Pit Bull breeds across the USA
In the last post, I looked at the Google trends regional interest for the AKC and UKC’s “Top 10” breeds. The number 2 most popular breed registered with the UKC is the “American Pit Bull Terrier” but unlike many breeds which are wholly captured in one registry and which have very little variation, the politics and history of the bully breed landrace don’t settle nicely into a single search term.
So, here are few more interest maps for Bully Breeds. Remember that the data is normalized to factor out gross search volume (i.e. population). In the case of “Pitbull” I added -lyrics to remove the error introduced by the rapper of that name, and for “bulldog” I added puppies to remove the error of popular sports franchises that biased the results away from actual interest in dogs.
Pit Bull, Pitbull, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Bulldog, American Bulldog Johnson Type, American Bulldog Scott type, Bulldog, Bull Terrier:
The overwhelming conclusion of the data is just how South-centric the Pit Bull search terms are. Save for the one Minnesota ping on the “American Staffordshire Terrier” search and Alaska for “Staffordshire Bull Terrier,” there is light representation outside the South.
It’s interesting to compare the above maps with the states that have enacted Breed Specific Legislation against Pit Bulls according to this anti-BSL site. They are a veritable firewall around the South:
BSL Firewall
This find was initially very appealing to the hypothesis that “pit bull” culture as a whole is radiating out of the South and the backlash against the fighting and thuggish elements of that culture would most likely begin along the borders where local appeal and custom clashed with outside culture that would be offended enough into legislation: a border war.
Unfortunately I don’t believe the handful of cities that have BSL as represented in the above map are necessarily representative. For example, the only city in Oklahoma that has BSL is a 2 square mile town with 2k people on the border with Arkansas called Spiro. The only ban in New York is the 1 square mile town of under 6k people called Larchmont. Highlighting an entire state when one little municipality has an anti-Pit Bull law doesn’t really give the right impression. It turns out that there are over 700 cities in the USA with BSL and there are only 12 states that don’t include at least one municipal law banning, restricting, or declaring pit bulls vicious.
So until someone else takes the time to map out those 700+ cities, here’s a map of the 12 states that are BSL-free (Hawaii had a ban but it lapsed).
No BSL map
It’s not a big surprise that the three Whitest states in the Union {Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire}, two of which are also quite affluent, and all three which are low crime don’t have BSL. But Virginia and Arizona stand out as two states that one would think would have at least one municipality with anti-pit bull legislation. Virginia is a firewall state for much of the culture clash between the South and the Mid Atlantic states and it hosted the Michael Vick affair; while Arizona borders numerous California counties that have enacted mandatory sterilization laws for Pit Bulls (and even Chihuahuas) and itself is embroiled in the sort of culture, gang, race, and poverty conflicts which are fuel for BSL legislation.
Certainly more questions than answers, but the potential regional angle to the question of Pit Bull culture is interesting and appears to be worth further exploration.
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This is really interesting, because I’ve never thought of pit bulls, thug culture, etc as a “Southern” thing. I think of them as being an “urban” thing. Big cities like NY, Philly, Chicago, Detroit, LA – all northern areas except the last one.
It’d be interesting to see the areas of actual pit bull population. Maybe there are more searches in the south because the dogs are less common?
Where I live you don’t need to search the internet for a pit bull – 80% of the dogs in the shelter are pits, every other dog on the street is a pit, and even the laundromat has “bluenose pitt pupps for sale” signs posted. Meanwhile people ask what breed of dog my collie is.
I’ve known of their southern popularity for some time, but as a NYer, I hear you on the impression of them as city gangsta dogs.
I still see tons of them around being walked with heavy chains and bad crop jobs.
THis is kind of analogous to a point I try to prove to my parents about how crime and bad stuff is not just for NYC places like East NY and Brownsville Brooklyn. Folks tend not to think about where they are not familiar. They stick with their little box.
That’s not about you btw Jana. I’m really just thinking about my folks. They’re a tad racist at times.
You should check out Thomas Sowell’s book of essays, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”
From here.
This, of course, is just one aspect of the legacy of fighting with dogs. The Irish brought the tradition to New England, making Boston a center of pit fighting as well.
Sounds like a good book! It’s one of those things that’s inherently interesting, though not one you think of often.
I’m in Pittsburgh, which has its own weird dialect. Not sure how big of a problem dog fighting is here; most of the pit bulls are simply companions, ornaments, or yard dogs.
Don’t you mean Picksburg? I’m from Phildelphia. No, I did not forget an A, that’s how natives pronounce home, lol.
Most of the pit bulls here too are companions, ornaments and yard dogs. You DO have an element that is deep in the dog fighting culture, but guess what? You do not EVER see the dogs of these people.
When they walk them, it’s a night, down dark side streets. They never put these dogs in the yard, when they take the dogs out, they carry the dog from the house to the car, and in the crate (if it’s lucky) or in the trunk (if it’s not) it goes.
