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.