This is a short note from a thought which came to me a moment ago. Perhaps my conclusion is obvious. Pitbull’s have a bad reputation. It is a breed branded with aggression. It is not clever to brand a dog breed as aggressive because it means that they get put down in shelters far more often even when a dog is essentially a good dog. It is far better to assess a dog’s behaviour through their actual behaviour rather than branding them or labelling them as aggressive because they are members of a certain breed.
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Having got that out of the way, the bad reputation for this breed I believe began because it’s a strong, muscular dog. Because they are strong, they were selectively bred by irresponsible people to be aggressive perhaps as guard dogs and perhaps as fighting dogs. No doubt this made them more muscular and more aggressive. That’s how artificial breed shapes domestic animals.
Because humans had created an aggressive, strong dog it began to be owned by irresponsible, aggressive people. And so, there is an association between the unpleasantness of the dog’s owner and the Pitbull terrier dog breed.
People associate Pitbull dogs as being owned by poor quality people. The two go together. And this even applies to celebrities. There have been a few stories in online news media websites about celebrities owning Pitbull terriers and using those dogs in dog fighting rings.
The best-known example, which you have probably heard about, is Michael Vick. His criminal case is perhaps the most high-profile animal abuse case that we’ve heard of. He was the Atlanta Falcons football team quarterback. In April 2007 this property was raided on suspicion that he was involved in dog fighting.
The investigators found 54 dogs at his property, and many were injured and showed signs of abuse. The investigation found that he belonged to a large dogfighting ring called Bad Newz Kennels.
His dogs were trained using torture methods such as electrocution or drowning. Some dogs were shot apparently. He was imprisoned and suspended from the NFL.
Rapper DMX was arrested in May 2018 after a home raid. He owned 12 Pitbull terriers all of which were undernourished and dehydrated at the time of his arrest. There were no water bowls in his property and some of the dogs were seriously ill with valley fever which is a serious lung disease. Three dogs had been buried in the backyard.
One dog had signs of bruising on the side and shoulder. It apparently transpired that the dogs had been stuffed into cages when the air conditioning at his house broke down.
This is another association between an irresponsible person and this dog breed. But it doesn’t have to be a celebrity who is tied to this dog breed because we see lots of people in the UK on welfare benefits who appear to have enough money despite pleading poverty to attempt to look after a Pitbull dog. In the UK, the only people to own Pitbull terrier dogs are people on welfare!
They complain about the cost-of-living crisis, but they have a dog to look after. Dogs are expensive to look after.
The Pitbull has been branded by humans as being aggressive and a difficult dog and the fault lies firmly at the feet of humans in every respect. And finally, the term ‘Pitbull’ has become generic to mean a muscular and aggressive dog. Many of these dogs are not even purebred Pitbulls. Another human fault resulting in many animals being unfairly labelled which can lead to an unnecessary death at shelters.
