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Anton: Many years later……..Researchi ng something and came across Chris’s article and realised I never replied to you UCC. Yes exactly, ridges are found in the general pariah type dog population. Which would be a...
Christopher: BreedMate’s Pedigree Explorer.
Lawrence Dillard: Curious, what program did you utilize to visualize the 80 generation pedigree for ‘Mercury’? Christopher: And easily corrected? Psh. There’s nothing easy about getting eugenicist morons to open their stud books and bring in new blood. History shows just how rarely it has been done. Christopher: Having been around a lot of border collies, the show bred dogs are much more neurotic. Heck, the only aggressive nasty border collies I’ve met were inbred show dogs. I’ve seen plenty of game border collies from... Christopher: Taking it out on the dogs? What? Border Collies are smart but they don’t read and can’t browse the internet. I don’t think a single one of them could possibly be offended by what is printed here. LMFAO.
Lech: i have no idea how i got here, but you Americans are such ignorant pricks. This article is dog snobbery at its finest. I just cannot believe there are people out there that use phrases such as panda collie and barbie collie to...
Stephanie: I do not think that the author is “demonizing” Dalmatians, as some have claimed. It may not be the individual dog itself but the concept of Dalmatians that is morally repugnant to him. I’m not sure why a...
Essere: I am pro science and I’ve guinea pigged myself with a “variety” of food and different temperature environments for many years. A “variety” of food and viruses does lead to genetic diversity. My... Christopher: I’m not sure that you can so easily say that wild animals eat a more varied diet than domestic. We might see kibble or whatnot as mush, but the realities of the modern market mean that what goes into pet food are... Essere: Wild animals eat a varied diet and are exposed to more viruses than captive animals as viruses are airborne. Food and Viruses don’t change our genome and offer protection against inbreeding continuously in the long run?
Chris I am still laughing. True words of wisdom and insight.
Chris it actually is a very serious issue in my opinion with Pit Bull owners/ breeders.
Many of us have run into these owners even at the Vet’s. These owners do not take any precautions even when their dog takes a fighting stance in the Vet offices. One must be consciously aware of a dangerous owner of a potentially dangerous dog.
Yes I think if Pit Bulls & they registered twins the Am Staff are to have any hope of an actual future the dogs have to be taken more seriously by their breeders & owners first.
I would never just turn up at the vets office with a mature working guardian bred dog, I would phone & we make arrangements so there is no danger to other animals at the clinic. Even though most are social enough to know better than to be aggressive outside of protecting their charges they are still dogs & their genetic tendency to see other canines as a threat to their charges (which to many means their owners not just livestock etc) means precaution should be taken.
There is many examples of where genetic working drive has been bred out so if the Am Staff people where totally committed to making it happen it is possible. In many breeds is now widely accepted & understood that a show breed dog is often not capable of the work its breed was once bred for anymore. In many cases because the work is no longer available or seen as acceptable but many breed fanciers that do not want to see the genetic drive breed back in have come up with sports or other jobs for their dogs. Then you have those that do still breed for working dogs as their chosen breeds can still acceptably work & their breeding decision are based on likelihood of the genetic working drive being passed on not about a coat colour or in head shape.
So it is well understood that we can take 1 breed & make 2 different dogs when it comes to genetic drive wether that be for the bad or the good of the dog in the long run is another topic altogether.
So why are we not noticing that these Pit Bull incidents are generally by a more working or pitt bull looking dog & not the quite bigger broader & often much more colourful looking Am Staffs? As far as I can see just as many are Am Staffs as are your working breed Pit Bull, should not by now we be seeing a real lack of true gameness in the show breed Am Staffs. IS it really the breeders(or at least most of them) main goal was to breed out the fight in them??????
I may be totally off track here as this is an angle I have only just started to study up on re the % of actual attacks by reg Am Staffs or dogs that can be proven to be mainly Am Staff bred compared to dogs that appear to be Pit Bulls or bull breed mix breeds.
Would be interested to hear others thoughts on this angle though???
There are those of us who remember the earlier American Pit Bull working on farms with other breeds.
Breeding the fight out of them? Another thought or angle likely is controlling the “Prey Drive” . It has been accepted that this prey drive is a killer instinct in strong working herding breeds. Indeed even in the American Rough Collie this unaccepted behavior could and can pop up even in our strong herding bloodlines. If one knows the history that any herding dog that kills chickens or sheep was destroyed regardless of working herding abilities.
It would seem in my opinion responsible American Pit Bull owners could take some excellent instructions from the Border Collies who have the strongest prey drive of current pure breed herding dogs.
I likewise find it interesting that a type of PRA (rcd2) is found and identified now in American Pit Bulls, and American Rough and Smooth Collies? It is not the type most common prcd found in most breeds with other exceptions?
