Pit bulls and other "dangerous" dog breeds

Training, socialization, and individual personality play a HUGE role here.

My cousin had a pit bull/boxer mix, a big dog with huge jaw strength. He was still barely out of puppyhood when I met him (I was 15 or so and was comfortable around large, powerful dogs). We destroyed two tennis balls playing tug. I would have my hand pretty much entirely in his mouth, with him biting down as hard as he could on that ball and both of us growling at each other (what can I say? I like playing tug). But as soon as that ball came loose, he'd release. I felt his teeth against my skin a few times, but never ANY pressure. I mean, butterfly-wing light.
Six months later, he was euthanized because new local ordinances were enforced and he was deemed a "dangerous" dog.

I mean, you have to be smart about it. Don't leave your dog - ANY dog - alone with a child too young to control that dog, safely, on their own, or with anyone who doesn't know HOW to control the dog on their own. If your dog has individually shown signs of being aggressive towards anyone, it's your responsibility to control them and keep people safe from your dog.

My dad's dog - a pointer/heeler mix that nobody would claim is "dangerous" - regularly leaves my parents bruised and bloody when playing (particularly in the eighteen months they had him - they got him when he was a year old and have had him for three years now). Why? because he was never properly trained or socialized. So if play gets a little rough, he'll use his teeth because he doesn't know any better. He also will dig and nip at people's feet, so we have to hold him around kids, the elderly, and anyone with poor balance.


As for other "dangerous" dog breeds... as a toddler I used to nap with my grandparent's doberman in her doghouse in the garage while my grandpa worked in his shop. Not saying it was the best decision (see my note above about always supervising kids with dogs of any kind) but she was always sweet with me and my brother.

It seems there's always some breed that's on the hate list.

The "devil dog" used to be the Alsatian Wolfhound, an animal so evil that Adolf Hitler kept one. Military and police units trained them to attack people. Popular lore has it that they can bite right through a 2x4. Only a fool would think of trying to keep an Alsatian as a pet.



Fools! What were they thinking?!

It's the owners, not the dogs themselves. Like others have said all dogs can be dangerous. Pits get a bad rap because they are used in dog fights, but they aren't the only breed used. I watched a show on Animal Planet that said 60% of pits are in shelters now so they're over populated. If the dog has a bad history, the shelters wouldn't put them up for adoption and run that risk.

We got our pets (a dog and a cat) both from shelters. We got our boxer/shepherd when he was 4 months old. He was really mean, but my kids fell in love with him. Obviously from how he looked and acted, he was badly abused and all skin and bones. He used to hover over his bowl and growl at you if you got close. And he'd bite at our ankles too, BUT he never bit anyone. There was a time when we were considering getting rid of him because it was hard to snap him out of being so mean. But as he got older, he became more and more gentle. Now he's 7 and the sweetest most loving dog. BUT when people come over he gets super protective and aggressive so most of the time we have to put him in the yard or away from visitors.

So even a mean dog can be trained into a gentle dog. It's all about how you treat them.

I think Undercover touches on a good point, too: Define "gentle."

Some dogs assume themselves to be protectors. They define the terms of that protection in their own head. With such a dog, the member of the "protected ones" can wrestle and cajole and do all kinds of physical play with the dog and never get bit.

Someone outside that group, but inside the dog's "territory," can incite an attack just by turning their back.

The dog doesn't think it's being mean. It believes that it's carrying out what it's supposed to do.

Just because *we* know what "gentle" means, that doesn't mean the dog understands it the same.

Some dogs do understand gentle. We used to have a husky/wolf cross. The most amazing dog that ever existed. If I had on my leather gardening gloves I could slap at her, and she would growl and grab the hand and tug, and we'd have a great time. If the gloves were off, I could have slapped that dog unconcious and she wouldn't have made a move at me.

That said, I grew up with dogs, and have no fear of them (respect for a strange dog is not the same).

MM

MaryMumsy said:

Some dogs do understand gentle. We used to have a husky/wolf cross. The most amazing dog that ever existed. If I had on my leather gardening gloves I could slap at her, and she would growl and grab the hand and tug, and we'd have a great time. If the gloves were off, I could have slapped that dog unconcious and she wouldn't have made a move at me.

That said, I grew up with dogs, and have no fear of them (respect for a strange dog is not the same).

MM

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This makes me laugh. Our dogs were trained that way when they were young as well. A covered arm was fair game for a little rough play, but uncovered arms could be shoved between the jaws all day to no avail. It just wouldn't happen.

