Pit Bull Myth-buster Files

PIT BULL MYTH-BUSTER FILES
if you are an animal rights nut or a bunny-hugger or just a "pet bull" owner with one or two dogs experience and you don't like the editor's advice and opinions, keep reading. We guarantee you will learn something. So, for those brave souls who 'can take the truth,'* we present ...
THE MYTHBUSTER!

*** Answer--no they are not, at least not by nature. The APBT has one of the gentlest natures with people of any breed. However, like any dog a pit bull can be trained to guard or defend property or persons but some are even too "soft" as dog trainers say, to be trained in that way. They just like people too much and have an inborn taboo against biting them. Unfortunately, as more and more the breed is bred by "backyard breeders" (especially the new faddish "Blue Pits") the usually reliable and stable temperament expected of the breed has deteriorated into a more people agressive animal so be sure to view the parents and ask about temperament before you buy a pup.

Let's get one thing straight--dogs invented dog fighting and men watched, amused and interested. Try this mental exercise: you are standing on a street corner. On one corner some guys are shooting hoops; on another corner they are playing stickball; on a third they are shooting craps and on the fourth the two biggest toughest dogs in the neighborhood are stiff-legging and growling (these are not pits as they don't behave that way) and start to fight. Which corner do all the men run toward? Right. They will run to the dogfight! Because that's how men are. They like boxing type sports too. Men enjoy combat although combative sports have become non-politically correct. Come to think of it men have too. Men are not really allowed to be men anymore are they?*
If you will imagine for a moment what it must have been like back in the early days of the man/dog relationship. Man was a hunter and killer of wild animals for his food. The wild dogs hung around the campfire until some became rather tame and man started to utilize them to help with the hunting. the dogs had better ears and much better noses than his new masters but man could use crude weapons and kill larger prey and from a greater distance. Both benefitted from the relationship. Hunting dogs are a tough breed. They have to be.* Long, hard days of running, searching for prey and then, long after exhaustion has set in, one may find the prey and have to engage it in combat and make the kill. Prey animals may look sweet but they are not. A deer can easily whip a man, even kill him. Imagine what animals had to be contended with 20,000 years ago!
The point is, the early dogs that hung with mankind were probably the toughest. Early man wasn't going to share his food with a dog that quit during the hunt and didn't do his share and pull his weight. And the tribe could only afford so many dogs on the "payroll" so I imagine they culled the dogs pretty hard and kept only the best and toughest hunters.
As dogs will do these tough hunters would fight over bones and scraps and the best females. Men would watch the dogs fight and be amused (possibly even betting a steak or a good stone "knife" on which would win)* probably for thousands of years before deciding to try breeding dogs that were particularly good at fighting. They soon found that the better fighters were also the tougher hunters and that was just what they needed. The more the dogs would do the less danger the men would be exposed to on the hunt. And there were no doctors or clinics or emergency rooms. For either dog or man back then, if you were seriously injured and couldn't pull your weight...well, who knows.
So, the fighting dogs were an offshoot of hunting dogs. With the eventual onset of civilization these types of dog were used in warfare and were extremely ferocious and terrifying to an enemy. Eventually, probably in around the 18th century or so dogs were being bred exclusively to do combat with other animals. The elite rulers didn't like that as their wives complained of the "cruelty" but the serfs (slaves) needed their recreation and so were left alone until the early 1800's when the official "banning" of animal combat (for the poor) became the norm.*
(To be continued)

More absolute nonsense propagated by the humaniacs. If you were to hit a dog that WAS FIGHTING with a cattle prod he would probably stop fighting! It certainly wouldn't make a dog want to fight another dog although some dogs would probably bite the person who "prodded" them real good.* This myth often includes "feeding them gunpowder to make them mean." More humaniac BS. If you want to eat out the lining of a dog's stomach, make him sick* and eventually kill him, feeding gunpowder would probably do it. Only a moron would engage in such treatment of a dog.

Only very partially true: most pits kept as pets can be trained to tolerate other animals, even cats and often other pit bulls. There are a few exceptions to this rule however. Ocassionally a dog is born that will literally hit anything with fur on it. It may not be possible to train one of these rare individuals to get along with other animals.* Normally, however, a pit with sufficient obedience work can become a good "canine citizen."

