I know this film is sensationalistic, and the officer is actually quite sympathetic towards the dogs.
But it is a good example of something I had only read about. Pit bulls generally don’t redirect their attack while they grip, so one can separate them without getting bitten.
Try doing that with a “normal” dog. You will get bitten.
I had only read about that one could do this when two pit bull terriers were fighting.
I had to see to believe it.
That’s completely untrue. I do the same thing whenever my dog is in a fight and it works on all dogs; they will keep attacking what they’re attacking and leave you alone. As long as you keep your hands away from the attacking dog’s head, you’re very unlikely to get bitten. I’ve never had a dog turn on me when I break up a dog fight.
One thing they did wrong is that the guy in the muscle shirt keeps trying to pull his dog away from the other dog, which causes a lot of tearing and pain. With my dog, once I have the body under control, I just pry her jaws open with my hands. This would be much harder to do on a larger dog or a dog with a short face, but it’s a lot safer for the dog who is being bitten. I’ve never gotten bitten or attacked by prying a dog’s jaws open either, but I haven’t tried it on a larger breed yet.
With these type of dog there is a tool you can get that can make them release.
My own dog doesn’t even know what fighting is, though she has seen it on tv.
Many dogs have very strong bite inhibition towards people.
It appears to have been something we have bred for.
With this type of dog, the dogs have been bred for it very much.
However, the paradox is they have a tendency to “grip”– it’s a bull dog and terrier thing.
This is where the malarky about the locking jaws comes from.
ouch, ouch, ouch…
U ** cannot! ** PULL a pitbull or any dog OFF the dog they are biting, -while- they are biting! oh, that was awful –
watching him drag on his blue-bitch, trying to PULL her off the red-dog while she bit his right-shoulder/neck, and blood began to run down his right-foreleg…
good God, how stoopid… poor, poor dog!…
U =must= detach the biting-dogs teeth from the dog being bitten, BEFORE U can separate the dogs; dragging on either the biting-dog OR the bitten-dog will only massively magnify the damage; ripping the overlying skin free of the underlying muscle + fascia is one of the first + worst effects; making a PUNCTURE into a RIP, or a tear into a mauling with massive bruising and crush-injuries, is also very possible.
it would also have been EXTRAORDINARILY helpful if one of the two men, either the owner of the black-dog OR the ACO responding to the fight, had thought to WALK * AWAY with the black-dog and TIE him somewhere,
so they could then deal with just 2 loose dogs…
the red-and-white who had jumped his home-fence, and the black mans blue-bitch, who for some reason, is ?not? on a leash… ???
even tho he supposedly was walking his 2 dogs, tuxedo-M and blue-F, along the sidewalk when the M-red-and-white supposedly jumped the fence + assaulted his dogs.
i find it quite inexplicable that the blue-dog has a collar, but no leash anywhere in evidence?
did U notice that the BLACK-dog re-directs onto his supposed buddy / housemate, the blue-bitch, not once but twice?
at one point, that poor red-dog has the WEIGHT of the black-dog hanging + jerking backwards off the right-foreleg of the blue-bitch, WHILE her teeth pull + tear at his shoulder, ** and ** her owner pulls backwards on his F-dog…
i cannot imagine what pain he was in, with a 30# bitch and a 35 or 40# dog hanging by the blue-bitches teeth off his shoulder like a lead-weight; he;s in mid-air at the time, suspended by the control-pole bandolier-style across his forechest and diagonally around his neck.
—————————–
yes, i have separated pittie-type and NONpit dogs during fights;
yes, i have had dogs re-direct or simply BITE in the intense arousal of the moment, luckily none have gotten any body-parts or flesh –
the pit-types do sometimes re-direct, but the *worst* so far have been Terrierrists or Collies or GSDs and the mixes of any of the 3;
its virtually impossible to even *touch* a Terrier [JRT, Fox, Chi, Min-Pin, Schnauzer, etc] without being reflexively and instantaneously snapped-at during a fight, or even a barking stare-down, so U better be very, very careful.
