their home. The focus on pitbulls is motivated, not only by their topping of all these negative statistical listings, but by the current craze which proliferates ownership of them. In fact, Table 2 from the referenced source shows that Rottweiler killed fewer victims from 2011 to 2017 compared to the 6 years prior as pitbull killings increased. This demonstrates the growing popularity of the breed as that of others declined. Sadly, the propensity for deadly attacks did not decrease as its population increased.

The cases made for each breed found on the 20 Most Aggressive Dog Breeds on the Planet (Based on Studies) (topdogtips.com) are well-supported. So why single out the poor picked-on pitbull breeds? Well, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Boerboel or a Kangal in my life and there are no public crusades to promote the inclusion of these pets into the family fold. Similarly, I have never heard of a Gull Dong or a Czechoslovakian Vlcak. This is one of the main points of this writing. What is more dangerous than any breed (human creation) is the movement to encourage its proliferation and ownership trend (human creation) onto people. So the nurtured popularity of a dangerous breed, or the Pitbull Craze, is really much more of a concern than the innate capability for harming they possess.

Are the Gold Standard “Temperament Tests” Really Reliable?

That last study also addresses the questionability of Temperament Tests.

… the accuracy with which behavioral tests reflect a dogs’ typical behavior has been called into question (van den Berg et al., 2003). . . although most traits measured by the test met validity criteria, aggressiveness was poorly associated with owner assessments (Svartberg, 2005). Several studies aimed at validating aggression tests using pet dog populations report some validity with respect to owner accounts (van der Borg et al., 1991, Planta and De Meester, 2007); however, there is often a large proportion (>20%) of cases in which dogs passed aggression tests despite having a history of biting (Netto and Planta, 1997, Kroll et al., 2004). A recent study has demonstrated that temperament testing of shelter dogs often fails to detect some forms of aggression (e.g., territorial, predatory and intra-specific) that are difficult to simulate in a test situation (Christensen et al., 2007).

Temperament Test certification is a valued addition to the profile of an AKC-registered dog by a breeder. (Source) But what is the Temperament Test? It is an 8-12 minute simulated walk through the park on a 6-foot lead during which various stimuli are presented to the test dog and his/her reactions are noted and evaluated.

Is one simulated exposure to adverse situations really enough to determine with certainty how a dog will behave throughout its entire pet life, given that the testimonials from victims and owners of perpetrators share a general shock at the triggered violent outburst from dogs which gave no prior indication of this propensity? Doesn’t day-to-day life provide a long-term “temperament test” which, in those cases, the dog ultimately failed with only perhaps that one horrific red flag display?

If these tests are deemed reliable by the “experts”, are they not conducted on all subjects offered for adoption out into the public? Dog temperament testing (rescuedogs101.com) suggests that this should be standard procedure and …the shelter should have already identified him as aggressive and will not be up for adoption until they rehabilitate him, or in extreme cases, the dog may be put down. If they have not, this would be negligence on the part of the adopting agency believing in this standard. If they have, they run the risk of exposing these tests are dangerously invalid and unreliable with a subsequent incident by a dog give the OK.

According to the American Temperance Test Society, 87.6% of the American Pitbull Terriers tested passed; similarly, 85.7% of American Staffordshire Terriers passed. Taken as the sole determinant of whether a certain breed is generally well-tempered, this is hopeful news for any prospective owners of those sub-breeds. Does this mean that the 14% of pitbulls who failed the test were either euthanized or incarcerated in a shelter for life and not released to the public? If the majority of pitbulls circulated were saved from this sentence and stamped with the happy face of temperance test approval, where did that 32 – 67%, depending on whom you ask, of attacking dogs identified as “pitbull” come from? Underground breeders and dogfighters?

In the very least, it seems this test does not hold any value in predicting how a dog might behave in any scenario presenting specific conditions in the future. Another more focused study concludes that there is little or no scientific validity to behavioral evaluations of shelter dogs and that attempts to correct methods for better reliability would be inevitably futile.

Attack Nature Question : The Statistical Comparisons Between Pitbull Attacks And Those Of Other Dog Types And What Really Counts Vs. Diversion And Nonsense

Let’s consider these all-inclusive negative rankings of breeds 20 Most Dangerous Dogs & Breeds That Are Known for Aggression (topdogtips.com) and 20 Most Aggressive Dog Breeds on the Planet (Based on Studies) (topdogtips.com) Notice that the first is titled with “dangerous” while the second uses the term “aggressive”. Although there isn’t a whole lot of variance in the breeds included on each, the difference in terminology may be notable. Interestingly, this same source (topdogtips.com) ranks the American Pit Bull Terrier as Number 1 most “dangerous”, but Number 20 most “aggressive”.

Some may have found the dog bite statistics and confusing, inconsistent “aggressiveness” measurements all too murky to be definitively damning of a particular breed. But all of that is just a surface view of things. It is not the bite frequency, nor even the propensity for attacking, so much as the nature and severity of attack which more distinctly separates pitbull breeds from ALL others. Even if one was to settle one’s mind by dismissing other overblown concerns and subscribing to the idea that ALL dogs are capable of attacking and harming humans equitably, consider this. . . Many would argue that Chihuahuas are actually more aggressive dogs than pitbulls. I, for one, have neither the data nor experience to argue against this. But how concerning is that possibility considering one could punt this aggressor thirty yards while receiving barely a scratch in exchange. (Not that I would do that nor advocate for it.) Should we even bother searching for Chihuahua attack hospitalization and death statistics? No. But as for pitbulls…

The language of dog attack reporting is susceptible to a juxtaposing of the terms “bite” and “maul”. While the reactionary nature of the former might send someone to the hospital, the committed engagement of the latter certainly will, or far worse. Suffice it to say we are talking about two distinctly different actions or attack types. The maul attack is the preferred method of a hereditary pit fighter when triggered to action.

Although not all maulings will end in death, the results are devastating in comparison to a simple bite. Any serious interest in the stand-out medical profiles of pitbull-inflicted injuries when compared to other dog-related injuries should begin here: Medical Studies of Pit Bull Injuries and Deaths in the USA and Canada | National Pit Bull Victim Awareness. The information presented is supported by valid medical journal sources. This is a summary of just one medical study, from 2021, there included:

Dog breed was a significant predictor of bite severity (P <.0001) and of bite diameter (P <.0001). Pit bull bites were found to be significantly larger, deeper, and/or more complex than the average dog bites included in this study (Figure 7). Patients included in this study were more than four times as likely to have been bitten by a pit bull than by a German shepherd, and more than twice as likely to have been bitten by a pit bull, when compared with a dog of unknown breed. Furthermore, the relative risk of a pit bull inflicting a complex (full thickness with trauma to underlying structures) or deep (full thickness without trauma to underlying structures) bite was 17 times that observed for non-pit bull dogs. The relative risk of a German shepherd inflicting a complex or deep bite was 2.66, and the relative risk that a dog of unknown breed would inflict a complex or deep bite was 0.23. The relative risk of being bitten by a pit bull did not differ greatly between high-income cities and low-income cities, with relative risk of 8.06 and 8.17, respectively.( Lee, Christine J et al. “Surgical Treatment of Pediatric Dog-bite Wounds: A 5-year Retrospective Review.” The western journal of emergency medicine. vol. 22,6 1301-1310. 27 Oct. 2021, doi:10.5811/westjem.2021.9.52235)

Or this one from 2018:

Of the 95 patients, 50% were the result of a pit bull terrier bite and 22% by a law enforcement dog. A total of 32% were attacked by multiple dogs. Pit bull terrier bites were responsible for a significantly higher number of orthopaedic injuries and resulted in an amputation and/or bony injury in 66% of patients treated. (Brice J, Lindvall E, Hoekzema N, Husak L. Dogs and Orthopaedic Injuries: Is There a Correlation With Breed? Journal of Orthopedic Trauma. 2018 Sep;32(9):e372-e375. https://doi.org/10.1097/bot.0000000000001235. PMID: 29912736.)

A list of summaries derived from studies conducted, each focusing on a specific trauma center, is presented here with links to the full report for each.

Western Pennsylvania (Parent, Bykowski, et al), focus on victims presenting craniofacial fractures - A total of 60 craniofacial fractures were identified among 38 pediatric patients. The most commonly identified breed was pit bull, 37%, followed by mixed-breed, 13%. Breed was known in 92% of cases (35)

Texas (Abraham and Czerwinski) - "Parental presence was reported in 43.6% of cases, and most attacks occurred in the evening (46.8%). Injuries often involved the head–neck region (92.1%), and 72.5% were of major severity ... The pet status of the dog did not have a protective effect on the severity of injury."

"The most commonly identified breed was the pit bull, followed by the Labrador retriever. Pit bulls were also the most commonly identified breed involved in major injuries." (Parental presence and “pet status” are significant observations here.)

Fresno, California (Brice, Lindvall, et al) - Pit bulls were responsible for 78% of all amputation injuries. Of those bitten by pit bulls, 51% had a bony injury. Bites from law enforcement dogs resulted in 24% bony injuries. 66% of pit bull bite patients (31/47) sustained an amputation or bony injury.

Little Rock, Arkansas (Smith, Carlson, Bartels, et al) -  "Our study corroborates much of the previous literature, supporting the notion that pit bull bites are severe enough to require operative intervention more frequently than the bites of other dog breeds ... Indeed, when looking at cases that required operative interventions, pit bulls were disproportionately represented in 62.5% of cases."

Westchester, New York (Alizadeh, Shayesteh and Xu) - "Of the 56 cases that had an identified dog breed, pit bulls accounted for 48.2% of the dog bites ... More importantly, 47.8% of pit bull injuries required operative repair, which was 3 times more than other breeds."

"Of the 9 patients with extended hospitalization, 6 (66.7%) were caused by a pit bull that confirms our theory that this breed results in the most devastating injuries at our center. The penetrating and crushing nature of these bites can lead to lifelong deformities."

Richmond, Virginia (Munoz, Powell, Andersen, et al) - "Most pediatric dog bite injuries afflicted male children (55.6%), ages 6 to 12 years (45.7%), by a household dog (36.2%). The most common offending breed was a pit bull or pit bull mix (53.0%) ... Other frequently identified breed groups included Labrador/Labrador mix (10%), German Shepherd/German Shepherd mix (6.5%) ... Specific dog breed was not associated with need for surgical repair or location of surgical repair." (This last comment makes this the exception but provides no case details which might explain how more severe injuries may have been avoided, for instance, early and successful intervention during an attack. As with other studies, no distinction is made between a “mauling” type attack as opposed to a “bite” but this makes sense given they are measuring results of the event only. The 53% figure is, nonetheless, significant.)

Columbus, Ohio and Charlottesville, Virginia (Essig, Sheehan, Rikhi, et al) - 240 pediatric patients studied -- head, neck injuries only. Each patient characterized into an ordinal scale of bite injury. Mixed-breeds and pit bulls had the highest relative risk of biting, and also had the highest average tissue damage per bite. (This study was also discussed by the American Animal Hospital Association, the sole organization bestowing accreditation on veterinary practices which meet its high standards of achievement. Their article ends, invariably, with a human blame disclaimer… other studies show that in most dog bite cases, the kid started it.)

Dogsbite.org lists here a sampling of outtake conclusions from various studies done on the most severe dog bites based on the medical data taken from the treatment facilities, not attack witness testimonials or any other source the skeptic might feel inclined to wave off with rolling eyes. Within the literature can be found these conclusions:

The probability of a bite resulting in a complex wound was 4.4 times higher for pitbulls compared with the other top-biting breeds… and the odds of an off-property attack by a pit bull was 2.7 times greater. (Study Source)

Our data were consistent with others, in that an operative intervention was more than 3 times as likely to be associated with a pit bull injury than with any other breed. (Study Source)

Our data revealed that pit bull breeds were more than 2.5 times as likely as other breeds to bite in multiple anatomical locations. (Study Source) So this indicates a greater propensity for complex attack as opposed to a simple “bite”.

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. (Study Source)

Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. (Study Source)

Dr. Michael Golinko, Medical Co-Director of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Craniofacial Program and an Assistant Professor of Plastic Surgery at UAMS who specializes in pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery, offers his experience in this Fifth Estate expose video. It is one in which pitbulls play a dominant role.

This study from Science Direct concluded that attacks by Pit Bull Terriers are more likely to cause severe morbidity than other breeds of dogs. Immediate surgical exploration is required to prevent catastrophic outcomes, especially limb loss. 

We are told by skeptics and disinformation vigilantes to “listen to the science”. Well, that’s just some of it. I encourage deeper reading of the sources cited for more. Karen Delise is critical of agents within the human medical community making proclamations about the behavioral nature of pitbulls and their attack methods, seeing it as stepping beyond the bounds of their field of expertise. Indeed, extra-forensic information presented by a person of medical authority could hold greater sway with a layperson. One could choose to diminish its value as just “animal-uneducated”, or even partially-educated, opinion so this is certainly a fair criticism. But who is to say that all of these professionals who treat these injuries or autopsy these fatalities have necessarily not educated themselves with regard to the modus operandi of different animals in their attacks anymore than Delise, Dickey, Lynn, Clifton or anyone else with interest and any experience in the matter? What’s more, Dr. Golinko has been able to connect severity of injury (his expertise) with dog breed provided quite simply by the owners of the offending dogs in most cases, without speculation or bias.

What information or perspective can be provided by the legal community on all this? Do their statistics and observations clash or agree with those presented by the medical community? Most echo the figures we’ve seen, presumably where not outright stated, from the same sources. A few present numbers generated from their own practices.

This Colorado law firm doesn’t contest the pitbull-heavy statistics, giving 60% as the number for dog bite cases involving the breeds or a mix thereof. I must note that they preface their statistics by claiming their love and personal ownerships of pitbulls and end by veering (unsurprisingly) toward the common human blame defense. Lawyers.

Maryland law firm, Miller and Zois, provide some interesting insight and an item used in the battle between insurance companies and pitbull advocates. They reference a letter from the National Canine Research Council Action Fund in support of the APCIA’s opposition to a proposal to end Breed-Specific Legislation and provide more leniency toward owners of what had been considered “vicious dogs”. The aim of the letter was to point out the law’s unfair focus on pitbulls. The legislature apparently responded by expanding tougher standards, previously relegated to pitbulls only, to all breeds. The firm goes on to cite 6 examples of lawsuit settlements ranging from $27,619 to $759,560. It is unclear if this is a random sampling, the biggest payout cases, or the totality of their cases (unlikely), but the perpetrators included 4 pitbulls, a Rottweiler and one of unidentified breed.