One of the problems is: you have some pitbull owners, who could potentially be very good hobby breeders (my friend and her dogs are an excellent example), but they are not breeding their good dogs — because of the media around the rescue pits.
She has two pits (male and female) that look very much like the old farm pits of my youth (my Grandpa always had one; one pit, one farm collie, one lap dog for the house for Grandma) — longer and straighter legged, leaner body mass, narrower less “booofy” head, and a much, much more biddable calm temperment, more healthy constitution. Protection/prey drive is definitely there, so is gameness, but the balance between that and stable, calm, doesn’t go after the livestock or the kids traits are there — plus they are more physically sound too, being a dog of no extremes nor controlled environment lifestyles.
She was going to breed, but then neutered both of them — because of all the stories of bait dogs and rescue pits; the Pitbulls and Parolees watching contingent got to her — she wishes sometimes she hadn’t now, because she can’t find dogs like hers (and she hates the direction the breed is going towards the heavyset and more fight bodytype dog).
But the very thing that would have made her a good breeder was what was worked against her: responsibility and care…it’s been marketed to people that if they want to be responsible they’ll not breed and will only go to shelters for their pets…that somebody with just two nice dogs who wants to raise a litter of pups every couple of years, and doesn’t have half a million titles behind them obviously must be the dreaded, evil backyard breeder who never ever produces anything good. And so she did what she did; didn’t want to be a bad person who was “part of the problem”.
And so two dogs, who by their temperment alone, would have been a big benefit to the pitbull breed have been lost, and somebody who I would buy a pit off of (and pits are definitely not my dog) won’t breed….even though she’d probably be better at it than many of the big breeders (because she’s selecting for things that are far more compatible to the average dog owner).
Jenn, I think the reality is that most people who decide, “I have a couple of nice dogs, they look good and have a temperament I like, so I’ll breed them” are indeed contributing to the problem. Individual breeders won’t really make a dent in the problems associated with pit bulls, and your friends contribution of her two dogs offspring would not have made a difference. There is not enough genetic material out there, and no organized effort on the part of fanciers to breed a pit bull that is suitable for the average pet home. And that is what we are talking about, because that is where these dogs are ending up.
Pit bulls have large litters…..could your friend have found appropriate homes for ten puppies? It’s very hard to do, unless you are involved in some way in a dog club and competitions, or are producing real working dogs that will go to real working homes, and are breeding from a waiting list. Pit bulls are a dime a dozen, they are being given away on CL, rescue groups are begging people to take them, and offering free s/n free training, and all kinds of incentives.
You mention that her dogs showed prey drive and protective instincts, and gameness….does this mean they are DA? If so, what kind of homes would they do well in? Are these the traits you want in a dog living next door to you in the suburbs?
I think your friend made the right decision, and she should not second guess herself.
People just breeding dogs because they think they have two “nice” ones is a huge part of the pit bull problem and personally I’m glad she did neuter them. Thinking that your dogs are “nice” means nothing in a world where so many of the dogs put in the shelters are pit bull type dogs and/or placed in so-called average pet homes or as I like to call them, people who want living stuffed animals and don’t understand that dogs are dogs. You can think whatever you want, but thinking doesn’t make it so. If you have a breed type that is not only ridiculously numerous but stands as canine public enemy number one then yes, you have to work harder to prove your dog’s worth for breeding because we’re so far past the stage of just thinking a dog is nice as an acceptable singular prequisite it’s just not funny. That’s just the truth of the matter at hand
I think you’re misconstruing someone with no experience in breeding anything (she’s a horse trainer and has a degree in ag/animal husbandry) with just “somebody” — it was more than just “I’ve got two nice dogs”.
And of course they have drive — they’re pitbulls — but that drive was attached to calm, biddable minds and most importantly, very long fuses. One of the reasons she picked out her dogs was their low reactivity levels.It’s also one of the reasons why I liked her dogs: they are two of the sanest animals I’ve come across, and that goes double for pits.
Plus their bodies were well balanced.
She used the same criterion for picking out her dogs as she would picking out horses…and perhaps that sort of “fresh eyes” is needed. The same thing happens in the horse world — most of the people who breed enter into it with the particular bias/trendiness of their particular breed or sport, they listen to the “top” people, and it blinds them to some of the problems they are encountering.
I wonder if there might not be some possible answers here from brand wars, where a high priced, high quality company makes a desirable product which then gets knocked off by cheap producers which flood the market with crap that people buy in bulk because the appearance of quality for a cheap price has value to them, and this of course hurts the luxury item. If the masses can have it (or something similar) then it’s not so elite. It’s also going to suffer when people see the shitty product going wrong and breaking and attributing this to the luxury good.
How can high quality pit bull breeders operate in the realities of this world? Hard question.
