At least one site disagree with you.
Well, he doesn’t actually says they were bred to fight BULLS, but he does say they are from an “indisputable history of pit-fighting”.
The development of the pit bull terrier breed includes bull dog origins. It wasn’t until they were bred with the high strung terriers that they became dangerous. This site explains it.
Trunk earlier you’d mentioned “next time this dog does this, we’ll…” (do something serious, I’m sure).
currently, you and your friends are “trying to find out who the guy is” in a community park where all these ‘good’ dog owners (except him of course) are walking your unlicensed dogs. I’m guessing that ya’ll will exchange pleastentries together (‘nice weather’, ‘cute dog’) sort of thing, maybe even getting so far as to exchange first names. Meanwhile, this unlicensed, vicious dog, owned by some one who is unable to control them, even on a leash still is out and about. this dog, who by your count, has attacked three times w/o provocation. even if we (generously) assume that those three are the only times this dog has attacked, it’s still clear that the owner has failed to take measures that would insure the safety of those around him. (didn’t your OP state the dog was off it’s leash? and your wife commenting that ‘even when it’s on a leash the guy has no control’?)
I give you back all of the “Fuckings” I took away previously. YOu piously sit back ‘trying to track this guy down’, yet refuse to call in the one body of authority whose mission is to deal with problem animals. You may be correct in that they’ll fail to take action - especially after your fucking delay in reporting the incident. (yea, some guy called saying some dog attacked his last week- obviously he’s not all that worried about it).
that particular dog is a menace. so, too, are you - willing to sit by and type on a message board how pissed off you are, but absolutely resolute in your stance of ‘nothin’ more I can do about it, other than gosh, try and talk to the other folks and see if anyone of them know who this guy is, maybe’
when you read in the paper about some dog attacking a child, or hear from your friends in the park about how it attacked and killed another dog, I hope like hell the victims hear about how you knew about this dangerous animal owned by an idiot ill equiped to deal w/it, and you were so troubled about it you wrote about it on a message board but refused to report the incident apparently cause it could possibly cause problems to the unlicensed unofficial dog park, and you may have to license your animals.
I realize that licensing your animal is a pesky thing to do. but, from my POV, it’s one of the basics of “responsible pet ownership”.
So there are other people trying to use the park besides you dog owners? Oh, man–you’re way in the wrong here, then. I bet these other people hate you, and if they were on the board, I’d be telling them to call animal control. Otherwise, their park is going to remain unuseable for them, because of all the people letting their dogs run free there.
Daniel
No, they don’t.
The neighborhood prefers it. The park is constantly filled with responsible people who keep it clean, make it uncomfortable for unsightly folks to hang around, and basically give the park a well-used flavor.
If it wasn’t for dog owners, it would mostly go unused. And to give you an idea of how few problems we have, people routinely let their children run around and play down there, even when there are dogs about.
Trash-cans abound, and we are our own poop-police, mainly because if people don’t pick it up, WE’RE the ones who step in it.
The attack on my dog actually happened down at the end of about a half-mile trail through the woods that leads away from the park. That guy hasn’t actually been seen in the park proper.
. . .and when Hopkins has the field (and not just Hopkins, but pick up soccer games, ultimate frisbee games, rugby, etc.) there are “spurs” off the main field where dog-people congregate.
At most there’s minimal tension between the dog owners, the neighborhod and Hopkins, usually brought on by someone just looking for something to gripe about.
On the website of the local newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, there was a series of articles about dogs performing different duties. (The link will take you to the front page: “äänet” means with sound and “ei ääniä” means no sound; then “jatka” means continue.) The first article is about Sofi, a two-year-old American pit bull terrier working as a therapy dog visiting hospitals and retirement homes. She is described as a calm, even-tempered dog who isn’t bothered by strange people, sounds or environments and has gone through a three-month training period to ensure that she is suitable for the job. You could say she’s a nice pit, therefore.
There’s a man who has a pit and a Staffordshire terrier who visits the dog park where I take Bea. We have never encountered any problems with either of the dogs; neither has anyone else in the dog park. The pit especially displays absolutely no aggression toward other dogs; he’s a three-year-old intact male, but will submit to all other male and female dogs in the park, even Bea, who is one of the softest, most submissive dogs I know. He’s also a nice pit.
However, I have also seen raging, foaming pits or other similar dogs straining at the end of their leashes while their owners vainly try to control them. I do agree that the pit bull, in general, is quite an aggressive type. In the same way that greyhounds have, for generations, been bred to go after anything small and fast-moving, and Pulis have, for generations, been bred to keep every member of their group in the same place (my parent’s friends own two Pulis which have to be shut upstairs whenever visitors are around because otherwise they’ll herd everyone into one room of the house), many dog breeds have, for generations, been bred to be big, aggressive, and frightening.
It’s much harder to breed a characteristic out of a breed than into a breed. If you want an aggressive dog, you don’t have to have an absolutely aggressive dog. All you need is “close enough”. However, if you want to turn that breed back into non-aggressive dogs, “close enough” isn’t enough anymore.
A big part of the problem with pit-type dogs is that there is a large amount of breeders breeding for aggression and a small amount breeding for steadiness of temperament. Also, there is a large amount of customers who want to buy aggressive dogs and a small amount who want steady temperaments.
By contrast, Rottweilers, for example, are a breed in which more and more breeders are breeding for quality of temperament and more and more customers want to buy a good-tempered Rottweiler rather than a black-and-yellow mauling machine. This has taken a while to accomplish; like has been said earlier in this thread, Rottweilers had a bad rep earlier because there were many non-licensed breeders churning out aggressive dogs for people who wanted to be bad-ass. Even now, when the aggression level of the breed has been brought down considerably, they are still considered a “dangerous breed” in places.
The pit right now is in the same situation. It would take a long time of careful breeding by responsible breeders to lower the aggression level, and a shift in the owner base to people who want less aggressive dogs. However, I don’t see that happening any time soon, because even though there are responsible breeders who breed sensible pits for sensible people, there is still a greater amount of those who don’t.
Also, the reason the Rottweiler was able to sink in popularity long enough for actual progress to happen in the breeding was because a more bad-ass dog came along for those who wanted to satisfy their bad-ass-mo-fo needs. In the link supplied by Cerri, about the Presa Canarios, it is stated:
So another, more bad-ass dog hasn’t come along. I don’t think the pit will sink enough in popularity the same way Rotts did because of that very reason. And that very reason is why it will remain an aggressive breed.
Good god, that was a long post. Apologies for any rambling. I was just getting thoughts out of my head.