A list of dog attack case settlements from a single Pennsylvania lawyer, Attorney Thomas Newell, looks like the best single sampling I could find. Of the 109 case summaries given, 35 reportedly involve pitbulls. In 23 cases the breed was unidentified. Another 13 state “mixed” breed. German Shepherds were involved in 9 cases; Rottweilers in 7; Boxers in 5; Akitas and Labrador Retrievers in 3 each; and the remaining 13 identified other breeds, including one Cane Corso and one Bulldog. I take a few things away from this. The fact that in 36 of these cases there was no hasty commitment made to breed identification (the mixed and unidentified) suggests a confidence, if not confirmation necessary for legal purposes, in the identification of the named breeds in those cases. The specificity of the rather uncommon Cane Corso and the visually similar (?) Bulldog, in those cases, shows that there was more of an effort made at proper identification before simply throwing the “pitbull-type” label on the perpetrators. I can see no reason to assume that the same care wasn’t taking in accurately identifying the 35 (30%) pit bulls. And who can say how many of the unidentified or mixed breeds may have been, at least in part, also pit bull?

The majority of settlement amounts stated (advertised?) in the Thomas Newell list ranged from $30,000.00 to over $500,000.00. This can be taken as some measurement of the seriousness of the damage done in these cases, although medical details are not provided.

The Insurance Information Institute reports that the average cost per claim for a dog attack rose from $49,025 to $64,555, even while the number of claims decreased ever so slightly. No breakdown by breed is provided. Could it be that this increase is related to a leap in medical costs within that year, or does this suggest something about an increase in the medical severity of dog attacks?

So would legal practitioners have reason to bias against a certain breed type when that information is immaterial to the judgment and damages awarded? In jurisdictions with breed-specific legislation, one might question. Pennsylvania has no such laws.

What about the medical professionals treating the victims? Would they have prejudicial tendencies toward bias? Journalists and law enforcement officials penning their reports? Absent any reasonably suggested characteristic tendencies inherent in and defining of these professions, there is no basis for affirmative assumption. Quite the opposite, the hallmarks of these job descriptions would be the dutiful pursuit of as much accuracy and information as could be gathered in an effort to more effectively perform these jobs.

The Irrelevant, Yet Oft-Referenced PSI Comparisons

The discussion of injury severity associated with some of the studies referenced above often ended with a conclusion that, ignorant of breed, it was large dogs (60 to 100 lbs.) which inflicted the deepest and most complex injuries. This might seem an obvious correlation. But some even chose a less obvious and more diversionary avenue of analysis – that of PSI bite strength comparisons. These 2 sources, (22 Dog Breeds With The Strongest Bite Force – With PSI Measure (breedingbusiness.com) and Dog Bite Force: Complete Chart and Review Of 68 Breeds - (A Guide) (notabully.org), did so and placed the American Pitbull Terrier barely in the top 20 or 30, respectively, when it comes to bite strength. Compared to the top-ranked Kangal, with a Bite Force of 743 PSI, and the average dog’s bite of 200 to 250, the American Bully measured at around 305 PSI and American Pit Bull Terrier at 240 – 330 (might this variance be due to size or “successfulness” of breeding?).

Considering the modus operandum of the pitbull attack (or “maul”) as referenced in that preponderance of medical data, this deceptive attention to the measurement of bite pressure or power rankings seems hardly relevant as an indicator of the overall danger pitbull breeds pose. Is the strength of a single bite a full-spectral determinant of the dangerousness and damage potential of an attacking creature? Consider speed, aggressiveness upon incitement, tenacity, athleticism, technique, commitment-to-attack, and target choice. These are the hallmarks of the fighting dog breed’s attack and are ultimately the more decisive factors in outcome. Do a simple Youtube search of such attacks and you will witness pitbulls refusing to release their tearing and tossing grips from humans or other dogs, even as they are hit with 2x4s, tased or kicked by a victimized horse. This is a committed, relentless and unyielding attack. Is it worse to be hit once in the arm with a baseball bat or hooked in the face with a tuna hook and thrashed around at throttling speed? I would rather face a power-lifter or arm-wrestling champion in combat than 146-pound Manny Pacquiao who is similarly equipped with those skills and tactics necessary to damage me without mercy.

It is unclear whether these bite strength comparisons are motivated by the dominant urgency to diminish by ranking any concept people have of pitbulls being an exceptionally dangerous breed. For me, however, it does just the opposite. The indisputably disproportionate contributions the breeds make to the maimed, hospitalized and deceased set of victims in conjunction with such comparisons suggests that it is something specific to the breeds, other than simple bite strength, which must account for this. It is not irrational to suspect that hereditary characteristics and method of attack (the mauling), are far more decisive factors.

MISIDENTIFICATION

Could the statistical prevalence of pitbull breeds in attacks and killings of both human and animal be egregiously bloated due to rampant misidentification of breed in the majority of cases? Would the factoring in of an overwhelming inability of human observers to accurately breed-label the dogs involved in these cases be enough to deflate the unfair bulk of the blame so that, in truth, it is more evenly distributed among all breeds? To attempt to answer this it is only fair to first ask just who is making official breed determinations in these instances. Does it vary from case to case? Are these agents any more incompetent and untrustworthy than you or me? Are you or I so incapable?

The AVMA study prefaced its findings with an emphasis on the unknowns regarding sources in reports and their reliability. This inability to confirm without DNA information was compensated for with a focus, instead, on concordance of statements from more than one source for any incident as the best indication of validity available. This is the breakdown of source make-up used:

Law enforcement sources (homicide detectives, chiefs of police, sheriffs, or other investigators) were interviewed with regard to 177 of the 256 (69.1%) DBRFs. Animal control officers were interviewed with regard to 44 of 256 (17.2%) DBRFs. Other persons familiar with the cases (eg, veterinarians, prosecutors, owners, and witnesses) were interviewed with regard to 24 of 256 (9.4%) DBRFs. For 11 (4.3%) cases, no primary source could be interviewed but 2 of these DBRFs were reported extensively in the media and were the subject of high-profile trials.

Concordance was defined on the basis of both a strict and expanded definition. First, for the strict scenario, concordance was defined as an exact match in the reported breed descriptor between 2 accounts. Therefore, if one account reported a purebred dog (eg, Rottweiler) and another reported the same dog as mixed breed (eg, Rottweiler–German Shepherd Dog mix), the reports were considered discordant (not a match). For the expanded definition of concordance, breed descriptors did not need to be exact matches. For example, if one account reported a purebred dog (eg, Rottweiler) and another reported the same dog as a mixed breed that included that pure breed (eg, Rottweiler–German Shepherd Dog mix), it was considered to have an overlap of 1 breed descriptor and was therefore concordant by the expanded definition.

So let’s say you and I witnessed an attack, and you identified the attacker as pitbull while I identified it as a pitbull mix. In applying strict concordance, one would deem our accounts to be muddied in disagreement and offsetting. Per the expanded definition, we would be in agreement. The stricter terminologists make a distinction between “crossbred” (parentage of 2 purebreds) and “mixed breed” (lineage of 3 or more breeds). But most of the publications we’ll come across seem to refer to anything not purebred as mixed breed. By readily applying the “strict concordance” method, an author or commenter will most likely arrive at a position from which statistics can be nullified and the matter of breed altogether dismissed as invalid. So any use of the term “mix” aids in the misidentification argument and further attempt to more easily anonymize the breeds of the majority perpetrators.

Considering the majority of dogs are recognized as mixed breed (53% per the AVMA and others, as of this writing) it seems fair to conclude that roughly half of the perpetrator dogs were not purebred. The implied dilution, and therefore irrelevance, of any breed characteristics is predicated on the idea that any cross- or mixed-breeding effectively annuls any of these characteristics from all composing breeds. But there is no scientific methodology to what degree specific behavioral characteristics may have been eliminated through mixed breeding for any given dog. So a pitbull mixed breed incident would still involve pitbull breed elements. Following this reasoning, I would consider the expanded concordance definition the one the wary should be more inclined to apply.

With respect to pedigree or results of DNA analysis for single dog cases, pedigree documentation, parentage, or DNA information was available for 19 dogs. These data were discordant with media reports for 7 of 19 cases on the basis of the strict breed definition and 0 of 18 cases on the basis of the expanded breed definition…

This indicates the media reports were actually pretty damn accurate. The fact that sources for the media varied in role from law enforcement to witnesses to owners, etc. could cloud things for many people. But, regardless of the sources, those accuracy numbers holding up to the gold-standard DNA testing can’t be ignored. Perhaps the media actually do take care to get the facts right when political motives aren’t present. Perhaps people don’t actually make quick-shot determinations based on bias, as some authors assume.

For single dog incidents (148 incidents), on the basis of the strict definition (exact match), breed descriptors in media reports were discordant for 32 of 148 (21.6%) dogs; animal control or local law enforcement assessment of breed differed from the media account for 45 of 129 (34.9%) dogs. On the basis of the expanded definition (any agreement between alleged breeds and mixes), breed descriptors among media reports were discordant for 19 of 148 (12.8%) dogs; animal control or local law enforcement assessment of breed differed from the media account for 18 of 129 (14.0%) dogs.

So even the difference in results depending on use of the “strict” or “expanded” definitions isn’t an enormous one. These are also the blanket numbers from all reports. Any analysis of how a breakdown of these results by identified breed might suggest that some breeds are more difficult to accurately identify than others was beyond the scope of this study.

The study also states …Results of review of photographs of 66 other dogs by a veterinary behaviorist agreed with news reports of purebred status for 9 of 66 (13.6%) dogs.

Are we to assume that this veterinary behaviorist was necessarily better-suited for making an accurate determination of breed from viewed images than the original identifier who contributed to the news report? This segues us into our next study for consideration. It should be noted here that the following study sought to roundly disqualify even the sampled “expert” observations and judgments as invalid and is the “scientific” basis for the misidentification argument employed in virtually every such article I have read.

Pit bull identification in animal shelters Kimberly R. Olson, BS; Julie K. Levy, DVM PhD, DACVIM; Bo Norby, CMV, MPVM, PhD; Neale Fretwell, PhD Affiliations (maddiesfund.org) (Full study here) The objective of this experiment was to determine just how reliable breed labeling actually is as practiced by dog shelter staff members. This seems relevant, given these are typically the designated labelers who provide such to would-be adopters when DNA or pedigree information is unavailable. The DNA testing method by which accuracy was measured considered confirmed “pitbull” identification as a minimum composition of 25% American Staffordshire Terrier or Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the breed signature. This testing used a rather small test set of 16 subjects working at 4 shelters all in Florida. A Farmer’s Dog article summarizes the results this way: Only 36% of the dogs identified as pit bulls by shelter staff were actually pit bulls by DNA analysis, and staffers missed 20% of the true pit bulls. The researchers’ broad-blanket conclusion was that the marked lack of agreement observed among shelter staff members in categorizing the breeds of shelter dogs illustrates that reliable inclusion or exclusion of dogs as ‘pit bulls’ is not possible, even by experts.

If one is curious about whether or not one might have fared any better or worse than the 16 subject “experts”, one will never know. Pictures, along with subject guesses and contrasting DNA information, are provided for 6 of the 120 dogs and they’re rather small. For me: 2 look like pitbull mixes and are; 2 don’t look at all like pitbull mixes and aren’t; 1 does not look obvious and is a whopping 25%; and the other I just couldn’t even really see in the photo. But the more obvious criticism is of its involving random dogs of random breed compositions that were available and not, necessarily, perpetrator animals received post-incident. If you wanted to find out how often attacking dogs identified as pitbull are actually not, why not put the pictures of the perpetrator dogs, as provided by dogsbite.org (referenced and link in a bit), up against the scrutiny of “experts”? I see no relevance in the method or sampling of this experiment toward its supposed goal. It does, however, raise the question of how much confidence a potential adopter should have in the labels they are presented by these agents (and other information, for that matter).

A canine identity crisis: Genetic breed heritage testing of shelter dogs | PLOS ONE (Gunter, Barber and Wynne) This study similarly compared DNA analysis of 919 dogs from shelters in Phoenix and San Diego to their laymen’s breed guesses. Accepting the rule that anything less than 50% makeup does not constitute dominant breed mix, it still found 44.5% of the dogs analyzed as dominant mixes. Of that group, 45 dogs were found to be purebred and 5 of those were labeled purebred American Staffordshire Terrier (21 other breeds accounting for the remaining 40 dogs). Dogs consisting of at least 25% of any breed (2 great-grandparents or better) were accurately visually identified for that breed in roughly two-thirds of the sample. One-third of dogs were misidentified for any of the up to 8 breeds in a given mix. Roughly 10% were accurately identified for primary and secondary breeding (although not necessarily in the right order) with about half of those being purebred. Interestingly, 27 dogs of pitbull heritage were not identified as such visually by staff, most of those misidentified as Labrador Retrievers. Of the 270 dogs with no pitbull heritage, however, only 4 were misidentified as being of that heritage. Furthermore, shelter personnel were 92% successful in identifying dogs with 75% pit bull heritage or higher in their DNA analysis. With regard to pitbull-type visual labeling, this is a significantly better performance than the shelter agents in the Florida study.

The results also concluded that 5% of shelter dogs were determined to be purebred through DNA testing as opposed to the Humane Society’s reported 25% and other studies up to 40%, albeit much older ones based on owner reports and visual identification and absent DNA testing. If the overall truth falls somewhere in the middle, it is, nonetheless, a relatively small percentage. The researchers’ discussion further states that most dogs were comprised on average, of three breeds, with some dogs having up to five different breed signatures identified at the great-grandparent level. This obscuring of breed identity lends itself to the pitbull defenders who would readily lay it out as grounds for a blanket dismissal of all these majority mixed breeds from any valid conversation on the matter. Any inclusion of non-purebred data in the witch hunt could be roundly viewed as disqualifiable. Such an argument, however, must incorporate the ability to determine exactly what percentage of genetic dilution will eliminate which genetic traits in which mixed-bred dogs. The science is, of course, unable to plot all of that, leaving the presence of mixed-breed genetic traits a veritable dice roll.

The researchers found that as the number of pit bull-type relatives increased in a dog’s heritage, so did the staff’s ability to match its breed type. So, is the alleged rampant pitbull misidentification really a strong supporting factor for the pitbull defense? With all that, they still concluded that… Overall when we consider the complexity in breed heritage of these shelter dogs coupled with the failure to identify multiple breeds based on morphology and the lack of any scientific basis to judging how these breed signatures interact within the individual dog, we believe shelters should instead focus their resources on communicating the morphology and behavior of the dogs in their care to best support matchmaking and adoption efforts. I read this as a suggestion that deference to the aforementioned Temperament Tests and opinions of the shelter workers would build a more reliable basis for adoption choice than breed determination and any bias that might be associated with it. So there we are again.

