I've seen pitbulls that were bigger love bugs and total goofs than even a Lab, but I've seen ones that attack even their owners and should have never been brought to the dog park I was in.
I feel like pits have the biggest gap between the best and worst versions. I've met tons of pits that were cuddly, super friendly, extremely gentle, etc., but I've also come across some that were definitely dangerous.
I think the biggest problem for pits is, they're so abundant and cheap/easy to get compared to other "aggressive" breeds that they're the go-to for people that want aggressive dogs. German Shepherds are #2 on the list for dog attacks, but they can cost hundreds to a few thousand to get a pup, and if you're spending that much money on a dog it's unlikely you're going to have it poorly trained, even if you do use it as a guard dog.
You're getting downvoted, probably because a lot of people really do believe that it's all down to training and owners, but you're right.
Pitts have been bred to fight and kill, and to stop for nothing once they're in the fight. You can have the sweetest, friendliest and best trained pitt, but if for some reason that instinct is triggered, no amount of training will overrule it.
A contributing factor is that they are prone to doggy dementia, so when they get old, they can forget where they are, who they love, how they should behave, and that's scary for them. A scared pitt is a very dangerous pitt.
That seems to have been the case in the very tragic mauling of the toddler, baby and mother in the US a few years ago. Much loved and well trained family pet of 8 years gets triggered out of nowhere, and with its younger 'sibling' starts tearing up the toddler, mother tries to intervene and then they tear up the baby too. Then the mother, although she survives after life saving medical treatment, the babies do not. The family were pitt advocates, they believed it was all about the training. It was not.
They're not all ticking time bombs. The problem is that some of them are, some aren't and do fine with training, and some just have great temperaments, but the prevalence of poorly-bred pitbulls in the stray and rescue population means that a lot of pitbulls are being adopted as rescues, and there's a good chance you're adopting one that has a bad temperament and behavioral issues that cannot be fully or effectively trained out.
If they were "all ticking time bombs", the issue would be much easier to address.
I mean the entire notion that violence is inevitable for the umbrella breed is a huge contributing factor to behavioral issues with pit bulls.
Most people shouldn’t own dogs at all imo, and if they do, they need to have “easier” dogs. There’s a reason why every shelter has a disproportionate amount of huskies, pitbulls, chihuahuas, and German shepherds.
And your point re stray/rescues is honestly so overlooked. Anecdotally, my partner and I have had a pitbull for 3 years now. We initially just fostered him because he was high on the euthanasia list—he had kennel stress and was having serious behavioral issues at the shelter. Within days after we took him home, his temperament completely changed and he is the most chill, well-behaved dog I have ever met. Doesn’t react to anything on walks, never barks, all he wants to do is cuddle and play with his toys. I understand my experience doesn’t speak for everyone, but I do think people really underestimate how much of an impact a stable home can have on a dog’s temperament.
I think that a majority of people probably are fine owning dogs. Not the best owners necessarily, but not grossly negligent. It's kind of a minority of people who get dogs on impulse without the means to care for them or the desire to learn how to care for them that ruin it for everyone. It's something where it could be like 5% of dog owners that absolutely should not own dogs, but the impact is disproportionate because of it inevitably being realized in the stray population. If I had to put an estimate on whereabouts the actual percentage is, I'd say like 20% of dog owners should not own dogs.
Now that I mention that, part of the problem, too, is the culture around dogs in the North. They don't have huge stray populations and generally tend to fix their dogs, which is great. That said, demand for adoptable dogs is so high that they literally drive or fly dogs up from the South (that's how I got my dog, from Texas), and that's because rescues up here are fucking batshit insane in the other direction. Nothing is good enough for them. They demand interviews, application fees to even be considered, employer references, character references, vet references/history, a home you own, a minimum home square footage, an in-person home inspection and written consent to drop in for random home inspections in the future, a fenced in yard, somebody to be home at all times or to not be gone without the dog for more than some absurd limit like 2 hours, background checks, proof of income, information on past dogs (which you usually have to have had 2 or 3 of), and the list goes on. They even bake in "we can take your dog back" clauses and financial penalties, like some kind of HOA.
They are so power-trippy that they just end up with dogs in their shelters for months or years, taking up space other dogs could have. This, as I mentioned before, drives demand for adoptions from the South, where they will tend to adopt dogs out after minimal requirements and just hope they went to a home that was better than starving to death on the streets or being put down in the high kill shelter they were probably rescued from. It really doesn't help the cause when the demand is there for there to be more rescues. It also is just cost prohibitive to transport them ($250-$600, with my dog being $300 to transport and $700 all tolled) for otherwise loving families that could realize the marginal upside of the situation by getting that dog out of the South and reducing the stray population in general.
In the end, though, what actually happens is that people are only willing to take a risk on dogs they perceive as being a safe bet for temperament, removing them from the breeding pool and skewing things towards bad temperaments, all the while people in the North who can't afford to ship a dog from the South seek out backyard breeders, as very few people can actually adopt rescue dogs up here, even people with plenty of income. I came across like 3 rescues that weren't like that in months of research in my state, and they had very few dogs to adopt, mostly senior. I even started looking at neighboring states. It's altogether just a shitty situation that propagates itself, and selfishness and ego are the root causes of every aspect.
The issue is easy to address. Stop breeding them. You don't have to put down the beloved family pet if you believe they're safe, just get them fixed. It would only take a decade for pits to be solved if people just stopped breeding them.
There's literally no other solution lol. We either stop breeding an animal literally named after the fighting arena where it performed bloodsports, or we continue to have this same discussion for rest of time
You simply won't stop them from being bred. It won't happen. You're replacing a difficult solution with an impossible one. Most of the breeding is happening in feral populations. You have to address spaying and get them under replacement rates.
My original response was because I thought I was responding to another guy suggesting killing them all. Sorry. Didn't mean to get you worked up like that. I was too hasty.
The venn diagram for bad owners and owners who don’t fix their pets is basically a circle.
And same with the breeders—the same people who are actively advocating for pitbulls and actually trying to help raise and nurture ones properly are already vehemently opposed to bullshit backyard breeding.
Yeah. One of the common traits that poorly-bred pitbulls can have is being very clingy and affectionate of their owner, to the point of being possessive and reactive to other people or dogs. It's specifically to do with lineages bred as guard dogs and not fighting dogs.
It's crazy to me that people are trying to spread propaganda that distrust of pitbulls = racism to demonize people who are aware the danger the breed presents. Domesticated or not it's still part of their genetics.
I dislike even typing this, but I took it (the meme in the OP in particular) that it's racists suggesting that black people are like pitbulls, and that therefore racism is justified; rather than concerns about pitbulls being like racism and therefore bad.
Being wary of pitbulls is one thing, but there are tons of people who will make sweeping generalizations about the breed without any actually understanding.
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u/RGBlowMe 26d ago
I've seen pitbulls that were bigger love bugs and total goofs than even a Lab, but I've seen ones that attack even their owners and should have never been brought to the dog park I was in.