Which dogs created the APBT?

great article. interesting read

 

and those dogs were heavily influenced by terrier blood behind them ,letter from an old timer who is generally forgotten about

Dear Sir,
I may as well begin by saying that I have had show bull terriers,coloured ones, and eventually i returned to my original love the Staffordshire.
Now the ordinary dog-man has no more idea than the man in the moon what the staffordshire looks like, or even what it is.I have been out with one and have been asked "what's that"? .There is some ridiculous talk of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club being formed.There is an equally absurd rumour that they might one day be put on a show bench. if, which is almost impossible this latter should occur, the same result as happened in another well known breed, ie the utter ruination of the character of the dogs will occur.
There are not 50 real Staffordshires in England - not 25 under 20 lbs.
They are a unique breed, whose history goes back into really early days of the Black country - the chainmakers dogs of Cradley Heath.They have one job and one job only - to fight.To fight one another, not to be set upon wretched rats in a pit etc.They have been bred for generations as dog fighters, and dog fighters alone.They go to norway and germany.Hamburg being a great centre.The genuine Staffordshire is a highly intellegent,sensible, clever dogbut his one idea in life is to have a scrap.If the alleged staffordshire has not that idea and weighs much over 20lbs,fit in his collarthen he is a coloured bull terrier, or as a close cross of that blood.
A genuine staffordshire in my opinion weighs about 20lbs has a head like a coal scuttle, has a jaw like a shark,turns his toes out, lies on his tummy with his hind legs flat out behind him, and once IN never lets go of his own free will.Colour all red, or all brindle, practically no white or fawn. I have seen a blue Staffordshire dog 17 1/2lbs pigeon blue - he is dead now
Lastly let me emphasise that a Staffordshire has no written pedigree, He is bred Bill x Fly to so and so's betsy. And tey will tell you, the old timers and some of the new timers, what the forebears did, and what their descendants can do today. Also the Staffordshire is emphatically not a coloured white.He is an entirely seperate breed.Some Kennel Club who's main idea is to cultivate the breed will therefore kill it once and for all.

yours etc.
Arthur Heald

 

The Scottish Blue Paul as well as a dog called a Dudley Terrier (this dog was known for having a red nose) among others (Old Irish Red Bulldogge, English white,.....) had a big influence on the breed...... These dogs are no longer in existance there is a site you can check out. good info on a lot of cool breeds..... http://molosserdogs.com/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia&op=content&tid=1100


Vic

 

Although the history of the APBT and of its ancestors, the Bulldog (not to be mistaken with today’s brachycephalous breeds) is well documented, there are different point of views. Part of the explication is that dogs were named after their types or their tasks but not after breeds based on pedigrees. Historically, the words “terrier”, “pincher” and “bulldog” were commonly used but with quite an ambiguous meaning. However, it is History which explains the job for which the APBT has been created, and it is that job which allows us to understand traits such as intelligence, predator instinct, stress response management, social instincts, gameness and dogs aggression.
Molossoide dogs can be traced to Antiquity. Long before Christ, the Romans imported British dogs as fighting dogs. These dogs were crossbred with Roman dogs and reexported throughout Europe. They probably contributed to the creation of the Bulldog – itself being the principal element in the evolution of the Pitbull.
In 1406, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, wrote an essay in which he depicted the Alaunt, descendants of the old-time molossoides. On a 1585 painting, dogs described as Alaunts (similar to modern APBT) are haunting wild boars. The Alaunt may be the link between old-time dogs and the Bulldog. Of similar appearance but as tall as a Great Dane, the Alaunts were used for hunting and livestock protection and were very sociable to humans.
The word “Bulldog” is first mentioned in a 1631 text. Later, dogs described as Bulldogs were used for fighting bulls or bears. In 1632, in a letter to his friend George Wellingham, an Englishman named Prestwich Eaton asks for “a good Mastiff and two Bulldogs”. This means that it already existed a difference between the two types and that the Bulldog was already acknowledged as a dinstinct type of its own.
The Bulldog was quite similar to the Alaunt but smaller, faster and nimbler. On paintings from that time, we can make the difference between two types of Bulldogs. Some are large, heavy boned and shorter (it is quite probable that those dogs gave the English Bulldog when crossbred to a brachycephalous Chinese dog – the Pai Dog), others are thinner and long-legged. The second type is probably at the origin of the APBT but at the time there were no breeds and dogs were selected for their skills not because of their bloodlines or pedigree.
They became very polyvalent dogs : bred for the pit or for livestock protection, for hunting or as farm dogs, or simply as family dogs. Mastiff types were used mainly for protection. Bulldogs ware already at the time easy going dogs with humans and as they became part of the family, those aggressive towards humans were gradually put away/off. Extreme loyalty and unconditional love for humans are paramount traits that are still find in APBTs.
Bulldogs were quite aggressive towards other animals and often used in pairs for bullbaiting or in packs for hunting, which means that dog aggression is not a trait specific to bulldogs. When bullbaiting became illegal in 1835, other games emerged, such as Pit Ratting. Different types of dogs competed: Terriers for the smallest, Bulldogs for the biggest. Dog fights became also more popular. Dogs selected for dog fights were smaller and nimbler to be more efficient in the pit.
At this stage of the story, there are two schools:
- Terriers and Bulldogs were crossbred to give birth to Bull&Terriers, or Half and Half.
- The second version, according to Richard Stratton, questions why diluting the blood of the perfect fighting dog with Terrier blood although Terrier were often lacking gameness. Moreover it would have been easy to select smaller dogs to decrease the size. Some think that the mistake comes from a copy/paste of the history of the English Bull Terrier and there may be no Terrier blood at all in Staffies, APBTs and ASTs...
Anyway those fighting dogs (were they half and half or smaller bulldogs) were imported to the USA, and you all know the rest of the story : In 1898, Bennet created the UKC to register dogs and rule dog fighting (to get registered a dog had to be 3xw). When dog fighting was made illegal, The UKC opened to all breeds and is now the second largest book in the US. The ADBA is the second book specially created for Pitbulls by McCord who thought that the UKC was a failure. In 1936, the AKC accepted to register Pitbulls but under the label Staffordshire Terrier. From then on APBT were selected as from the beginning according to their gameness, and ASTs were selected for shows and standards. The AKC closed its book to APBT but the UKC and the ADBA register ASTs as APBTs. This explains why all ASTs come from the greatest Pitbulls of the late 19th, early 20th century.