Yet, articles like this one and this one (appearing prominently in a Google search of “pitbull misidentification”) hinge their debunking efforts on the more convenient Olson, Levy, et al Florida study. They are, therefore, making the assumption that the “false” statistics (i.e. pitbulls make up 65% of all dog-dealt fatalities) are based on declarations made by those who must lack the knowledge of the perp dogs’ identities and are just making uneducated guesses, not because they have been proven to be or even scrutinized on a case-by-case basis, but because a separate study shows that misidentification by other people of other dogs is possible. Had the study actually been based on the revelation that the actual dogs in 60% of these actual reported cases were proven misidentifications, this would be a relevant criticism. It is, instead, based on random by-sight guesses by supposed industry experts (like shelter workers whose only requirement for gaining employment is little more than a demonstration of how much they love and want to help dogs per ZipRecruiter and Indeed.com.) The “revelation” in these results, or universally-accepted proof of the general inability of humans to properly identify dog breed, even partially, are applied in a sweeping brushstroke of invalidation to any who have so boldly dared to identify a perp dog involved in an attack. In other words, because the “experts” used in this study were wrong 60% of the time guessing multiple breeds, the parties identifying the attacking dogs as pitbulls in all of these cases combined must have also been wrong 60% of the time. Without DNA confirmation that the perp dogs were, themselves, misidentified in these cases, this math of “deconstruction” is useless and meaningless. We are left only with the assumption of misidentification and implication of a bias motive.

In contrast to both the shallowness of the AVMA study and the thinness of the Olson, et al study, we have the exhaustive methods by and extent to which dogsbite.org, notwithstanding its critics’ attacks, seems to gather its data and present it for your analysis and review. They managed to dig up 1,025 news items surrounding just 48 victims in 2019 alone. Additional data is obtained from law enforcement institutions and medical examiners via public information requests. Here they offer several examples of how various courts throughout the country have wholly disagreed with others’ conclusions about the regular guy’s inability to identify the breed. For 25 years appellate courts have ruled that a dog owner of ordinary intelligence can identify a pit bull. . . In addition to this, the high courts have ruled that scientific precision is not required when determining the breed. . . Readers are familiar with this myth, which has variations like, "it is impossible to identify a pit bull" and "pit bulls can't be identified," and the mothership motto, "there is no such thing as a pit bull.". . . The courts have ruled that a pit bull is a breed of dog with distinctive traits that can be recognized by its physical appearance by a dog owner of ordinary intelligence.. .. The weighty curse of this false myth cannot be expressed enough. While it is jarring to see the many pit bull specific rescues who claim, "there is no such thing as a pit bull" while operating a pit bull specific foundation or pit bull specific adoption program, understand that this claim is very old.

But let’s dig into the misidentification argument even further, along with an interactive exercise. If judged by appearance alone, what breed or breeds not belonging to the pitbull umbrella group might possibly be mistaken for any one of them? Let’s take a look at this list of 10 breeds most often misidentified as pitbull types (and their photos), according to PetHelpful.com:
1. The American Bulldog. This actually is placed under the expanded umbrella of pitbull type dogs by at least one organization but is, generally, not. Given that lack of clarity in definition for many people, I can see where this mistake might be made by someone less knowledgeable of dogs.
2. Presa Canario. Aside from its size, I would say this misidentification is absolutely feasible. But this prompts me to reiterate an important point. The focus on pitbulls in our criticisms is motivated as much by their popularity in our society as it is by the dangers they pose. This breed could easily be causing the same stir if there were actually enough of them around to be an issue. But they do not even appear on the AKC list of 197 dog breeds ranked by popularity. They do, however, make the list of most banned dog breeds in the world (10 of the Most Dangerous and Banned Dog Breeds in the World (unbelievable-facts.com)) for a reason. The article also explains that the larger pitbulls are often cross-bred with this type. I wouldn’t think it a tragedy to have this breed lumped under the umbrella of “dogs of concern”.
3. Cane Corso. A bit of a stretch here given its size but still somewhat feasible. (This also has a ranking of 21 on the AKC popularity rankings so it is, presumably, fairly popular.)
4. Bull Terrier. It is difficult to believe that anyone with the most basic knowledge of dogs could mistake this Spuds McKenzie dog for a pitbull type as it bears virtually no resemblance.
5. Boxer. Given the popularity of this dog (14 on the AKC rankings), it is hard to believe that most people, nevermind dog “experts”, could misidentify. It shares an athletic physique but very distinctive shape and the head hints more at the classic bulldog in features.
6. Dogo Argentino. Considering the AKC ranks this breed at 89 in popularity, it is highly unlikely this mistake is made often, if ever. It also appears on the most dangerous and banned list so, like the Presa Canario, no real foul here.
7. Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Ummm, but this falls under the “pitbull type” umbrella so not really sure why this is on the list. I guess some are unwilling to accept that this was no more than a name change so as to gain acceptance in the dog elite community as explained before. Next.
8. Bull Mastiff. Though not as large as the purer Mastiff, this is still a big dog. Given the size and lumpy facial features, this is also a head-scratcher to think anyone familiar with dogs as part of their profession could make this mistake. They are number 56 on the AKC ranking for what that’s worth.
9. Olde English Bulldogge. This is a rather confusing entry and doesn’t even appear on the AKC list. According to the description provided, it’s some kind of throwback attempt which contains elements of pitbull types and their predecessors anyway. It pretty much just looks like a bulldog.
10. Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog. Have never heard of or, to my knowledge, seen one of these. They are also absent from the AKC list so probably as insignificant a factor here as number 9.

Let’s consider the breeds mentioned above which, allegedly though very feasibly, could be misidentified as pitbull types in some cases: Presa Canario; Cane Corso; Dogo Argentino; Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog. Short of dog enthusiasts, possibly veterinarians and the scattered owners of these, how many people have ever even heard of these breeds? (Don’t think I ever did prior to this research, although they are now in my dog-cabulary and I believe I could identify one or two of them.)

I will now refer, again, to the extensive research done by dogsbite.org. It is surely the illustrative data which, at this point, is the most important. On this page they provide actual photographs of the actual dogs involved in incidents (not dogs from random experiments) they collected. Their gallery includes dogs involved in 63% of the deaths reported from 2013 to 2019, and in 81% of the cases in 2019 alone. Now take a look and see if you find any of the breed labels assigned to any to be as questionable as the erroneous identifications made by the supposed industry experts in the study by Olson, Levy, et al. You might also want to watch this compilation of media reports which include more current pictures or video of the perpetrator dogs. Or try this one, which runs a little over an hour. There are plenty of visuals available in them with which you can decide for yourself how much weight to give to the “misidentification” argument presented by Dickey, Delise and the NCRC, the AVMA and others who use many older reports with inaccessible visual references. (I will acknowledge any suspicions one might have that these photos/videos are fake and not actually the real dogs involved. How would one prove it? That would be a bold scam to publish indeed, especially for any online entity hoping to maintain any reputation of integrity. One would have to think the anti-pitbull bias REALLY strong to go to those measures. But that is, of course, left to the reader/viewer’s judgment.)

The Misidentification argument may have been successful in establishing reasonable enough ambiguity and skepticism a few decades ago, but the error-due-to-bias accusations are currently illogical and unsupported. We are left with the numbers, the historic profile and the inexhaustible and true tales of horror. Claims by Karen Delise that police reports often change the specifics days after an erroneous story implicating a pitbull has already lit a public awareness fire can’t be substantiated at this point. Nor can any past claim of misidentification in an incident. But we live in the age of video. Just about everything can be found on Youtube. Modern media is rife with enough video evidence to allow anyone to determine its validity for themselves. So compare those antiquated and unverifiable claims with your own observations. Simply search “dog attacks child”, “dogs attacking horses” or “dog mauls other dog” (be sure not to specify “pitbull” to avoid any cherry-picking) and see what you find. Judge for yourself. Should we still discard it all as bias product? Wouldn’t an attack by any animal on another, or on a human, be equally valuable for a sadistic audience seeking fodder or exhibitor seeking views such that they don’t need to gather only the pitbull-involving content to meet their goals?

To summarize, the proposed complication of breed misidentification was worthy of consideration. Any attempt to resolve it can only be speculative and inconclusive without indisputable confirmation of the data and the legitimacy of its providers in attack cases. What we can accept beyond dispute (I would think) is that all reported cases of dog attacks are real. So dogs are attacking, sometimes killing, humans and other animals. The available visual evidence and testimonials rising above reasonable skepticism seem far more valuable to the discussion than a few random studies of irrelevant criteria.

THE BLAME GAME LAID ON OWNERS AND VICTIMS

Owners in dog attack stories are almost invariably shocked at the pet’s sudden, uncharacteristic and destructive outburst. Defenders of the breed seem to simply dismiss these accounts with unchecked assumption that these owners must not have properly trained or socialized their dogs at a younger age; were not diligently picking up on the signs; or being flat out dishonest in their claims of surprise. These baseless, blanket accusations are an outright insult to the owners of the offending pets if unproven on a case-by-case basis? This unquestioned mantra of human blame-assignment reactively engages every time so to usher every dog-suspecting reader back into line with that declaration “It’s not the breed, it’s how you raise them.” I think my response to that bumper sticker saying is, “Couldn’t it be a bit of both?”

The AVMA or American Veterinary Medical Association conducted an in-depth literature review to analyze existing studies on dog bites and serious injuries. Their findings indicate that there is no single breed that stands out as the most dangerous. 

According to their review, studies indicate breed is not a dependable marker or predictor of dangerous behavior in dogs. Better and more reliable indicators include owner behavior, training, sex, neuter status, dog’s location (urban vs. rural), and even varying ownership trends over the passing of time or geographic location. 

For example, they note that often pit bull-type dogs are reported in severe and fatal attacks. However, the reason is likely not related to the breed. Instead, it is likely because they are kept in certain high-risk neighborhoods and likely owned by individuals who may use them for dog fights or have involvement in criminal or violent acts. 

Therefore, pit bulls with aggressive behavior are a reflection of their experiences.(Source)

Thus is the human-blaming rhetorical narrative as summed up by the AVMA. This stakes out the ground position on which the entire pitbull defense community will fortify itself for engagement.

Regarding sterilization, the AVMA found in its study (Patronek, Sacks, Delise, et al) that 148 of the 256 perp dogs were male and 77.9% of all dogs were unneutered. A previously cited article on dog bite fatality data similarly states that 75% (82) involved unaltered dogs… Pit bulls inflicted 73% (16) of deaths involving only sterilized dogs… Pit bulls inflicted 72% (31 of 43) of deaths involving only unaltered male dogs. Pawsomeadvice.com reports that in 2022 94% of attacks in the UK were by unneutered males --According to banpitbulls.org, numerous studies in the States show fewer than 25% of pit bull owners spay or neuter their dogs, even when offered at no cost. Merritt Clifton similarly claims that only 20% of pit bulls are sterilized, partly because the population that owns pit bulls tends to resist the spay-neuter message.(Source)

Why all this “negligence”? I suspect that keeping the dogs sexually intact is often by plan. This could sometimes be due to the refusal to accept the immasculating of a creature that is some extension of the machismo of an owner, I suppose. But I more strongly believe, partially from a personal conversation I have had with an owner, that by now the lucrative potential of the Pitbull Craze has many believing the sperm of their beloved could bring them some side cash. And it does. It is unclear why those desiring the breed wouldn’t follow the “save-a-pitty” course and go visit the shelter. Maybe they do have some awareness of the unpredictability of adopting and prefer to raise a dog from a pup, trusting that any dog born of a proven “good dog” will be a good dog. For them, nurture, and the promise of some papers of legitimacy attached to parentage, will always win over nature and any of its warnings. (Not to mention that potential of pups-for-cash.) As for the adoption agencies, perhaps the time and money spent on temperament and DNA tests would be better spent neutering all males.

The familiarity or relationship of the victim to the dog seems to be another point of some controversy between these 2 sources worthy of note. Dogsbite.org states that from 2005 to 2017, family dogs inflicted 54% (232) of all fatal attacks. 64% (149) were perpetrated by pit bulls, up from an earlier period of 56% (2005 to 2010). Of the 284 fatal pit bull attacks, 52% (149) involved killing a family or household member. But Patronek, et al take issue with the semantics of some of the general discussion’s language…

The status of a dog in a household was differentiated as either a resident dog or family dog. A resident dog was a dog, whether confined within the dwelling or otherwise, whose owners isolated them from regular, positive human interactions. A family dog was a dog whose owners kept them in or near the home and also integrated them into the family unit, so that the dogs learned appropriate behavior through interaction with humans on a regular basis in positive and humane ways. (Patronek, Sacks, et al 2013) The AVMA expanded study, being loyal to these definitions, reports that 70.4% of the dogs involved (in killings)were maintained as resident dogs, not family dogs. While this all suggests that the perp dogs were often not properly domesticated, contributing to their eventual attack against whomever, they report that the victims were only owner or “familiar” to the dog in 14.6% of cases from 2000 to 2015. But victims living on the same residence where the dog also resided made up 24.8%. That is far out of alignment with the dogsbite.org statistic of 52% from 2005 to 2017, largely owing to the fluid definition of what makes one “familiar” to a dog. But were there more basic data-gathering inconsistencies, aside from the semantic ones, which account for the distanced numbers?

It should be noted that the studies conducted using trauma center reported information generally indicates that the majority of severe pitbull attacks were by victim’s “family” dog or one owned by a familiar person. It is unclear how relevant a role the AVMA distinction between a “resident” or “family” dog may have played in the actual trauma cases studied.

It was the AVMA study’s results that led to the conclusive listing of 7 potentially preventable factors for DBRFs by its companion, the National Canine Research Council :

1. Absence of an able-bodied person to intervene.
2. Incidental or no familiar relationship of victims with dogs.
3. Owner failure to neuter dogs.
4. Compromised ability of victims to interact appropriately with dogs.
5. Dogs kept isolated from regular positive human interactions versus family dogs.
6. Owners’ prior mismanagement of dogs.
7. Owners’ history of abuse or neglect of dogs

It seems to me that numbers 5, 6 and 7 could all fall under the summary blanket of either number 6 or number 7, so this seems a bit redundant. After all, isn’t isolating an animal in custody with no interaction a form of both neglect and mismanagement? So the reasonable wisdom to take from all this is that we shouldn’t treat animals under our stewardship like shit and we should strongly consider neutering and spaying dogs. But heeding these precautions, it seems, is far from enough due diligence demanded of humans sharing their society with dogs.

Numbers 1 and 4 exemplify the recurring victim blame. Humans need to be responsible for being available and able to prevent an animal from killing someone if it feels so inclined. But 4 is the real kicker.

The Provocation Factor

Even non-owners must make the time and effort to properly cultivate an atmosphere of respect with all subordinate creatures that they did not accept responsibility for, as this is apparently not a compulsory element of domestication. This article even seems to suggest that dog attacks may, at least in part, be triggered by the sensing of an inherent neurosis in the victim. So you might be a little mentally off, not the dog that attacked you. Should something occur, the question immediately asked is about what the child (or adult) did to incite the attacker.

