The America Pit Bull - Problem or Not?

I cringe each time an American Pit Bull story appears within the media; whether in print, on line, or on the televised version of the media, the overwhelming majority of the stories we are bombarded with surrounding the breed highlight a negative encounter someone has had with this dog, and almost always place the blame for the incident squarely upon the breed itself. But is the breed really the problem? I do not think so!

5 years ago I was a victim of this media propaganda campaign surrounding the breed, and I darned well should have known better than to believe the things I kept hearing and reading in the media.  I have spent my entire life around dogs, having grown up in a family where my father had a genuine love for the animal and bred American Eskimo Spitz’s, White German Shepherds, Miniature Schnauzers, and Blood Hounds at various points in his life.

I spent a lot of my time growing up with a wide variety of breeds, and while some may have called it work, I took great pleasure in assisting my father in training his dogs, caring for them, and grooming them.  I found that along the way I learned a lot about myself too, and have those numerous litters of pups and their parents to thank for that.

None-the-less, as the media continually put forth horrifying tales of aggression and maiming, I ate it up like candy and soon found myself avoiding people who owned them or were out walking them in the local parks. It didn’t help matters when a neighbor that moved into the rental across the street brought along the 4 pit bulls he owned.

He kept the dogs in an outside enclosure while he was away at work, and a number of times I arrived home from work myself only to find these 4 dogs had managed to somehow escape their enclosure and dig up my flower beds, or dig holes in my front yard.

One day while performing some home improvement initiatives on a day off, the dogs once again got out of their enclosure. (They had chewed through the chain link fencing their kennel was constructed of).  As I was busy concentrating on the task of cutting a piece of material with my skill saw, I was suddenly confronted by a growling and very aggressive pit bull!

Now I have to admit I was initially chagrined at finding myself cornered on my own property by someone else’s animal, and then more than apprehensive surrounding what I was going to be able to do about it. Despite my best efforts at attempting to make the animal go away, he was standing his ground and becoming more aggressive!

I fell back on my experience with dogs and decided that I was not going to recognize the animal’s aggression, and so instead I began going about my business and ignoring the beast. After awhile the dog became bored with whatever it was he was trying to do, but once he was gone I became infuriated with the owner.

When he arrived home from work I once again let him know that under no circumstances was this encounter acceptable to me. We revisited the previous property damage incidents at the paws of his dogs, and things ended with my telling him that future incidents like the one that had just transpired would be met with my doing whatever I felt necessary to protect myself and my family from his uncontrollable and aggressive animals.

Needless to say, I had forgotten one key fact concerning animals and their owners, and that is an unruly or aggressive animal that finds itself in conflict within its environment on a regular basis is not necessarily at fault. In most of these cases it is not the animal, its breed, or its genetics that are to blame, but rather the owners themselves. But I had not yet come to think about this at this point either.

That point was driven home by the fact that a very close friend of mine had just obtained a new puppy, and when he called me to talk about it I was shocked when he informed me it was a pit bull. A Red Nose American Pit Bull to be precise.  I was horrified!

Some time passed and one day I received a call from my friend asking me to drop by and meet the pup. He said he was having some problems in training the animal and he wanted me to see what I could do with him.  I expressed my apprehension surrounding the request, and in return he informed me the dog came from his brother, who is a breeder of the animals, and that he worked extensively with his animals to make sure that their dispositions and those of their parents were of acceptable quality. He was sure this pup came from an outstanding lineage but he personally was just having a problem getting pup to understand basic commands.

I accepted his invitation, more out the fact that I spent a lot of time at his home and figured I had better get to know this dog if I wanted to continue doing so.

I walked through the door of his home to find an alert, rambunctious, and typical pup that was of course as cute as could be. I watched as my friend tried to show me what he had been doing with the dog, and observed that the dog was actually exerting his authority over my friend instead of vice- versa. I asked him to ignore the pup and let him come to me.