 

@ Colby's Pincher...

Please cite the source of that artice.

 

lol@ Stratton saying " terriers lacking gameness "

bet Stratton has never been badger digging in his life lol

Patterdales and Jack russels lack gameness (sarcasm)

Armchair historians in action again

 

heres another food for thought

 

lol that says it all..i must admit this picture shocked me, i couldnt believe the direct resemblance to an apbt in a direct f1 cross between old bulldog and terrier just goes to show don't it....there is a HUGE amount of TERRIER in the APBT

 

...well around 50% or so

 

Thank you castle that was the pic I was looking for. They called the dogs half and halfs for a reason as well as the name BULL TERRIERS!!

 

I think that picture will shock quite a few. To dismiss the Terrier influence is wrong and sticking two finger's up at the true history of the breed .

 

jumping in late here but man if that dont look like an apbt i dont know what does. how can anyone deny the fact that apbt are a huge portion of terrier. i mean look at some dogs. wedge shaped head. kinda like a terrier. def not a bulldog trait. apbt are generally fine boned compared to any bulldog ive seen or seen in pics. thats def not a bulldog trait. to me the terrier influence can not be questioned if u have actually looked at an apbt.

good post castle and bullandterr

 

I translated it from French to English based on what I have on my own website devoted to ASTs, it is a synthesis of my readings and own research. Do you want all references?

 

From my own readings and research, the word "terrier" applied to dogs bred for that task but sometimes non-related to modern terrier breeds whose standards are fixed by the FCI (should be ICF in English). The Manchester Terrier mentioned in the article is a good example as it comes first from a cross between Old Black and Tan and Whippet and looks more as a Doberman Pincher than as a Westie (although it has some blood of Westie too). So I guess that when people assume there is no terrier blood in the APBT, they refer to "modern" terrier breeds and not to terrier types.
Am I clear enough? I hope so!

 

To the original poster, from what I've read, it was the combining of the extinct Old English Bulldog and the extinct English Terrier. As stated, everyone has their own theory, but this one works for me. The breed today has the muscle of the bulldog and the tenacity of the terrier making one awesome dog.

 

That's right.

 

then again terriers or bulldogs were/are not built for stamina,dalmation on the other hand,man its almost got the lot,as realonebulldog says,THOROUGHBRED,the dalmations the missing link,thousands of years old,the stamina,and as chinasmom mentions ;;tenacity,the dalmations got the lot,and they look so similar,and the pups,well, you just couldnt tell them apart from pits. An while im here(slap bang in the middle of "blue paul"country,man i aint ever seen /heard of anything that would lead me to beleive that they ever existed.Nope,my own beleif is that the pitbulls an old old breed,bred for human protection.And you gotta remember,the landowner found out you were hunting on his land,in days of yore,well.....

 

which leads me on to this point rooster,there aint no staffy in any of my dogs.

 

How would I know if there is staffy in your dogs I don't even know you or what dogs you have lol ? But anyway your dogs have no staffy in them. Ok great.

 

have a guess