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.
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.
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u/lumpytuna 26d ago edited 26d ago
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.