Now, I also have my own view about the particular traits that define even the luxury pit bulls that I find incompatible with modernity. But I have to conceded that I might just be wrong or delusional that those issues are ever going away and that pit bulls are and will be a reality going forward so I won’t preclude improvement at the expense of perfection.
But it is interesting to me that it just might be the case that despite being one of the most populous breeds with numerous de facto breeders, that pit bulls might actually suffer from the problem of very small breeds. Namely that there could be very few quality breeders and little quality breeding stock. You know, sort of like trying to find clean paper at a landfill. There might be tons and tons of paper there, but nothing you could really use. Now this is just speculation on my part, I don’t know how you’d even start to go about a census of “quality” pit bull breeders. It just seems like an interesting possibility.
All I know, from my friend’s experience, is: she got her dogs from a breeder who was in her fifties (and from her last litters), who got out due to her dogs didn’t fit the stereotypical pit image (which is bulkily muscled, big headed, you know the image of “pitbull” now).
The market just doesn’t favor those dogs, and the breeder wasn’t going to bend.
As a matter of course (a sidebar if you will) one of her students got a pitbull (because she liked my friend’s dogs) and that dog was the stereotypical modern pit — huge muscles, huge head, squat build…and she has to wear a muzzle all the time because you can’t trust her, she’s a hugely reactive dog; plus she has skin allergies and plays host to yearly fungal infections. That dog is a real mess, but she’s from a popular pitbull kennel in the area. Oh, and she’s blue; everybody has to have a blue pit with those steel colored eyes now (that’s another “problem” with my friend’s two: they are fawn and fawn brindle, aka. boring colored, the breeder didn’t breed for color at all).
So I think the first thing if you were to do a census of “quality” pit breeders is to first establish what is a quality pitbull? Right now friend’s dogs would be considered mutts because they look like Petey and not a bodybuilder; and the people who admire her type of dog are about as disgusted (if not moreso) with what’s popular right now. So, it would sort of be like getting GSD people to agree to what constitutes a quality GSD — the popular front won’t abide with anything but their dogs being titled the bomb; the people who hate the new GSD think they should be bombed (uh, and for the record: count me in with the last group).
I think what pit bull fanciers would have to do is break away and form a separate breed club that is NOT affiliated with dog fighters, thug culture bybers (like the American Bully breeders) , or the current mess that constitutes the breed. They would have to collectively define their goals….the breed has to evolve or cease to exist. They need to breed away from DA, since this is a dangerous, useless trait to have in a pet dog, most of whom have to live in a real world filled with other dogs. They would have to decide if they wanted to channel gameness into something else, performance competitions like obedience, agility, etc. They would have to develop a code of ethics that would clearly define what an acceptable temperament was, and agree to remove aggressive dogs from the gene pool.
Then they would have to keep the breed out of the hands of the general public, like many of the rare breed hunting dog fanciers. I met a gentleman who owns Large Munsterlanders, they are magnificent dogs. The breed club is committed to keeping the working qualities of the breed, and so all breedings need to be approved by the breed club from dogs who have been field tested. They want all the dogs going to working homes, not as pets. These dogs were house dogs, and the owner hunted with them on weekends… but he fully realized their prey drive, and despite having a fenced yard, kept them in a covered kennel when outside. Very few pit bull owners seem willing to make those kids of concessions, and even fewer seem willing to accept their dogs potential ability to harm their neighbors pets. This hunter/owner knew EXACTLY what he had, and told me if his dogs got loose they would most certainly kill the neighbors cat.
Then they would have to come to the table when BSL is proposed, and offer solutions and support for getting dangerous dogs out of the community. Maybe mandatory s/n for all owners/breeders who were not members of the breed club and who hadn’t signed the code of ethics.
If they could come up with enough people and diverse genetic material in the form of unrelated dogs with the desired qualities, pit bull fanciers could develop a line of stable dogs that would never make headlines. I just don’t see the will to do this coming from the pit bull community.
Yup. Well said on all counts.
I think it’s an open question if we should treat bully breeds differently. Not just BSL, but in general, without legal enforcement. It’s undeniable that the situation in this group of breeds and mixes is very different than it is with almost any other breed. While I think that these breeds have inbred skills that are no longer desirable to have at all and would prefer that they went extinct like the turnspit dogs (which would require that other people agree that we don’t need pugilist dogs… not going to happen any time soon), if we allow an alternative path which I would contend looks something like taking existing stock and breeding dog aggression and human aggression out of them, then who is going to do that?
While I have no sympathy for people breeding DA and HA dogs even if they think they can combine all the other good qualities in the dogs and a breeding program, mostly because I think it’s true that you can find any quality you want (save appearance) in other breeds which have no troubled history or troubled present and are not being drastically over-bred and dumped or used as a status symbol by idiots or fought or being legislated against, etc. etc. etc.