Eventually he did and I at first ignored him too. I wanted to make sure that any initial interaction I had with the dog was initiated by me. I let him smell me, but ignored his yapping and growling, and other attempts to get my attention. Then, when he got bored and tried to leave the room, I walked over to him, picked him up, and took him back to my chair. I sat down, verbally told the dog to stay then sat him down at my feet.

He immediately tried to get back up and go elsewhere, so I stopped him, and again repeated the command stay. He repeatedly tried to leave and I met each attempt with the same response. Then he tried nipping at me, to which I responded by putting him onto his side and holding him in place.

My friend’s wife began objecting to this treatment, but I told her, “Look, I am not hurting him or inflicting pain in any way. I am just showing him, in the only language he currently understands, that I am the alpha and he is not.  I told her, this is an aggressive breed and it will take an aggressive approach in order for him to understand his role within this “pack”.  If you guys let him control you he will assume the alpha role and then you’ll have problems”.  (The light then went off in my head surrounding my previous encounters with my neighbor’s dogs, and my failure to remember it wasn’t the dog’s fault, but the owners!)

Eventually, pup calmed down and submitted, and once he did I again repeated the command stay, and let him go. He tried to get up but I again gave him the command stay, and to my surprise he wined but stayed put. I kept watch over him out of the corner of my eye, and every time he tried to move I’d repeat the command. And he reluctantly complied. I say reluctantly because each time he responded by “sassing” me, but he stayed put.  After about 5 minutes I told him “okay”, and while he alertly gave me a look, he refused to move. I then praised him, gave him a pat, and picked up the ball he had dropped, and tossed it across the floor after showing it to him.

Pup got right up and went after it, and brought it back to me. I tossed the ball again and he returned it, and my friend stated, “My god! I’ve been trying to get him to do both things for over a week and you have him doing them in a half hour!”

I then repeated to both of them my previous instructions surrounding assumption of the alpha role with the dog, and told them they needed to both be consistent with him in training and in assuming the alpha role. Once he understands that, training him will be a snap because beyond the typical puppy energy and rambunctiousness, this dog wants more than anything to please you.  And he seems to be pretty smart on top of all that.

Time went on and each time I visited their home I saw the intelligence of the animal and its ability to figure out just what it was his human pack expected from him. And he never forgot our initial encounter either, for from that day forward anytime I came to their home pup greeted me as his alpha and intently followed any command I gave him.  I watched as his owners learned as well, and it didn’t take very long before the animal had assumed his role and was comfortable within it.

I admired the intelligence the dog possessed, its adaptability, its affectionate demeanor, and above all its obedience! The animal accompanied us on many camping excursions and thanks to a lot of socializing while he was young, was very comfortable within group environments that contained humans and animals. He became a trusted companion even though I was not his owner, and would eagerly accompany me in my vehicles if I commanded him to come along. (Which I did a lot sometimes).

One day a couple of years later, my buddy called me up again to tell me his brother had sent one of his females up to be bred with his dog. By that time I had already come to understand that my first impressions of the breed had been false, and my wife and I both found ourselves interacting with each and every example of the breed, and their owners, that we encountered during our travels. Both of us had become admirers of the breed and we often spoke about our friend’s animal with others.

So, it was with great anticipation that we went over to our friend’s home to meet the new female that he had in residence. I was very pleased to see this female red nose pit bull exhibit the very same attributes that their male dog possessed. She was very affectionate and “took to us” almost upon sight. And she became pregnant in short order too!

The day she went into labor was a memorable one. This was her first litter so she was about to become a first time mother, but my friend called us over because they had never had an animal give birth before and they didn’t know what to do!

We arrived at their home to find two pups already in the world, and momma studiously attending to them. I told my friends there really wasn’t a thing to do because if she already had two and was doing the right things, her instincts were solid and everything would be fine. But, trouble reared it head along the way, as momma began encountering a problem with numbers 6 through 8.  She couldn’t seem to get them to emerge fully, and so I very cautiously approached to see if she would let me help her.

She eagerly accepted my presence much to my relief, and with a few simple nudges and pulls, pups 6 through 8 came into the world. Number 9 was stillborn and mom was worrying over it, trying to get it to move; so much so that number 10 was still in its sack and number 11 was coming right along. Mom whined to me, and kind of looked at me as if to say, “Do something”!