We must acknowledge this idea that pitbulls do not just attack “out of the blue” but it is either human negligence or some human behavior that incited or triggered the attack. This thinking builds up a dynamic in which human behavior must necessarily be structured and the owner, along with all other humans who might share a dog’s space, be trained around the needs and expectations of the dog rather than vice versa. Who is the master or alpha in this backwards modeling? A great deal of literature and social media commentary constantly reminds us that we must train our children to respect the dog more emphatically than the vice versa.( I also have to wonder at the wisdom of establishing a dog’s territory in the home prior to having children and introducing them into it as newcomers to “the pack”. I suppose this order isn’t always planned? Anyway…)

The ADBA Child Safety and bite prevention page spell out basic and reasonable advice points regarding what your kids must do as necessitated by the dog’s nature – but they also stress that all dogs need a clear understanding that the humans in it’s household are the ‘leaders of the pack’ elsewhere on their Responsible Ownership page. Shouldn’t that mean that it is requisite for the dog to recognize “all” family members as dominant in the pecking order, regardless of age and even if it seems unreasonable for a dog to treat strangers with this consideration?

Kids Health parental tips for preventing dog bites are simply not always, or often, practiced to the letter in many child/family dog relationships. That wouldn’t be much fun either – like not running toward or away from your dog. VCA Animal Hospitals offers a more detailed list of kid-training items, including: not yelling, squealing or startling a dog; not waving hands around the dog; and speaking in a calm voice. Kids? Good luck with all that. Sure, these are “CYA” recommendations, but are they real-world ubiquitous? Is a child really supposed to understand territoriality, possessiveness and the predatory or herd instincts before playing with a canine chum? Such common interactions fall well under the radar of these discussions since they very rarely end in tragedy. Who hasn’t witnessed this playing with a family pet or engaged in it themselves without fear of some disaster?

What of off-property attacks where the victim did not initiate engagement in any way? Are both animals and humans who were a distance from the attacking dog guilty of remotely and telepathically triggering some response in the pitbull which caused it to move toward the unsuspecting victim to deal damage? For instance, how did this child provoke this attack ((14) Dog JUMPS INSIDE Van To Kill A Child - YouTube )?

Humans must educate themselves in the requirements of every dog they might happen to come into contact with and act accordingly. If this is the reality we are counseled to accept, we need to ask whether or not this “domestication” has been, at least partially, a failure. If the dog has been conditioned to curb these offensive inclinations in recognition of the alpha humans, vicious attacks shouldn’t be a major concern.

That is all without mention of the animal victims who shouldn’t be neglected in the conversation. Are they also guilty of not following the proper protocols as dictated by the attacking pitbull’s nature and inciting the attack?

A Needy Breed? Inordinate Demands? A Risky Failure to Comply?

Some working understanding of a pet is surely incumbent upon any accountable owner. Gaining this may involve meeting the animal on the animal’s level. So one must ask, “Why do dogs attack?” Articles like Reasons Why Dogs Get Aggressive and How to Stop It (thesprucepets.com) ; 15 Types of Aggression in Dogs - Critter Culture ; and You Get What You Pet! Are you petting the past or the future? | The Dog's Side (thedogsside.com) delve into the canine psychology. All fascinating reads, they include the expected and obvious reasons like: fear; discomfort; learned behavior; possessiveness; and territoriality. But conditions like “barrier aggression”, experienced by dogs having to socialize from a position which frustratingly restricts interaction (like behind a fence), are also mentioned. Powerful and important motives like dominance assertion, predation and follow-the-pack must also be vigilantly respected. So a good deal of homework must be done, we are counseled, for the human/dog relationship to succeed.

Breeding Business (Do Pit Bulls Attack Their Owners – What Do Statistics Say? (breedingbusiness.com)) lists these as subtle signs given by a dog which should indicate to the owner that he/she is somehow agitated and possibly verging on an aggressive statement:
--excessive low-range barking
--puffed out chest and standing high
--snarling, growling and showing teeth (Wait. This is subtle?)
--stiffly moving the tail from side to side and keeping it high
--erected ears

They go on to explain that, while these are signs presented whenever, “before the actual attack, most dominant aggressive dogs don’t show signs before launching or attacking”. So this would seemingly be “out-of-the-blue”. All of this is put out there to emphasize the responsibility of the owner to be duly aware so to somehow prevent any tragic incident. Must this prevention include professional behavioral training? Implementing rather involved Desensitization or Classical Conditioning yourself? Euthanizing a signaling dog who, as yet, has committed no crime? Or putting the questionable creature up for adoption so some other unsuspecting owner can inherit your responsibility and be put in the same place?

All of the owner-blaming rarely acknowledges the debate and disagreement within the dog-training and behavioral theorist societies. “Pack Theory”, for instance, as a basis of some dog-training regimens, is considered by many to have been thoroughly debunked. Or has it? This is more mushy, grey area on which the common dog owner, being responsible, is expected to firmly ground him/herself. I get it – one tries one’s best given the information available. Right?

Journey Dog Training summarizes a 2004 study with the conclusion that reward-based training is preferable to punishment-based. (I imagine the dog likes it more.) They explain that use of punishment can cause suffering, unhealthy stress and aggression toward other animals. The owner survey research suggested that rewards yielded overall better obedience results. The researchers acknowledge some disagreement within the industry and add (in compromise?) that the negative side effects of punishment may be due to incorrect use of the tool by inexperienced owners. Vetstreet.com agrees, citing the classical wisdom of Pavlov and Skinner and positive stimulus encouraging desired response in the long-term. Many warn of a relationship tainted with distrust nurtured by punishment which can appear to be obedience.

Others, like Pet Tutor, suggest that aversive stimuli trigger the survival instinct, thus delivering quicker and more profound behavioral results. Even though dogs are able to recover rapidly from the emotional sting of the punishment moment, its application, the author warns, must be adjusted for adequate intensity and frequency and mitigated by the right amount of positives. Commenting trainers point out that there are so many types and degrees of punishments which must be taken into account.

All of this tells us that, yes, meticulously applied dog-rearing practices can be complex, challenging and subject to differences of opinion. But what of recommendations specific to pitbull ownership and care? All online sources stress, in addition to basic pet needs of comfort and nutrition, the need to exercise your pitbull a whole lot. This should involve running and even the set-up and use of a spring pole. Bullymax.com instructs to have an extra sturdy and high fence since an athletic and hyperactive pitbull might dig under, leap over or even knock down your average fence. (They also suggest carrying a break stick, should any dogfights erupt in your presence.) The American Dog Breeders Association adds tending to the dog’s “psychological needs” and ensuring that all household humans’ roles as “pack leader” (can there be more than one?) are firmly established as requisites for responsible ownership. But probably the most re-iterated point of guidance is the need for early Socialization.

This article, co-authored by veterinarians, professes that: … some dogs miss being socialized during the sensitive period for socialization, which ends by 14 weeks of age. Without this early comfortable exposure, some dogs develop aggressive behavior when they encounter new dogs. They add that some glitch in the process or traumatic encounter could lay the groundwork for a triggering event in some future encounter. Even deeper is their warning that there may be miscommunication of mood and motives even between dogs which result in conflict. So, as if learning to communicate between the dog and human species wasn’t challenging enough, dogs can’t necessarily even communicate well with each other? And as for some of those assaults on humans, these could just be “redirected aggressions” stirred up by another dog’s presence. Don’t take those personally, even if the dog is unable to recognize that you are not the intended recipient of this emotional message and seems unable to disengage.

A lack of socialization seems to be the primary accusation leveled against irresponsible owners of attacking pitbulls, after outright abuse. Is there any reason to believe that pitbulls are generally less socialized than other dogs? Are they removed from a litter of their peers prematurely (under 14 weeks) more often than other puppies? Might that make up for their higher rate of attack against other animals compared to all other breeds? I can’t see why that would be.

A Pawsome Advice article states that 24% of fatal dog mauling’s took place on the owners’ property. To prevent any unwanted incidents, we recommend looking into a wireless dog fence. But aren’t those designed to keep the dog ON the property, where the maulings in this statistic occurred? They also recommend vibrating collars. (Incidentally, they list Pitbulls as the #1 most aggressive dog, defying the catechism. Maybe they missed the memo.) Anyway, the lists of chores and precautions recommended to would-be owners seems to grow and grow when there is really one very simple and obvious precaution – get a PET that is less risky and lower maintenance.

Speaking to and witnessing dog owners in practice leads me to believe that the average person has neither the time nor the interest in developing a symbiotic awareness of their pet and committing to the education and dedication recommended by the bad behavior prevention advocates. They want pet ownership to be a simple thing and, often, they can get away with that, provided they just give their companion dog positive attention. To them, all those complicated methods and practices are for those fringe dog enthusiasts who have special dogs with special needs and uses. These owners often adopt dogs who are already beyond the behaviorally-formative years, inviting a potential problem they are even less equipped to overcome.

There will always be a risk that your adopted dog has not been properly “socialized” in his/her puppy months; or that a carefree child living life as they do will not be cognizant enough to practice every particular behavioral protocol as prescribed by the dog’s nature and laid out in the textbooks while in his/her presence; or that there is a momentary lapse in an owner/observer’s keen ability to tune into even subtle warnings. But what’s more, no amount of awareness or cautionary procedure does anything to allay our initial concern. That is, pitbull type dogs are statistically more dangerous in attack mode than most other dog types and virtually all other popular dog types to begin with. With all the particulars, nuances and micro-considerations we are being instructed to enslave our lives to as a commitment to dog ownership, is the strict avoidance of just one misstep, undotted “i” or uncrossed “t” we are being warned of far more crucial when a pitbull or dangerous breed is involved? Is the risk of these human failures or judgment glitches, shown to be so much greater when that dog is a pitbull (for whom the prescribed regimen of proper care is also relatively greater), really worth it? Why? Read some of the testimonials and observe some of the pictures and videos before answering.

BREED-SPECIFIC LEGISLATION?

Breed-Specific Legislation is not necessarily synonymous with outright banning of ownership of specific breeds. It often involves mandatory restrictions such as:
1. Muzzle the dog in public
2. Spay or neuter the dog
3. Keep the dog on a leash of specific length or material
4. Purchase liability insurance of a certain amount
5. Place signs on the outside of the residence where the dog lives

So, is it effective?

Both sides of the debate have evidence supporting their positions. After ownership of pit bull–type dogs was banned in Sioux City, Iowa, in 2008, public health records show the number of bites by them dropped from 24 in 2007 to four in 2015. Similarly, in Springfield, Missouri, where owners of pit bull–type dogs have been required since 2006 to license, neuter, and microchip their dogs and post warning signs on their property, the number of bites by such dogs fell from 34 cases in 2005 to 16 in 2016. Prior to the ordinance, the city euthanized "hundreds" of unwanted pit bull–type dogs each year. That number dropped to 26 in 2016. (Source) This page presents a scattering of statistical anecdotes which seem to suggest success after BSL implementation (or regress after its repeal), including examples of Salina, KS; Pawtucket, RI; and Prince Geroge’s County, MD. These examples can lend themselves to the idea of resolving the Pitbull Craze through BSL as they indicate that both the desire for these dogs, and the related killing of them, decrease due to a legally coerced consumer choice. Is there any doubt that those who would have adopted a pitbull will simply choose another breed to avoid the hassle?

Colleen Lynn argues that BSL would be aimed at preventing severe maulings which victimize mostly children, not eliminate all or even most dog bites. "The mission of DogsBite.org is to reduce serious dog attacks," Lynn said. "Breed-specific laws strengthen existing dangerous dog laws by targeting some of those prime offenders.” She has also stated that “breed-specific sterilization laws are the most humane and efficient way to deal with the situation and avoid having more dogs euthanized.”

The most well-know animal rights advocate of all, PETA, also supports breed-specific sterilization for pitbulls. ( PETA's Position on Pit Bulls | PETA) It should be noted that PETA actively cares for abused dogs and fervently pursues legal action against abusive, negligent owners.

The American Veterinary Medical Association, itself, (along with ASPCA, CDC and Humane Society) is summarily opposed to BSL as an answer to the problem of any dog bite epidemic (Why breed-specific legislation is not the answer | American Veterinary Medical Association (avma.org) ):
"The AVMA supports dangerous animal legislation by state, county, or municipal governments provided that legislation does not refer to specific breeds or classes of animals. This legislation should be directed at fostering safety and protection of the general public from animals classified as dangerous."

In opposition to blanket legal measures, The dangerous dog debate | American Veterinary Medical Association (avma.org) criticizes that BSL is an attempt to quick-fix a perceived problem and a knee-jerk reaction to a few publicized incidents. They also claim it punishes owners without due process forcing many into a decision of picking up everything and moving or surrendering a companion pet. The ASPCA adds here that these laws would frighten owners into hiding and a foregoing of dog registration or even proper veterinary care and maintenance. Bronwen Dickey shows that such community-wide avoidance is already rampant even where BSL has not been implemented. The ASPCA also suggests that irresponsible “outlaw” owners would actually be attracted to any banned breeds.

The complication of how mixed-breeds would factor into all this presents a problem too. How much of a breed must a dog be to be subject to these laws? Who is going to bother to make that determination and how? Couple that with the misidentification defense and many owners would take full advantage of the likelihood that simply denying a dog’s breed as one on the “danger” list would preclude them from any legal heat.

In addition to the aforementioned “misidentification” purported problem, the AVMA falls back onto the deemed unreliable numbers used to determine how prevalent attacks are per breed. The faulty percentages, they reiterate, are due in part to the uncounted animals which are unlicensed and undocumented; subjectivity of changes in popularity over time lending to the fluidity of those numbers; and lack of reporting what portion of the bite count can be ascribed to repeat offending dogs. They settle on a recipe of resolution relying on enforcement of existing leash laws; implementation of neuter laws; community education; and targeting of irresponsible owners as the focus of bite prevention efforts.

The Humane Society and National Animal Care & Control Association cite the AVMA as lead on the matter and echo their sentiments in their respective statements and offer no real divergent or fresh insights.

Some animal control officers believe enforcements and prosecutions should proceed on a case-by-case, dog-by-dog basis only when an offense has occurred and with blind justice afforded breeds. Others see this as an irresponsible approach as it only reacts to tragedies which could have been prevented by heeding what the statistics warned of. But how much effort will realistically be made to confirm that a questionable dog falls into a banned category if an owner demands an expensive DNA test prior to enforcement? Add to that the reality that often agents charged with enforcing the laws bring their own influencing sympathies with the breed into the field. All of this would reasonably place BSL enforcement low on the authorities’ priority list.

How do insurers feel about BSL? The American Property & Casualty Insurance Association currently as of this writing stands in defense of it, although a murmur of reconsideration seems to exist within the industry as a whole. (Source) They also report that 73 municipalities thus far have repealed BSL and a study concluded that 70% of participants were against it.

Interestingly, Love-A-Bull cites a few of the same locale examples as used above to demonstrate law ineffectiveness, but with a statistical redirection. For instance, they report that in Sioux City, IA total bites in pre-law 2007 numbered 110, but 137 in 2015. Notice that they give total dog bites in contrast to the AVMA source’s specifically pitbull-inflicted count. They state that overall severity of attacks was unchanged and that many dogs were reported as “unknown” breed, implying that public welfare had not improved due to the ban. They also speak to the cost-effectiveness of implementation.