The one reason I wouldn’t write off breeding any dogs from any breed where the owner thought they “had a nice temperament” is that I frankly think too few people are doing this as it is. There are too many breeders choosing stock for shitty reasons and not enough people are making nice dogs. If there are to be nice pit bull type dogs, then someone needs to breed them. NOW, this of course is majorly complicated by the larger picture in pit bulls that other breeds really don’t have to deal with (save regionally, like Chihuahua breeders in the South West).
That answer is much more complicated.
I think one of the steps might be to make the difference between gameness and reactive aggressiveness. Gameness or drive correlates into willingness to work ( for the pits this does deal with aggression, but the same could be said for Dobermans or Shepherds), but if you have that, then the corresponding biddability and low reactivity has to be accounted for in a breeding program (temperment has to be a big priority with any breed that has aggression in its background; it should be a priority for any breed, but especially them — I’d say the same for the herding breeds from a different standpoint — an extremely reactive, neurotic herding dog is a disaster waiting to happen too). So, the ability to hang tough and keep going, yes, (and this can be redirected to other pursuits), but a short fuse and/or flighty nature and /or stubborn head, most definitely no.
As for finding it in other breeds…well, maybe yes, maybe no…my friend likes the idea of owning “Petey”, and her dogs have not disappointed her on that note; some people like the idea of owning Strongheart, some people like the idea of French cut poodles, and I like the idea of owning Borders (although that was thanks to my husband — I’m a Doberman and GSD girl at heart…although these little black and white buggers have charmed me). Hardly anyone owns their favorite breed of dog for their original purpose anymore.
One of the factors for her not breeding was the fear she would not find suitable homes — although I’m kind of two minds on this one: I think her dogs were more marketable (certainly more appropriate) to the average dog owner. They had drive/gameness in the context of ability/willingness to work very hard, but they were calm and easy to train and direct, so aggression but not anymore than I’ve seen in a sane guard or terrier and in some cases less…they were up for attempting anything you put them at though; they’d give it the good old try or die trying…so she had to be careful with the frisbee sessions).
However, a big problem she would have been up against is that potential pitbull owners are often not who you want to have your dogs (and her dogs didn’t look the part of the muscle bound, big headed things popular now, so she would have been up against that as well).
It really is too bad that they couldn’t have been grandfathered into the Am. Staffs; I think they would have won acceptance there; alas, their pedigrees would have precluded that, as they would not be considered purebred).
Then there would have been the issue of what to do after the first generation: finding dogs like hers that weren’t from the same lines and/or had the characteristics she valued would have been increasingly difficult (I had some old contacts in the GSD circle who ran into the same problem — their dogs weren’t bred for the extreme stance, and they didn’t want it in their dogs; it got hard to find suitable outcross material while fighting against the market notion of the ideal Shepherd (goodness knows none of their dogs were going to win any conformation titles in this day and age); they finally just quit breeding.
Dogmatic: great points, and that’s probably what does need to happen in order to save the breed from what it’s become.
Unfortunately, you’re also correct: outside of a few people (not enough to sustain such a thing), the will isn’t there. This is in my estimation one of the biggest problems with all dog breeds.
The only other way to keep the good dogs’ genetic material out there and viable is to put them into some other breed…and that’s not likely to happen either, because…mutts (which are ok for a shelter to peddle, but “responsible” breeders don’t do it…I’ve had people on Facebook calling for an end to goldendoodles because it wasn’t “responsible” to cross two purebreds; I’ve been hammered for saying I think there’s nothing wrong with crossbreeding Border Collies onto other similar herding breeds if the parents are good material and a good match…how backyard trash of me!).
The attitude that breeding mixes or “mutts” is irresponsible is a foolish and dangerous one. Its basically closing the gene pool off and refusing to admit any new stock that wasn’t derived from the original founder stock. This will just lead to extinction of the breed as it gets more and more inbred. This idea is the basis of the idea of “pedigrees” and the underlying ethos of the Kennel Club and comes from eugenics.
Part of the idea of eugenics was the thought that genetic purity was better than mixed bloodlines. We now know this is false, and its healthier to have parents with as diverse and different genetics as possible to give a better chance of healthy offspring. This is mostly down to most deleterious (harmful) mutations of genes being recessive rather than dominant. It requires 2 copies of them (one from each parent) to cause the individual to suffer the disease associated with it. If you have two closely related parents producing offspring you are more likely to get 2 copies of a mutated gene in the offspring. Why? BECAUSE the parents are closely related – i.e. they may BOTH have inherited the SAME copy of the harmful gene from the same ancestor. A completely unrelated individual is much less likely to have a faulty copy of the same gene. They could have just as many bad copies of other genes, but the likelihood that they’ll have the exact same set of bad genes is very low.