Our oldest daughter as a toddler used to stick her whole forearm in our pit's mouth and he never left a mark on her, wouldn't play rough with her until she was much bigger. He lived that whole nanny dog stereotype. When all of my kidlets were infants, he came running to find me if someone was crying. And the sad fact is he had a really crappy life before he came to us and I could easily see him turning out a much different direction, but his only issues involve other animals and we monitor him closely.

Of course, we have dogsat other dogs before and have had multiple owners tell us that their dog(s) behaved better when they got back from staying with us, so I think some of it has to do with the kind of house we run. Dogs have a range of personalities that don't care lick about breed, much like humans, and they even have bad days as well.

Edmonton banned pitbulls and rottweilers for a while after a protracted spate of pitbull and rottweiler maulings. The ban has been lifted but the maulings have kept down. Looks like dog owners are taking more care.

Around 30 yrs ago we had neighbors (renters) who had Rotties. One day my doorbell rang, and it was an animal control officer. He wanted to know if I knew the people next door, one of the Rotties was out, had frightened a woman riding by on her bike, and she had fallen off. Note: the dog did *not* attack her, she was just frightened. He didn't want to walk past the dog to get to the front door. So I walked over, gave momma dog a skritchy as I went by, and rang the doorbell. When the lady answered, she looked confused until I tipped my head to indicate the large black beast sitting quietly next to me. The dog had knocked out the screen and jumped out the window to the front yard. Animal control gave them a warning, and they kept the front windows closed after that.

MM

I used to walk dogs. What the members say is true - you could take any dog and make him into a monster because they have been conditioned to be that way... there are other factors as well. I have walked lovely pit bulls (his owner, an older woman, trained him well) who get horrible looks and an awful cocker spaniel who would nip at me when I tried to put on his leash (dog was old and never got out of the habit of being an asshole). I had to shadow a walker who owned a beautiful black lab that had very bad social issues; anyone who would come close to the caretaker... the dog would lunge and not even try to calm down. That same caretaker owned another dog who was fine... until the lab got upset. Then the other canine would freak out too.

I know a pitbull who gets very excited... and also young. Since he can tell I'm friendly he likes to play with me often... which sucks because I'm a scrawny little thing while he is huge! How you respond and feel makes a BIG difference. You calm = he's calm. You freak out = he freaks out. If I freaked, then I'd get my ass chewed off. My sister has the immediate impulse to flip out when she sees him. In her eyes he's a killer, to me he's playful but too big and energetic for me to enjoy safely playing with.

Other factors also include the age of the dog, whether it's in heat or not, etc. A dog who is hungry may also attack.

There's nothing particularly interesting (to me) about having a mean dog that's mean because of its breed. You have to give it reasons, and often those reasons can make the story worth reading. What kind of life does it live? Does it have regular human interaction? Most importantly, what does the victim do or how does s/he behave that triggers the dog to attack?

Lhowling said:

How you respond and feel makes a BIG difference. You calm = he's calm. You freak out = he freaks out. If I freaked, then I'd get my ass chewed off. My sister has the immediate impulse to flip out when she sees him. In her eyes he's a killer, to me he's playful but too big and energetic for me to enjoy safely playing with.

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+1

I can't even talk about the situation my MIL created a few weeks ago when my dog pinned her pup for being excessively annoying and MIL started screaming at the top of her lungs and shoved her freaking face between them.

I was walking my sister's dog once and she was off-lead cos we were in a safe place with no cars. A woman came towards me with what was basically a fluffy nut-job on a lead. I called Pudgy to me and we walked around the other side of a tree to keep out of lunging distance. Pudgy walked at my heel until we got on the other side.

The woman said 'Excuse me, how do I make my dog do that?'
'Training. She's been trained to walk to heel since she was a pup.'
The woman's face fell. 'Oh.'
'Sorry' I said 'but I'm afraid there's no magic wand. It's just training'
'Oh well, never mind'.

mirandashell said:

The woman said 'Excuse me, how do I make my dog do that?'
'Training. She's been trained to walk to heel since she was a pup.'
The woman's face fell. 'Oh.'
'Sorry' I said 'but I'm afraid there's no magic wand. It's just training'
'Oh well, never mind'.

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Eh, I know what you mean, but I can sort of understand her disappointment. I don't know that she's actually ever tried training, but us, for example, we've been to four different trainers, read tons of books, tried all the advice people, here, have given me... and she still can't be trusted off leash.