with the help of another handler, i have successfully wheelbarrowed 2 fighting-dogs away from one another, which is safe for the dogs, but very dangerous to the 2 handlers who intervene; U have to keep backing In A Curve as if U back straight-away, the dog U are wheelbarrowing will turn about and bite the $%#@! out of U as U hold their legs; TURNING forces the dog to re-balance constantly to avoid planting their face in the dirt.
i have also waist-looped fighting dogs to get them apart – slipping an open looped-leash from the ground, up and over the rear-legs and finally around the loin; this often takes a lot of the starch out of their fight.
they WILL however often whirl with open-teeth when the leash snugs-up on their loin – keep it well-away from Ur legs.
please DoG, i hope for the extinction of ALL dog-fighters,
of whatever color, country or age…
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkestan, Pakistan are all DOG-FIGHTING hot-spots; the dogs suffer enormously.
then we have sleazebags in the USA who cannot *fight* them here, but are more than happy to *breed* fighting-dogs and sell them abroad; may they burn in an inner-circle of hottest Hell after they die, and dogs bite their flesh for eternity, while it heals and bleeds simultaneously.
i wish them endless pain.
with hope for the future — bully-breeds are great dogs,
— terry
There is a tool you can get that can be used to get a dog to release its grip.
However, from my understanding it works only on dogs that grip when they fight, not those that snap around (which is what most dogs do when they fight).
I have a video that I will embed some time of Afghan dog fights.
They are using some kind of ovtcharka-type dog.
The owner wasn’t actually prepared for a dog fight.
That brown dog was running loose.
All the owner of the two dogs was doing was walking them on leashes!
the ACO said the owner stated the red-dog jumped a fence to escape a yard; but that does not explain how the dog-owner was walking 2 dogs on one leash.
it was just puzzling. (shrug)
the 2 breeds most-often used in Afghani dog-fights that i have heard of are Khangals (black-faced = masked) and one of the recently-recognized AKC-breeds, the Anatolian, who are not masked.
a British soldier recently wrote about a local-puppy hanging around their base, who had just had both his pinnae cut-off within an inch of his head, at 5-MO, in preparation for his fighting-career; he was a Kangal pup, poor baby.
the Brit was trying to figure-out how to get the pup out of the country to England. good-luck to him!
— terry
I don’t think there is “dogs that grip” and “dogs that snap”. They snap until they get a grip; some are better at getting their teeth in than others, but they pretty much all have the same skillset.
As far as walking two dogs on one leash, I’ve done it, either with a coupler or one dog at each end of the leash.
This is not true.
Trust me on that one.
I’ve seen fights between normal dogs– it’s all about ritual and not severely harming the other dogs. But there is a lot of snapping.
The thing I’m having trouble with, in addition to the fact that no one tethers the black dog at any point, is that the AC officer either isn’t attempting or isn’t able to tighten the noose on that catch pole.
Is doesn’t take much to choke a dog off another dog. I’ve done it here and there in a pinch. It’s a lot safer than trying to pull them apart in my experience.
As for any magical properties of pit bulls, either to “lock” on or to never ever redirect on a handler, it’s pretty much nonsense.
Dogs have different fight styles, just as they have different play styles. Dogs of certain breeds may be more or less predisposed one way or another. Pits tend to get a grip and hold on, but they’re not unique in that.
And while all else being equal, a pit may be less likely to redirect than, say, a GSD, whether a dog redirects has much less to do with his breed than with his relationship and attitude toward the handler and toward human beings in general. Temperament also plays a role, as does fight style for sure, but the notion that just anyone could yank a pit bull off another dog without getting bit is a little far fetched.
That said, most dog fights may be broken up without injury to people, and without any tools more exotic than a pair of leashes. Mind you, I’d use a catch pole, too, if I didn’t know the dog and it appeared sufficiently formidable.
actually, ruth –
this ACO uses the catch-pole the way its **supposed** to be, with ONE FORELEG thru the loop so its a bandolier around the torso, not a noose around the neck –
i literally cannot tell U when i last saw it Done Right, its been more than 10-years; it could be 20 years –
despite watching Animal-Planet with dozens of individual ACOs recorded using catch-poles,
and seeing them used *live*, and watching U-Tube clips –
i cannot recall the most-recent instance showing a catch-pole used *correctly*.
when its done correctly, U cannot choke the animal down –
thats Why U are not supposed to use a neck-only loop, to keep the animal safe, preclude spinal + tracheal injuries, and avoid the panic induced by being unable to breathe, which only makes the animal fight harder.
with a torso-loop, U have very-secure control that does not provoke panic – the animal is safe, so are the humans.
i give the ACO lots of credit for the *correct* catch-pole use, but major deductions for not tethering that &%$# leashed-dog safely.
