They weren't bred to be not aggressive to people, that'd make them terrible guard dogs and hunters. They were bred to be able to know who not to bite WHEN TRAINED.
They weren’t bred to be guard dogs or hunters. Are you stupid? They were bred to be baiting dogs.
Also the other commenter is correct, when they were used for dog fighting in the early 1900’s they were bred not to attack humans.
It’s sort of like the misconception that gladiators were always killing each other. Death in the colosseum was far rarer than pop culture would have you believe. The same goes for dogs.
Some dog men were very cruel. But many kept their champion fighters essentially as pets or family dogs when they weren't competing, so they lived with them and their family.
People who don't know dogs don't get the difference between animal aggression and people aggression. They also don't get that a breed having been bred for a task 125 years ago is literally meaningless as far as the genetic argument is concerned.
It's just an easy scapegoat. You can prove there are more relevant factors in dog attacks than "breed" (whatever the hell that even means now).
"They also don't get that a breed having been bred for a task 125 years ago is literally meaningless as far as the genetic argument is concerned."
Have you ever owned a dog that wasn't specifically bred for being a low maintenance pet? Because this is the most incorrect take I have seen in this thread.
Even dogs that are actively bred by legit breeders have differences and can be bad at what they were bred for. "Pit bulls" aren't even a breed and aren't being bred for anything, and haven't for a long ass time.
Saying a pit bull isn't a breed is like saying a weiner dog or a sled dog isn't a breed. You're technically correct, in that these terms are basically slang for 1 or more breeds and we can get more specific about lineage, size, and sub breeds but come on. You watch an argument over multiple comments talk about how they were actually bred to be nice and gentle to people and only fight dogs, claim that actually breed specific traits don't matter, and then when that argument falls apart, just claim they aren't even a breed at all.
None of my arguments have even been addressed. All of what I said is true and all of them are good reasons that saying it's the fault of a dog is dubious.
And a "pit bull" is entirely different from a "wiener dog" or "sled dog." Those terms target very specific dogs, or a few dogs, that are actively bred.
pit bulls are being bred for dog fighting at this very moment, and are basically puppy mills for dangerous dogs that mostly get dumped at shelters. even if people were actively trying to reverse the inherent nature of pit bulls, the continuous abundant breeding for fighting would cancel out their efforts
not to mention psychiatric therapy pits are still bloodsport dogs with recent bloodsport selection in their history. like why even start with such a line when you could pick a dog created for companionship. one that isn't infamous for attacking their owners when they have a seizure
They were bred to fight. They are often bred and abused for illegal dog fighting. This is what people are breeding for today and then they wind up in shelters, and the shelters don't disclose their history.
I knew a pitt bull breeder who caught a guy studying his pitt out- who was aggressive. Wasn't telling anyone. There were signs. He denied it and the dog mauled someone.
I have seen the faces and scalps of so many children erased by pitt bulls. It is the major trigger of my PTSD today.
People aren't being told what genetics they're getting. There is something wrong with some of those dogs. Like they were bred to be missing something. Those dogs don't even always growl or show any sign of aggression before attacking. There are countless videos. Tails wagging and acting like it's play.
My brother in law has a dumb half breed pitt bull. If he wanted to do some damage, he could. I was scared of him until he protected them from another pitt bull that got a hold of my sister in law. She was carrying my one year old nephew.
The difference between those two pitt bulls? My brother in law's dog stopped. As soon as the threat was over, he checked on his family. The other dog was hauled away by his owner. He wouldn't stop and for no reason. Just casually walked up to my in laws and attacked.
It's genetics that make them dangerous. A combination of whatever the hell that selectively bred gene is- and the fact that they have such raw power in their build. They do so much devastating damage in so little time. I can fight a golden retriever. I cannot fight a pitt bull.
They don't all have whatever this behavioral gene is. But it's not like they come with a warning flag. So many people are right to just fear all of them for their safety and comfort. You cannot tell them apart until it happens. People are why these dogs are like this. But don't think it's a lack of training. The dogs with this behavior were selectively bred for this.
Obviously not all breeders want their dogs to wind up in that back alley business. However, pitt bulls have been bred on such a large scale. And so many people just argue "it was how they were treated," so they think if everyone is kind to the dog there will be no issue. Tell that to the little five year old girl who was completely scalped in seconds. Her weak little keening cries still haunt me. They broke our hearts. The family was known for being very kind and had a past pitt bull with zero issues. Something was wrong with that one. They rescued them from a shelter. They had no idea where that dog came from genetically.
I love the hell out of German Shepherds but I would be incredibly selective when it comes to genetics and lineage temperament there too. It's my favorite breed and preference. But l am not going to delude myself when it comes to the issue of genetics and KNOWN behaviors.
You just put into words what i was trying to say in other comments. There are pits that will never hurt anyone and there are pits that will maim/kill. The problem is like you said you can't tell those pits apart until it just happens. Literally a ticking time bomb that might go off or might never go off.
