Breed Bias

7307 Views 79 Replies 29 Participants Last post by JohnnyBandit, Jul 4, 2012

CandJHarris

Discussion Starter · Jul 1, 2012

Part of my family is absolutely freaking out that we are keeping one of the pit bull puppies that we rescued a couple of weeks ago. My parents are the absolute worst. They buy into every myth they hear, and I couldn't help but laugh the other day when my mama kept going on and on about how "they all turn and when they bite you their jaws lock, blah, blah, blah..." We live next door to my parents, so I've made a point to take Scarlett with me pretty much every time I've been over there in the last week. I've made it my mission to change their minds. When I told my mom what my plan was, she kind of jokingly said that the first time she "growls or snaps" at someone she'd be reaching for her gun. When I asked her why she hadn't brought out the gun for my sister's little yappy mutt that bark, growl, and snaps at EVERYBODY, she shut it down.

We stopped by my sister's house today too (she lives on the other side of mom and dad) and was talking to my brother-in-law about Scarlett when he asked if she was a pit. When I said yes he kind of winced and said "Ooooh." I asked him why he responded that way he just said, "I just don't like them." So I asked him, "Have you ever met a real, live pit bull in person?" Of course his answer was no, but that he was afraid of them. It was the first honest answer I've heard out of anyone. So I assured him there would be no reason for him to be afraid of her, now or ever and asked that he at least give her a chance.

When we decided to keep Scarlett I knew there was going to be some challenges because of her breed, but it really bugs me that my family is so ignorant about the breed. I ask myself all the time how I ended up such an open minded person when the rest of my family is so prejudice.

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bgmacaw

· #15 · Jul 1, 2012

Henryr10 said:
(I'm about 1/4 mile from the Cincinnati City limits where they are Banned.
http://www.pittiesplace.com/cincinnati.htm )
And of course they have horrible owners.
Their 'Pits' were from the aggressive fighting lines.
Aggressively trained and by idiot owners.

My cousin was one of the reasons for the Cincinnati ban on pit bulls. When he was a kid back in the early 90's, he was seriously hurt, almost killed, by a pit bull that had been taught to be a "guard dog" by an idiot owner. Basically, they made the dog very people aggressive and when he broke free one day, he attacked my cousin and some other kids who were walking along a sidewalk. My cousin and his Mom have testified at some of the breed ban hearings. Of course, the dog breed takes the hit, not so much the idiot dog owners who mistrain and mistreat their dogs.

My thinking is that there are very few really bad/dangerous dogs but there are a significant number of otherwise good dogs who've been negatively shaped by bad life experiences and improper training, including lack of training. I don't think breed bans are effective since they don't do anything to address bad owners. Like you said, it's a quick political fix.

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bgmacaw

· #22 · Jul 1, 2012

JohnnyBandit said:
Human aggressive dogs were always culled out of fighting lines.

With mistreatment and bad training, the average pit bull (or almost any dog breed) can be made human aggressive. There are several threads here where people using certain training techniques are on their way to creating a human aggressive dog from one that's eager to please but doesn't understand why they get alpha rolls, jowl grabs, pin downs, kicks/prods and confusing tch-es. When the human aggressive training is intentional, it can be even more 'effective'.

BTW, the episode of DogTown that featured the Michael Vick dogs was very good (it's available on NetFlix for those interested). It shows how dogs can overcome previous negative handling.

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bgmacaw

· #49 · Jul 1, 2012

JohnnyBandit said:
Now you are talking about treatment. But that part of your original post, said "from aggressive fighting lines".

That was somebody else's post, not mine.

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