Articles about American Pit Bull Terrier
...to start reading this and the other useful articles from the beginning please click on here...During all that time, you never heard of pit bulls mauling 5-year old kids. It was only when the breed became immensely popular in the 1980s--i.e., when lots of ignoramuses suddenly became backyard breeders--that you began to read stories (at least some of them must have been true) about man-eating pit bulls. These monster dogs were not "fighting dogs". The scrupulous criteria that old-time breeders had used for selecting or culling dogs in breeding programs were thrown out the window--along with plain common sense. The backyard breeders didn't know the difference between gameness and aggressiveness. Many of them didn't grasp the fact that a champion fighting dog is born, not made; so they tried to make their dogs into "fighting dogs." In the hands of ignorant breeders, the gentle, affectionate qualities that were so crucial to the old-time breeders also went out the window. You began to see idiotic ads in the classified section announcing "Pitbull pups for sale. Big-boned. Big heads. Excellent attack dogs. No papers. $250" From the old-time breeders' point of view, the gentle qualities were an absolutely indispensable safety precaution to be bred into a fighting dog, since no dog could be fought if it couldn't be safely handled by its owner during a pit contest. These breeders bred for a type that was extremely easy-going and docile around people and would NEVER think of biting a friendly hand, even amid the fury of a fight. A well-bred pit bull is so reliable in this respect that even if he is badly hurt in an automobile accident and is in extreme pain, he won't snap at his owner who tries to pick him up--unlike most dogs in that situation. Well-bred pit bulls are like labs in that they will never try to dominate their owners through threats, such as growling or baring teeth or snapping. Sure, they will try to dominate you--by outsmarting you, by doing something sneaky to get their way when they know you're not looking. But it is a very rare pit bull that will growl when you pick up his food dish or reach into his mouth to take a bone away. The analogy to labs is fitting because both of these breeds were selectively bred for tasks that demanded an extreme level of generosity toward people. Can you imagine a lab that snarled when you tried to take the duck from his mouth? Such a dog would have been culled from a serious performance-based breeding program. Likewise, any APBT that showed the least sign of aggression toward people was culled as unsuitable for breeding. Whether true or not, it was an article of faith among old-time breeders that a human-aggressive dog simply could not be dead game. In any case, such a dog would have been unsuitable for fighting purposes: no one would volunteer to be its handler or to referee the match. As a result of this careful breeding history, the APBT is an extremely easy-going, human-loving dog. If gameness manifests itself as climbing trees, (etc) then aren't all these legitimate tests for gameness? Pit bulls will generally excel in activities that require sustained determination and that test their bodies' ability to endure pain and exhaustion to an extreme. But the fact is that there are very few activities that will test a dog's gameness to its limits, or that will provide a basis for comparing one dog's degree of gameness to another's....to continue reading this article please click on here...
