I don't really know what I consider a Pit Bull, to be honest. I know I consider an APBT a Pit, but AST/SBT is kind of a grey area for me. Probably AST moreso than SBT.
It's probably best for AmStaffs to be called just that - AmStaffs. I HATE HATE HATE when shelters start pulling the "Staffy/Boxer Mix" business when the dog is blatantly your everyday Pit Bull. To me, the show AST has a very distinct look.
I think the fact that lots of bad breeders/fighters have gotten their hands on these dogs and basicaly split the gene pool into so many different directions makes the whole thing really, really confusing. (Not the case for AST/SBTs, just really the argument between an APBT and just a "Pit Bull")
As part of my statistics project dealing with Dog Bites/BSL (and for my own curiosity) I am actually currently doing a survey. Though it's far from being statistically perfect (and I only used the APBT, not the SBT or AST to keep it as 'neat' at possible) I've basically devised my own Find the Pit Bull game. There are 20 dogs' headshots in a random order on a sheet of paper. One is an APBT, the others are various other breeds - some very similar, some not similar at all. In the few people I've polled so far, the results are interesting..
It's probably best for AmStaffs to be called just that - AmStaffs. I HATE HATE HATE when shelters start pulling the "Staffy/Boxer Mix" business when the dog is blatantly your everyday Pit Bull. To me, the show AST has a very distinct look.
I think the fact that lots of bad breeders/fighters have gotten their hands on these dogs and basicaly split the gene pool into so many different directions makes the whole thing really, really confusing. (Not the case for AST/SBTs, just really the argument between an APBT and just a "Pit Bull")
As part of my statistics project dealing with Dog Bites/BSL (and for my own curiosity) I am actually currently doing a survey. Though it's far from being statistically perfect (and I only used the APBT, not the SBT or AST to keep it as 'neat' at possible) I've basically devised my own Find the Pit Bull game. There are 20 dogs' headshots in a random order on a sheet of paper. One is an APBT, the others are various other breeds - some very similar, some not similar at all. In the few people I've polled so far, the results are interesting..