— terry
Um, that may make sense in a situation where all one actually needs to accomplish is to rope an animal and drag it off. But in a fight situation, keeping the animal safe and calm is already pretty much out the window.
If the blue and brown dog had each been choked off, it would have kept everyone safer and saved both dogs a fair amount of injury and trauma. This takes only seconds, typically, and does not involve the dogs passing out. Not saying they couldn’t be choked to the point of passing out or to the point of injury, but it’s not how it usually goes.
The situation was made awkward by the fact that the blue bitch had the upper hand by the time the catchpole came out anyhow. What really needed to happen (after tethering the third dog, obviously) was to choke the blue off the brown, while using restraint enough with him to keep him from going right back.
Problem is, once the blue got the upper hand, her owner was essentially rolling with it. See him patting her? Speaking to her in dulcet tones? He was liking that. He was deliberately reinforcing the grip.
Or else, he is a complete moron. Not always easy to tell the difference.
>>> …once the blue got the upper hand, her owner was essentially rolling with it. See him (pat) her? (Speak) to her in dulcet tones? He was liking that. He was deliberately reinforcing the grip.
Or else, he is a complete moron. Not always easy to tell the difference. << – ruth crisler
hey, ruth! :–)
i think he does NOT want to look like a #$@!&*! on video – so he;s trying to, a-hem, reassure her + get her to drop the grip.
since hitting her can only amp-up the aggro, he is not doing anything terrible – in fact, if he wanted to excite + encourage her, simply rumpling her hair-coat against the grain and talking happy + fast would serve the purpose admirably.
cooing + petting are not highly-reinforcing to a dog whos deeply-engaged in a fight – the FIghT! is more self-reinforcing than petting + cooing would be, IMO.
i do think he was a moron – but not that he was intentionally encouraging a fight; he just was not fast-enuf to catch the dogs BEFORE they latched back on.
and dragging at his dog while clamped was horrific for the dog being ripped. : nonod :
if U are going to OWN bully-breeds, there are things U must know about those dogs; NOT to try to rip a dog off another dog before getting the teeth out, is up there in the top-5.
ignorance is no excuse, IMO.
— terry
I agree what the guy was doing was moderate reinforcement, and maybe he just didn’t know what else to do… God knows I’ve seen enough people do essentially the same thing when attempting to calm an aggressive dog.
But my instinct is he was trying not to telegraph to the AC guy that he was into it, which is why he kept the reinforcement pretty low key. I could be totally off on that, but that’s what I see when I watch it. And what he’s actually doing is pretty close to what one might do with a dog you were just bringing along. The goal is to build confidence, along with aggression, after all.
With a dog in an aggressive drive, nearly any stimulation can potentially amp them up further. Throwing fuel on the fire, as it were. But a lot depends on the dog, on the context, on prior training, and the dog’s relationship to its handler.
It’s entirely possible this guy had no control of his dog, and was just trying to make a graceful exit. But it’s also possible he could have called her off, or otherwise interrupted her grip, but chose not to, at least not immediately.
In many situations, it’s entirely feasible to startle the dog off its grip, though I wouldn’t recommend that strategy with no leash or collar on the dog. There’s more potential for injury the more time a dog is allowed to regrip. And I totally agree it’s usually bad news to tear the dogs apart.
This is only workable when you have dogs like that engaged in a fight. I would not advise attempting such interference with a couple random dogs who may look like Pit Bulls.
Not all Pit Bulls fight like that. In my personal experience, the Pit Bulls I have seen fight have fought like any other dog. No fight lasted more than 15-30 seconds and both dogs were separated easily.
There are too many variables at play to boil it down to breed: individual temperament, breeding, socialization, context of the fight, relationship to the handlers, arousal level, focus, etc. ad naseum.