This is why breeding a golden to a poodle is much more likely to result in healthy offspring than breeding a golden to a golden or a poodle to a poodle. The golden and poodle do not have recent common ancestors and so will be much less likely to both have faulty copies of the same genes.
Pit bulls need to go extinct in my opinion. There is no longer a purpose for them, and lets be honest – people are not buying them for their looks; they are buying them for the intimidation factor and/or their dangerous/vicious personality. “Gameness” is just another word for refusal to give up a fight. Who needs that in a pet? It just makes them more stubborn and harder to train, as well as making them extremely dangerous and hard to stop when they “go off”.
Talk to terrier owning people, they’ll tell you their dog is stubborn and difficult when it wants to be, and take time and patience to train, even though many terriers are also quite intelligent and thus learn quickly.
Even if well meaning people try to breed out the “gameness” and dog aggression of pit bulls, there will be plenty more dog-men and backyard-breeding idiots who will deliberately breed their dogs for aggression and strength. Until we can stop these people, a few breeders trying to breed for temperament won’t make much difference, sadly.
Breeding Poodle to Golden a better breeding choice? You can not be serious?
http://www.optigen.com/opt9_test_prcd_pra.html
Please check the source if you doubt:
Because DNA marker for PRA is already available for those cross breeds. Golden Doodle, Labradoodle, and Lab/Golden Cross just for starters. Who convinced you that cross breeding was a better choice and a cure all?
You might check out also what others suggest on how to breed dogs with a stronger immune system.
http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-breed-dogs-with-stronger-immune.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15965788
http://www.eaap.org/Previous_Annual_Meetings/2012Bratislava/Papers/Published/10b_Asgarijafarabadi.pdf
At this point, I think that for many purebred breeds the only hope they have is to be crossbred to other breeds that share the same inclinations — retrievers to retrievers, herders to herders — unless we want to go even further, and breed for some other working trait (I knew somebody who bred Airdales to Bloodhounds to get dogs to hunt large predators, but that’s a digression).
Yes, both breeds used in a cross may have the same problems — but there is always a chance that, with such an outcross, other genetic markers may influence away from the problems. Plus the addition of more numbers of subjects from two different populations offers more chance to step away from the problems.
As it stands it seems like a better path to take rather than just keep breeding purebreds to purebreds in an ever diminishing gene pool (and I highly doubt you’re going to talk purebred fanciers into anything more drastic than a Goldendoodle, let alone something more exotic…they don’t seem to be all that keen to go with that small outcross).
Nothing will ever be a “cure all”, but doing nothing isn’t going to help either.
I love game -bred pit bulls. Yes true a game bred Pit is not for everyone. “Furmommies” harp on a well conditioned pit for being “too skinny” and a dog on a proper chain setup is “cruel and mean”. And that “if you raise them with love and kisses they can go to the dog park”.
A lot of rescue groups are doing pit bulls a disservice by propetuating myths about “nanny dogs” “bait dogs” and “teaching a dog to fight”. Also the labeling of obvious pit bulls, American Bullies or mixes of such as “Lab mix” or “Boxer mix” is very very dangerous. And how a “pit bull is for everyone and can love other dogs.” there is one in an agiltiy class at the facility I train – I appreciate the woman training her dog but she works 10 plus hours a day and takes the dog to the dog park and doggy daycare. He is young now and that is a disaster waiting to happen. But she wont listen she is a furmommy.
Game bred dogs are very high drive but not in any means stubborn or untrainable or like loaded guns. They need to go to an owner who knows what they are getting into. They are very trainable.
Nothing wrong with a “pet bull” couch potato or a pit mix who loves all the dogs it meets. But to me nothing will beat the beauty of a game bred dog in top condition.
I would hate to see Pit Bulls go extinct as they are fabulous dogs. Genetics and evironment make the dog.
Now, here is where I agree with Dogmatic, and beg to differ:
I enjoy a game dog — but not a game bred Pit.
Dollars to donuts when someone sees that in an ad for Pits they have been intensively bred for dog fighting qualities.
One — this is getting away from the old, landrace farm type Pit, the Peteys, who had to be a lot more social and easy tempered while at the same time being up for any sort of work. This type actually did exist, and has largely been ignored or forgotten thanks to the hang-up with the image of the “game bred Pit”.
Two — this actually encourages the thug/dog fight culture that came up with these dogs (Pits started out as a large variety of landrace types, and still are to some extent — not all of them began as these squat, overmuscled, and let’s be honest — aggressive as H — dogs); this is not a group I want to give any kudos to, nor their dogs…which are generally not good ranging to catastrophically awful. It’s time to just face facts: they’re just no good.
