The Single Greatest Danger for Pit Bulls

The single greatest danger a Pit Bull faces are people who profess to be Pit Bull "lovers".

Pit Bulls are unfairly discriminated against.

Every day, perfectly good dogs are put down for no other reason than what they look like.

Having said that, let's recognize that the reason so many people want this breed in their lives is because the dog does look intimidating and is capable of terrible damage, and does have a reputation backed up by real statistics.

Listen to the very well-done video, above. Is this well-sung song a paean to the Pit Bull, or a celebration of the fact that owning a Pit Bull gets the owner a lot of attention because the dog is intimidating?

Just a question ...

Notice the leather jacket, the soul patch, and the prong collar on the dog. All fine, but it is part of a look, isn't it?

We choose how we look, just as we chose the kind of dog we own.

Listen to this song.

"I look like I could tear the steel off a locomotive freight train.

"People park three spaces away when I'm waiting in the car..."

Notice that this fellow has a dog with cropped ears.  Why are his Pit Bull's ears cropped to the point they basically have been cut off? Most dog people know, and it's about as good a public relations flag as a Hitler tattoo on your arm.

I am not trying to be overly critical of this person's appearance, which would be unremarkable in any other context. I am simply observing a truth too rarely said in the Pit Bull Community, which is that a lot of people are attracted to these dogs because they project an aura of intimidation.

Another truth is that the single greatest danger a Pit Bull faces are people who profess to be Pit Bull "lovers".

It is Pit Bull lovers who breed these dogs, over sell them, and pass them on to romantic fools who are not prepared to exercise them, train them, house them, vet them, and feed them for the next 12 years.

It is Pit Bull "lovers" who then abandoned these dogs at the pound in record numbers.

How many dead Pit Bulls do Pit Bull "lovers" create in this country every year?

More than 40 million pounds of them.

Nearly one million dead Pit Bulls a year are killed in shelters across the U.S. every year -- 2,400 dead Pit Bulls a day.

Why are all these deaths occurring?

The short story is that the Pit Bull Community has failed to change its breeding culture.

The Pit Bull community continues to fail the dogs by placing one million Pit Bull puppies a year in the hands of people unwilling and unable to deal with these dogs over their lifetime.

This not a failure of society to accept the Pit Bull.

This is a failure of the Pit Bull Community to do whatever it takes to change its culture.

Instead, the Pit Bull community sings the song of "discrimination".

It is an old whine in an old bottle, and if you pop the cork you find nothing inside but the stench of a lot of dead dogs.

Let us all admit to a simple and uncontestable fact:  the Pit Bull has a breed specific problem.

Read that sentence again: a breed-specific problem.

There are not one million dogs of any other breed being ushered into the death chambers every year.

This is a Pit Bull problem. This is a very specific failure of the Pit Bull community.