All the guy with the blue bitch had to do was choke her, she had a collar on. Choke her until she lets go and pull the two dogs apart. And yes, do this AFTER the black dog is tied away from the fight. I never ever put my hands into a dog fight with my Bull Terriers. The dogs are in a zone and don’t realize who/what they are biting. You aren’t going to pry those jaws loose with your hands when they are that determined. I’ve seen grown men unable to pry their BTs mouths open to get a toy away from them. I bribe mine with food because they are so greedy and get the toy. I have seen minor dog fights broken up when a person goes up and rams a finger up the dog’s anus. This takes three people as the one holding the other dog has to be ready to grab the other dog away when the jabbed dog opens his mouth in surprise, and another person to pull the jabbed dog away.
Dog fighting has not been legal here for several decades, so in all likelyhood those dogs were bred as pets and sound temperment, if not selected for, wasn’t likely selected against by a BYB. Right?
So why in the world would the ACO lament the training of an entire type of dog? He must have meant abuse. That job would be a difficult and thankless one.
I have separated non-pitbulls who were much more securely clamped down on one another, with far more serious intent, than those dogs were. I improvised a breaking stick from what was at hand. (And no, I wouldn’t necessarily get in there with dogs I didn’t know.)
It’s a myth that pitbulls clamp on and non-pits slash.
Slash and snarl “fights” are mostly about display. This is most violent interactions between dogs. Because humans have ridiculously fragile skin, it’s a bad thing to get into the middle of.
But dogs of all breeds and types can have serious intent and clamp down. Pits may, as a group, have a lower threshold for displaying that serious intent.
If you say that you’ve seen other kinds of dogs fighting, and they don’t fight like this, all you are telling us is that you’ve never seen a fight with serious intent.
I’ve never seen a dog fight with the desire to kill another.
I stay away from breeds that produce dogs like that.
My family has had boxers for over 40 years, and when a fight is serious they actually can kill one another if you do not break them apart (which can be very difficult). Fortunately it has never happened to us, but I know of a few cases where one of the dogs was killed in the fight. And when boxers fight they are quite “safe” as they focus on the other dog and do not turn to people (I am sure there are exceptions, but that seems to be the rule). The propensity to fighting certainly is a “con”, but still, boxers are a wonderful breed with many virtues.
If I had a dog that fought like this– euthanasia time.
Lots of dogs fight like this. And, as Heather said, this one was hardly a 10 on the seriousness scale.
I might not take these guys to the dog park, but I wouldn’t prescribe euthanasia based solely on what I’m seeing.
I meant on a normal dog.
If I saw this in a golden retriever, he wouldn’t live.
“Normal dog”?
By some standards, pit bulls are more normal than goldens.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9_EDbatFH9MC&dq=dog's+best+friend+derr&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=dmTUS6HeD4e09QTnoPW6Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
I’ve seen dogs kill prey species using their jaws, and I once saw boxer kill a pug/chihuahua on our back porch.
It seems to me that this isn’t fighting; this is a dog considering another one prey.
Nope, it’s fighting.
It’s predatory behavior.
If a dog won’t respond to appeasement signals, it’s predatory behavior.
That’s what wolves do when they kill their neighbors for dinner.
It’s only “fighting” because neither side wants to die.
I don’t actually believe there is always a crisp division between the two drives.
But supposing there were, give me an example of what you would consider fighting. I’m having trouble seeing where you’re drawing the distinction.
It’s definitely progress that no one yet (30 in) has reminded us all that it is impossible to tell if those dogs are actually pit bulls.
They could be Irish SBTs for all we know, especially since the ACO id’d the dogs as pits from a moving vehicle.
whatever they are, these dogs are certainly not “Irish SBTs”
Well, I think it’s obvious, Bill. The dogs are fighting, they look kinda scary, so anyone can easily tell that they’re pit bulls.
I mean, that’s the defining feature of a pit bull, isn’t it? That’s it’s scary and fights and bites? It’s more of a context breed name than an actual breed, see. That’s how mixed-breed, unidentifiable breeds, great danes, labs, mastiffs, etc. turn into “pit bulls” whenever they do something negative that’s reported in the media.
Isn’t it true that only dogs of the bulldog family hold on like that? After all, to begin with they were selectively bred to be
“catch dogs” for cattle and hogs.
