You think that's going to throw us off your trail? Ha! We're onto you.

lol

Had to watch my friends amstaff this weekend because she was out of town

Look at this vicious cold blooded killer. You can see the malice in her eyes as she silently plots her revenge

Seriously wtf?!?

Grunching this thread but I'm kinda mindblown that you made this post a few days ago. After reading the OP and seeing it was a couple years old I thought there was no way the issue took longer than a few days and few dozen posts to get resolved. The very first response says it all. The OP and first few follow up posts read like a joke/level and t's not even about knowing anything specific about dogs, these concepts defy common sense.

Plus, 'pitbull' is not even a real thing. There is no breed called a pitbull and saying 'this breed does X or Y' is inept from the jump. So there's that.


p.s. Reading the first page and TheUntouchable clearly knows the score. I wonder how that doesn't just end it. I guess I'll never truly understand how people go to war over topics that they almost literally know nothing about. And I'm not talking about suzzer.

Basically a great percentage of molosser and large terrier mutts and mixes are going to be called pitbulls.
Half and 1/4 breeds of these two dogs are even called pitbulls,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesian_Ridgeback

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterdale_Terrier

when they have that 'pitbull look'.

Well now I'm just confused...

I completely agree with Cesar that pits can be awesome dogs if raised right. I just also think they can be more dangerous than other breeds (locking jaws, can't feel pain, vampire life-force suction proboscis, etc.). And there are just too many idiots who want the most dangerous breed of dog they can get their hands on. It's no different than the concept that handguns are legal but automatic machine guns are not.

Get a real dog. Like one of these:

















Uploaded with ImageShack.us

They can stand their ground against pits, especially the males which often weigh around 125-135lbs. Raised to track lions and other African wild game and to defend themselves (as a pack) against them. My dad had one of these growing up and related a story where a guy left two pits in the back of a pickup, they both got out and attacked his Ridgeback. The ridgeback killed one and maimed the other.

They just are far more loyal, intelligent, and way less psychotic.

This one is a female, probably weighs 75lbs and she's just shy of one year old. She's incredibly intelligent, very timid, and shy yet playful. Very stubborn though, almost like a child.

She grabs the cushions from my patio chairs and drags them into the yard so that she can sit on them and sunbathe. I went outside one morning and I saw my chair sitting in the middle of my yard with her on it, facing the sun. Total wtf moment.

She's able to open every door in my house, inward and outward, gets into my trashcan (with a push lid), and I even caught her trying to open my refrigerator door. I've seen other dogs push open doors, but I've never seen a dog that can swing a door open outward. She puts a paw on the wall, a paw on the handle, swipes the handle while pushing herself off the wall.

Well ... I take that back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAigmN_mTQ

This is a picture of a male. As you can see, they're usually larger and much more muscular, usually weighing about 60-90% more than the females. The reason I got a female is their size, you think a 45lb pit bull is a problem? A 130lb dog can be a pain in the ass to deal with if you aren't living in the country.


**** pits IMO, way better choices of pets out there.

Well the confusion I just mentioned is that Cesar specifically refutes and explains away all these pitbull myths. The reason Cesar uses the pitbulls is that they are in fact so obedient and easily trained. Now, obviously this also ties in with your point: If you take the most obedient and easily trained dog and then proceed to train him to be a killer, then he's going to be the best killer around. But this isn't any inherent ferociousness or unpredictability, it's actually the opposite. The pitbulls being so consistently "bad" are actually being well-behaved and obedient... In a bad way because they were trained so. Most of these bad pitbulls out here are not an accident and I've seen and heard firsthand owners training them to be specifically mean and ferocious.
The thing is this doesn't necessarily make your point invalid if the end result is the same but referring to inherent genetic traits, 'mean genes' and the like, is just not scientifically accurate and really weakens the argument. There's no other way to say it than it's just not true, a quick google search will explain it thoroughly and you can see every animalologist (<-that's not a real word) and expert is in agreement.
This guy makes a good point:

I'm not over 40 yet (whew!) but I do realize the pitbull stigma is a relatively new thing, as in the past few decades, if that. When I was a kid it was the rottweilers and the saggy-skin bulldog mixes. Hell, Petey from the little rascals was a pitbull!..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_the_Pup

The point is that banning the pitbulls is a a band-aid solution to the 'problem' and the type of people than want to make dogs into mean, ferocious and 'tough' little creatures will easily find another breed to work with.

I live in Louisiana and down here pits are probably one of the more common breeds, probably behind labradors.

I've seen good ones, I've seen bad ones... but the question is why are they so popular?

They aren't terribly intelligent. They are usually very ugly. They aren't nearly as loyal as something like a lab.