The fact is in "real" dog fights, that is, professionally conducted ones by experienced pit dog men, the dogs are "matched" perfectly by weight (down to a 1/4 pound) and fought by a strict set of rules (usually known as Cajun rules nowadays) that were implemented for the specific purpose of shortening dog fights and offering any dog that chose not to continue, many opportunitites to quit the fight. This fact, of course, does not fit the humaniacs' goal of demonization of pit dog men and the sport so they generally leave this information out of their propaganda pieces which are liberally picked up and distributed as "fact" by the sensationalist American media.

Nonsense. Do race horse trainers steal mules and plowhorses to train their thoroughbreds with?* Do professional boxers kidnap high school kids to beat up when training for a big fight?*
First, a pit bull could kill a kitten or puppy so fast there would be no training involved and secondly, I assure you, MANY PITS WILL NOT HURT A PUPPY OR KITTEN (or any animal that doesn't want to fight) ANYWAY! You couldn't make them kill one.
Back in the 70's when I got involved with the breed there were hardly any pits kept as pets. Those that were weren't causing any trouble as they were, presumably, kept by responsible citizens. Those in the hands of "dog fighters" were kept on chains in yards that were mostly in remote areas, far out of towns and cities. If a dog got loose it just got on another of the pit dog man's dogs and a "yard accident" ensued, they didn"t go running around a neighborhood when they got loose, jumping on people or their pets.
Then around the mid-70's a funny thing happened. The humaniac groups started ranting and raving about dog fighting (a big fund-raiser for them) so they could get felony laws shoved through our state legislatures. They told outrageous lies (and created many of these myths we are addressing) and made up stories about horrific abuses carried out by dog fighters for the purpose of demonizing them and the sport in the eyes of the public. This has been a very successful campaign.
A by-product of all their lies, such as this "stealing puppies and kittens for training bait" lie is that, thanks to humaniac propaganda in the media,* young, impressionable kids heard about the big, bad pit bull, wanted one, got one and actually started believing these alleged, horribly cruel practices* were the thing to do in their training programs.* So the humaniacs in their zeal to condemn and vilify dog fighting and those who engaged in it, with the help of an all-too-willing media,* actually created what is called a "self-fullfilling prophecy." Now, in many cities across the land,* young street thugs actually do these things to pit bull dogs, mostly ones they have stolen from other people. They do a lot of other horrible things too as you have probably read, from burning them to hanging them.* None of this has anything to do with the sport of dog fighting. It just happens, unfortunately,* to pit bulls that fall into the hands of scum. That sort of behavior, as well as stealing people's pets and feeding them to pit bulls, is, in fact,* universally condemned by real "pit dog men" (if there are any left) to this day.*

 

440riderThank you for taking the time to try and educate the public on this issue,this is what"we"are all about!!!... http://www.game-dog.com/?page=home

 

good post........

 

Hold on-I heard the all time worst today. "They have no conscience.They are bred for fighting.Sooner or later they will turn on their master no matter how well they are treated their whole life. They are like this because when they are born, their brain is slightly bigger than their skulls so their brain is pushed very tightly up against the skull cavity. This causes them to have extreme headaches, something like a migraine to a human but worse, and drives the pitbull mad as if they had rabies.Even if the pitbull does not have rabies, the symptoms, because of the brain abnormalities, are very much like an animal with rabies''.


I really couldnt believe this, I had never heard something so far-fetched in my life. That theory completely lacks logic with these dogs having such a HUGE head compared to other breeds. IF they had little itty bitty heads I could see someone believing this, but not with the massive heads most people associate with our dogs. No need to flame this person, she was not an anti- just merely asking because she was intrested in the breed and couldnt believe it was true. She has been told the truth now, thank god. Now for who told her that, its time to get out the baseball bats and do some kneecaping for spreading such a ridiculous, blatant, lie. I hope whoever started this ''myth'' cant sleep at night, you heartless prick.

 

So at first I thought this was going to be one of those "myths busted type of FAQs answered" things you read when you first ever tried to learn about gamedogs, but I am glad you explained some of the things about cajun rules and the media concerning blue and other mongrel off beat strains that give our dogs bad reps, nobody ever brings up the point of the rules or actual politics concerning any actual construct of order in the game, toward the end I was really laughing about the comparisons between race horses and boxers you made great points and it's real sad some people need to re-learn these basics because they actually thought that was the way to raise a pit. The BYBs in everyones neighborhood will ruin our world if we keep letting the media run stories and let them breeders sell dogs that are called pitbulls when they really are not by definition...great post