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.
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.