agnerd said:
My family has owned around 10 over the years. 1 was the stereotypical bad dog, and it was bad from puppy all the way to a year old before it was given away. Just aggressive and too energetic. Proverbial screw-loose animal. It was eventually shot by the cops to noone's surprise.
All of the others have been great dogs. One black-sheep member of the family even tried to make his dogs "tough" but they were the sissiest dogs I've ever seen. Luckily he was too dumb to realize that if he spent virtually every minute of every day with his dogs that they just wouldn't develop that aggressive or violent tendency.
To me, pit bulls are like pistols. They are dangerous in the wrong hands, and I believe the owners should be held 100% accountable for negligent ownership. But I'm 100% against either being banned. Owner of the 2 dogs that killed the person should be charged with at least negligent homicide and maybe murder. I think you will fix most of the problem dogs if you actually hold owners responsible for their animals.
I guess you could say dogs are like guns (I wouldn't), would you rather be shot with a large game rifle or a pellet gun?
I don't see why people take a banning, or castrating of all male dogs, as something horrible. Humans created the breed. Humans created the breed to have specific fighting characteristics, including high bite strength and tenacity (won't let go, won't stop an attack). It didn't exist in nature, we created it. For fighting. It doesn't fill an ecological niche and no harm will come to canines or the animal kingdom if a human creating species is ended by humans. People say owners are to blame, bad owners who do bring out and reward the fighting characteristics make these dogs vastly more dangerous. But the characteristics are there and you don't know when ANY dog might snap - out of fear, illness, who knows - but when it snaps it's like the large game rifle, when a schnauzer snaps it's like a pellet gun.
Other dogs are bred to be lap dogs, or hilariously and adorably malformed - like the English Bulldog, another breed that should be let come to an end out of compassion for dogs.
I'm aware the vast majority of Pit Bull related dogs have uneventful lives and loving owners. I'm also aware the vast majority of human deaths from dog attacks are tied to the Pit Bull breeds. What unique trait does the Pit Bull provide that other dogs won't provide, specific to be a loving family animal?