So, in my head, I hear, "Oh, training. Yeah, that thing we... can't seem... to actually do." I mean it's totally my failure and that lady's failure, but for those of us who can't quite figure out what we're doing wrong, it's very frustrating. Like a kid who studies as hard as they can and still fails math because they just haven't figured out what they assume must be that magic thing about math everyone else knows...

I see what you're saying.

My sister had Pudgy from 8 weeks old so obviously it was a lot easier. And I did a lot of the initial training so the dog trusts me implicitly.

But I have had a dog that was dog-aggressive so very rarely let him off-lead. And no amount of training took that out of him. He didn't do it through fear, he just liked a scrap. His ears would go up, his chest would go out and his tail would wag. And then he'd have the other dog by the ear or the throat. Luckily he was only a Jack Russell.....

But yeah, I didn't mean to imply that all on-lead dogs are untrained. It's just that her's obviously hadn't had a second of training. It was a lunatic leaping around and pulling her about and just not paying attention to her at all. And she seemed to think that training was too much hassle. She'd just put up with it being a nut.

I have six dogs, all rescues.

One of them, a small cattle dog type mix, about 25 pounds was going to be put down because she bit so many people. She was taken away from a homeless drug addict woman in San Francisco's skid Row who encouraged her to be aggressive for protection.

We took her in as a foster, but nobody seem to want her. What a surprise. So, we kept her. She bit me twice at first, when we had some disagreements, both of them warning bites that broke the skin but caused no real damage

It took a lot of training, reinforcement for good behavior, and stability in her life to turn her into what she is now: a slightly wary but completely non-threatening dog. She was never a vicious dog; it was all fear aggression.

Now I walk her off leash every day with the others and she hasn't even tried to bite anyone in six years, although every once in a great while she might give a soft growl when feeling threatened.

But had she been a pitbull this story might've had a very different ending. A bite from any dog can cause a serious wound. But pit bulls are incredibly powerful, their jaw strength is astounding, and if one latches onto your wrist it can actually cripple you for life. They can kill small dogs in the blink of an eye. There certainly is valid reason to be concerned when you run into a pitbull that is acting aggressive.

So why would anyone get a pitbull? Because the good ones, and that is most of them, are some of the greatest dogs you can imagine. They are loyal, have tremendous heart, and can be so sweet as to be unbelievable. They are not ticking time bombs; they are terrific dogs that can melt your heart.

rugcat said:

So why would anyone get a pitbull? Because the good ones, and that is most of them, are some of the greatest dogs you can imagine. They are loyal, have tremendous heart, and can be so sweet as to be unbelievable. They are not ticking time bombs; they are terrific dogs that can melt your heart.

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Yep.

We had a pit bull/bulldog mix who was a rescue and she was the sweetest, most lovable block of dog you'd ever meet. I miss her terribly and would not hesitate to adopt another dog just because their breed may include the term pit.

Oh, I didn't think you were implying anything, mirandashell. My onleash dog isn't trained, at least not in that regard. There have been parts of her training she decided to pick up and be good about, and others in which we have abysmal performance. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong with technique or I'm just not assertive enough to fully train a dog with her stubborn personality into full compliance. She's probably not the dog someone with dog knowledge would have paired me with, but we have a wonderful bond, and I at least know what our problems are. I feel like someday I'll crack the code, but lots of people tell me it's too late because of her age.

Dave Williams said:

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Aw the baby! So cute!!! If I had a big enough place of my own, a doggie like that would be on my front porch!

vicious pit bull with its natural enemy.

Okelly65 said:

vicious pit bull with its natural enemy.

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Yup, my friend has two rescue pits, a dalmation, and two cats. The one cat rules all the others.

MM

Oh, I agree. Pits are among the sweetest dogs on the planet. But there is nothing cut and dried here. I worked as a vet tech for 12 years, and we never had any trouble with Pits. It was the Rotts, Akitas, Sharpeis, Cockers (yes) and Chows.
Some of it is caused by breeders who don't breed for temperament, but rather color or show ring results. And the breeds eventually became nastier and nastier because no attention was being paid to disposition of breeding animals.

I have always loved Pits, so when we were searching for a dog, we decided on an American Bulldog after much research. Distant cousins of Pits.

Well, in all my experience over all those years working with vets and taking countless animals home to foster, etc., I've never seen a dog like this one. He was great, and well socialized, and I obedience trained him thoroughly, and even taught him tricks. No treats, just a pat on the head and "good dog" for praise. He was never spoiled.