According to the organization, Prince George’s County, MD spent $560,000 on its pitbull confiscation efforts in 2001-2002 alone, while Baltimore estimated expenditure of $750,000 for enforcements. The U.K.’s Dangerous Dog Act is estimated to have cost well over $14 million to enforce between the years 1991 and 1996 (no more recent numbers are available). They add that, in addition to costs, legal challenges based on the 14^th Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act and other local laws entangle enforcement efforts. Does return on investment fall short of providing measurable justification? Can we really know if any lives were saved by the attempts to enforce these laws? Expanding bureaucracies and their funding rarely fixes any problems. (That having been said, this brief expose of the $60 million strong political lobby group, Best Friends Animal Society, questions the validity of fiscal inefficiencies claimed. Accusations are made that lawyers actively attempt to manipulate the budgetary calculations of proposed BSL so as to discourage it. It is their calculation model which is referenced in the offbeat Love-A-Bull piece.)

What if the BSL focus was placed at the beginning of the pipeline, before things get muddy and complicated? Maybe a course of action could include: either the outright banning of breeding or the very limited issuance of licenses to breeders in a state; mandate that breeders have dogs neutered before selling them; heftier penalties for those whose dogs involved in an attack are found to be unneutered; illegality of owning two or more dogs if either or any of these belong to specified breeds. Outlawing certain purebreds from consumer sale at the source while allowing regulated ownership for bona fide utilitarian purposes doesn’t seem outrageously impossible.

Even if positive breed identification was easy to do, where would it end? With what breeds? How statistically both dangerous and present must a breed become to warrant its legislated cancellation or monitoring? I wouldn’t encourage anyone to seek out ownership of a Rottweiler, Doberman, Presa Canario or Dogo Argentino. But are these breeds dangerous or, short the fervor of the current Pitbull Craze, popular enough to garner such attention?

I can say I do not share the extreme sentiment of the owner of this youtube channel, as do many out there, that all dogs are overrated and dangerous menaces which should be eradicated from the domestic scene. Dogs have long and successfully played the role of companion in a therapeutic way for so many of us and, mostly, without incident. One idea that has been proposed on this channel, and favored by many elsewhere, is a simpler alternative to BSL. That is, simply enact and enforce harsher penalties on owners based on the act of the dog for which they are responsible, not for its statistical potential. This seems fair. Knowing that they will be hit hard in the wallet, or maybe lose the right to own a dog at all, might motivate prospective dog owners to more deeply consider this conversation and any expensive risks they would be willing to take on and not so readily dismiss all the breed-specific warnings out there. Of course, punishable infractions must be extended to include all pet victims, who have traditionally been treated like property assessed for their market value when lost. Animal lovers, quick to defend dogs as “part of us”, should agree that this is a matter of disrespect for all forms of personal and immeasurable human-animal bonds.

Might this approach suffice to reduce the damage? I have my doubts about how quickly (if at all) it would curb the craze. I suspect the campaign of blurring the facts would continue to hinder the would-be dog owner’s choice-making process with incomplete or bad information. The mindset of “those are just dogs belonging to bad owners which I am not” might still prevail, for a time, with little or no progress toward prevention through threat of punishment. But it is well worth a serious try.

So would I advocate for a Stalinian or Hitlerian cleansing via mass euthanizing or a systemic stripping pet owners of their beloved dogs without event? Not at all. Our pleas and lobbies for prevention shoulds, as usual, be directed first to the consumer who, ultimately, dictates the production and distribution of any product. As with many other societal concerns, I don’t think the answer is further empowering an oppressive bureaucracy that is deaf to any nuances of the debate. It is better to illuminate areas of the issue to which most have never been prompted to look and let the people decide for themselves.

More laws are just an imposition of blanket government interference which crushes consumers’ freedom with the same authoritarian boot stomp that one hopes might protect a few lives. In addition, it’s also just too messy and complicated to effectively implement – especially in communities where there is a concerted effort to push back. An owner’s challenge of an enforcement agent’s identification of his dog’s breed cannot be resolved definitively on-the-spot, nor is there likely to be much incentive to do so. It is difficult enough to prosecute owners of offending dogs under current laws. Animal victims are treated as nothing more than pieces of property with a market value and their attackers are rarely euthanized, nor the owners forced to make good on penalty payments. More often nothing is done beyond a police report taken and the owner cited and required to maintain a fenced enclosure with a warning sign for the dogs. Not even a metaphoric slap on the wrist.

Whether or not BSL has affected dog-related injury and death numbers is really impossible to tell. We can’t know how the scene would look without it where implemented and the numbers will always be scrutinized by one side or the other. I have skepticism of the approach due mostly to those practical enforcement considerations. But, as a matter of principle, I start from a place of hoping to avoid any further powers of finer judgment and cancellation, or complex regulation being granted a governing body, especially at the broader levels. That just seems to make way for more unproductive inconsistencies and conflict.

BREED-SPECIFIC ADORATION?

The American Pet Products Association finds that expenditures associated with pet ownership have risen from $90.5 billion in 2018 to $123.6 billion in 2023. Statistica reports that pet ownership households have grown from 46.3 million (dogs) and 38.9 million (cats) in 2011 to 65.1 and 46.5, respectively, in 2023. Other pet type figures have remained pretty steady and far lower. Pet Insurance statistics for 2022 report a record $2.837 billion USD in total in-force premiums in 2021 (up over 30.5% from $2.175 billion USD in 2020) and over 4.41 million insured pets across North America (up 27.7% from over 3.45 million pets insured in 2020). … 81.7% of insured pets were dogs versus 18.3% cats (This leave 0% for all other pet types)

All of this tells us that animal ownership is certainly not a dying passion. It also tells us that dog ownership, more specifically, makes up the bulk of pet devotion from humans and has grown at a more noticeable rate. It was difficult to find any statistics tracking solid numbers of, more specifically, pitbulls actually taken into homes over the years. Any related numbers seem to focus more on the rates with regard to shelter intake and euthanizing. It is reasonable to wonder, though, if the increase in owner acquisitions correlates with the crusade to save targeted breeds from death as opposed to just an increase of dog loving in general. Drive Research recently found that 44% of people preferred adopting pets from a shelter or rescue, with 88% of them stating a desire to save the animals’ lives as the primary reason. Such numbers certainly support that wonder.

There are surely websites devoted to the celebration of most popular dog breeds. Those lauding pitbulls seem inexhaustible. Bronwen Dickey (p. 20) writes: On Facebook, the interest page for the AKC’s most popular breed, the Labrador retriever, barely tops 400,000 fans. Pit bulls? They have over 4.5 million fans – more than half the number of users interested in dogs as a general subject. Fanatical projects like Kennel To Couch set out to find homes for each and every “at risk” pitbull in a shelter (regardless of a dog’s circumstances that brought it there). A dedicated television show exists somehow finding a natural pairing of Pitbulls and Parolees. Even the breed’s own cryptocurrency is available. Missionary advocates are committed to finding dogs their “furever homes” (this childish language from people who purport to be responsible adult caretakers always makes me cringe – it’s as if they feel they need to speak this way to convince the dog that he/she will not be sent away again, as one would to a human child coming out of foster care.)

This overzealous reverence seems to be a pendulum response to the perceived particular and unfair demonization of the breeds. One allegation is that the dogs are unfairly pegged as dangerous simply based on their look, implying that such a superficial factor is an irrational form of stereotyping. (But many of these same people make it a point to abuse the animals by unnaturally cropping the ears so as to achieve that desired look. Beyond the obvious hypocrisy, what basic respect does this show for the beloved animal?) It seems a belief in the undue ill-regard for specific breeds somehow morphed into a status of exceptionality for them in pet candidate quality.

Some Rosier Treatments and Profiles

The Nanny Dog

Dogtime states here that the breed evolved into all-around farm dogs, and later moved into the house to become “nanny dogs” because they were so gentle around children. So this miraculous and unsubstantiated evolution continued from fight dog to farm dog to “nanny” dog, a concept universally discredited even by most within the pro-pitbull contingent who have bothered to update their propaganda. This disavowing is confirmed in the Chapter16 interview with Bronwen Dickey.

The TRUTH About Pit Bulls: The Nanny Dog Myth Revealed While there are many out there debunking the “nanny dog” myth, this is a pretty inclusive and solid resource. It references a fleeting post on the site: Home | BADRAP (an advocate for pitbull ownership due to their general wonderfulness as confirmed with multiple cute pictures and glowing personal testimonials) in which they reverse on their support of the pitbull-as-nanny-dog concept. The TRUTH… gets into a pretty detailed explanation of how this concept developed with historical references. As with today’s advocacy agents (BADRAP, etc.), it was the use of photographs to sell and popularize the idea which really got my attention. How sensational. There is a great deal of form without substance here and a search of “vintage family photos with dog” will return a whole assortment of breed samples, each with its respective family. Families just loved their dogs. Nothing exceptional about pitbulls to show there.

This article sets out to clarify misconceptions surrounding pitbulls. It references the statistics offered by dogsbite.org and repeats the origin of the “nanny dog” moniker explained elsewhere. The author then inexplicably seems to disregard these statistics for no apparent reason and devolves into the usual course of owner-blaming. He concludes (perhaps in the spirit of compromise) that both the “nanny dog” idea and the “aggressive breed” idea are nonsense. Not sure how he arrived at the latter, maybe you can figure it out.

The Icon Or Celebrity Pitbull

Many pitbull defenders refer to “America’s Dog” and lament the perceived abandonment of the moniker. Hardly official in any way, this portrait of the pitbull is a silly mirage formed out of a history of media sensationalism. If you say it enough, it becomes valid. I guess for some it was said enough. This Pit Bull Guide from the farmersdog.com provides some celebrity examples of pitbull in demonstration of their popularity throughout the 20^th century. No doubt that the tales of Sergeant Stubby’s heroics and special utility are great ones; and Petey was quite the lovable Little Rascal. But for every Sergeant Stubby (who was debatably not actually a “pitbull” but a Boston Terrier) and Petey there are hundreds of pitbulls who are the subjects of darker stories. The article offers the historical proclamation that … many more people were breeding pit bulls and their related breeds for companionship, selecting the other natural qualities the dogs had long exhibited—affection, loyalty, and gentleness. As usual, no examples of these endeavors taken up by the breeding world are cited for support.

The pitbull advocacy campaign is quite eager to share pitbull-specific, not dog-specific, accounts (like these articles: 10 True Tales of Pitbull Heroism | Mental Floss and 15 Amazing Rescue Stories involving Pit Bulls (puppytoob.com) ). Now the details of some of these tales are a bit suspect (you be the judge of that) as are some of the breed identifications. Nonetheless, one can find tales of heroism involving many different dog breeds from likely more neutral and reputable sources with an interest in dogs in general. And with little effort. For instance Dog Heroes: 10 Real-Life Tales of Heroic Dogs – American Kennel Club (akc.org) and Heroic Stories of the Bravest Dogs in History | Reader's Digest (rd.com) . Aside from the recurrence of breed-ambiguous Sergeant Stubby, not one pitbull is mentioned in these. Point being, the ratio of hero incidents to pitbull ownership numbers looks far less wowwing than that of pitbull attacks (both on human and animal) to pitbull ownership.

The Guard Dog

Akin to the Nanny Dog in its vital family role is the Protector or Guard Dog. What exactly do you need protection from that would necessitate the risk of responsibility for an animal with the unpredictable talents for such “protection”? Given that the statistics will show smaller people are more likely the victims of dog attacks, how much safer are your children in the presence of these sentries than the adult stranger who might be “licked to death”, as some warn about their pitbulls. Is your dog meant to perform the function of guard or pet? There are dogs professionally trained for the former. Assuming your animal can excel in both roles and will instinctively know when to switch from one mode to another is questionably bold.

Why this supposed popular desire for “guard dogs” among people who are not rivaled gang leaders, drug cartel kingpins or beset by a zombie apocalypse? The Doberman Pincer (another breed whose usefulness vs. risk should seriously be weighed) was actually created for the purpose of owner protection. By contrast, the pitbull has only been a largely failed project of repurposing for this by the consumer, at best.

If you are in that much fear that you and your children are susceptible to home invasion and assault by others, get a home security system. If you don’t believe this would discourage someone set on harming you or defiling your space, get a gun. If you’re not comfortable having a gun in the house or with the thought of having to use one, then you might want to rely on a dog. But if that is your chosen prevention measure, consider these three things…

Any dog that barks could work, sight unseen. This in-depth interview with an incarcerated burglar reveals that the knowledge of the mere presence of an alarm system or barking dog, regardless of breed or temperament, are effective deterrents to a casing thief. If your intruder /assailant is determined, he is likely armed and your dog will likely be stopped by a bullet, whether attacking or attempting to “lick him to death”.

Home security systems and guns (contrary to what some seem to believe) don’t just up and initiate violent acts against their owners or anyone else of their own volition - ever. Dogs can and do.

When you or the kids accidentally leave the door or the gate open, will your guard dog make the distinction between a would-be burglar and the mailman or Jehovah’s witness or old college friend who was in the area? Will your guard dog hold this stranger at bay with an unsettling bark or just proceed to rip them apart when triggered to action? In other words, at least balance the risk of having these dog types around you, your family and your friends against the likelihood that you are somehow a stronger candidate for home invasion and attack.

Then there are these fanatical offerings colored in breed dedication: 10 Reasons Why You Should Adopt a Pitbull | Friends to the Forlorn Pitbull Rescue This clueless author echoes the “nanny dog” nonsense; claims they are “low maintenance” – (not according to any breeder or trainer truly knowledgeable of the breed); “love meeting… other animals” – (most other profilers preach much greater caution in that area. ) The Disney-like anthropomorphism often becomes evident in these adorations – “eager to please” and granting you the honor of being their best friend. 5 Reasons Why Pit Bulls Make Great Pets | Lenexa Vet | Quivira Road Animal Clinic (quiviraroadac.com) “pitbulls love humans so much” “pitbulls like to please humans” Doesn’t this seem to be the case with any good pet? Whether or not animals are capable of “love” as we know it is up for debate. Any obedient dog who knows the hand that feeds it would be wise to “please”, whether it wants to or not. 10 Reasons Why Pit Bulls Rule | Petfinder “Pit bulls are great with children” with the added caveat that children must be taught how to interact with dogs and always supervised around them. So they’re great as long as the kids play by their rules, not vice versa? I’m great with children like that too. They add the best thing about pitbulls is that they smile. Umm ok, we’re in Disneyland again. Why is this fantastical characterization of natural mouth shape not laughed off as “myth”?

Those rallying to defend pitbulls often conclude that pitbulls are just like any other dog. What they mean is, they are not any more aggressive or dangerous. But if they’re really “just like any other dog”, isn’t this also concluding that there is nothing special about them?

A CAMPAIGN OF DISHONESTY AMONG THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS MUDDIES THE WATERS

Rescue Dog Home explains the distinction between animal “shelters” and animal “rescues”. The former, being state-run or sanctioned, may or may not strive to be a “no-kill” facility. The latter pick and choose which of those will be taken into their care with the goal of passing those choices onto adopting owners. They claim that pitbulls are less often chosen because they are less adoptable and adherence to the laws of supply and demand. Be that a result of “unfair stigmatizing” or a more promising factor of discerning and wary consumerism, it suggests that the source of pitbulls entering households is less often animal rescue and more often via shelter or other.

