Practice (“bait”) dogs are not necessarily other pits.
Not always, but they are certainly not dogs that outweigh most pits by 20 lbs or more and stand 10" taller at the shoulder.
More to the point - they are easily obtained animals. Why would somebody go through all this work described in the original thread {i.e. attempt to adopt a dog from a humane society, be turned down, list a request on Craig’s list for someone else to get it in her stead} to obtain a bait dog when they could just answer 1 of dozens of ads for free dogs in the paper or develop a relationship with a kennel that regularly disposes of the dogs that can’t make the grade?
In today’s local paper (medium to small circulation, serves a mid-sized Indiana city and surrounding counties) there are 13 dogs listed in the Absoutely Free section of the classified ads - all ages, breeds, and sizes (from St. Bernard to rat terrier) including 2 pit bulls. If one was looking for a bait animal for a fighting dog at any age or stage there would be one for free listed in the paper. What sort of crazy person would pay $100 for a dog who is going to be killed when you don’t have to. It makes no sense at all.
With all due respect, that’s just not true.
100% ethical imo. Dogs are pets, and pets are ultimately possessions, though quite often the bond between pet and owner goes far beyond that. Once I take ownership of the animal, it is my property, and I have every right to give it away or sell it, if I choose to do so. This wouldn’t even be a debate if the animal were a dairy cow, but people often forget that pets are also property, since they don’t think of that particular relationship that way.
As mention in this thread, that simply isn’t true. Being property, sales of animals can be restricted by terms of sale that require return. It all depends on the term of the sales contract.
The person in question signed a binding agreement, no? The circumstances surrounding the contract shouldn’t even matter then, just the breach.
Is it ethical (or legal) to breach a contract? No.
Is it ethical (or legal) to sign a binding agreement, knowing you intend to break the agreement? No.
The dogs/cats are the shelter’s posessions. They have the right to dictate how they give away their posessions or sell their possessions.
Don’t like the terms under which the shelter disposes of their posessions? Don’t get a pet from there.
The same goes for dairy farmers.
??
A dairy cow owner has the right to only sell his cows to people he thinks will take care of it even though we don’t view cows as pets like dogs.
Actually, they usually are. Pit bulls (and their canid kindred that were historically bred to the “arena”) tend have a certain unique fighting style which makes it somewhat pointless to train them on non-fighting dogs.
You see, they’re *terriers *-- dogs whose attack mode is “grab it hard, then shake it even harder”-- a distinction between terriers and non-terriers, which terrier people have been breeding for, deliberately, for centuries. When two equal-sized specimens of this kind of dog fight, they are basically grappling for a good grip from which the “winner” can then proceed to shake his opponent to death. “Form” is important to dogfight aficionados, so the guys who roll dogs are at some pains to breed *and train * theirs to comply with the standards of that form.
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It’s not ust counterefficient, it can also be dangerous – even fatal – to the fighter-in-training, and savvy pitmen know this.“Sharp” dog breeds (in these threads, Dobes and GSDs, but Belgian Malinois or working-line collies are perhaps a better example) don’t attack using the grapple-grab-and-shake routine that comes naturally to fighters. Their move is to go in fast, low and to the flanks, going for either the gut or throat *with the same sideways fang-slash that wolves use to bring down prey *If a pit bull (whose attack, remember, tends to be frontal) and a “sharp” dog (for our purposes here, let’s call him a Malinois) get in a fight, all the Mal’ needs is to get in the first good lick (or three) in order to open the poor PB’s throat, or even gut him – and that can happen a lot easier than most people realize.
While the underground domain of the dog pits and dead-gameness is indeed a harsh and hostile and blood-soaked one, a whole lot of what regular uninvolved people believe about that scene, and the people and dogs involved (including most of what you read in the mainstream media), is sensationalized, hysterical horseshit. And there’s a good deal more going on there than meets the outsiders’ eye.
Absolutely. However, once the possession is in my possession, I am free to do as I please with it.
Though yesterday, I just skimmed, and didn’t realize there may be a contract involved. If that is the case(and it is legal and enforceable), then of course you would have to abide by the terms of the contract.
If there is no contract, then its open season as far as I’m concerned. Naturally, they would be completely within their rights to deny you a pet for whatever reason, just as you would be completely within your right to hand the pet to the new owner 2 steps outside of the shelter that just gave it to you.