At 8 months of age he went after another of our dogs for no reason. I witnessed it, and it was spur-of-the-moment. I got him neutered immediately, within two weeks of the incident. That didn't stop him, however. His attacks became more frequent, and absolutely brutal. I thought he would kill a dog on many occasions. I could scream at him, yell commands, and even lash him with a leather leash that left welts, and even a garden hose with a stick shoved inside of it. I'd hit him across the muzzle as HARD as I could, and he didn't even seem to feel it. He was in a zone. Kill--and that was the only thing on his mind. I tried to choke him down--didn't work.

The only way you could possibly get him to release his jaws was to wait until he let go for an instant to re-grip, and then you had to have PERFECT timing, or you'd lose your chance to yank him back, away from the other dog. He attacked our older Great Dane, and after that dog died of old age, he started attacking our FEMALE German Shepherd. Again, for no reason. It was as if something "clicked" in his brain and he'd be a different dog. He even tried to attack myself and my husband when we admonished him for it! Luckily we had him on a leash, and were able to pull up on the leash before he connected, or we would never be able to get him off, and we would be a statistic.

He was socialized well by the breeder, and by us from the time we got him at 8 weeks of age. He is the sweetest, best dog you could ever hope for, UNTIL something triggers him (and who knows what it is?) I never saw any aggression from the dog he attacked. These other dogs got along fine with other dogs with never even a growl.

We took him to the vet, and bloodwork was run. The vet didn't recommend an MRI, feeling it wouldn't show anything. Gave us some pills, but warned us the pills could make him WORSE. Needless to say, we were afraid to even try them. The vet was very worried for our safety (myself and my husband) and recommended euthanasia. Well, he hasn't attacked our German Shepherd (the only other dog we have now) in 6 months, but we have to watch him like a hawk, and confine him when people come over, as that seems to be a trigger for him to attack the other dog. I have always loved the bully breeds, and even though we love this dog dearly, I will never again be able to trust him completely.

I believe it is hereditary, even though the breeder claims none of her other dogs have done anything like this. I know for certain it was NOT environmental for this dog, as he's had nothing but love, kindness, and firmness. Our dogs are required to sit, down, stay, heel, and come when asked, and are disciplined if they don't. We have never been unfair to this dog. So sometimes you just don't know, no matter how much experience you have had.

I can only offer my 8 years of experience as a dog trainer, dog handler and a dog groomer. All dogs bite. My two worst ones were from American Eskimos and I've had to pull a black lab off of my boss after he went for her face. I've been bitten by 1 pit in 8 years and it left a tiny bruise. That dog shouldn't have been in the salon though, he was pretty skittish. But I've worked with hundreds of pits and never had any problems. Same with rotties, (met one semi-aggressive one in my entire life and he just nipped at someone), German Shepherds, Huskies and whatever other flavor of the month vicious breed there is. I personally like pits but because I have two small dogs I am leery of adopting one because of their dog aggression tendencies. But when these two pass I'd like to eventually give one a nice home

Welcome aboard, Jessica.

Warning, this is long, but the dog thing is near and dear to my heart.

It can be hard to get accurate, by-breed dog bite statistics. People don't always report breed accurately (I'm sure many people would call my Belgian terv/border collie x a "black German shepherd," for instance), or know which breeds are in their own rescue dogs.

People tend to label most med to largish, smooth-coated, large-headed dogs as "pit bulls," yet there isn't actually such a breed recognized by US kennel clubs. There's an American pit bull Terrier breed recognized by the UKC, and there's the American Staffordshire terrier recognized by the AKC. These are very similar in appearance. But there are also bull terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers (smaller dogs, but similar in appearance to the Am Staff), boxers and their mixes (I've seen boxer-lab mixes labeled as pits), rottweiler mixes, American bulldogs, various mastiff breeds, canary presiosos (the breed responsible for killing Diane Whipple in SF, an occurrence that prompted a push to breed-specific legislation in many places) and so on. I know someone with a Boston terrier/lab mix that looks like what many would call a "pit bull." She's got a short face, wide head, sleek fur, muscular build, and is a brindled color.