All sources seem to agree on the high statistics of pitbull representation in animal shelters and the length of time for which they remain there. Politifact concludes the average is anywhere from 30 to 50%. This variance is due to the decision by many shelters to simply dispense with use of the term “pitbull” in breed identification and others not counting any dog for which it might only be a secondary breed type. Rescue Dog Home estimates 33% on average and 40 to 60% in major city shelters. This is primarily blamed on the aforementioned negative reputation.

2023 Statistics - Shelter Animals Count curiously gives no breakdown of their numbers by breed. In fact, they provide no information regarding population by breed going into or out of facilities whatsoever. Could this be a surrendering to the idea that the numbers they might gather would be unreliable anyway? So we are dependent on the efforts of independent researchers and observers from within the industry to paint a picture of the scene.

Pitbull lobbyist Bob Baker estimates 30 – 50% of shelter dogs are pitbulls based on shelter website dog profile information. This method is criticized since most dogs of non-stigmatized breeds are adopted so quickly that they never make it to the website pages. A number closer to that 50% is given by Animals 24-7, which breaks this down into roughly a 20% euthanasia/30% adoption offering split. Internet research uncovered no real attempts to quantify things by breed. It seems reasonable to suspect that any such commitment is deterred by the purportedly rampant “misidentification” delegitimizer cloud looming above. Nonetheless, and even with respect to any misidentification allegations, all industry sources, be they individual or group (like the ASPCA), agree that shelters are overwhelmingly occupied by pitbulls, with Chihuahuas a distant second.

This begs the question, why are so many pitbulls being given up for adoption or cast out onto the street? They aren’t all confiscated from illegal fighting rings. Why are so many presumably dog-loving owners doing a turnaround on their prior choices, predominantly when those choices were pitbull? What can we glean from the ASPCA’s report that pitbulls are the most popular dog type to be taken in and the third most popular to be adopted out? Does this really mean that negative reputation alone without negative personal experience prompts the dog lover’s decision to discard a chosen animal? Does this mean that they are the most undesired pet once they have been tried but that, rather paradoxically, they are still immensely sought? While the latter could be a result of the aforementioned “save-a-pitty” rallying cry, what of the former?

In a study of 12 different animal shelters across the USA, 40% of relinquishing owners cited behavioral problems as one of the reasons for surrendering a dog. When behavior was the only reported reason for relinquishment, aggression was the most frequently cited problem (40% of dogs) (Salman et al., 1998).

Why Are There So Many Pit Bulls In Shelters? - BARK Post points to BSL as the primary reason for so many pitbulls in shelters coupled with the negative reputation ensuring that they stay there, if not euthanized. It is hard to buy as an explanation of the nationwide statistics considering BSL exists only in jurisdictions few and far between. And if only 35% of dogs are relinquished by owner, it still doesn’t confirm that BSL would necessarily account for the majority of pitbulls unless we are to believe that they were just cut loose by so many owners fearing penalties – penalties which have been proven difficult to enforce and easy to avoid.

A related blame is placed on insurance companies, alleging that many refuse to insure homeowners with pitbulls on the premises. This is as hard to accept as a significant factor since insurer policies tend to align with the legal framework of the home’s local jurisdiction and, of course, the ease with which an owner can blur the pet’s identity (if they even really know it themselves).

Shelter Animals Count reports 360,000 out of 3.2 million shelter dogs euthanized in 2023. Dog Population & Dog Sheltering Trends in the United States of America - PMC (nih.gov) Figure 5 shows a steady decline in euthanized dogs and steady increase in adoptions from 2009 to 2017. Figure 12 shows steady increase in rescue dog adoptions from 2006 to 2016, but relatively steady rate of acquisition from pet stores and breeders. (data from APPA) The former is encouraging news for uncompromising dog-lovers and those pushing for a ubiquitous “no-kill” shelter future. Might the latter suggest that campaigns encouraging the adoption of displaced dogs already in the population are working? And, given the majority of these campaigns focus on countering the negative pitbull stigma, might we conclude that an overwhelming answer to that clarion call accounts for those reversing numbers? So, are pitbulls in particular being adopted from shelters in greater numbers now in spite of, or even in rebellion against, any “misinformed” advisement against this choice?

Why Did You Choose This Pet?: Adopters and Pet Selection Preferences in Five Animal Shelters in the United States - PMC (nih.gov) This item outlines the reasons people chose certain pet for adoption, with 75% stating that a volunteer was the biggest influencer of their decision.

PURPOSEFUL MISIDENTIFICATION AND THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF DECEIPT (“NO KILL” SHELTERS – THE SHADY FRONT LINE OF THE PITY-A-PITTY CAMPAIGN)

According to this study conducted in Bitish Columbia, roughly 31-35% of all dogs being taken in by shelters are relinquished by owners. Only about 10% of these owners report behavioral issues as the reason – not aggressiveness, necessarily. But whether bad behavior was given as the reason or something else (say, too many dogs -19%; housing issues – 17%; or financial issues – 10%) the reason rankings of this study’s findings are aligned with those presented elsewhere. One has to wonder at the commitment to the animal in the first place and willingness of individual to diligently engage in all the proper dog-rearing practices prescribed to responsible and effective owners. How many formative years have passed absent application of this strict formula before an owner passes on the now-molded animal off to an unsuspecting public who has only the word of that owner, diagnosis of a shelter worker and, maybe, the aforementioned “temperament” test. Bear in mind that the 65 – 69 % not relinquished by owners are, presumably, picked up by animal control or discovered as strays which may have been cast out by owners to fend for themselves. Even if we are to accept the word of those relinquishing owners, the history and reason behind the majority of these dogs can only be guessed at. Since the majority reasons are owner-based ones, the breeds of dogs relinquished are not even considered in these studies.

How can adoption services like the SPCA and others guarantee that this regimental prescription for proper upbringing as described earlier has been met with every dog that comes under their umbrella? While it is impossible to know that an acquired animal has been properly raised or hasn’t been molded in a pit-fighting world or harsh environment, these homeless creatures are, nonetheless, represented as thoroughly harmless and kind victims simply in need of love and care. Victims of one sort or another though they may be, this condition does not negate that of an insufficient “proper upbringing” as delineated by the experts. On the contrary, it suggests the probability of its absence.

This chart constructed from dogsbite.org in-depth research shows that rescued or re-homed dogs accounted for 14.6% of all inflicted human fatalities from 2015 to 2018, a stark increase of more than double from the prior 5-year period and in line with the escalation of the Pitbull Craze. No separation between shelter and rescue dogs is made here, but this and the legal documentation to be found in some of the links to follow suggest that even the pickier rescues have problems with the animals they’ve distributed.

It is relevant to mention here that shelter animal “deaths” are not synonymous with “euthanizings”. Shelter Animals Count defines “Non-Live Outcomes” as euthanasia, lost and died in care, etc. Some of these deaths are not just a result of illness but of overcrowding and cramming dogs into close quarters prompting conflicts. According to witnessing shelter workers, most of those mortal conflicts involve pitbulls. For instance… Laurie H., Maryland: I worked at a pro pit bull shelter where they house 6 dogs to a kennel. Almost every week a dog got mauled in the kennels or a rabbit or a cat or kitten was mauled/killed by a pit bull. I saw it many times with my own eyes. They would work really hard to get dangerous pit bulls adopted only to have them be returned time and time again for attacking something or someone. I learned about pit bull talking points and how violent pit bulls are working and volunteering there for many years.(Source)

This all brings us to a responsibility issue. These are the guidelines laid out for shelter agencies regarding liability reduction or avoidance. This involves carefully constructed language with a potential adopter leaving a great deal of legal wiggle room. These services waive any legal responsibility for the behavior of the dogs they distribute based on their inability to fully vouch for a dog’s history and upbringing. They have only their temperament tests which, apparently, haven’t gained enough confidence from authorities that official certifications have been created to accompany passing test results. So if breeders, adoption agents and temperament testers are not held to any accountability whatsoever, what assurance that the prospective pet is all that, based on your initial impression and the agent’s kind words? This all sounds like amplifying an already unnecessary risk from the consumer standpoint.

Gunter, Barber and Wynne, performed a previous study in 2016. This study’s findings support the idea that the existence of preconceived notions attached to breed labels is a measurable determinant of a dog’s adoptability. These apparent negative biases may be positively mitigated somewhat by certain additions to the presentation of the candidate pitbull-type dog (for instance, being pictured with an elderly infirmed woman or young child). This is similar to their 2018 study, in which the authors concluded that shelters should . . . focus their resources on communicating the morphology and behavior of the dogs in their care to best support matchmaking and adoption efforts, these authors concluded in 2016 that removing breed labels from kennel cards and online adoption profiles may be a simple, low-cost strategy to improve shelter dog outcomes. After analyzing 17,000 adoptions, researchers discovered that pit bulls were 64% more likely to be adopted once their breed identification labels were removed. (From worldanimalfoundation.org) So if you withhold information from, or lie, to the consumer about the dog, you’re far more likely to sell it. This is more of the mentality of the self-righteous in practice. They use their certainty that they know better than the misguided who are unable to make their own choices to justify dishonest practices. How honorable.

Another item I found unsettling in this article was this: 64% of Pit Bulls got adopted when a shelter in Orlando removed their labels. The American Pit Bull Terrier might have less trouble finding a new home if shelters remove dog labels. Since the breed is often mislabeled anyway, this could be one solution to get these canines back on the public’s good side. Wait. What?! So I interpret this as “we have decided that you are incapable of making the right adoption decision through your own consideration of the information at your disposal so… we just won’t give you that information.” The Disinformation Police Syndrome is running rampant everywhere. It seems an unknowing public is not sufficiently outraged at this deception.

Best Friends subsidizes no-kill shelters in alignment with their belief that no dog should be euthanized but that all should be found a suitable home. This is in stark conflict with the idea that some dogs, be it from bad genes as even the original breeders were able to recognize or a poor prior rearing, are an unsalvageable danger. The effort to push EVERY dog back into the household population ignores all risks to achieve its “humane” ideological goal. This effort must, inevitably, involve some distortions or omissions about some individual dogs’ pasts – even when known to the shelter. Even if we are to entertain the idea that the “bad” pitbulls are the ones generated by backyard breeders and sold on the sly to status seekers or dogfighters, the acknowledgement of their existence among the total population can’t be avoided. Is the issue the origin with irreputable breeders and negligent early upbringing, as suggested even by defenders of the breed? If so, the idea that being placed into a positive home environment, checking all the boxes for responsible ownership, is moot once the irreversible damage of the dog’s prior upbringing is done. While the term “Rescue Dog” might encourage the adopting consumer with the reassurance that they are doing a good deed, one needs to ask what the dogs are being “rescued” from. The seemingly decided ignorance to this not being a viable solution to the problem makes groups like Best Friends and any shelters operating on the unrealistic idea that all dogs are good dogs, simply because they will it to be, culpable for the damage they help make possible.

In the previously mentioned Fifth Estate documentary, at 29:10, an interviewed shelter owner claims straight-faced and without hesitation that she is NEVER concerned that a dog she adopts out will ever bite or maul its new family. The follow-up testimonial from a former shelter veterinary technician encapsulates everything that should concern the consumer about this industry, from the uselessness of Temperament Tests and chummy first impressions to the cover-up language and fuzzier repackaging used to move previously rejected dogs out of the kennel like used car lemons off the lot. (Remember the surprise so many owners of attacking pitbulls expressed after the event and the implied disbelief of officials toward those reactions?) Her testimony includes the tip that no documentation regarding a dog’s prior bad deeds exists, contrary to what one might assume. Instead, dogs recycled into a shelter can be re-profiled with a brand new bio and cute name. The word-jockeying associated with the marketing includes plays like exchanging “dog-aggressive” for “dog-reactive”. While not an outright lie, per se, this is language sanitization. The production also recounts the tale of one dog that was moved from shelter to shelter with name changes to hide its past, even being re-labeled as a “Boxer Mix”. (Remember the effort by defenders to discredit negative statistics based on supposed “misidentification”? Well, here we have misidentification purposefully done by the same culture which has made its motives clear.) This shelter worker and former pitbull advocate/animal activist compounds these accusations as she comes out in opposition to ownership of the breed. She worked, in part, in the euthanization process of pitbulls who were not even able to pass the nonsense Temperament Test.

These revelations alone should make one considering adoption very wary, especially of any shelter labeled “No Kill”. Though the sentiment it conveys seems noble and attractive (no dog lover WANTS to kill a dog), think again.

The video also shows us a shelter worker making a house call, complete with the product and sales pitch. Included in her spiel is the overused nonsense “Historically, pitbulls are the best with kids. They just are.” The family seems to light up to this regurgitated version of the “nanny dog” concept, unaware of its previously accepted debunking. I think the energy exhibited by the breed toward humans, or playful buddy behavior, helps to sell this idea. But ask any family who owns a dog of any breed who hasn’t bitten any of them and they will surely describe their dog as a beloved companion.

The prescribed practice here seems to be an avoidance of addressing all decidedly unfounded biases regarding pitbull-type breeds by animal shelter agents, instead hinging adoption decisions on those agents’ own experience and knowledge of the individual dog with which they have had limited time in a controlled and non-homelike environment. It is these same agents who often champion the adopt-them-all philosophy and whose efforts seek to achieve shorter retention times by any means necessary, even withholding information. For them, honesty may not be viewed as obligatory practice if it threatens the driving cause of salvation.

To exacerbate the problem of disinformation among the professionals, we find similar deception being perpetrated by the prior owners even before reaching the gatekeepers. According to this joint study, conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and University of California veterinary schools, many owners relinquishing their dogs for adoption admitted via questionnaire that they are less likely to report such behavioral problems as aggression and fear of strangers, if they believed that their responses would be shared with shelter staff. The researchers suspect that this dishonesty comes from a fear that the dogs will stand less of a chance of survival and adoption should all negative information come to light. Perhaps this comes from a fear of being seen as unfit or failed dog owners themselves.

The whole business of saving dogs and providing owners with what they want is fraught with dishonesty and uncertainty from every corner and every angle so much that one should be given pause before, if not outright turned away from, proceeding with full faith into the process of adoption.

MORE STRAWMAN AND HYPERBOLE

Pit Bull Myths - Debunked : American Pit Bull Foundation (apbf.dog) Both this title and the organization’s name sound official and authoritative. But some of these “myths” they valiantly debunk I never heard of and couldn’t find elsewhere. They appear to be more strawmen propped up as evidence of the silliness of the anti-pitbull crowd.

As discussed before, the idea of “PSI bite strength” and “bite frequency” appear to be brought up only by pitbull advocates but introduced as things the anti-pitbull crowd has raised concerns about. They then proceed to lay out the numbers that nullify arguments that were never really being made in the first place. In addition, APBF adds other fringe (if existent at all) concerns. One of these is a belief that a pitbull’s jaws “lock”, which I have never heard anyone speak or write of before this. Another even more bizarre one is that pitbulls’ brains don’t stop growing so that eventually pressure from the constraining skull makes them crazy. This is the stuff of dark, comedic science fiction and not mainstream thinking.

