Thursday, March 05, 2015

Everything Wrong in the World of Pit Bulls



Here's everything wrong
in the world of Pit Bulls in one single video.

  • Young people with less than settled lives and marginal incomes (just look at the furnishings).
  • Dogs sold to anyone; cash and carry.
  • Dogs sold on the internet at incredibly jacked up prices.
  • Dogs being "trained" for protection by people who post no credentials, no affiliations, no Schutzhund titles, no Ring Sport titles.
  • The mantra, "it's all how you raise them" is patched straight into dogs being sold based on deeply inbred pedigrees that are attached to names like "Monster" "Tommy Gun" and "Gangster."
  • Very small children are kept in the house with the dogs, and the child is encouraged to ride the dogs like a pony.  Seriously?  The demonstrated lack of judgment and knowledge of dogs that we see here is incredible.
  • We are told "Marlon is the son of world famous Reggae innovator Winston Grennan." Eh? Never heard of Winston Grennan. And what does that have to do with dogs? Not a thing. Tangential claims of celebrity suggest how hollow this operation really is.
  • The web site says they are "a member of the American Dog Breeders Association and the United Kennel Club." Nope. They registered a dog by paying a few bucks to entities that will register any dog. They did not join anything. 
  • On the web site we are told a 140-pound dog can "jump two stories." Right. Those would be Ray Bradbury short stories, no doubt.
  • Massive size is sold as the defining feature of their product. No mention is made of the fact that giant size and excessive weight means the dog will almost certainly die younger and move poorly. Again, real protection dogs do not look like this, and for a reason.

The bottom line is that this is a puppy mill
for giant dogs to be sold to rappers, drug dealers, and people with more money than brains.

The target clients here are people with small lives who have a crying need for a tough dog to counter their own lack of virility.

This is not a train and board kennel or a real trainer of protection dogs (he cannot even spell the word "bodyguard" right!).

People with real protection dog needs generally do not acquire this breed, nor do they ever go to this kind of breeder.

Many years ago I wrote a piece entitledWhat the Hell is an American Staffordshire Terrier? in which I noted:
If there was ever a stranger group than young bulldog afficionado's, I have not met them. They are a truely odd bunch of people that lurk at the periphery of the working terrier world.

On the one hand, you have the dog fighters and wanna-be dog fighters. These numbskulls range from preening fakes and short-tooled fools to sick sadists. Any way you cut it, they are a sad case with even sadder dogs.

Then you have a few romantics -- those with rich fantasy lives who imagine their cherry-eyed genetic wrecks with undershot jaws are descended from the iron-tough catch dogs of the 18th Century. They glory in leading around over-large dogs with massive heads, bowed legs, and dysplastic hips. Most of these dogs could not catch a cold, much less a pig running flat out in Texas Hill Country.

And then you have the Kennel Club enthusiasts, and their "American Staffordshire Terriers," "Bull Terriers," "Staffordshire Bull Terriers," and English Bulldogs.

Kennel Club owners of these dogs will tell you they have worked hard to breed all aggression and prey drive out of their charges. And no doubt many have. What a comical thing that is, of course -- a bit like an auto club bragging that their sport cars have no engines.

The only thing is .... it's not always true. "Bad breeding" and "poor socialization" are often blamed when dogs descended from pit and catch dogs attack small children, but ... could it be .... perhaps ... that a small bit of genetic code remains unbraided as well? It is certainly in the realm of possibility, is it not?

In fact, molosser breeds can make fine pets in the right hands, but many of these dogs demand much more time, energy, and commitment than their young owners realize.

A large dog in the hands of a young man with shifting interests and an unstable housing situation (i.e. most young men) is a recipie that too often leads to dead dogs at the County shelter.

There has always been a ready market for intimidating dogs, and it seems a new breed of "ancient bulldog" is created every few years. Pick up any dog magazine and there they are advertised in the back, all of them with massive bully heads: the "Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog" and the "Olde English Bulldogge" and the "American Bulldog," sandwiched between the English, Neopolitan, and Bull Mastiffs, Rottweilers, Dogue de Bordeaux, Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileriro and, of course, the English Bulldog. Plocked down in between are other bully-headed prey-driven defensive breeds -- Rottweilers, Akitas, Tosas, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Thai Ridgebacks, and the like.

There have always been men with a need to display power. While the world frowns on a man cleaning an unloaded gun in a public square, it's OK for that same man to tow an enormous dog from corner to corner and park to park -- the canine equivalent of a Harley owner with straight pipes blasting through the neighborhood for the sole purpose of intimidation. If asked, the wanna-be-tough man will explain that his breed was designed to (please pick one): kill escaping slaves, hunt jaguars, fight bears and bulls in the pits, fight other dogs, or catch semi-wild pigs and cows so they can be altered or slaughtered. You are supposed to feel fear, and you are supposed to feel respect for a man in control of such a powerful animal with such an ancient history.

Right. But as I noted, I mostly feel amused.

Real dog people can spot pretenders pretty quickly. No one who knows a thing about dogs would ever buy a dog from the folks seen in the video at top.

That said, the world is a big place and good luck to them!  

When their child is mauled or killed, my consumer tip of the day is that Obamacare might cover some of the massive facial reconstuction surgery that will be needed.

Of course since these two people are physically small, and the dogs are truly enormous, facial reconstruction surgery might not be needed.

In which case, my consumer tip of the day is that Costco sells caskets.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

That is a big dog! I saw this video a few days ago and found if quite worrying.
Of this type of dog, I like staffies; in the uk they've tended to be a rather small dog. Unlike pits, they don't fall under the dangerous dogs act but I do wonder when a staffie becomes a pit.

Simba said...

Anyone else think Hulk looks somewhat overweight? I suppose if he's fatter he is more of a record-breaking dog...