A great way to tell a “real” dog fighter from those of the street fighter persuasion. Look at it’s body condition. If the dog is thin, trim, all muscles and very little body fat, the dog may be owned by a fighter.
Then again, the dog may be owned by someone who shows in ADBA conformation as well, so you’re just going to have to make a good guess by the number of scars the dog has.
As you imply in one place, ‘BSL states’ are those where *any* town or county has an anti ‘pit bull’ BSL, sometimes covering a very small percentage of the state’s population. There are no active statewide ‘pit bull’ bans (HI used to have one).
The only current state laws on ‘pit bulls’ are ones in 13 states prohibiting local BSL’s or explicitly calling into question their legal enforceability. There’s no clear regional pattern among those states:
http://stopbslintn.tripod.com/id10.html
I don’t think the ‘pit bull’ controversy is directly about regional culture, though it’s partly cultural. Popular support for BSL, besides a few activists, tends IME to be strongest among whites a relatively modest degree above the poverty level. Those are the people most eager to demonstrate their social superiority to minorities and lower class whites (they perceive as the typical ‘pit bull’ owners), and they are likely to live in marginal areas more affected by social dysfunction among the poor. And it’s true that underclass, therefore disproportionately minority, dog owners are disproportionately the ones engaging in irresponsible owner behavior which is the root of the ‘pit bull problem’. Underclass culture in the US has mainly Southern roots, so to that degree it’s indirectly related to region, but it’s not any more of a directly regional issue than other underclass v working class culture clashes.
I live in an upscale urban area in the north east. ‘Pit bulls’, from shelters in neighboring less prosperous areas, are popular dogs around here but almost always have responsible owners and therefore rarely cause problems. There is no ‘pit bull’ controversy here, but it’s not because there aren’t any ‘pit bulls’. And the state has a ban on BSL anyway.
This is essentially a firewall/border war conflict dealing with class instead of strictly geography. And yes, I believe that such friction zones are precisely where legislation advocacy would come from: where accepted culture A conflicts with accepted culture B.
Interesting maps indeed.
A couple of geographic comments. I now live in Maryland but I have lived in California and a number of East Coast states.
Distances are very compressed in the Mid Atlantic and North East, It is only a 4 hour drive for me to New York City (passing through 3 states via one route -Delaware, PA and NJ) and only an 8 hour drive to Boston passing through and additional 5 states by another route.
When I was teaching at the vet school in Philadelphia I commuted daily from Baltimore, MD to Philadelphia, PA.
People who live in S. Eastern New Hampshire can easily commute to work in the Boston area. Similarly people in S New Hampsire and S. Vermont can easily commute to work in the balance of Massachusetts or even CT. The entire state of MA is only 50 miles from North to South, although it is about 150 miles long.
This squashed up geography has an impact on a lot of state laws (gun regulation, dog breeding laws, etc).
It may be easier for a minority with certain beliefs/hobbies/etc to just cluster in a lower population more rural state even though they may commute to jobs in a more population dense more urban states. Urban centers often need higher levels of restrictions just because crowding people together increases the need for monitoring behaviors.
“while Arizona borders numerous California counties that have enacted mandatory sterilization laws for Pit Bulls “.
Ever been to Southern California, Chris? The large cities with the BSL legislation, such as Los Angeles are on the coast. LA to the Arizona border is around 225 miles (4 1/2 hours drive) and half that distance is across a nasty hot desert. LA to Phoenix AZ is almost 400 miles. This is about the same for other Southern California large population centers. So people who live in Southern California and have banned dogs are not in a position to just move across the state line and continue to commute to their work in LA or San Diego.
In contrast in the Mid Atlantic one can live in Virginia or Pennsylvania and still commute to work in New York City, Washington DC, Baltimore Maryland, etc.
Virginia is a chimera state politically. The high population dense counties in the north next to Washington DC are full of people who share most of the North Eastern political values. This population is quite distinct from that of most of the rest of the state which is pretty rural and very still very “Southern” in outlook. I am not surprised there is currently no BSL in Virginia. I was sort of surprised that it was present in the other southern tier states but I suspect the cities with BSL may be the larger urban centers.
Also – here in Maryland last year we had our supreme court rule that “Pit Bulls were innately dangerous”. We get a lot of dog bites of children where the dog is some sort of athletic bull breed or cross bred bull breed dog. There was just another one in the news paper last night. However our legislature is in the process of passing a law that reverses the breed specific aspect of that court ruling. This is probably a good thing for dog owners because:
(1) the court ruling allowed injured parties to sue the landlords of people who owned a pit bull that attacked someone. This resulted in 100’s of people being threatened with eviction if they did not get rid of their dogs.
(2) The ruling identified the dog breed as “pit bull” which is not a designation of a recognized breed.