Other “myths” they report, along with companion debunking arguments are just plain nonsensically wrong. These include the wisdom of getting an adult rather than a puppy (which flies in the face of the expert advice of ensuring the dog is properly socialized within the first few months) and a foolish belief that it is unsafe to get a shelter pitbull because of its unknown past. Contrary to being “myth”, that is literally the most important consideration of all for a would-be adopter! “It is important to know the general behavior of the dog”, they counsel. General behavior? Any assurance that the agency can be completely trusted to give you a flawless specimen has been bathed in doubt, to say the least. This is just shamefully bad advice, not debunking. This organization (cited in other debunking efforts like in Newsweek) didn’t offer any background on its individual board members, but none of them tout any valid, authoritative credentials. It appears to be just another rescue with an important-sounding anagram.

Bronwen Dickey discusses the idea of “bait dogs” (dogs used and abused in the training of fighting dogs) as an overblown urban legend. I was unaware of this concept before this too and the scattered testimonials I found of people reporting stolen, sometimes recovered, pets they believed were used for such purposes was curious but underwhelming. What was more interesting was that the source which introduced the concept to me did so while attempting to debunk it outright. Even more interesting was that this position of argument seemed to share space with an attempt to downplay the size of the dogfighting phenomenon and its community. Why would the pitbull defense advocacy seek to downplay the size of this horrific and victimizing practice? It seems the question of how much dogfighting still takes place is confounded, not only by the practice’s need to remain hidden to survive, but by an ironic concern by the pitbull advocacy that fuller awareness of it will only solidify and perpetuate the public’s stereotyping of pitbulls as aggressors. (Not just the dogs, but the human practitioners too. Why? We’ll discuss that a little later.)

These allegations are escalated to even stranger places purportedly couched within the mindset of those pitbull haters in which the dogfighting offenders are likened to some Satanic cult, engaging in especially gruesome practices designed to make the fighting dog bloodthirsty and loving of what he or she does. Do people, in showing concern about the breeds, claim that fighting dogs actually “enjoy” their participation such to qualify them as co-criminals in the repulsive activity stirred from their nature? Dickey would have us think this is a substantially inhabited position. Although I wouldn’t doubt it might exist in tinier specks, it sounds like more example of the delusional anthropomorphizing of these animals – albeit from a darker side.

THE REMAINING QUESTION OF BREEDING TODAY

What started as a “save-a-victim” campaign has given way to opportunistic capitalism and the power of the trend. When a spotlight was cast on the underground dog-fighting industry, the heartstrings of those wishing to save a dog life and adopt a poor pitbull victimized by a villainous owner with nefarious intent were plucked in arpeggio and stirred to action. Many stepped up and did their part in offering a positive environment and life to animals who had been brutally treated. But it seems that sentiment has largely evolved into an obsession, not with mistreated animals, but with a “cool and lovable” breed perceived to be victimized by misguided public opinion. As the nature of the crusade has changed, so its cadre has grown into an army of champions. A major problem this all has created is that we now have an industry of breeders hoping to cash in on the craze (and they do!). Breeders make big bucks selling a popular breed, not on the down-low to the dogfight market in the shadows, to the commonfolk who are proud to walk their cool token pets, saved by them from abuse and ill repute, in broad daylight. It is hard to defend mass pitbull ownership as a charitable crusade of saving tarnished and scarred animal victims while the pool of animals being bred and sold “on the up-and-up” direct to (more affluent?) consumers expands.

I mentioned someone I know somewhat personally who partook in one go-round with his intact male American Bully and was quite satisfied with his take. Bubblypet.com says that a pitbull can sell for anywhere from $500 to $5,000, and as much as $55,000.00 from “prime lineage”. According to AZ Animals, the price of a pitbull ranges from $1,500 to $4,500 from “trustworthy” breeders. We can take this to mean, breeders who do not operate in the dark or within the illegal fighting circuit. This, of course, assumes that these purebred puppies, which carry on the proud and distinguished bloodlines, are different in nature because nurture never introduced them to a pit. But with all the heredity purposefully preserved, doesn’t it stand to reason that the consumer-friendly labeling as a non-fighting pet is only based on the fact that there was simply never any intent by a scrupulous breeder or responsible owner to call upon them to do what they were created to do?

If we are to turn our attention from the breeding culture of yesterday to its contemporary iteration, where should we look? I would say the ADBA (Americn Dog Breeders Association) would be the place to settle. This is a statement from their About page: The ADBA does not condone any illegal activity, but will never deny the history of our breed. Hundred of years of breeding and selection have developed the dogs of today. Without the past, we could not have our present and certainly not our future. We salute the contributors to our breed. The many breeders, competitors, trainers, handlers and fanciers whose love for the breed developed one of the finest canine athletes ever known to man… It is our responsibility to protect and preserve the APBT in its original form. We do this in a number of ways: Register the dogs and guarantee purebred status. This is dependent on the honesty of our breeders and the paperwork they submit to the office; Holding conformation shows judged according to the ADBA standard, that is based on the original purpose of the breed. No other registry can say that.

With an evident pride, the organization was grounded in a loyal adherence to the unaltered purity of the breed’s beginnings. They did not want a standard that copied those of the UKC or AKC, but a standard for those dogs that they owned and continued to breed for the traits of intelligence, character, loyalty, and the athletic conformation that the breed was originally bred for hundreds of years ago. But, as the history shows, those characteristics became desirable traits only in that they lent themselves to an ability to handle a successful combatant. No mention of fighting prowess as an “original” goal, however, is mentioned. This is their Breeders Code of Ethics.

When the ADBA talks about the “job” or “working” of an elite bred and trained pitbull, what exactly do they mean? What is its job? Is it simply to perform feats of strength and athleticism for show? Is that why any real pitbull person who buys one does so from a breeder, to compete in shows? Do some still believe that there are more practical applications for the dogs’ traits even though none are being demonstrated in modern day? Guard dogs… again with that? There is virtually zero evidence that any attempt has been made to breed the classic traits, so vigorously engrained yesterday, out today. In fact, the unaltered language and objectives of the modern-day breeders from that of their predecessors only confirms that they have sought to preserve, not evolve.

I must emphasize - I’m not criticizing this organization! Like the trainer (Diane Jessup) interviewed in the Dickey book, I respect the honesty of their passion-driven position. They don’t lie about the nature of the breeds so to expand the community of owners to include the unanointed. They admire it without sacrificing a sense of reality. This organization promotes leash laws and the identification and “management” of dangerous dogs. These dedicated practitioners, the truly responsible ones, have managed to remove this breed from its originally intended application as a fighter and killer while carefully preserving intact all of its characteristics. I will never share their passion or take on the risks associated with it, but should they be free to indulge it if kept harmlessly in check within their circle of specialty? It is, indeed, the breeder and wrangler with bad intent who seeks to restore it to its original role. But, more troublesome, it is the undedicated, ill-equipped and grossly misinformed consumer who poses the bigger threat when circulating the breed in common space, ignorant and disrespecting of these characteristics so cherished and celebrated by the members of a more esoteric organization of those “in the know”!

So what of the modus operandi within this circle? ADBA provides single dog and litter registration, I presume to breeders and/or owners, and will only advertise dogs so registered in their classifieds. This process appears to be a pretty strict documenting on the pure lineage of the puppies, consistent with their mission statement. How does the organization address independent breeders? Their published newsletter includes all classified items including, presumably, any mention of breeders they deem to be legitimate. Beyond that they provide guidance and coaching here on how a prospective buyer should go about seeking a breeder of purebreds, but this falls short of specific promotions.

Are these animals bred and controlled by the truly dedicated stewards likely to ever behave in a violent manner toward human or animal, unprovoked by their handlers? I feel fairly confident that the answer is “not likely”. Research of attacks does not show that dogs under the care of reputable breeders and caretakers, or used as show dogs pose any rampant problem. (Although this is certainly not full-proof - (116) Pit bull viciously attacks another dog at pet show | New York Post - YouTube)But the question of modern breeding leaves us with at least a few important questions. What of the breeders who operate outside this community?

I perused a listing of the Top 15 pitbull breeders in the U.S. according to Dog Breeds Expert. Many of these appear to showcase the growingly popular large Bully breed and touting their clientele of celebrities and filmmakers. This seems to echo that new-age vocation of firmly establishing the breeds as “America’s Dog”. One listed breeder is named XXL Designer Pitbulls. The very name seems to sum up the Frankenstein-like spirit of grotesque human desire which drives this animal birthing industry. Size and strength seem to currently be the predominant points of a sales pitch. Most breeders offer the trendy ear-cropping for an extra charge - $700 or so. (How is this mutilation indicative of respect for an animal?) The price of the puppies themselves ranges from about $2,500.00 to over $20,000.00, depending on purported bloodlines and… well, whatever they can get from trend-adherent clients with disposable incomes, swept up by the Pitbull Craze.

This example of a breeder website includes this verbiage in its introduction. We started FPM out of pure love for the pitbull breed. . . providing. . . a well trained pitbull with the tools and knowledge from the breeder on how to properly train, handle, and most of all keep you and your family safe. So they feel the need to stress keeping you and your family safe as the most important concern. Why would this be necessary if pitbulls are just like and as safe as any other breed? Why not peeing all over the house or tearing apart the trash? The text and pictures on this site imply that the dogs are trained for the primary function of guarding/attacking but with the constant assurances of their family-friendliness. Again we are returned to that frivolous profile template.

For the BSL-proponent crowd, what of any government regulation with regard to breeders?

Government oversight consists only of items like the Animal Welfare Act which exist solely to promote the humane treatment of animals by breeders and dealers. Breeding practices, so long as they are not harmful to the animals involved, are no more than a matter of entrepreneurial endeavors of creating a product like any other - demanded for public consumption. Any integrity is assured only within the self-scripted language in the agent’s marketing.

The AKC Government Relations page explains certain guidelines regarding whether or not a breeder must be licensed and regulated by the USDA. Among them are these exempting conditions: having less than five unspayed females; conducting all sales on a face-to-face basis with the buyer; selling puppies for non-pet purposes. The last of those is the vaguest, but it also gives some insight into the emphasis on the “working dog” terminology used by the ADBA, the list of “top breeders” and in much of the historical and descriptive literature. A dog stated to be used as breeding stock, hunting dogs, service dogs, or for the preservation of bloodlines exempts the breeder. Dual-purpose as a pet would nullify this exemption, but I can’t imagine why any prospective buyer would resist the cajoling of a breeder to state those utility purposes alone if it ensured a smooth purchase of the product they want.

A few concerns are raised by that legal text. Fringe or hack breeders, operating without the blessing of the official community, could carry on business void of infraction of any USDA mandates by simply maintaining only four puppy-producing females or stating that their dogs are not just “pets”. That is, assuming most of these sources of breeding and distribution operate with a care to not shirk peer-sanctioning or regulation. This is a fool’s assumption as many out there with the simple resources and will can do as they please.

A Position Statement on Pit Bulls | ASPCA includes this paragraph: It is likely that that the vast majority of pit bull type dogs in our communities today are the result of random breeding—two dogs being mated without  regard to the behavioral traits being passed on to their offspring.  The result of random breeding is a population of dogs with a wide range of behavioral predispositions. For this reason it is important to evaluate and treat each dog, no matter its breed, as an individual. Absent an attempt to comfort with information about reputable and responsible breeders and their successful strategies for removing the nasty, this statement seems to confirm that there is no active interest in doing so. It falls back on that reliance on dog psychology to evaluate an individual pet prospect’s family readiness.

Pit Bull: The Battle Over An American Icon profiles an outreach program for the Humane Society of the United States operating in Philadelphia. Interacting with dog owners, they found that about a quarter… had pitbulls… only 9 percent from breeders… 55 percent… from friends and family members. This is only one sample but, if reflective of trends in major cities, makes one wonder how accurate the lower estimates of pitbulls as percentage of dogs as pets overall are. More importantly, it suggests a broader mystery of genetic makeup of this undocumented pitbull population lacking representation by any identifiable, much less reputable, breeder. In summary, the modern state of pitbull breeding holds no promises that dogs presenting less threat to other animals, and some to humans, has been achieved or even attempted or desired. Even if we imagine that it has been, those efforts are long-since diluted among most animals in the population after years and generations of unmonitored, undocumented litters representing a mish-mash of no-one-knows-what.

Cleansing of the negative genetic elements through mixed-breeding is obviously off the table for purist breeders. As for mixed breeding, what scientifically derived practices are in place to ensure that the “bad” genes will somehow be filtered out? I have found no literature regarding any such attempts. Mixed-breeding is an unplanned dice roll (your dog really liked the neighbor’s dog) and no legitimate tests for trait omission or inheritance can be done. When you find out, it’s already too late.

The philosophy of the aficionados makes it clear that the goal of any dog breeder of integrity is still, as historically, to maintain the purity of the breed, with all of its classic characteristics through Selective Breeding. It is ludicrous to think that ever equated to a family-ready product. The ruse of “working dog” seems a necessary façade to hang so as to placate any would-be regulators. To think the goal of developing a perfect family pet out of this pure and traditional composition drives those of less or no integrity is an even more laughable. Profit is the goal and is quick to achieve, with virtually no obstacle of regulation or oversight.

RACISM (OR CULTURALISM ?)

Animal trainer and author Vicki Hearne has become something of a hero for the pro-pitbull community since the 1980s. (She died in 2001.) Her appeal is found undoubtedly in her treatment of animals, both in practice and philosophy, as one with humankind in many respects. These include sense of accomplishment and pursuit of happiness. One may agree completely, in part or not at all with her take on the sentiency of dogs, but it is an easy embrace for those who accept dogs as companions, friends and family members. Hearne garnered attention from her well-publicized story of behaviorally restructuring a dog, Bandit, to save him from a death sentence levied by the authorities. In this summation, the trouble for Bandit (whom some say was not technically a pitbull) started when he bit a woman who was physically attacking a man familiar to the dog.

Her ideologies have been contrasted with the opinions of PETA’s founder. Ingrid Newkirk’s published sentiment that “these suffering dogs would have been better off had they never been born” does not sit well with Bronwen Dickey and others, who seem to philosophically entwine parallels of human life with dog life in equal course. The idea of disposing of unwanted lives is equally abhorrent in the form of animal shelter euthanasia as in the Holocaust or any other ethnic-cleansing campaign.