Three — and I’ll admit a bit of aesthetic bias here, it encourages the breeding of squat, heavy headed, overmuscled dogs who are not balanced in form or mind; that most people now consider these to be what all Pits should look like is rather sad to my mind — the old fashioned farm type Pits from my neck of the woods were a rangier, more balanced, and to my eye much better looking dogs (they rather looked like shorter versions of Catahoulas without the fancy colors and a bit more muscle, and they performed many of the same jobs — playing back up to the farm collies and hounds when some more muscle was needed, so this was never a soft dog, but it wasn’t crazy either).
I’d kinda prefer they got promoted — if anything they are much easier tempered and stable minded, tendency to play a lot better with others. Plus they can do a lot more and various kinds of work — they may not take top rank at a pull contest or a dog fight, but you can trust them around stock, with kids, or in a dog obedience class (and they’ll give that weight pull the old college try, and might even pull the upset from time to time). So, pretty “game”, pretty good “drive” — just not in the direction some of these “game bred” Pits are.
Sadly, not going to happen because people are now hung up on the image of a Pit bull must be this ripped muscled (probably part of the attraction), shark mouthed (again, probably part of the attraction), heavy/squat set dog…which also comes with a nasty tendency towards aggression (probably also part of the allure).
Just curious, Corgeek…what is it, exactly, that you love about game bred pit bulls? You say they are “fabulous dogs”, in what way? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not just in love with the “look” of the breed, that it is something beyond the physical appearance and aesthetics. Surely you understand that form follows function, and that the “work” these dogs were created for involves killing their social partners in mortal combat. You state that you support “keeping these dogs on a proper chain set up”, which I imagine would involve the typical dog fighting setup of a small shelter like a barrel or plastic kennel, an axel sunk into the ground, and a solid chain. Dog fighters call that a “yard”, and it’s necessary to keep the dogs from killing each other in a “yard accident”; unlike working breeds created to help man hunt or herd, these dogs can’t be kenneled together.
You claim you would hate to see a breed of dog whose bloodlines have been bred, tightly and specifically, to kill other dogs “go extinct”. Why? The work these dogs are bred to do is a felony in all 50 states. They are horrible dogs for the majority of pet owners. A strong, high drive, dog with the genetic urge and physical ability to attack and kill other dogs in unprovoked attacks is a nightmare and a liability for owners. What kind of homes do you imagine will want a dog like that for a “pet” or companion?
And before you suggest that a game bred pit bull is a great performance dog, how easy or pleasurable do you think it would be to manage a dog aggressive pit bull at shows? Agility, obedience, field trials, herding, dock diving… all are sports dominated by herding and sporting breeds who are biddable without the dangerous levels of aggression found in pit bulls. Most people who want to have fun with their dog doing dog sports are not looking to invest time and sweat training their pit bull puppy, only to have him “turn on” three years later and become a danger to other dogs.
So Corgeek…who do you propose should be owning and breeding these fabulous game bred pit bulls? Because the truth is, the majority of people owning and breeding them now are involved in illegal dogfighting. Surely you are not suggesting that we protect the rights of criminals and sociopathic animal abusers to make money breeding dogs for bloodsport. And, as you rightly point out, they need to be kept out of the hands of the furmommies. Where would be find large enough numbers of responsible, experienced dog trainers and handlers who want an intense, athletic, strong, high energy, high drive dog that can scale a seven foot fence, or bust through a storm door to kill the neighbors beagle, which is banned by most homeowners insurance companies, and virtually all decent professionally managed apartment complexes, some campgrounds, boarding and training facilities, HOAs, etc.???? Realistically, how many people out there can safely manage these dogs, and why would anyone want to?
I love the “never say die” attitude. Their ability as catch dogs on hogs and other game, and their sheer athletism. They are not man eaters. Yes their dog fighting days are illegal in this country (not in others) but the majority of game dogs are used for hunting now or weight pull, dock jumping, whatever you ask of them to do. And you won’t find a better dog on a hog or boar IMO.
A LGD and a Fila is not for everyone either. Neither is a working bred Malinois or GSD. Should those go extinct as well? People should only breed and own lovey floofy dogs who love everyone and every dog?
I have dog reactive dogs that do just fine in dog sports. I know pit bull owners, AmStaff owners, Staffy Bull owners and Border Staffy owners of varying levels of drive and gameness and all of them are perfectly under control at dog events (moreso than the majority of dogs). Frankly, I loathe dog parks as well – they are for lazy owners and they create volatile situations between other dogs.
Not all game bred pit bulls are loaded guns. No more than your working sport Malinois. Most of the pit bulls that are unpredictable are the ones poorly bred owned by “furmommies” with unrealistic expectations of their dogs.
I know what a chain setup is and what a yard is. Most dogmen’s dogs were only keyed up when they were matching.
Dogmatic you seem to have a sheer hatred of pit bulls. And your facts need checking. Rarely will a pit bull (a well bred one) provoke an attack. However they will finish a provocation, and will NOT tolerate a dog playing roughly.
Like I said before – genetics and environment make the dog.