Lots of different breeds will grip and hold. True, some are a lot more disposed to it, and/or just a lot better at it. But I’ve seen all sorts of dogs do it. The bullies don’t have a corner on it by a long shot.
Some small terriers are notorious for their tenaciousness in battle, though a good deal more manageable due to size.
Have you seen how these dogs catch pigs?
There is a huge difference between the two drives.
One is about social behavior.
The other is about catching and killing things.
One is very sensitive to body language and under control.
The other is kill efficiently and quickly.
I’m definitely not saying there isn’t a huge difference (sorry for the double negative). I’m saying you can’t always draw a crisp distinction as to which drive a dog happens to be in, and that different drives may combine in some situations.
Prey-directed aggression may be immune to appeasement signals, and aggression involving prey drive, even in combination with other drives, has a distinct edge to it. But a dog can fail to perceive and/or fail to respond to social cues for other reasons. I’ve known dogs without huge prey drive who, once engaged with another dog, are unlikely to stand down.
As for the pits in the AC officer’s video, I’m not seeing a fight to the death (absent intervention) necessarily. Nor am I seeing a total lack of control on the part of the dogs. I see two dogs that are not super serious (the brown one, who probably would have fled if he’d been able, the dark one taking a lot of cheap shots without putting himself too much at risk, and one pretty game bitch, being encouraged in her pursuit). I do agree there is prey drive involved, and even that it may have been the dominant drive at work at times.
But prey drive plays a role in plenty of things dogs do. In this case, it influenced the tone of a fight. That doesn’t make it not fighting.
Just my take on it.
i have not seen / heard of the catch-dogs KILLING hogs – chase them + bring them to bay, so that they stand for the handler to catch-up, or grab their ears, tail, nose, etc, to pin them with 2 or 3 dogs working together to keep the hog in place…
then the handler(s) arrive + treat / ring / brand / shoot / whatever the hog, but the dogs do not *kill*.
free-running sows who have a litter, gelding piglets, ringing noses, branding / notching, VAX, hoof-trims, cleaning wounds, etc, are not possible without the dogs to chase the hogs / pigs down; another possibility is HAZING the hogs into a pen, then a squeeze-chute, so they can be safely treated / notched, etc.
but even hazing the hogs uses the dogs to chivvy them out of the brush, out of marsh, etc, where humans + vehicles cannot go.
if it were *my choice* feral-hogs would be on a bounty, and hunters who use dogs would be welcome to chase them all year-round, BARRING across planted ground – not merely spring + summer, but winter crops, too.
feral-hogs are exploding in more than 2-dozen states; and they are incredibly destructive, rooting thousands of acres into barren muck, breeding exponentially, and eating EVERYthing from fledgling-birds + turtle-eggs to fungi and tubers, herbs and nuts, seeds, fruit… U name it, they eat it – carrion? sure. Road-kill? no problem. hatchling herps? of course.
they are rapacious appetites, sharp hooves, dangerous tempers, wicked teeth, and a bulldozer-blade for a head.
SMART, yes –
but nasty customers and environmental disasters.
:: thumbsDOWN ::
if the dogs *would* just go kill em, LOL, i would start breeding them… :D
cheers,
— terry
That’s what I’m saying.
I’m not going to “trust you on that one”, thank you. And if I may say so, I’m a lot older than you and I have a dog that fights, so I’m gonna hazard a guess that I’ve broken up at least as many dog fights as you have.
My dog is a shiba, which is in no way related to the pit bull family. Notwithstanding, if she gets her teeth sunk into another dog, she will hold on until I pry her loose. Then again, she ALSO does the lunge-and-snap thing. She does that when she just wants to chase another dog away, but it’s also what it looks like in a serious fight before she gets her teeth set. If she’s not gripping another dog it’s because either she doesn’t want to, or because she does want to and hasn’t succeeded yet. It’s got nothing to do with her breed, life experience, or anything other than the specific circumstances of the fight.