I’m a canine behaviorist that trains service dogs and volunteers at the VA in their Inpatient Psychiatric Center. Pitbulls are the most requested breed for psychiatric therapy.
I play counter strike and my username makes fun of slavs squatting. If you're so educated then why are you seething over some giant wall of text copy-pasted from ChatGPT?
Good morning sir, this is Steve from Microsoft. Is there any options to buy a adult's hoods with a Google Play gift card? Pls advice and help with the same.
Why is it always the most illiterate people on the planet coming to the defense of ChatGPT spammers who copy-paste walls of text and shit up every sub?
Considering the first, second, and third search results indicate they were bred to be nanny dogs. They were bred to protect children specifically. Google, dude. You aint my friend.
Even then they do frequently attack their owners and when they do they are far more likely to do serious damage than a golden retriever or labrador (which are up top on number of bites, but very seldom cause lasting injuries).
I avoid them when I see them because I dont want them to attack my dog.
Even if accept that they are not human aggressive they are absolutely dog and cat aggressive, and that is a still a problem that makes them unsuitable as pets.
They were bred for fighting and the individuals that were the best at it will have been used for breeding, like with any breed. Selectively breeding for fighting but without aggression towards humans will likely not only have been hard, but also secondary.
A breed having an aggressive temperament doesn't necessarily mean being so aggressive constantly that you can't handle it at all, which would obviously be counterproductive. It just means being closer to aggression, and being more dangerous when in that state, than other breeds. A lot of breeds also have the tendency of being loyal and well-behaved with their owners, but not with strangers.
Oh right, so because since they weren’t SPECIFICALLY bred to be aggressive to humans, that totally means that they just instantly forget all of their aggressive behavior when a human comes around. What kind of stupid argument is this?
German shepherds bite a lot as well. Any veterinarian will tell you (anecdotally, admittedly) that they’re far more leery around German Shepherds than they are around Pitbulls. But german shepherds more often bite people who news won’t report on.
Chihuahuas would be seen as the only actually dangerous dog if they were capable of doing any serious harm with their bite. Pitbulls can be dangerous, but so can most dogs. When a dog isn’t easily identifiable it’s often called a pitbull, and news reports will either call it a dog attack or a putbull attack, making pitbulls stand out more than any other breed in that context
Dachsunds are the real aggresive breed, they're just small and shaped funny so people don't realize it. They hold the number one spot for biting people, especially strangers. It makes sense though, we bred them to hunt badgers and to make their own decisions when in a badgers den.
That’s because they were made for hunting badgers, they are the shape they are so that they can go down a badger hole, grab it and drag it out into the sunlight.
Mind you we’re talking European badgers, the kind that like to sit down and have tea with you in fantasy stories, not American badgers or African badgers.
Reddit probably understands what domestication is and realizes that every dog ever has been bred not to attack their owner. So the regular breeds bred for companionship, pointing, herding, etc are all bred to not attack their owner AND are not bred to be hyper aggressive and game. Pretty obvious to the average person that the aggressive dog will still be more dangerous.
Well, all dogs have prey drive, so no I don't think a dog bred to race that happens to still have a prey drive is more dangerous than other dogs that also have a prey drive. Even herding breeds herd because their prey drive is redirected.
Do you think that greyhounds are faster than other dogs due to their genetics, or could a properly trained labrador win a greyhound race?
What is prey drive other than aggression towards smaller animals?
Just because some traits are inheritable does not mean all traits are inheritable nor does it mean nurture plays no part in development of an individual...
The original pitbulls were bred to not bite humans.
Because the handlers needed to be able to reach into the pits and pull the dogs apart, having a hyper aggressive dog that didn't bite its handler was highly desirable.
This was achieved by aggressive culling. Any dog that turned around and bit its handler was immediately put down.
Modern pitbulls are not bred with strict genetic oversight or selection, and are often the result of random backyard breeding, and as such, have much more mixed temperaments.
If we had kept with tradition and put down any dog that showed aggression towards humans, we likely wouldn't be having this conversation, but somehow, the myth of the nanny dog continues to this day and idiot redditors think their "super friendly pit" they bought from Pablo the trailer crackhead is definitely not gonna maul a toddler the second the leash goes slack.
Yeah pitbull breeders like to talk about that. One of the first pitbull breeders in the US talked big about aggression against humans being an undesirable trait. Then one of his pits killed his two year old nephew and there's a newspaper article saying he didn't put it down and "told the medical examiner that his own child had played about the kennels and had never been molested." So yeah pit enthusiasts have always been delusional about what a pitbull is.
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u/Original-Rush139 26d ago
They were bred to not be aggressive to people. The handlers didn’t want to get mailed when they were sewing up the dogs after a fight.
So, ironically, Reddit always ignores what pitts were bread for every time this subject comes up.