The ire toward Newkirk, from countless denouncers, often takes the form of misquotes and oversimplified mischaracterizations of the PETA position and corralling the group into the shamed pen of misunderstanding pitbull haters. Dickey writes (p 20), “According to the organization’s founder, Ingrid Newkirk, the dogs are kept only by drug dealers and pimps.” Only by. Such an ignorant stereotyping of all pitbull owners would lend itself as fuel to the mob’s attack – if it was what she actually wrote. In her words: Pit bulls are perhaps the most abused dogs on the planet. These days, they are kept for protection by almost every drug dealer and pimp in every major city and beyond. She adds a few other disgusting scenarios of human use of the dogs within communities as observed during PETA’s very active fieldwork – not just conjured from the imagination of a racist dog hater. Is her thinking singular and off-base? Even the prior-mentioned AVMA study analysis concludes in its rhetoric of human-blaming that many pitbulls are owned by people in “certain high-risk neighborhoods… who may… have involvement in criminal or violent acts.”

While the detractors may feel uncomfortable acknowledging those pictures of culturally-based inner-city depravity, Newkirk chooses to raise them up as the most ghastly examples of what a society run amok has allowed the state of the breed to become. That ugliness is only part of the problem. PETA states that they are for pit bull protection, for their happiness, and for treating them like dogs instead of like cheap burglar alarms, punching bags, or gladiators in perverted death matches. Pitbull haters? It sounds more like they simply choose to address the issues within the realm of reality, not the cloud of fantasy platitudes and fake wisdom the detached ideologue animal-lover’s mind floats around in. If one allows the organization to present its own position on pitbulls, one will find it is one of frustration toward an irrational, supposedly dog-loving, community who does nothing to advocate for the control of the exploding pitbull population for fear that this may somehow be akin to racism and genocide.

And so it is in these misdirected attacks at the likes of PETA that we start to see a theme strung throughout the bulwark of the human-constructed pitbull defense. Racism, yet again, is asserted prominently into the argument. A perception that some bad human actors are judged by their racial identities and not by the nature of their ill deeds is extended to the associated dogs. Those arguing against the propagation of certain breeds of dogs (DOGS!) due to the natural characteristics imbued into those breeds have been labeled “racist”. This NY Times piece quotes Vicki Hearne: "The pit bull 'hysteria,' " she writes, "is one of the cleverest pieces of racist propaganda." Today, people are invited "to make the leap from socially unacceptable inner city males to pit bulls." So, in the spirit of Ms. Hearne, dogs (man’s best friend) are largely treated in the public perception as being akin to humans with certain breeds being the victims of an ill-conceived prejudice and racism (breedism?).

It was the Bronwen Dickey book which really brought this fixation on racism in the context of pitbull concerns to my attention. She states on p.49 that how we think about breed and how we think about race inform each other, even though we may not always realize it. Similar references occur throughout her book as she explains how a need for protection in inner-cities among those who felt they had no more accessible means, starting in about the 1970s, prompted a connection between the race of these citizens and their protective dog of choice. This race-centricism is a seemingly fundamental lens through which she views all this. She suggests, colored by some historical accounts, that the meshing of vilified and demeaned American Blacks with their dogs into a one-and-the-same in the 19^th century is a sentiment that survives in modern times. An underlying racism, she believes, explains the intensity and size of the onslaught against pitbulls as compared to that against breeds, not associated with a minority group, considered dangerous in times past.

The called out “discrimination” appears in various other forms and declarations. --This white paper was presented to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) by animal rights groups in November 2020. It discusses what they see as the discriminatory impact of the insurance industry’s use of dog breed lists to deny homeowner and renters insurance policy sales, to issue policy non-renewals, and to place limitations on coverage. (Source) There are other examples of the chiding of it.

The Black Man’s Dog: The Social Context of Breed Specific Legislation delves more deeply into the question of race of the dog owner as a factor in perception of the breed and consequential responses, both legally and societally: The study showed that 82% of participants considered a white person to be the most likely owner of a German shepherd, while for pit bulls that number was just 34%. These results, though not conclusive, may provide insight as to why German shepherds, which were cited for the majority of dog bites for decades, are generally not included in bans against dangerous dogs today. These findings corroborate the theory that breed bans may be motivated by factors outside the scope of the dog’s behavior. In addition, they show that the legislation is likely not intended to target all dogs with predominately male or younger owners, as German shepherds and pit bulls look somewhat similar in these other respects. However, the racial connotations of each breed vary substantially. These findings are consistent with idea that pit bulls are being targeted, in part, due to racial bias and variables beyond the risk posed by the dogs themselves. It is important to note that while this study attempts to measure perceptions of pit bull ownership, there is no comprehensive data on actual ownership currently available. However, if the true distribution of pit bull ownership resembles the perceived distribution illustrated here, it may provide the basis for a legal challenge to breed specific laws.

From the Animal Farm Foundation About Us page: Founded in 1985, Animal Farm Foundation began as a horse rescue. We shifted focus to “pit bull” dogs when our founder, Jane Berkey, discovered that “pit bull” dog owners were not welcome in a lot of communities and spaces. Jane experienced some of that herself when she adopted a “pit bull” from a local shelter. People made a lot of assumptions about her and her dog. She wanted to learn more about those stereotypes and help other dog owners.

Through that work, we’ve learned that assumptions about “pit bull” dogs have no basis in science. In fact, the majority of dogs people think are “pit bulls” actually aren’t a member of any breed at all. The motivation behind “pit bull” dog stereotypes was to keep marginalized people out of communities. Yes, that statement comes from one of the major benefactors and lobbyists behind the crusade. They believe that a campaign against pitbulls in just a façade for one against certain people, though this victim group is not exactly identified. (Sadly, this group, which purports to also care for a variety of rescued and retired farm animals is marring that good work with this turn toward rhetorical insanity.)

The author of Dogs and Racism in America - Dilettante Army, Hailey Kaufman, makes the unsubstantiable claim that Michael Vick, in his actions, is not judged as an individual but as the whole of his race. She also cheers the modern slow victory being forged by pitbulls who shall overcome as she states, “they’re able to hop about popular culture and take on nobler meanings.” (I’m not sure what these “nobler meanings” are but she is correct in identifying an ever-growing demographic of pitbull lovers and desiring owners.) This equating of a breed of dogs bettering their status within society to that of a race of humans, implying a desire and effort to do so existed on the dogs’ part, rings rather bizarre.

This racism application to real dogs is also relatable as a darker side of the “Disney” effect. This is that submersion into the fantastical world of anthropomorphism. Animals with character, like us, who behave, talk and think in human ways. (Consider the example of Dickey’s concept of pitbulls being seen as “willful participants” in any unspeakable acts along with their human handlers.) The stuff of childhood imagination may not be so easily set aside for some as the world asks them to develop a more rational sense of realities during the maturation process. The identification of subtle behavioral and character traits in animals is real. The affection felt for living familiars is real, comforting, often therapeutic and good. But it can be easy for some to wax fanatical to a point where the dependent beta creature is accepted as the human’s equal without compromise. The responsibility of an owner to a pet, or to those we don’t possess but share nature with, is hardly the complex and full-bodied relationships we are responsible for cultivating with our spouses, children, siblings and completely strange humans we share the world with. If you find yourself in disagreement here, or are one who declares that “animals are better than people”, well, this sentiment could be the germ of the problem.

Be it for Bronwen Dickey, Karen Delise, PETA, the AVMA or any other observer of cultural phenomena, a discomfort with the conclusions, even just warnings, to be drawn from realities do not warrant a dismissal of all those unavoidable observations and statistics. We see over and over the human-blame, “it’s not the breed” defense pointing to factors like failure to neuter, negligent housing conditions and prolific “backyard” breeding as controllable if addressed. Yet, at every turn, the anti-racism decrying faction seem eager to step in and thwart any efforts to correct these things, when directed toward those existing in a culture encouraging such abuses, for fear they are an exercise in racism. If the horrific outcomes of this can be recognized, wouldn’t a specific consumer-targeted campaign of correction in these communities be more productive? How about preaching a halt to using certain breeds to boost one’s image, coolness, machismo and trend-connection? How about emphasizing an explanation of how encouraging the over-production of animals mostly destined for euthanasia or other unpleasantness is not righteous human behavior?

Dickey wonders (p. 267) if Chihuahuas will be the next breed facing discrimination due to an association with Mexican immigrants. Really? This fanatical and obsessive clinging to the race concept just diminishes the stature of any pitbull defender who might otherwise be engaging with facts and some semblance of sound rationales. This sadly brushes aside the legitimate concerns brought up about potentially dangerous dog breeds for the overblown fear that these concerns are nothing more than expressions of a race-centric thinking public. This is an even more egregious ignorance and silliness than the dismissal of those concerns as mere product of misinformation.

An insistent partnering of “bad people” with their “bad dogs” may still exist in the minds of many within the “pitbull-concerned” set. Undoubtedly, some bad people do encourage and celebrate their dogs’ badness. But it is the average “good person’s” infatuation with pitbull ownership, absent a knowledge of the dog’s history and true disposition or respect for its nuances and potentialities which may be the greater problem. This is regardless of that owner’s race, attire, musical taste, choice of associates or location of residence.

IN SUMMARY

--One might observe the current Pitbull Craze as a pendulum swing from a time when its antithetical movement hyperbolically painted all members of the breeds as inherently bloodthirsty monsters with an insatiable desire to kill humans. If so, one irrational and reality-detached perspective should not be exchanged for its polar opposite.

Are pitbulls a markedly more concerning breed than most other dogs when considering potentiality for danger toward humans or other dogs? The history of the purpose for their initial creation unequivocally supports an affirmative response. Legacy breeder circles up to the present only further demonstrate not only a striving to preserve that original nature, but a pride in its duty to do so. What’s more, the confines of that circle have been breached allowing the breed to leech out into the hands of an uneducated and ill-equipped populace who are increasingly encouraged in the form of a fanaticism of misplaced, irrational adoration and savior complex. Both a craze and a crusade. The problem is further exacerbated by a well-structured and pervasive campaign of distorted realities designed to further a cause of self-righteous, false humanitarianism.

Many of the publications mentioned here will dismiss the pitbull concern as nothing more than the dog-haters’ flavor of the month, or decade. They will recite a timeline of unfairly targeted breeds which might start with the Dobermans of the ‘70s to the German Shepherds of the ‘80s to the Rottweilers of the ‘90s and landing on the Pitbulls for these decades. But I haven’t found any about face on sentiment toward those breeds. While the popularity of each may simply have been eclipsed by that of the next, a legitimate concern for the nature and ability of all hasn’t been extinguished. Nor should it be. I would NEVER own a Rottweiler nor recommend ownership of one for all the reasons statistics (and personal experience) bear out. The question of German Shepherds is so much harder for me. Personally, I would not own one. But, in experience, I have known the full gamut of dog temperaments within this one breed. I have known German Shepherds who were the absolute most fantastic pets and others who were downright dangerous and would attack with near certainty. I have known stupid ones, smart ones and one that is probably the most docile dog I have ever known (White Shepherd, if that makes a difference.) These are historically proven to be highly-trainable and utilitarian dogs. But the numbers are what they are. I think it could be that the “it’s-how-they’re-raised” argument used in pitbull defense could more truly be applied to this smarter breed with far less predisposition for attacking, as was built into the historical pit-fighter creation. Nurture vs. nature, if you will?

I can’t emphasize enough that the greatest difference between Pitbulls and those distant second and third breeds to show in the negative stats, right now, is that there is no Rottweiler or German Shepherd Craze sweeping the nation with an irrational fervor. The Pitbull Craze is a dog trend like no other in size or scope I have ever known. Likely due to the rise of social media, the conversation has exponentially expanded around the current breed of attention. The enormity of the conversation has come around to warranting itself with the breed’s still-growing popularity, as has the screaming array of statistics. Brushing it all aside as some silly, empty hate-trend without substance is nothing but disingenuous.

The innocence and simplicity of all animals comes partly from the absence of any morality-based sense of right from wrong or good from evil. Well-behaved pets have only successfully learned what the alpha human desires and what will incur his/her wrath. All other qualities come from nature and heredity and are defined as appealing or unappealing through the lens of human perception. Any animal that has demonstrated a threat to human and/or animal cannot be permitted to co-exist in our society. Wolverines, etc., existing in their own space, have not been domesticated and aren’t relevant to the conversation. Dogs have been and are. Threats and proven perpetrators should be removed in the most humane way, not with anger or vengeance. Breeding of these unnecessary types for mass consumption and to satisfy a trend should be ended and that is the most important issue in all this to focus on. It is also the MOST humane way to deal with the problem.

Now it is quite possible, maybe even likely, that any errantly-produced pitbull could go through its entire pet lifetime without any tragic incident involving the family, other humans or even other animals and be remembered as a beloved member of the family. This is the prevailing idealism blindly gambled on. We assume the dog should be unless otherwise specifically conditioned. It is also likely that I could go outside and walk across my street with earplugs in and eyes closed multiple times and not get hit by a car because I assume drivers are conditioned to be aware of and react accordingly to anything in their path. If not psychos with murderous intent, why wouldn’t they? But WHY would I bank on this unsafe assumption when I don’t have to?

Short of her espousing breed bans, I agree with Ingrid Newkirk’s statement which spurns any dog-blaming: “People who genuinely care about dogs won’t be affected by a ban on pits. They can go to the shelter and save one of the countless other breeds and lovable mutts sitting on death row through no fault of their own.” I would urge anyone who truly loves and respects all animals for what they are to step beyond the popular drones of emotional ideology masquerading as refined wisdom which currently dominate much of the social conversation. I know you. You are wholly susceptible to falling in love with any animal you choose to take into your life, space and care. But don’t decide you have fallen in love with a particular dog type before you actually come into possession of the individual animal. Why not choose from any of a multitude of dog breeds which are equally lovable and, if we are being honest with ourselves, far less weighted with this dangerous uncertainty of what may await after the initial infatuation? Do your full research before you make the commitment to taking on a pet. It is your due diligence for the sake of yourself, your family, the animals and everyone else. If you find yourself with even a shred of doubt toward the populist choice of “save-a pit”, consider that any animal you will choose to bring into your life will be YOUR PET and, as a true animal-lover, you WILL grow to love him/her/it. It doesn’t need to involve excessive risk or uncertainty (like bringing an undetonated mine into your home because it looks cool; it was abandoned by its previous owner; the kids like to play with it; everyone else has one; and you’ve never seen one go off but the ones that allegedly do must have been mishandled by the owner). You may even find a new wisdom which moves you toward the cause of calling for the discontinuance of certain flawed and unnecessary (formerly utilitarian) breeds, at least in the world of consumer and family. Sea change can and should start and end with the educated consumer, not biased gatekeepers and politicians with vague and ineffective laws or agents with a financial stake in the popularity of a craze.

So I’ll finish where I started… the problem with pit bulls and other dangerous dogs originated with, and remains with, humans - animals are not to blame. Dr. Frankenstein’s selfish creation should be pitied, not hated. Humans created all breeds to serve particular human purposes and desires. It is demanded of us to honestly assess the fruits of such human design and deal with them. Ignoring the reality of the nature of these human creations as overwhelmingly supported by statistics, visual documentation and public record, or using our very human talents of marketing, perception-shaping and self-deception, are not the honest or healthy way to address the damages which decided ignorance has and will continue to cause.