A FEW GOOD POINTS FOR ANTI-PIT BULL CAMPAIGNERS

We all run into anti-pit bull people who stand fast on the claim, to them the fact, that pit bulls are solely bred for fighting and thus to be aggressive in nature.  While we ALL know and understand that is not the case and that those who choose to believe all negative press and propaganda on pit bulls don’t, or won’t, understand is that breeding or intention for a dog's behavior does not dictate a dog’s behavior all of the time or as some people believe most of the time.

First of all we need to remind these people that only a very, very small portion of dogs, compared to the total dogs being bred today, are being bred for fighting and/or gameness.  Meaning that dog fighters and their breeding stock make up only a very small portion of pit bull type dogs that are being bred today and that most people who breed pit bulls today do so to lessen or eliminate gameness, eliminate aggressive tendencies and to increase calm, agreeable and acceptable behaviors.  In other words they breed for desired positive temperament, not undesired negative.  This is done of course through what dogs are chosen to be included in the breeding stock.  That is by ethical, responsible, professional breeders.  Backyard breeders may or may not breed for temperament with as much attention given to their breeding stocks temperament but one would think logically that backyard breeders breeding stock is comprised of dogs that they can easily handle that don’t exhibit any serious negative behavior tendencies and are not aggressive.  Solely based on this ‘fact’ they, the anti-pit bull people, should be advised that what pit bull type dogs are being bred for today differs completely, in most cases, from what they were originally bred for or at least when the anti-pit bull people believe they were originally bred for.  So that means that if the anti-pit bull people truly believe that breeding and the characteristics and traits a dog is bred for is so strong in dogs then they MUST accept that A VAST MAJORITY of pit bulls today are being bred to be AND ARE reasonably calm, easily handled, friendly toward all living things and are easily capable of being loving family dogs.

It's always a good idea too to share with anti-pit bull people that even those dogs bred and trained to be aggressive are only bred and trained to be aggressive to other dogs and that in selecting their breeding stock the dog fighters purposefully breed out any signs of aggression toward humans whatsoever.  This is so the dog fighters can easily handle their dogs without worrying about injuries to themselves by dogs that are in a 'fighting state of mind'.

While we remind them of these simple facts in addition we need to ask them to tell us if they believe that every horse bred to be raced ends up being a winner or champion OR is even considered good enough stock to be trained for racing.  These people have to admit that for every horse that is specifically bred to race and to win there are likely hundreds bred with the very same intention that never make the cut because in spite of their ‘breeding’ or heritage they do not have what it takes to be a winner or even a good competitor in the sport of horse racing.  If they can’t admit that simple fact/analogy we need to at the very least give them the idea to ponder. 

 

I think this is a great analogy for the pit bull discussion regarding breed characteristics and how much of a part they play in an animal’s behavior or tendencies behavior-wise.  If someone can admit/accept that every horse bred to win races doesn’t have what it takes to be a winning race horse, or in some cases not even be trained to race, then logically every dog specifically bred to be a fighting dog will not have what it takes to be a fighting dog or even be considered worthy of training to be a fighting dog.  Concurrently we need to bring up the fact that most, if not all, dogs bred for fighting by dog fighters when proven not to have the desired gameness or stomach for fighting is usually used as a bait dog or is killed as unwanted breeding stock by the dog fighter…making these dogs that were specifically bred by the dog fighters to be ‘killers’ the innocent victims of human beings. 

As we all know, these dogs - pit bull type dogs, are typically much more victims of humans than the other way round and this is what we should be saying to the anti-pit bull people instead of how cute, sweet, cuddly and/or lovable pit bulls are as a rule.  They don’t understand our interpretation of what these dogs can be in the right hands however they should be able to understand how these dogs are much more victims of us than we are of them.

In the end we all know, we who have done the research and who have the personal experience with these dogs, that the anti-pit bull campaigners claim that because pit bulls were once bred to be aggressive (have high game/prey drive and tenacity) that means they are all aggressive today is completely unfounded and has no anecdotal, no statistical data and/or no scientific evidence to support those claims.  In other words these poor misled people are allowing the fears and lies of others to influence how they view dogs and most especially how they view pit bull type dogs.