Unknown said...

His diet seems very rich.

Jackie said...

I would say that he looks more than "somewhat overweight."

Jeff T. said...

Living here in Oakland CA I am used to seeing many pits- I would guesstimate that 60% of the dogs I see in my chi-chi neighborhood are pit rescues and then there are the beautiful gnarly intact pits that young people seem to have. I am used to them and have never had any trouble- in my experience the ticking time bomb theory doesn't seem to be real. And Dogos are the real thing- people who have them use them to hunt- they are also great family dogs. Even if pits kill the most people proportionally per year or decade the chances of a person being hurt are small- even tiny- stupid people still probably enable these statistics. A weirder situation than even the video in this post can be seen on Cesar Milan's Rescue 911 where he "whispers" a big bulldog/pitbull who has attacked the family child three times. IMO dogs like that should be destroyed- a known attacker of humans probably will never be a safe dog. I feel my skewed logic (my own little terrier has attacked me) so please straighten me out...

PBurns said...

In the United States, where Pit Bulls are a common dog, more people are killed by lightning strikes than by Pit Bulls. In fact, more children are killed by their parents than by Pit Bulls.

Does this mean Pit Bulls are just like every other dog in the world?

No. That too is a lie.

In the U.S., where Pit Bulls account for 2 to 3 percent of all dogs, this breed type (it is not a formal breed) accounts for over 50 percent of all serious dog bites.

And while Pit Bull-related fatalities are low (about 10 a year), for every fatality there are thousands of hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Those who focus solely on the low number of Pit Bull fatalities are lying by omission when they fail to mention the physical and emotional scars left by Pit Bulls attacks.

So, does this mean that Pit Bulls are a problem?

Yes it does.

And part of the problem is that this breed -- like most others -- comes with a code inside it.

More here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2010/03/between-two-lies-lost-opportunity-for.html

Jeff T. said...

I think the statistics are impossible to follow- Pit Bulls are a type- they may be only 2-3 % of purebred dogs but they are a far higher percentage of dogs here in the Bay Area if you include Pit Bull types. I could not find very good numbers anywhere about what percentage of mutts are pits but in this area I bet it is high. I also couldn't find very good statistics on non-fatal dog bites but I remember somewhere reading that the classic guard dog types like GSDs bite a lot more people. Have to agree to disagree on this one- pits are the dogs of the poor and so just the random mayhem of that lifestyle is going to create more dangerous dog-human interactions. Pit bulls have a dog aggression code- not necessarily a people aggression code I'd say. Lifestyles which enable unattended kids and unattended dogs and constant chaos will lead to dog bites for sure. In my experience around many pits they aren't much different than other dogs and certainly not as scary as a Dobie or Rottweiler...

texascher said...

I agree with most of what you're saying and I agree wholeheartedly that pit bulls are a problem. This problem is growing daily with more & more pit bull advocates giving them free propaganda, pushing the idea that they're great family pets; they are not. Pit bulls kill 2 people per month on average & this number has been steadily climbing. See http://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com/ 18 deaths presently in 2015. In 2014 there were 42 dog bite related fatalities while there were only 26 deaths due to lightning strikes. See http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fatalities.shtml You can't control lightning; you can't really control a dog either, but there are some safety mechanisms in place and laws which, if followed, will help to lessen the number of attacks. I don't think it's fair to compare pit bull ownership to an act of God. We do have some control, after all. Thanks for your blog. I really enjoy reading it.

PBurns said...

You have used ALL dog bites deaths, carefully jumping over the fact that about 40 percent are not Pit Bulls. You say that "about 2 deaths a month occur from Pit Bulls and you see that as a big number. In fact, it's not. While lightning deaths are going down from about 400 year in the 1950, they still outnumber Pit Bull deaths, with 28 fatalities in 2012. >> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/almost-no-americans-die-from-lightning-strikes-anymore-why/283046/

With some amusement I note you do not mention that parents kill more of their own kids than ALL dogs due, much less Pit Bulls.

And guess what? Backyard swimming pools, staircases, baby bottle nipples, and electrical sockets also kill more kids (and people in general) than Pit Bulls.

The statement that "you can't really control a dog either" is just nonsense. Dogs are under control all the time and would have to be with over 75 million of them in the US.

Since I just said "sayonar" to a Pit Bull demonizer, I suspect you are this same person coming back as a troll. If so, go away or give your real name and email address. I do not have time for sock puppetry.


TheRealAPBT said...

I know this article is a year old, but I just have to add my 2 cents.

Hulk is NOT a pit bull. He's a mastiff mix. His size alone should be a pretty good indicator of that. APBTs range from 35-65 lbs, typically. A 175 lb pit bull is unheard of.

In Hulk's pedigree, a dog called Eddington's Whopper appears several times. Whopper is actually an American Bulldog/Dogue De Bordeaux mix. The ADBA allowed Whopper to be registered so that he could compete in Weight Pulls. The ADBA had just started hosting Weight pulls and wanted to get people interested in the sport. Their only condition was that Whopper wasn't allowed to breed. Obviously, this didn't go as planned. Whopper got bred anyway and the ADBA couldn't really say anything without revealing that they registered a mastiff mix as an APBT. So, they kept their mouths shut.

You'll also find a few Razor's Edge and Camelot dogs in Hulk's ped. Razor's Edge and Camelot are not an APBT lines. They're "American Bully" lines. American Bullies are essentially Am Staffs mixed with various other breeds (English Bulldog, Cane Corso, Neapolitan Mastiff, Presa Canario, Dogue de Bordeaux, etc) to give the dogs a "big and bad" appearance.

PBurns said...

The cultural, genetic, and historical cess pit of the pit bull is explored in depth here. http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-hell-is-american-staffordshire.html