American Pitbulls - Page 1

American Pitbull's in Australia are a banned breed with a supporter base that continually lobbys for lifting their ban. Purely out of interest, does anyone know apart from fighting other dogs what the Pitbull is good for, can it work etc, does the breed have any purpose that it's been used for or excelled at???

Like any other dog, in the wrong hands they can be dangerous.

As a breed, I have lived with 2 different females for over 5 years, and they are wonderful pets.  The first was not a protective dog, just loved her dad, was dominant dog aggressive, pushy, but would play forever.  Her daughter, who we have now is 62 lbs of muscle, the taller, leaner APBT,(mom was 39 lbs of muscle)  who will sleep under the covers, barks at strangers, tries to be dominant dog, but kept apart from other bitches. also raised with 3 GSDs.

As for pets, they make wonderful companions, they are great kid dogs, they are lickers, lovers, snugglers, just good pal around dogs.

They are great in weight pulling competitions, agility, obedience, (a little like the DDR lines, they can be handler sensitive) but love to do things for their owners.  I have seen some excel in the SchH field too.

A dog misunderstood, we need to look at handlers, not dogs, in most cases.  I understand that bad breedings can wreak havoc also.

IMHO

Rebecca

Pitts are often used for vermin control/hunting wild boar. Check out http://www.true-grit.net/smf/ you will get better information.

Julie

"As for pets, they make wonderful companions, they are great kid dogs, they are lickers, lovers, snugglers, just good pal around dogs."nbsp

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Wasn't the dog on the Little Rascals a pit bull?

This is my take on APBTs. I don't find them any meaner or dangerous than any other breed. I have trained some dangerous ones. I've also trained plenty or ther nasty dogs in many other breeds. I've trained some pits that were total cupcakes.  They do very well in obedience, tracking, obstacle work. Pretty nice all purpose dogs when you get a good one and train it well. The "problem" with them, I think boils down to two main reasons.

The first of course being the kind of people who sterotypically own them. They tend to draw teenagers, macho, irresponsible, even criminal types, who, of course, ruin it for everyone else who owns one who does know what they're doing. For every educated dog owner of an APBT who has a well behaved, well trained pit, you'll meet 3 total idiots.

The second, and it took me a few years of working and watching these dogs for it to dawn on me- on a whole they can be VERY difficult to read! Take a GSD, for example. It's easy to see warning signs: Growling, barking, hackling, standing up on its toes with it's tail held high. Now look at pits: the majority of pits I've had experience with tend to not growl or bark prior to aggresive behavior; hackling, well, that's self explanatory, it's hard to see a dog with such a short coat hackle up; as far as puffed up behavior, they are usually very confident dogs and look like that anyway! When a pit or pit type dog is staring hard at a another dog in silence, tail and high and wagging, it's often hard to tell if they want to lick it to death or maul it.  Now add that demeanor to a stupid owner who never trained it and can't read their own dog to save their life, and you have a problem.

As I look over my hands at my scars, these are the dogs: malinois, boxer, rott/gsd mix, great dane, GSD, and the worst of them was from a chocolate lab. And this doesn't count the ones that all healed.  I had a yellow lab do a very nasty job on my arm once, deep purple bruises everywhere.  Better ban those nasty labradors! BSL is BS. How about we ban stupid people from procreating, that'll solve a lot of problems.

Pits are what you make them to be. They can be fine around other dogs if you work with them around other dogs early on. They are not naturally people aggressive but they have a lot of tenacity. The ones I have been around tolerate quite a lot from other dogs and people. As far as working ability.....they can do about anything.

A Tale of Two Owners: nbspGrowing up, one of my neighbors had a sweetheart APBT. nbspHe was a big, gorgeous, muscular guy, white with brown patches. nbspNicest dog you'd ever want to meet. nbspNext to his property and kittycorner to ours were a pair of APBTs that were not raised to be nice. nbspWhen the sweet dog got out, he came over and played with my golden retriever and my pitbull mix. nbspWhen one of the terrors got out, he came onto our property and attacked my golden (animal control refused to come out because the gate was padlocked & they'd have to come on foot). nbspThe next time the pair got out, they hopped the fence and killed their owner's goat. nbspTook turns ripping his throat out. nbspI saw it happening and called animal control. nbspThat time, they were taken away and never came back. nbspThe man, by the way, promptly got another APBT.

Same breed, different owners/upbringings, enormously different temperaments. nbspI think this breed has a really unfortunate reputation and it's more a matter of some really crappy people being drawn to them than any inherent problem with the breed. nbspRaised well (and not bred from vicious parents), they can make great, loyal pets. nbsp

we had a wonderful pit female when I was just a baby.  sweetest dog in the world.  my mother has pics of me in nothing but a diaper sleeping in the middle of the female and her week old litter.

You have well bred pits who are stable and very predictable, can be good with other dogs ect, then you have ones who are bred from the"streets" who aren't predictable, dog aggressive ect.  it all comes from the breeding and raising of these dogs.

I would trust a well bred, socialized, trained pit with anything.  they are great kid dogs.

but the few bad ones out there, and mainly bad owners are what give the breed their bad reputation.

What a pitbull is good for depends on how it was bred.

The breed has gone off in several directions in the last couple of decades.

There are still 35 pound pit dogs that are bred solely to fight other dogs, not humans.

There are 65 pound monsters who have been bred large for protection and status, very dangerous.

There are those dogs bred just for the breed standard.   They could be good pets depending on how they are bred.

Any dog could have issues, its not breed specific, its breeder specific.

They could be has useful as any other breed in my opinion depending on what I've pointed out.

There far too many unprovoked pit bull/human attacks to discount in terms of their safety regardless of whether it is the dogs fault or theowner's fault, imo.  It's unfortunate because they can be lovely animals. 

That being said - I was standing on the sidewalk outside my home, speaking to a neighbour, when an Akita owned by a third neighbour up the street made a permanent divot in my  forearm for some never apparent reason.  The bite actually penetrated into my bone.  Thankfully the neighbour was able to grab a 2 X 4  to swat the creature with.  I believe it was due to the fact the poor animal was always chained in a yard or on a porch.  The divot and the scar from the stiches still aches in cold weather, oddly enough.  Man, that was a beautiful dog, too.