No first hand experience…
Assuming that all are equally out to get me…
I’m going to go for the “yippity dogs”
Once a pit bull gets hold of you, they ain’t no getting that sucker off - short of death.
At least for a “yippity dog” you’ll be able to beat him off.
When we have discussed this before, a key factor seems to have been whether you are clothed at the time, in particular footwear. Even more so if you get a choice of footwear/clothing before entering the ring. Clearly, any physically strong person dressed in light chain mail and steel tor-capped boots is going to win a fight to the death in either of the scenarios posted by the OP. But completely naked, I think you’d have to be an experienced cage fighter to come out of either scenario without serious injury, and even then you might struggle.
So I’ll interpret the OP from the middle ground of just wearing everyday clothes (including shoes) but without any chance to specially prepare. I vote for the five little dogs - even with fairly light shoes on, I can just take flying kicks at them or stomp on them until they either die or give up. Kicking a bigger dog though is less likely to incapacitate it, I think - they may be enough to stop it attacking after a while. I suppose one could try to get the bigger dog in some kind of headlock and then use your weight advantage to crush it, but I suspect their muscles would be too strong for most people to hold them down, and if they get hold of almost any part of you in their jaws, you’re in trouble. Your only advantage then is that you have potentially three or four limbs available to beat the dog, whereas it is almost solely reliant on its jaws. I still wouldn’t fancy it though.
, Just to clarify, it’s a common myth that pit bulls have "locking jaws." The ASPCA has provided here a very unbiased and realistic look at pit bulls, including their history, general temperament and guide to owning them.
They also point out another common pit bull myth:
The American Temperament Test Society statistics show that bully breeds tend to have a high pass rate - higher than many other breeds, including Labs and Goldens. This link on their site lists the pass/fail rate by breed. Obviously people who take the time to prepare for and attend an ATTS test (which I have done with Rottweilers) tend to be owners who train, socialize and manage their dogs responsibly so the dogs included in these stats are from a narrow pool of well-trained and properly-raised dogs.
People are nervous around aggressive yippity dogs because they don’t want to kill the dog. People are nervous around aggressive big dogs because they couldn’t kill the dog if they wanted to.
Give me 5 dogs @ 12lbs each and I can take out 20% of the threat by stomping my foot a couple of times. Give me 1 dog @ 60lbs and I’m not sure I could take out the dog at all.
Seriously.
Also, for the record, dogs are just not that dangerous, one-on-one. It’s when there’s a pack of dogs that you’re in trouble.
Also, also: pit bulls are not big dogs.
Finally: No, the dog is not there to fight me. He might be scared of me, but I’m not scared of him, and that makes all the difference.
I vote pitbull. If all dogs are mistreated and mis-trained to the point of being hostile and aggressive towards any human thrown into a ring with them, it would be much easier to subdue a single dog, of nearly any breed, with little harm to myself or the dog. With the 5, I’d have to harm some of them quite badly to incapacitate them enough to deal with the rest.
To those that say their face and hands would be safe from the little ones have never seen them jump.
For clarity, what is a “Pitbull type dog”? The only “Pitbull type dog” I know of is a Pitbull.
I’m going for the yipity dogs. I just feel like an angry Pitbull is a lot more dangerous than 5 Scottish Terriers, Chihuahuas, Pugs or Dachshunds.
Although I did get “attacked” by 5 Pugs once. Well…technically I fell asleep on my friend’s couch and when I woke up, her Pugs were trying to pin me down like an army of Lilliputians. It was adorably terrifying.
You’re new here, so let me give you a bit of advice: Stay away from the “pb*” word unless you plan on linking to pictures of them playing with kittens or helping little old ladies cross the road.
Speaking as the owner of two roughly 55lb. pit bulls, I would rather get in the ring with 20 yorkies/schnauzers/pekingese than either of them,* if they were inclined to hurt me*. They are ridiculously powerful dogs, and very tenacious.
Having said that, they’re wonderfully gentle dogs, to humans as well as other dogs. They get a bad rap.