I've been around dogs my whole life, and seen pits fighting. I'm still way more cautious around unfamiliar humans.

I reckon that driving is considerably deadlier than bully breeds are, but we don't consider banning driving. Rather, we punish dangerous drivers.

We don't ban driving because the benefits of driving outweigh the disadvantages. In contrast, when something causes deaths without any tangible benefit, we do ban it.

Pit bulls offer nothing that isn't offered by other breeds. Even when wearing their gentle, good companion hat, there are other breeds which are also gentle and good companions that don't have a disproportionate tendency to kill people (and, of course, other dogs). Given that, statistically, pit bulls cause so much more harm than other breeds, whats the argument against banning them or hampering attempts to breed them? Would the world be worse off without pit bulls, or with 10% as many pit bulls?

pits are what/who you train them to be. they ARE terriers, and ALL terriers are hunters. even the little tiny ones kill rats and mice and squirrels. my gf had an apartment had rodents in it but her place was rodent-free the minute she brought home suzie who didn't never weigh more than bout 6 pounds. no roaches neither.

i had pits before i got married. babe ruth Dog had good taste. she didn't like a guy i was gonna date, he was gone. well, not because she ate him, i mean.

i never EVER had trouble training them - they are Dogs who are WANT you to train them and are eager to obey and please you - unlike, say, lots of other dumb Dogs. you can train Dogs not to go after other animals except on command. and pits are easy to train.

in your home, your pits will certainly protect you. mine saved my life. and they treat your babies and small kids as if they were their own - i didn't hesitate to leave my kids with babe and barry lamar.

and pits are NOT no 90 lbs. babe was 60 lbs, which is enormous for a grrrl pit bull (that's the top size of most males) although i must admit she had a much, uh, slimmer figure when she was younger.... and i DID get her spayed after husband and i decided to have kidz. when she came in heat, i didn't trust her around my husband, let alone little kidz. poor Dog, she had the worst Dog PMS like evah.

i really want another Dog. i wish i had the $$$. and the time!!!!

i'd say either that or another baby, but you KNOW this would be the ONE time husby be lurkin...

Lastly, if one of my neighbors owned a pitbull I would find a way to poison it. And no, I'm not kidding. I choose my daughter's face over that dog, sorry.

You're a complete ####### piece of ####.

I adopted a pitty a bit over 4 years ago. She has never once shown any aggression to any person. We can literally reach our hands into her food dish while she's eating and take away her food and she just sits calmly waiting for it back. I would never take her out unleashed because most dogs, and pitties especially, have a strong prey drive. I would not worry about her attacking a person, but I'm also not a #########, so I make sure there will never even be an opportunity for it (nor could I blame a kid or parents freaking out if they see an unrestrained pit bull running around). The first time one of my friends came over, after thoroughly licking him, she fell asleep with her head in his lap.

Pit bulls offer nothing that isn't offered by other breeds. Even when wearing their gentle, good companion hat, there are other breeds which are also gentle and good companions that don't have a disproportionate tendency to kill people (and, of course, other dogs). Given that, statistically, pit bulls cause so much more harm than other breeds, whats the argument against banning them or hampering attempts to breed them? Would the world be worse off without pit bulls, or with 10% as many pit bulls?

Because banning pit bulls does not prevent dog attacks or fatalities. Any dog that attacks and looks like a pit bull is then classified a pit bull, so the number of pit bull related fatalities, though I'm sure still the highest of any breed, is inaccurate and actually the total of a number of different breeds. Pit bulls, properly trained, actually pass obedience and disposition tests at a higher rate than the average dog. The problem is that because of their potential, they attract a lot of scum bag owners who mistreat them and encourage aggression. Without access to pit bulls, these people will just get other potentially dangerous breeds like German Shepherd, Rottweillers, etc.

I would prefer there be only about 10% of the current pit bull population though. There are way too many in shelters, and are the likeliest to be killed. There are few instances where I'd buy any dog from a breeder anyway, but I absolutely would never buy a pit bull from a breeder (nothing against you BBC just that there are a lot of irresponsible breeders of all breeds and even more irresponsible owners). I'd like to see tougher leash laws, laws against tethering/chaining, and against people encouraging aggression as well as restrict breeding and owning unaltered pets.

tom cervo

there are waaaaayyy too many pits and pit crosses in shelters because too many people have this fantasy about having a Dangerous Dog - and then they don't bother to train it and they can't control it, or the poor thing goes crazy because he/she is tied up in the back yard for hours. and LOTS of owners don't want to even walk their Dog for a few minutes.

ther ARE a lot of irresponsible breeders around. there are plenty of pit bull preeders who actually breed bait Dogs. they should be thrown into the pit their own self. i was very young when i let my Dogs breed. i stopped when i lost one of my Dogs - she died after giving birth. I didn't know i had to help a Dog deliver or even that i needed to feed her something special after she finished. Her only surviving pup was barry laamr Dog. but i DID take very good care of the babies after they were born and i socialized them even before i knew i was supposed to do that. i mated my Dogs to get good personality and smarts not just size and head size like so many others.

but you know, i'm grateful to my grrrl Dogs because they taught me a few tricks about how to take care of my own babies

and yes, you can teach LOTS of other Dogs to be aggressive - rotties (which i also have) and shepherds and labs, which are the most aggressive big dog i've ever seen. and they are a LOT harder to train than a pit or a rottie. part of their nature is to serve a Top Dog-ette. like, say, me. and like i said, some of the most aggressive Dogs i've seen are those little snappy Dogs who will come at you - the owners think it's cute

I'm not saying this is what everyone should do; perhaps if I was more knowledgeable about dogs and canine behavior/training I would take a different stance. I dunno.

Unless a non-feral dog has some sort of mental or physical illness, it can be trained from a puppy to be non-aggressive enough to be a remarkably safe pet. A well-trained dog (specifically, well-trained to be non-aggressive) will not bite someone who accidentally hurts it, it will not respond aggressively to a person touching its food while it eats, and it will display submissive behavior on demand from its owner. Every responsible dog owner takes this responsibility. That's fairly easy training for a layperson, because dogs have been artificially selected for submissive behavior for centuries. They are easy to train so long as you know some pretty basic rules and some pretty basic techniques. Dogs learn quickly and are genetically programmed to acknowledge an dominant alpha. If you establish that dominance consistently early on in a dog's life, bad behavior is pretty uncommon. If the dog can't be made submissive, it is the responsibility of the owner to give up that pet, either to someone with more experience training aggressive animals, or, if necessary, euthanize (my very last option).

And like BBC says, small dogs are often more dangerous than large dogs, because it's easier to overlook aggressive behavior with a tiny dog, thinking that it can't do serious damage even if it goes crazy. I knew pretty early on that my dog was going to be between 50-75 pounds, so it was pretty clear that she would be uncontrollable if I had not been a responsible trainer.