And it’s really not a matter of BREEDS producing dogs that fight like that. All dogs fight like that, except those whose jaws and airways are so deformed that they physically can’t do it. Whether an individual dog will or won’t get into a real fight depends on the individual dog and circumstances, not the breed. I’ve seen a black lab attack my dog with serious intent, and I’ve seen two doberman pinschers run in fear when she took one snap at them. It’s not the breed, it’s the dog. And the circumstances of the fight.
I had an akita (Tomo) that would fight several ways, depending on the situation. Some dogs she would be nice to (if they were polite). If a dog ran up and bothered her, she would flip over, grab it by the throat till it submitted, and then let it go unharmed.
I had a female shiba that would attack Tomo now and then, trying to drive her off, I think. (Both were intact, dominat bitches, and all were house dogs). When that happened, Tomo would literally lie on top of the shiba (while the shiba bit her chest) and look at me pleadingly to make the shiba stop.
Then there was her nemesis, the yappy teacup poodle down the street that liked to run out of his yard and harass her. I always kept Tomo on a leash, and the poodle learned how close he could get.
Then one day a friend was walking her on a longer leash by the poodle’s house. The poodle ran out to do his harassing moves, and, quick as a flash, Tomo snapped him up and shook him. My friend pried Tomo’s jaws apart and the poodle dropped out. Before it could crawl away, Tomo snapped him up again. The poodle died, as Tomo punctured his chest several times.
I think Tomo meant to kill that dog; she really didn’t like it when he harrased her, and she never tried seriously to hurt any other dog. I hadn’t considered that it could be prey drive, though. I did have a litter of shiba pups once, and Tomo was an excellent auntie.
By the way, my friend wasn’t hurt at all. Tomo always had excellent bite control. She was a magnificent dog.
Sure sounds like it. Awesome.
You and your dogs sound like real charmers. While I hope you don’t live within a 10-mile radius of me, I’m going to remember that any dog and owner I pass on the sidewalk have the potential to be like you two.
It’s pretty disturbing to see everybody describe their dogs’ various fighting and attacking styles. I have an 85-pound golden, and the only “attack” style of his that I’ve seen is his squirrel attack.
My dog’s attack style is to catch a rabbit and bring it back alive with no marks on it.
what is the purpose of this blog? I think you’re going into Terrierman territory in trying to attract hits by writing about “pit bulls”. There is no need to have a discussion of different dogfighting styles, with graphic sensationalistic footage focusing on an alleged uniqueness of “pit bulls” (including your mysterious refusal to name the “break stick” as the tool used to separate fighting pit bulls).
The whole basis for the alleged difference is largely discredited “dogman” (dogfighter) mythology. As several of your commenters have noted, OTHER dogs will “fight to the death” and OTHER dogs will not redirect when separated. There really is nothing unique about “pit bulls”.. whatever that is, anyway.
If you want to have a serious discussion about fighting dogs, and their different styles.. though why I can’t imagine… this isn’t the way to do it.
I’m not going down that road at all.
What I am saying is their unique fighting style is an example of their very high bite inhibition toward people.
This gripping behavior is interesting.
It’s more likely predatory behavior.
It is something that these dogs can do– if they do it to wild pigs, they are fine. If they do it to people or dogs, that’s a different story.
The tendency to show this grip has to be a breed specific trait.
If retrievers can be bred to retrieve, then surely a dog of this type could be bred to grip.
I don’t do terrierman stuff. He would probably say they have some bizarre genetic tendency to use this behavior on other dogs.
If you go to my staffie post, this is discussed within the context of good things about this breed. That they can fight and grip and still not attack people.
Everything I write is to attract hits.
The Alaunt-derived molossers have been bred to grip in the same way retrievers have been bred to retrieve.
Gripping is a neutral behavior. It depends entirely on the context, whether it is bad or not.
I think the term “break stick” is just as bad as calling them pit bulls.
Do you deny that they have unique behaviors?
Or are they just generic dogs?
I don’t deny that my dogs have these sorts of breed typical behaviors.
I’m not sure it’s true aggression. I think what these types of dogs do is predatory behavior.
(just shaking my head, really)
“Pit bull” is bad because it is meaningless and because there is a breed with the name “American pit bull terrier” to which you seem to want to refer. (It’s unclear from the video whether these dogs are APBTs) “Break stick” OTOH is the name of a tool. “Treadmill” is also a tool. “Flirt pole” is also a tool. Do you have problems with the words for those tools also commonly used by owners of APBTs?
