Nitpick:
Pitbull jaws don’t “lock”. No dog has jaws that “lock”. They are very strong and tenacious but haven’t developed specially evolved lockable jaws independent of the rest of the dog world.
clairobscur said:
To some extent you are right but you need to rationalise the situation a bit more than you’re doing.
A pit bull is a fighting dog - it was bred to fight. That is it’s purpose, it’s raison d’etre. This doesn’t mean that all pit bulls are aggressive (they’re not). All it means is that they are very, very good at fighting. One of the by-products of being very good at fighting is having the right temperament for a fight. A pit bull will never turn down a fight if another dog attacks it. Even if it has blood pouring out of it and broken bones, it will keep on fighting. The effect of this is that you can never really trust one around strange people or strange dogs. Pit bull owners should always keep them on a leash if they are anywhere near other people or dogs because they have got a fighting temperament - another dog may attack it or a child may run at it, anything could happen.
A rottweiler is similar. It’s not quite so much of a fighting dog as a pit bull but it is still a fighting dog and it has the bulk and the muscles to do serious damage should it decide to attack. A rottweiler should also never be let off a leash unless it is nowhere near other people or dogs. It also has a fighting temperament. I stress though that most rottweilers are actually lovely dogs - once they get to know you. Just because they possess the ability to rip you to shreds doesn’t mean that they will do that.
With rottweilers and pit bulls, a lot depends on how they’ve been brought up by their owners. If they’ve been brought up with love then they will almost certainly never attack anyone but you can never be totally sure because they both have an inherent fighting temperament.
Rhodesian Ridgebacks are a whole different ball game. They are not fighting dogs and they don’t have a fighting temperament. They don’t attack their prey, they herd prey. As I said before, there is no recorded instance of a rhodesian ridgeback ever attacking anyone without just cause. When I say “just cause” I mean a human definition of “just cause” not a dog definition of “just cause”.
Ridgebacks are especially good around young children. A child can poke it, pull it’s ears, poke it in the eye, pull it’s tail, jump on it, whatever and a ridgeback will not respond. If another dog attacks it, it may well run away (and they can run as fast as greyhounds) although I think they generally stand their ground if attacked. The point about ridgebacks is that they will only fight if they absolutely have to. But, should a ridgeback have to fight then it would almost certainly make mincemeat of any number of pit bulls or rottweilers, even if they all attacked together. When a ridgeback is a puppy, it’s jaws have the same biting power as an adult doberman.
This is because a ridgeback has been bred from African wild dogs - that ridge on it’s back is a remnant. If you ever see wildlife documentaries about African wild dogs, you’ll notice that some of them have a ridge of hair about 4 inches high running down their back. But the African wild dog side of it has been tempered by mixing it with domestic dogs. They were used to herd rogue lions into a corner so that the hunter could shoot the lion. So if a ridgeback sees you as a threat it is more likely to herd you into a corner than to attack you.
But the African side of it is still there. As an experiment they released some ridgebacks onto a plain in Africa where there were big game. These were city ridgebacks that had never seen game. Immediately, the ridgebacks chased the big game, brought them down, killed them and ate them!
So a ridgeback won’t attack a human - too puny - unless that human seems to be a REAL threat to it or people it knows.
But one thing in common with pit bulls, rottweilers and ridgebacks is you should never go into a house (when the owner isn’t there) if that dog doesn’t know you. A neighbour coming into a yard will be ok if the dog knows him. But even if you did go into a ridgeback’s house when it doesn’t know you, it would probably just herd you into a corner until the owner got back.
And ridgebacks should really be kept on a leash when on the street. Not because they are aggressive but the opposite in fact. They are so friendly and big and bouncy that they can easily knock people over by accident. They remind me of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
With pit bulls and rottweilers, their default position is to be suspicious of strangers until you earn their trust. A ridgeback’s default position is to like you until you do something to make it not like you. Ridgebacks like everyone. You have to really piss off a ridgeback to make it not like you. If you do manage to piss one off though (and this is not an easy thing to do) then you have a real serious problem on your hands.
They tried to train ridgebacks as police dogs but it didn’t work because, while training them, the police officer would wear a padded arm. Alsatians jump up and bite the padded arm, ridgebacks didn’t see the point in biting a padded arm. They usually went straight for the neck or the groin or somewhere that would count. This isn’t because they are aggressive, just that they are highly intelligent. Why bite a padded arm?
They tried to race them against greyhounds round a track. The ridgeback would keep up with the greyhounds for the first lap then realise that they were just running around in a circle so the ridgebacks would just stop running, wait for the hare to come around next time and then grab it. Then look at their owner with a quizzical look “What? The point was to catch the rabbit wasn’t it?”
Clarification: To me, it is a commonly used expression for dogs that cannot be induced to let go, ie pits and chows. Pits care more about biting whatever than anything else in the world. What’s the colloquialism: that you can kill a pit but that won’t quarantee the jaw will loosen? That the feedback mechanism on the jaw muscles is so ingrained that they will not let go. Seems an acceptible use of the word “locking” to me.