Shows ta go ya, I guess…as someone relatively new to bully breeds generally, I haven’t yet sussed out what is supposed to be what. Other people have led me to believe that American Staffordshires are taller and thinner, and straight up Staffies (UK) are low, wide, and heavy, so I tend to think of Zu as an Amstaff… but any way you slice it, she’s defrinitely a bully breed.
My sister used to have Bull Mastiffs, she had a couple of litters and had a show dog and a few others besides. She was trying to correct me when I called Zusje a bully, but some Googlin’ showed that “bully” covers pits as well as mastiffs and others. All the short-haired, big-headed, heavily muscled dogs, basically.
By the way, did you watch the video? it’s less than a minute, but for doggie people… nuthin like watching dogs play. Cracks me up.
Yeah, I’ve had one person insist that Zuk wasn’t a pit bull, but an AmStaff. I just shrugged my shoulders and said “could be…we got him at the pound so who knows” knowing full well that AmStaff and APBT are pretty much the same thing. I mean, I don’t care, whatever he is. It’s interesting how at the city pound, all the pit-bull-type dogs are labeled as “pit bulls,” but when you go to (at last one of the) suburbs, the exact same dogs are “American Staffordshire terriers.”
And, yeah, I did watch the video. She looks pretty straight-up pit to me, and her weight sounds about right, although at 9 months, she’s probably got about up to 20 pounds she can grow into. So APBT or AmStaff–it’s really pretty much all the same.
And as far as bull masiffs go, when I volunteered at the pound, I wasn’t afraid of the pit bulls, even though I had absolutely no dog experience when I started. Bull mastiffs and American bulldogs, though, those are the ones I worried a little bit about, because at their weight (100+ lbs, although American bulldogs can be a good bit lower), there’s little I could do if they decided I was seriously pissing them off. And some of them were seriously “mouthy” dogs, half-heartedly chewing on your arm as you tried to walk them. Fun. A pit bull I have a chance against. That said, the bull mastiffs were generally gregarious dogs. It’s just that I had the realization that if they didn’t like me, I was pretty much fucked.
You got that right… My sisters ex-husband used to play extremely roughly with one of hers named Elvis. He was an absolute sweetheart, who had absolutely no idea how big he was… He was about 130 pounds. Her husband was about 125. More than once Elvis pinned Harold to the ground without even realizing he was doing it.
When we got Zuk, he was about 9 or 10 months and about 45 pounds. He’s now a hair under 70. I think 68. But he’s of healthy weight according to that scale where you judge them by their body shape, ribs, etc. (Body condition scoring, I think.) They generally say that up to 1 year, pits grow up, and then from year one to two, they grow “in” to their bodies (developing mass, but not height.) Yours may not grow that much, I don’t know, but ours did follow that general rule.
Hey Dragon, are you hip to neopolian mastffs? I am gussing this guyweighs in around 125plus…the baby doesn’t look bigger than 15 or 20…cutest damn pictures ever…
Do you consider this situation dangerous as hell? This? Do you have a set ostandards for dog/child proximity that make it dangerous or safe? Is it size, breed, age, cuteness, activities…? Or do you just think all small children and dogs are automatically a recipe for blood-curdling mayhem?
Is it fair to say that many of the posters here would subscribe to this argument?
<Forgetting or ignoring exactly what sort of breed, or quasi-breed, a particular dog happens to be, instead…lumping all dogs together, the number of people – kids, elderly, disabled, able bodied adults, etc. – attacked by dogs is very statistically small compared to the overall population. therefore, any support for the idea of ‘banning’ a particular dog is foolish>
Is that what it boils down to for many of you? You just don’t understand what all the outrage stems from, since fewer than 2 dozen people are killed by dogs each year?
My point of view is that dogs who aren’t working dogs (and I don’t include large dangerous dogs tethered in a yard as a means of intimidation a ‘working dog’) are a waste of resources, but a waste that people who can afford them should be allowed. However, if a dog is big enough to present a potential danger to a human, it should be banned. I just don’t see any reason for their continued participation in our general society.
But, as a compromise, I’ll suggest that we should try banning all the bull sort of dogs and those who seem to be related…for 100 years, and then relook at the statistics. If ‘death by dog’ statistics then reveal that banning those dogs didn’t reduce those fatalities, that no lives or faces were saved, then I’ll apologize and suggest we allow the pit bull breed back into our society.
I think that putting kids into situations with animals with teeth is a construct that we have accepted without question for far too long. I think these situations should be rethought, reconsidered, rejustified. We accept dog/kid interaction because we have always allowed it. But is it really a good idea? Why is it a good idea? Why do we want dogs to be part of our human pack?
Because they enhance the quality of our lives in a thousand ways, large and small. Because they ARE part of our pack and there is a school of thought that without them we would still be hunting and gathering. Because for every dog that seriously hurts someone without provocation, there are millions of dogs imparting joy, increasing peace, happiness and lifespans, enabling the disabled, protecting and assisting soldiers and police, finding the lost…on and on and on and on. The extreme, almost miraculous good (cancer detection? Blood sugar drop detection? Epilepsy detection?) that dogs bring to our individual lives and our collective society outweighs the occasional extreme damage, by many orders of magnitude.
Which is exactly the same equation we use to determine the value of all things that can and do hurt us while also being a boon to us, and most of the other things have far worse track records than dogs, but we keep 'em around anyway. Hardly sems fair to use a much harsher standard for dogs.
Reading your first post after replying to your second… I see that you are what most "Ban them!"People turn out to be: decidedly not dog people. Doesn’t mean you’ve never had one but you obviously are not over fond of them. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it explains how your mind can go to the idea of banning. You just don’t have a fundamental appreciation of how Exceptionally marvelous dogs are to begin with.
Sorry, raised with them, loved them. Bitten once or twice, not severely, by a shepherd and a mongrel. Out of the blue, unprovoked.
I fully appreciate the good things that dogs do for us. I hate seeing ‘working dog’ breeds in situations where they can’t act out their genetic heritage…like the border collie making a 4 inch deep track all around the perimeter of the fenced yard…or any dog confined to an apartment or urban dwelling where it can only infrequently venture into the wild…
I do not see what pit bulls do for us that couldn’t be done by smaller, less inclined to injure when they bite, dogs. they are one breed whose potential for damage to humans far outweighs any traits peculiar to the breed that are positives.
I think that is a rational point of view. You may not think so, but I do, and so do zillions of other folks.