It's often hard to tell which breeds are in a dog. Even animal shelter staff are bad at guessing and naming breeds (I remember a Greater Swiss Mountain dog at a local shelter that had "Burmese" Mountain Dog, on its cage card. Having said this, a very high percentage of dogs in shelters seem to be of the smooth-coated, large-headed persuasion. They're not all Am Staffs or APBTs by a long shot, but this general type of dog is often called a "bully." They are enormously common right now, both because of overall popularity of these breeds, and possibly because they're popular with people from socioeconomic demographics that are more inclined to breed their dogs (on purpose or accidentally) than owners of other breeds.

The thing about baiting and fighting breeds, according to their proponents, is they were bred to be fierce to other dogs once "prey drive" was roused (the aggression that fighting dogs are showing in the ring is not territorial or even status based, but predatory, which is why they tend to be silent and may even wag their tails while fighting). They're bred to latch on and not regrip or redirect, because these behaviors are dangerous to human handlers. They weren't bred to be aggressive to humans originally, but to direct predatory behavior onto bulls or other dogs.

It's hard to know how much of the rise in fatal attacks on humans by bully breeds is simply because these breeds have become more common and because these breeds have become more aggressive or dangerous due to bad breeding or training.

So-called predatory drift is a risk with all dogs. It's what makes a bunch of dogs that are playing nicely at the dog park suddenly gang up on a dog that's running like "prey" or that squeals when they get stepped on. It's why a dog that lives with cats may get really agitated and want to chase when a cat runs across their path on a walk. It can be deadly when directed onto a smaller dog, and it can literally flip like a switch. It's why people very occasionally come home from work and find out that one dog killed another or that two ganged up on the third when they were all "friends." This happened to a friend of mine. Her Jack Russel killed her Boston Terrier. They were friends, but something happened to switch on the "this is prey" part of their brain (in this case, it was probably a UPS guy delivering a package and triggering extreme agitation in both dogs, who were loose in the house, and one redirected on the other, and it got ugly fast).

Two of my dogs "ganged up" on a smaller friend once when they were playing, and it was scary. It started when one stepped on the smaller dog and he yipped and tried to run away. Fortunately, they both had strong bite inhibition, so they only nipped him and whacked him with their paws, and we got them away from each other without injury. But it was very traumatic, and I learned something important about dogs that day.

Unlike some breeds, terriers and bullies weren't bred for bite inhibition with other animals. They were bred to kill or hurt other animals. It's something to think about. It's something to think of with small children and babies too, which can trigger aggression for all kinds of reasons, and can also get dogs into that predatory "chase and bite" mode when they run or squeal.

I don't leave my dogs alone unsupervised with one another or with my cats, even though they're herding breeds and are supposed to have bite inhibition. I also wouldn't leave a dog alone with a baby or toddler ever, and I'd make darned sure an older kid knew how to act around dogs. This is for the dog's protection as well as the kid's (kids do things that stress dogs, and many people think it's cute until the dog, who was showing how unhappy they were with stress yawns, nervous licking, and averted gaze, finally bites).

And while the bullies were originally bred to be non aggressive to humans, of course some may have been more recently (since they've become the dog of status for criminals and macho pukes). This doesn't mean the vast majority of bullies are likely to attack and kill humans. There are between 25-30 fatal dog attacks in the US each year. This is actually a tiny number when you consider how many dogs there are and how much time they spend around people.

So even if the so-called bully types of dogs are over-represented in aggravated dog bite statistics, they're only a tiny fraction of the millions of these dogs that live safely with humans.

A kid is more likely to die or be seriously injured playing youth sports than they are to be maimed by a dog.

If we are going to ban all the bully breeds because they're dangerous, we should ban a lot of other things too. Pools, plastic bags, bikes, youth sports, guns...

Sorry, but this is one of those things I've read about and thought about a lot.

I've been around a lot of dogs. We had a farm and of course had stock breeds, but also had a lot of strays or dogs that needed a temporary home.

The shift to prey response that Roxxsmom mentions should always be in the mind of a dog owner, no matter what size of animal you have or are around. Sometimes the dog just can't help it.

Yes I've seen dogs who are comfortable around cats, suddenly chase and kill one for no reason.
I've seen dogs that would never hurt anyone, snap and bite someone they know.
I've also seen a dog who are doing their duty and protecting their homes and family and tear out the pants of my uncle!

Yes you can train them, socialize them and restrain them but they are still animals with instincts that we don't fully understand. It's always best to keep that in mind and act accordingly.



PS. Of all the dogs I've been around, it's the little ones who've acted the most aggressively. Mastiffs are just big babies most of the time. Dobers are sweethearts. German Shepherds are mostly love bugs. But it's those little ankle biters that have given me nips and bruises.