Of course, the American Pit Bull Terrier has unique breed characteristics, as all breeds have unique breed characteristics. And certainly among the APBT’s unique breed characteristics is the bite/hold tendency derived from its bulldog heritage and its enhanced prey drive derived from its terrier heritage. It has lots of OTHER unique breed characteristics about which you choose not to write. A “staffy” (misnomer) is not an APBT. The dogs in this video clip are certainly not AmStaffs or Staffords (SBTs)
As for the prey/aggression issue: It has become increasingly UNCLEAR — with the normalization of rescued fight bust dogs –whether the APBT has any unique “fighting” behavior or even whether it “wants” to fight more than any other breed (which the dogmen cultists contend). When an APBT is selectively bred for enhanced aggression towards other dogs, when it is conditioned and praised for fighting and when it placed in a situation in which it MUST fight, then it will display the “prey drive” or “aggression” (a distinction without a difference in this case) you seem to want to discuss. Most modern APBTs don’t fall under any of those categories and will behave towards other dogs as their owners train and steward them to.
BTW, there are far better examples of videos of people who ARE using a breakstick on 2 dogs that are actually fighting in a pit. People who actually know what they are doing instead of these 2 goons. You could find them if you tried a little harder.
What exactly is the fascination with dogfighting, anyway?
“American pit bull terrier” has too many words in it.
American– are there English pit bull terriers or German ones?
On this blog, I use this convention with cockers:
1. There is no generic cocker spaniel.
2. There is an English cocker.
3. There is an American cocker.
I know that different registries go by different names with those breed, but to me, it makes sense to delineate a country of origin.
Not so with this type of bull and terrier.
I wish that someone would have advised toller people on naming their dogs. Hint: fewer words is better.
You’re just wrong on this.
“Pit bull” means nothing. “Pit bull terrier” means nothing.
You can’t discuss breed characteristics if you won’t separate out the purebred version from the “dog that anyone thinks might be one” including those dogs in the photos. And the purebred version of THIS dog has a name (or 2 names, or maybe 3 if you want to get into a fight with the English).
You can chose to be idiosyncratic about dog names, but you are not going to change what the breed names are. It doesn’t help your credibility, because most people will assume you don’t know what you’re talking about (even if you do)
It’s also just plain courtesy to call something by the name its fanciers/self-identifiers call it. Or maybe you’re still calling black Americans “negroes”?
I’m not using American in that name, unless we start calling Staffies “English pit bull terriers.”
I don’t like using extraneous words in names.
Pit bull terrier or pit bull is what I’m going to use.
I’m not going to let anyone demonize that name. It should be taken back from the sensationalists.
And if this post appears in an anti-pit forum or post, I pre-denounce it.
I’m not for any BSL.
I’m not for compulsory neutering of them.
I’m not for a different licensing system for them.
The purpose of this post was to discuss how bite inhibited these dogs typically are towards people.
If we can breed a dog to pick up something with its mouth without harming it at all, then we should be able to breed a dog that can hold something very tightly.
Not all retrievers can retrieve (mine doesn’t).
I’m sure not all bull and terrier types grip (especially now that the vast majority of them aren’t bred for fighting or hog catchings).
I’m not saying that this breed should be banned, that all of them are nasty creatures, and that we should be hysterical about them.
I’m just saying that they have been specifically bred to grip in the same way that retrievers have been bred to have soft mouths.
My dog once carried tiny rabbit home in her mouth. I thought she’d killed it. When she set it down, it ran from her. I caught it. It had no bite marks on it at all.
She carried this rabbit 1/4 of a mile in her mouth.
I am very willing to admit that she was able to do this because of her breed.
There are also retrievers that can’t carry things in their mouths at all without crunching them.
I refuse to demonize a breed.
But I refuse to say that they haven’t been bred for a specific behavior. It is a neutral behavior. It is only when they do it to another dog or a person that bad things happen. I’ve seen these dogs hang from ropes using this gripping behavior.
With retrievers, you take their behavior and get focus it into something good. I’m sure that one can do the same with this breed’s gripping behavior.