So what explains their popularity? It's because people want a badass dog, and when was "wanting a badass dog" ever a valid motivation for wanting a pet. People with that attitude tend to be very poor owners.

Now, I do not doubt at all that some people just love the breed. I have a sister who LOVES english bulldogs, even for all their faults. She ADORES them even though they look like kermit the frog, have serious snoring issues, and major health problems but there's just something that she likes about them and she doesn't want any other breed.

Those people make great owners for this breed. Not the typical "har, my dog is a killer." type that usually buys into the breed, mistreats, and mistrains them.

I bet if the stigma of pitbulls being fighters disappeared, you'd have less of these dumb**** owners, and a lot less behavioral problems for the breed. Think about it; you could take any breed over 40lbs and turn it into a dangerous animal if you train it a certain way/mistreat it.

Instead of banning a breed; perhaps licenses would be a better solution? Not that I support either but it seems like a better fix.

Think about the consequences of taking one of these and putting it in the hands of a bad owner and having that owner train this dog to be a aggressive. You'd have something far more dangerous than your average pit, because Neapolitan Mastiffs were bred by the Romans as war dogs. Incredibly powerful, an unarmed person really doesn't stand a chance against one. They are rarely implicated in attacks.



Is it because pits are inherently more dangerous? I doubt it. I just think there are a lot less dumb**** Neapolitan Mastiff owners since it's a niche breed. The wiki says their skin is loose like that to aid them in fighting due to less chance of injury, de-sensitization of pain, and a more difficult target. I thought that was pretty cool and didn't know that.

This link might help correct some of the misinformation in this thread. For over a hundred years Americans knew pitbulls for what they did best. Babysitting. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...13698638654712

Seriously...

I'm already late to the party but I have to sleep on this thread. Maybe it's just because I've never actually had a discussion about this topic, on 2p2 or anywhere else, but this is easily one of the top 10 most insane threads I've ever read. I didn't know this topic was even worth discussing, in the sense that with shows like The Dog Whisperer and Pit Boss and the story of what happened to the Vick dogs etc, no intelligent person actually believed all the recent negative hype about pit-bullish dogs.

(yes, this implies I consider the average OOTiot and specifically the regulars in this thread to be intelligent people)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shar_Pei

this thread is like an mc escher painting

Pitbulls are awesome when you let them keep their tails, but they knock stuff over all the time.

Certain humans should def be banned from breeding. Id say we start with repeat violent offenders. If I had my way tho we would be putting them down left and right. Not like we need more *******s on this rock.

Pitbulls should not be banned but the owner should face jail time if the dog ever attacks someone. That is the easiest solution to this problem. If a responsible person owns one thethey are gentle dogs, but some lowlife who trains them to be aggressive will end up in prison eventually. Hold the owners responsible for attacks and I'm happy.

Me too, given how daft it was. Semantics at its best.

lol, pitbulls are figments of our imaginations. There is no pitbull, there is no pitbull, there is... oh **** the non-pitbull thing is ripping off my arm and I am bleeding out now as it laps up the giant pool of my blood.

A+ reply. Made my day (saying quite a lot).

I would be ok with this plus some mandatory training class like you need to get a motorcycle license.

FYP.
If said elephant kills 5 people and causes $200,000 in damage, just penalize the owner. Easy game.

Dog-fighting trainers have no problem identifying them.

Most elephant attacks in North America are from circus elephants going berserk. It should be illegal to use an elephant in a circus because the treatment of those animals is often appalling.
The only place for an elephant in North America is at a zoo imo. Trainers who go in with them assume the risks, and if some idiot climbs into their enclosure and is hurt/killed it is their own fault.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pit_Bull_Terrier

I've followed this discussion over on the somethingawful forums and the summation from it I've gathered is this.

Pitbulls/APBT were originally bred to be dog fighting dogs and have absolutely no chance whatsoever to bite a human. The second any of them attacked a human they would be killed and they were always breeding the least human aggressive ones of the bunch, so eventually the breed itself was one of the safest dogs you could have around humans. They are, however, bred to be dog aggressive so that instinct is still there.

The problem was that idiots started breeding them with little or no selection and so the human aggressive ones were still breeding, AND they would purposefully crossbreed them with dogs that were bred to be guard dogs that are human aggressive like rottweilers and mastiffs. It doesn't help when most people who want some badass pitbull guard dog leave them outside, don't socialize them, beat them, malnourish them, and don't train them whatsoever and expect them to be perfect little angels.

I do think they should be allowed to breed, but honestly I think it should be illegal for someone without a special license to breed dogs. There are way too many dogs out there already and people have no clue what they're doing.

I'm starting to think that you just intentionally miss the point a lot in some unfunny level attempt.

sorry, guilty