Oh and to follow up – if I had the space and time for a high drive dog I would get a game bred pit bull in a second.
I love the breed. No other dog like them. I know full on what a game dog would entail.
And shock – I am not a dog fighter – not my thing frankly. I own cardigans and compete with them. I just always loved Pits. Did a lot of research over the years about them. Can’t deny their history and a lot of dogs cannot be kenneled together. I know 2 of my bitches would fight and tear each other up in the same run. Holds true for a lot of breeds.
Fair enough, and thank you for explaining what attracts you to game bred pit bulls. My friends in dog sports report precious few pits competing, something I have seen myself in the meets which were professionally photographed by a friend of mine who does it for a living.
Please keep in mind that a dog reactive Corgi is in NO WAY the equivalent of a game fighting breed. I have witnessed a game pit bull grab another dog in an unprovoked attack , and it required two adult men bashing him in the head with their fists until they rendered him unconscious to get his jaws off the throat of the other dog, who by that time was deceased. Sorry, but if your Corgi is that dangerous, it’s poorly bred, and a terrible example of the breed.
The truth is, DA is a totally useless trait in a dog, with the possible exception of a working LSG breed. I am well aware of other power breeds that are DA, the difference is that most of the breeders have managed to keep them out of the general pet population. There is a difference, also, between dogs that don’t want to play with or interact with strange dogs, and may use some degree of aggression to keep them away, and a fighting breed who views other dogs as prey, and seeks out opportunities to kill them.
I do take exception with the “facts” you cite….that a well bred pit bull will never provoke an attack. I suggest you take that statement over to the pit bull chat forum, or game dogs forum and float that opinion amongst the experts. You will be laughed off the site. That’s like saying a greyhound needs to be taunted by the rabbit or they won’t give chase, or a retriever needs to be “keyed up” to get him to fetch a downed bird.
And no, I have no hatred of pit bulls…why would I? That would be illogical, as they are simply animals doing what they were created to do. I do have a huge contempt for the people who created and continue to breed them. The reason we are having this conversation is because these dogs don’t belong in pet homes, and that is where they end up. I can take my credit card out right now and go onto Tom Garners website and order a game bred pit bull…he takes credit cards, will ship overseas, and even offers “volume discounts”!! He has about 18 litters on the ground right now. There are no “responsible” people breeding game bred pits, and there is a very small demand for the dogs for legitimate dog sports and catch dogs.
So if you are arguing that the handful of people needing catch dogs and weight pull dogs could be maintained by a group of breeders who sold ONLY to working homes with s/n contracts, I am all for it. But that will never happen, because fundamentally the people involved in preserving the breed are, if not outright criminals and animal abusers, only out to exploit the dogs for cash. And by declaring your love for the breed, you are declaring your approval and admiration for the breeders, something many dog lovers find abhorrent.
I get it – you aren’t a fan of Pit Bulls. They aren’t everyone’s cup of tea I admit. I don’t force everyone to love my corgis (although the internet seems to adore making them into Memes).
I don’t approve or admire criminals or exploiting a dog for cash. I do admire a well bred game dog. Big difference. I admire a dog with drive and heart and athletic abiltiy. No matter the breed. I could care less if I am liked by other dog owners by it to be frank.
There are responsible breeders of game bred pits. I know of several breeders that will NOT sell their stock to first time pit bull owners, first time dog owners, or non working homes. You are basing your opinion on one person’s yard?
Most people who have pit bulls do not get them from great breeders period (or they rescue them). My hairdresser has a pit bull (looks like some American Bully in there) that she bought at 6 weeks old from a “friend” who had puppies. Never had a dog before, does not know what is behind the dogs, nothing. Lucky for her she is a great dog.
It is up to the buyer to research the good the bad and the ugly of owning a pit bull which includes diving into the history of the breed and talking to different breeders and researching different lines.
Rescues and breeders need to really be honest with the pet buying public and realistic. People wanting pit bulls must do their research. Same with people wanting labs, german shepherds, any dog.
There ARE breeders preserving the breed that are far from criminals or cash mongers.
I see MANY breeds sold as pets in the wrong home. Owners want breeds for status symbols. My cousin has a Viszla/Weim mix that is off the wall bananas (probably bored to tears) and bites people badly. She got this mix because “I live on 10 acres and the dog can run free.” The dog is not trained and is put on an invisible fence at home. She wanted a pretty looking dog to look nice in her country house. Only reason why the dog isn’t taking a dirt nap now is because it so far has only bitten friends of theirs who won’t do anything about it.
My dog reactive corgi is a wonderful dog and yes I know the difference between dog agression in a herding breed and a game bred breed. It ain’t my first rodeo.
So to repeat my question – in your opinion should people only breed or own dogs that love everyone and everything?