It’s not necessarily a “fighting” behavior. I think it has much more to do with prey drive than social or fear aggression.
I actually agree with Em on this. In my experience, when I disagree with someone about something, i find it helps to insinuate that they are racists, and then ask them to prove otherwise.
That’s just debating 101.
Either call them a racist or a communist.
Works every time!
Oh that is rich, coming from a charter subscriber to The Daily Worker.
*have U stopped beating Ur wife yet?
answer Yes or No… *
one of the many reasons i despise lawyers – i swear that if they lack an opponent, they argue with themselves. :rolleyes:
and they switch money from one pocket to another to stay in practice for moving it from someone elses pocket to their own…
DEBATE is all well and good, but dealing with real dogs + actual humans is a bit more solid than verbal swash and buckle. ;-)
cheers,
— terry
Hmmm. Usually I reveal that I am a minority, married to a non-minority.
So it makes it a moot arguement for me. I do love how it sort of ends in awkward silence most times when someone goes that route and then I reveal.
But mostly….. for me in the Dog Fancy….
Its sort of like being a chocolate chip is a sea of vanilla. So to speak. ;-)
To though….all people are a product of the environment they are raised in. Bad and good…. the same applies to dogs. Pick a breed any breed… and you’ll find examples of good and bad to the extreme and all the examples in between.
Like a dog registry…. being closed minded is rather limiting in how that individual sees things.
All dogs fight. All dogs grip. All dogs are predators. Some are just better at it than others, and pitbulls don’t have a monopoly on any of it.
All people can fight. All People can kill. All people are capable. Some are just better at it than others by using dogs to do it, that doesn’t mean the pitbull was born to do so. ;-)
Some of these posts help me to understand why Mr. Burns lost his sanity.
I still agree with him on many things. It’s just that the aura of curmudgeonly hysteria keeps me way from his blog.
P.S. That “communist” stuff stopped working sometime in the 1960′s. At least north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Several comments/observations I have on this discussion….Bill, just because something is illegal(like dogfighting in the U. S.) doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a wide following and practice, and yes, unfortunetely lots of people still ARE breeding Pit Bulls for fighting ability(just as are the cockfighters breeding gamecocks, despite its illegality)….Retrieverman, euthanize a dog for wanting to kill another dog? I’d really have to know the circumstances–I’ve had canines of my own that really wanted to kill other dogs, but those dogs dang well had reason for it, and in wolf-and-dog-law, they were well within their rights. I will not even SCOLD a dog for defending itself, even if such a fight escalates to the killing point(although I will intervene, of course, to prevent such killing because of human laws). I actually PREFER a dog that will defend itself or me or any member of it’s pack, if attacked. If my dog is doing the attacking, I would definetely do some training and socializing to try and change that behaviour first–I have had dogs like that, and have successfully socialized them to behave better in the company of their own kind….Mongoose, I don’t know how many dogfights you’ve broken up, but it couldn’t have been many with any bulldog or terrier type dogs–my experience with such is that once those guys REALLY get going and serious, they are MUCH harder to bust up! I’m not saying there are no exceptions–there always are–but man, can they ever be determined!….Emily S.–I bet calling Native Americans “Indians” and Bison “buffalo” bothers you, too! But there is little you can do about misnomers like that–the term “Pit Bull” has probably actually been around a lot longer than AMERICAN Pit Bull Terrier, and it won’t ever be a “meaningless” term as long as it is used commonly by the general public. I’d like to ditch the ‘Pit” part of the name myself, and just call them American Bull terriers, to distinguish them from English Bull Terriers…..
lane,
I stand corrected on my portion of that. That would certainly explain why I can’t find any Pit breeders who feature “Petey” lines.
Bill, one of the ways you can see if fighting lines are being sold in your area is to check the classifieds–Pit Bulls that are super expensive and boast a particular bloodline are often from specific fighting bloodlines. As common as these dogs are now, and as cheaply as they can be had for pets and companions(aye, often for FREE!), and as absent as they tend to be from conformation dog shows(even Staffs, AmStaffs, and registered APBT are not very common at dog shows), why would any sensible person pay a thousand bucks for a Pit Bull? You guessed it……(not to say that dogfighters are sensible).