In this local no-kill shelter thatis having difficulties due to the county pulling their contract, one of the volunteers (on Facebook) commented that a majority of the hard to place dogs are pitbulls and pit mixes.
Do shelters nationwide have high ratios of pits and pit-mixes being the leftover, difficult to adopt dogs?
One anecdotal report: in most of the shelters I’ve visited, it did seem that more than half the dogs were pit bulls or pit bull mixes.
I live in Memphis, and this is absolutely true here. I don’t think they’re being dumped more though; pretty much ALL the puppies for sale on Craigslist are pits or pit mixes. I also see them for sale regularly in parking lots and stuff. Most of the dogs in the area are pits-- it makes sense the strays are too.
Looking at the websites for shelters in my area, it seems like 75-95% of the dogs on these sites are pitbulls or pit mixes.
I was cruising the shelters last year looking for a dog to adopt. Back when I lived in Boston, it seemed like almost every dog at every shelter was a pit bull. Here, only a small percentage of them were. I wondered why, and figured it out pretty quickly.
The dog I ended up with came from the county animal control, where they try to adopt out dogs, but also euthanize many animals. Later I found out that they euthanize 60% of all incoming dogs. While I was in the waiting room, a man came in with a pit bull puppy and said he needed to give her to the shelter. The animal control officer said “Are you sure? She’ll be euthanized because she’s a pit bull…”
I talked to the volunteer at this animal control who works hard to adopt out as many animals as she can. She said that they don’t euthanize the dogs based on how long they’ve been there. They are preserved or euthanized according to their adoptability. And the animal control shelter has better luck adopting out animals that aren’t pit bulls.
However, during this same time I was browsing a lot of craigslist ads looking for a dog, and maybe 90% of all the dogs were pit bulls. Seems like a lot of people carelessly breed them, but far fewer people want to adopt them.
A high percentage, probably more than half in many areas. Pit Bulls are popular, and popular breeds are the ones most likely to be taken in by fools. They are also unpopular with many people making them less likely to be adopted when the fools abandon them. Most of them may be mixed breeds, or not even real Pits at all, but it doesn’t change peoples perceptions.
I would say at the shelter where I volunteer, it is probably about 40% pit bull/mixes, 30% chihuahua mixes, and 30% all other breeds. We have a tremendous “leave live” rate. Well over 70%, but it’s not easy. Lots of networking with rescue groups, public events, etc.
If you look at websites and Facebook pages, I think you see more pit bulls being shown that other breeds for two reasons. One, there are more of them, and two, yu really don’t have to advertise the black labs, golden retrievers or cocker spaniels. They get adopted pretty quickly.
I’m not convinced they are all that popular of a breed. There aren’t a lot of statistics out there, but the AKC has them listed as very low on the list. I also think a lot of breeders may be unlikely to register their dogs, which may mean that the AKC list isn’t particularly indicative of the popularity of various breeds. The rest of the list does seem to reflect what I observe, but that doesn’t mean much.
I think Pit Bulls are like Labs, in that they are a rather plain-looking dog. It’s easy to call a dog a pit-mix or a lab-mix. The truth is, nobody has any clue at all what breeds contributed to the genetic makeup of any shelter dog.
Exactly this. In fact, the dog pictured in the OP’s article labeled “lab mix” would have been labeled “pit bull mix” at my shelter. (For the record, I have no say in how the dogs are labeled.) Square head = pit bull, longer nose = lab. Square head + long nose = pit bull mix.
Around here (south SF bay area) shelters are around 50-50. Half pits, (or pit bull types, blah blah) and half chihuahuas. Just about any other breed of dog that does come in is labeled “highly adoptable” and given a higher adoption fee. Occasionally the San Jose city shelter has chihuahua sales where they offer chis and chi mixes for even lower adoption fees than usual.
Yeah, there’s a ton of chihuahuas here too. And after hunting season, there’s a flood of beagles, which always breaks my heart.
And very good point about mislabeled mixes. In the early 90’s my family adopted a lab mix puppy from the shelter, but as she grew she began to strongly resemble a pit in the face. Now, obviously I have no idea of her genetic make-up. She was a gentle and loving dog until the day she died. I guess my point is, shelter dogs are a crap shoot. That’s why I always adopt adults.
Why are beagles available after hunting season?
Likely because people think they have these great hunting dogs, but the dogs aren’t really good for hunting and so get dumped when the season is over.
Hunting what, though? They’re not a popular hunting dog at all. I’ve heard they’re still used for rabbits, but that isn’t a particularly popular sport in the US. Anyway, you know if you have a good or bad hunting dog long before you get into the field. People invest months or years training hunting dogs and aren’t likely to abandon one for any reason.
In the shelters that I have been at, it certainly seems that pit-bull-type dogs constitute a little less than half of the population. I am somewhat amazed that this ratio appears somewhat consistent across the US (based on the replies to this thread).
It stands to reason that nearly all dogs in shelters are pit bulls (or mixes), since there is such a strong tendency (for people other than dog lovers) to call every dog a pit bull.
From an earlier thread on the subject:
pretty high. my folks have adopted a couple of dogs from the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society, and a good number of dogs that come up are bully/terrier breeds. In fact, the most recent they adopted is mostly cocker spaniel but has some clear traits of being part terrier; he supposedly was a “chocolate” cocker spaniel but a “true” chocolate cocker is slightly reddish-brown. He’s more of a slightly brownish steel grey, and has the jowls of a bull terrier. Also, he trances which as far as I know cockers never do.
I have no idea. I can tell you they are frequently older or injured dogs. I assumed since they come in a flood it was because of hunting, but I honestly don’t know. They are usually dumped, not surrendered properly.
I’ve read that they are the most commonly used research dogs, but it doesn’t seem like those companies would dump them. I’ve heard of stranger things, though.
The AKC only publishes stats on individuals that are registered with them, and that has to be an AKC recognized breed. There are a lot of breeds that aren’t AKC, and pit bulls are one of them. The AKC does register a couple of “show type” pit bull breeds which they call the Staffordshire Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier. These are not particularly popular. Almost all the dogs people recognize as pit bulls have nothing to do with the AKC. There are other registries that recognize pit bulls and related breeds but the AKC has done such a magnificent job marketing itself that people think the AKC is the Dog Breed Universe. It ain’t.
My own experience of our local shelter is similar to the other posters: around half pits. They are a very popular type of dog, and also feared, so not very adoptable.