One more point….I have noticed over the years the tendency for “dog people” to romanticize the reality of APBT fighting bloodlines. You say you admire their drive, but drive is more than hyperactivity, energy, and stamina. It is the internal urge to do what the dog was made to do, and it is primarily found in working lines. You may be able to redirect it with some success, but the drive to hunt, herd, trail a scent, or kill another dog is always there.
My favorite high drive dog is my friend’s field bred lab, who is still a dynamo at 10 years old. She is extremely fast and athletic, intelligent and biddable; she has the natural eye contact trainers dream about. She doesn’t need a leash, has 100% reliable recall; just a change in tone and inflection of her owners voice can bring her to heel. But it’s her retrieving drive that sets her apart.
This dog will retrieve objects thrown to her until she drops from exhaustion. She will chase balls and Frisbees until her paws are torn and bloody, and continue retrieving on bloody paws. If you don’t have a ball with you, she will bring you a stick to throw…if she can’t find a stick, she will bring you rocks, (she’s broken several teeth doing this). I watched her once, unable to find a stick or rock, drag an entire log over to us thinking we could throw it. She will spend a lot of time just staring into your eyes trying to figure out what she needs to do to get you to play catch with her. A trainer friend who has met her says she could do anything with her…field trials, detection dog, agility, any task, because she would figure out in minutes how to do something if the reward was a game of fetch. She problem solves independently; once, I watched her owner tell her, “Go find the ball”, after forgetting to bring a ball to the park we had gone to. She was just trying to keep her busy. The dog took off into the brush at the edge of the park, disappearing for 15 minutes…finally reappearing with a moldy, decades old baseball she had dug out of the ground.
This is what most would consider a high drive dog…tireless, high energy, willing to continue at a task (retrieving) despite physical pain and exhaustion. (sounds like gameness to me!) And yet, she has no down side; she is bombproof with people, kids, other dogs, cats, etc. Despite being a good watch dog who will bark when a stranger is at the door, she has a soft, social temperament. She “loves everyone and everything” as you put it. All she needed to succeed in a pet home was an active family and a supply of tennis balls.
You can have a social friendly dog that also has a lot of drive and intelligence, without the miserable, dangerous trait of DA. They are not mutually exclusive. And if a dog like this ends up in a pet home, it doesn’t result in tragedy.
Corgeek, I suspect we agree on many things, and to answer your question directly…I don’t think that only dogs with soft, social temperaments should be bred. I am fine with the US military breeding Mals that will jump out of helicopters, with working LSGs, and hunting breeds with drive. I have a huge affection for well bred GSDs, but let me be clear…. DA, IMO, is a major temperament flaw in a dog. A dog with a solid temperament is not DA. Yesterday at Petsmart, I met a beautiful GSD from German working lines. I watched her sit calmly, totally relaxed, while a large mutt 15 feet away flipped out, lunging, barking, and growling at her. She had rock steady nerves, just glanced at the crazy dog losing his shit over the fact that she was sitting there. I was so impressed with her demeanor, I walked over to meet her. I asked her owner permission to pet her, she was friendly and social, not pushy…with perfect manners. She had “presence” and intelligence and not a shred of fear or nervousness. She was a perfect example of what a good GSD from working lines should be. I am well aware that there are problems with DA in some lines of GSDs, and I consider that a function of poor breeding. Fortunately, breeders of GSDs are not deliberately selecting for the trait. Unfortunately, breeders of game bred pit bulls are.
Let me further clarify that I have no problem with dogs that dislike other dogs. I met a Chow mix in basic obedience that had no use for other dogs. He excelled in the class, but wanted no interaction with the other dogs. If approached he was tolerant, but if the sniffing became too intrusive, he would offer a curled lip. If a dog didn’t get the message, he would issue a soft growl. I never saw it go beyond that, but I suspect he would have continued to use the least amount of aggression until he got his point across…an air snap, then perhaps pinning the offending intruder, then maybe a pinching bite. He didn’t need to attack and maul another dog to get his point across. He wasn’t a dog park dog, and probably didn’t have other dog friends. But he posed no danger to other dogs in his neighborhood or community. I don’t consider a dog like that DA. A DA dog will attack another dog without any real or significant provocation.
Again, I come back to the fact that a truly DA dog, one with the size and power to do real damage, does not belong in a pet home. They pose a danger to other dogs in the community, and to people, who typically are injured trying to save their own dog from an attack.
A friend of mine of a cynical bent said that the pit problem could have been dealt with by the Kennel club registering the breed . In 4 generations they would not be able to run or breath
Hah David!
I once asked, ‘who exactly has lead some massive breeding program to take the aggression out of a breed that was defined by it, built around it, and culled harshly for it,’ and of course this sounds exactly like what show breeding has done, unintentionally, to so many other breeds. Not necessarily making them better, just making them useless.