1922 Boxers or Modern Pit Bull?

The picture, above, is from a bit of video taken in 1922 in the Netherlands, showing Boxers of that era.  Hat tip to Jemima Harrison at the PDE blog for finding the clip.

As I have noted in the past, the old Boxer dogs were pretty nearly indistinguishable from modern Pit Bulls. 

That's not too surprising, as Boxers, Pit Bulls and Rottweilers are all "butchers dogs" coming from more-or-less the same gene pool prior to the instant breed creation that began to occur after 1873.

• The Boxer was simply a Bullenbeisser or "bull biter".
  .
• The Rottweiler was simply a Rottweiler Metzgerhund or Rottweiler's Butcher's dog.
  .
• The Dogo Argentino is simply a Pit Bull cross not too different from the American Bulldog and several others that have been cocked up in more recent years.

And so it goes...

The goods news for Boxers and Rotties and the Pit Bull known as the "American Stafforshire Terrier" is that when these butcher's dogs got pulled into a formal registry, they began to be bred for pet purposes alone.  Over time, some of the hot temper in the original butchers dogs has been drained out.  Not all of it, to be sure; like most things, it's a process not an event. 

The good news is that when these slightly more phlegmatic Kennel Club dogs are combined with slightly more responsible owners, the incidence of mayhem and abandonment seems to drop.  Good news all around!
.