The modified law puts the burden on the owner of any dog that attacks someone to have to demonstrate that they had no reason to think the dog dangerous and relieves the landlord of responsibility for the dog’s actions if there was no prior evidence that the dog was dangerous.
Personally, as a long time dog breeder and a boarding kennel owner I know some dogs ARE potentiall dangerous and I feel that a lot of these biting incidents, especially of children who are not members of the dog’s household are the result of ignorance of dog behavior on the part of the dog’s owners.
Dogs that have not been raised with children can react very differently to children, especially small children and infants, than the do to adults.
People who have house guests that include small children should be very careful about having their dogs around the visiting children. That is one of the things that crates are for or locked bedrooms with the dog’s bed in the bedroom.
A little paranoia goes a long way to save your dog from becoming an official “dangerous dog”.
I have been to Southern California multiple times and I’ve made the drive you’re talking about several times. I went to college in Northern California, but preferred the southern drive from CO that goes through Santa Fe and eventually up Highway 1 to the northern route through Salt Lake City and the barren nothing.
The issue I’m getting at is not simply the movement of individuals in terms of residence and work, etc. I’m talking about cultural diffusion, and it’s well documented how coastal fads propagate inward toward the center of the country. If we’re looking at the movement of gang culture in specific, the entirety of the western states were seeded with ex-cons and gang bangers when Los Angeles and Oakland gave them bus tickets to get out of California. Many of them ended up Denver and the other metropolitan centers in States that bordered CA and beyond.
You can think of this regional cultural diffusion in the manner represented by these NFL football allegiance maps:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/nfl-fans-on-facebook/10151298370823859
Interesting points.
It appears to me that Arizona (from observing political discussions in state), for what ever reason is relatively resistant to the diffusion of CA based ideas. Appears to me that a lot of CA culture leapfrogged Arizona but has ended up in Colorado.
The diffusion of CA style gangs is much more than just adjacent western states. We have Crips and Bloods in Baltimore now. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/crips
Incidently, which Northern California college did you go to? I went to U C Berkeley – 1962 to 1967 (BA, 1972 or so (MA).
Living in Maryland is being in exile. On the other hand my sister moved from CA to Boulder and almost immediatly got one of these “Don’t Californicate Colorado” bumper stickers.
DIRTY BEAR! SSssssssSSSSSsssssSSSSSssssss
http://www.border-wars.com/about
To me that’s the formula for aggressive cultural legislation: a conflict between two cultures in close proximity.
To me that’s the formula for aggressive cultural legislation: a conflict between two cultures in close proximity.
Living close up and observing it in real time, that is an understatement.
Every year recently rather draconian “anti dog breeder” laws keep being proposed for VA but not passed. The sorts of laws that are going to impact the average hobby breeder/fancier with more than 5 or so dogs. The Vick Pit Bull incident has not helped VA dog fanciers.
But Maryland is also a conflicted state with strong divisions between the rural regions and the urban regions. Remember the state had to be put in martial law to keep it from going with the Confederacy and we have an official state song, Maryland My Maryland, that denounces the tyrannical actions of Abraham Lincoln.
http://www.examiner.com/article/maryland-s-state-song-still-causes-controversy
This successionist song written during the Civil War was not adopted as the official state song until 1939! Recent efforts to modify the lyrics have failed.
From a personal point of view the piece of property we own “The Wedge” in Hydes Maryland was the home of H Street Baldwin, a US Congressman well appreciated in his day for his opposition to building housing for negro workers who came to Baltimore to work during WWII in the defense industries.
Was hoping to check the popularity of the dogs with bull names but way too small on this map to see.
Also am not certain of how the various names you checked, match up to the maps.
Is it, names from left to right and map order being:
1 2
3 4
5 6
etc?
Yes, the names are written in the exact order you guessed. You should also be able to mouse over the photo and the names will pop up.
Interesting that you label VA a “firewall” state. The comment leads to a pejorative understanding of the deeper south. As a native of the south-lands (MS, LA, SC & now NC)I don’t think there is a common culture that could be called characteristic. As regards dog fighting locally, my undertanding is that it is adopted by the less educated and poorer segments of the population, black, white & native american.
BSL also takes many forms. From the formalized BSL of some communities you mention, to the more common form of killing immediately (or shortly after the 72 hr stray hold is up) any bully breed that is unfortunate enough to find itself in an AC facility. In my (regionally urban) community no Staffy’s, Rotties, Chows, Dobermans are ever offered for adoption, regardless of age. Local government considers such an adoption a liability issue. In surrounding rural areas there is no such bias. The killing is indiscriminate and based on time in the facility.
How interesting. I live in Texas, and their popularity here is huge. Looking at one of the earlier comments, the south has a very large “thug culture” but these types are usually the backyard breeders and such. In fact, I know people who have bred them much to my dismay. Maybe that’s why there are so many here. Every other dog that came into the vet clinic I worked at was a pit bull. Not complaining about their popularity, I do have one 🙂
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