Originally posted by Ern
3 biggest problems pit's currently face: Ghetto breeding, Naive owners, Thugs.
Ghetto Breeding
For centuries "man biters" would be dispatched by true Pit Men, they considered fear of man a flaw and removed them from the breeding stock, they were all about gameness. They gave a rat's piss about size for the most part too, the average Pit 30-40 years ago was probably anywhere from 15-35 lb's less than "the modern pit." The larger the size, the more of the mastiff trait and less of the terrier trait the dogs have.
Today you have a bunch of boneheads going for large heads and weight while promoting a guard dog type of trait. Any old school Pit man will tell you Pit's aren't good guard dogs, they're quiet and usually were to people friendly to make a typical "attack style guard dog." So you have a dog with enough of the gameness left to make it lethal when it does go off, but none of the good traits to keep it from going off, that's a bad combination. And keep in mind I'm talking about a dog raised wrong when saying "go off", not just suddenly going berserk, that's a misconception even about the current crop of pits. These guys breed these dogs for size and jaw structure at a rapid rate with what appears to be no direct love from humans, they just want that bling bling money as fast as they can get it. When we got our first Pit in 1980 we had to look for an ad for 3-4 weeks before we saw even one Pit for sale, look in any paper now and you'll see a plethora of pits for sale, which brings us to our next issue.
Naive owners:
A MALE Pit Bull would be dog aggressive if not socialized young 9 out of 10 times, that is what they were bred for, the "it's not the breed" rhetoric is just that. They were bred to fight, and they do it well, and appear to truly enjoy it. You go in with some fantasy mindframe and you're going to have a lawsuit on your hands from your dog killing every other dog it gets near. My 2 males were friendly as hell to people, but both of them went through a lab in about 3-5 seconds. One would only fight if the other dog instigated it, he could be around other non aggressive dogs, our other was 100% old school game pit and we had to just keep him away from other dogs period. They're strong as an ox and willful as all get out, I honestly don't know if a 100-120 lb woman could have held it back if he wanted to fight a dog he saw. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are getting into the breed knowing the current climate against the owners and the breed. These dogs are great dogs, but you better know what owning one entails, and you better socialize it, excercise it, play with it, and love it or you will have a problem one day.
THUGS:
No explanation needed, this could realy be thrown into "Ghetto Breeding" as well. They cover up their own insecurities by owning a "vicious" dog that was never really bred to be vicious in that context, they were bred to fight dogs, and continue to want to fight dogs even when death was eminent, to never give up.