I reluctantly picked up number 9, and attempted to give it puppy CPR in a vain attempt to revive it.  After a bit, I simply got up and took number 9, a male, away and handed him to one of the owners.  I then went immediately back to number 10 to get it out of its sack, and as soon as I got its head out and it began whining, momma took right over. The rest of the event was as normal as these events typically are, and the litter of 11 live pups ended up consisting of 10 females and one male.

The next day, after discussing it with my wife, we decided that we were going to take one of these pups. I had my heart set on a male, but if the only male they had was spoken for we decided we’d buy one of the females.

When we went to the house to ask about it, our friends had the male pup in their hands. They asked us if we wanted him because he was a carbon copy of his dad as far as colorings and markings. I pulled out my wallet to go ahead and pay them for him and they refused to take the money. The dog was ours if we wanted him, and it was a gift for helping out momma when she was giving birth.

5 weeks later, after daily visits by my wife and I to spend as much time as we could with our pup, my buddy called me up and said if I wanted him to come get him, because he was already eating solid food and was ignoring momma totally as a food source.

We arrived to pick up Max, and he eagerly greeted us with his tail wagging so hard he could barely stay standing. We packed him up into the truck and brought him home, not sure how he and the kitty were going to get along.

We found pup to be every bit as intelligent, loving, faithful, and obedient as his parents were, and I have to say he was the easiest dog to potty train as I have ever encountered in my life.  I had laid in a good supply of puppy pads, and before I even got halfway through the first bag, pup had learned he was to go potty outside and how to tell us.

He took to the crate fairly quickly, and within a week or two whenever either one of us told him it was time to go “night night”, he began going into his crate willingly and on his own.

He spent his first year in the crate anytime we were both not at home, and when we moved into our new home we put his crate up in a secluded area of the home. We had talked about leaving him out of the crate while we were out, and decided that it was time to give it a try when we moved into the new house.

He and kitty had an adversarial relationship that was ongoing, mostly surrounding kitty slapping him anytime he was around her, and so we were a bit apprehensive surrounding letting him have the run of the house while we were out. We should have known better, because within a week of doing so we came home  one evening to find the dog and cat curled up together in the dog’s crate! I laughed so hard I cried over that one.

We’ve socialized “pup” along the way, exposing him to large crowds and all our friends, but when it came to socializing him with other animals we found our friends very reluctant to do so. Eventually they relented and all went well and continues to do so.

We’ve had very large groups of friends and neighbors to our home many times, and Max has always done very well in those situations. He seems to have a keen sense surrounding those who are afraid of him, because he without fail will target them for his attention and affection; and without fail they always leave saying “I cannot believe he is a pit bull!”. He does a good job in fulfilling our desire for him to be an ambassador for the breed, and each time we hear someone say that they cannot believe he is a pit bull, we smile because it shows he is accomplishing our goal for him.

He is wonderful around children and instinctively assumes the role of babysitter and guardian of any child that is brought to our home.  He is observant too and quick to pick up upon what it is that we humans consider dangerous for a child.

Many times we’ve had friends bring their children over and initially have to keep herding them off the stairway leading to the second floor.  If Max sees this happen one time, he assumes the duty from that point forward, and physically puts himself between the child and the stairs, and acting to distract them from the stairs by handing them his toys and playing with them.

He genuinely enjoys the role, and one time one of our friends brought their toddler over for a visit. The child wanted to go outside and mom had to keep him from doing so several times. At one point we were so caught up in the conversation going on that no one was watching. But Max was. The child had opened the door and was going to go outside, but Max gently grabbed him by the seat of his diaper and was preventing him from doing so. The only reason we noticed when we did, was because the child began yelling at the dog and was slapping him in the face. But he refused to let him go out that door, and just took it. Once mom saw it, she went in to get the child and Max immediately let him go, laying down on his back in a submissive posture.  He wasn’t sure whether he had done something wrong or not.

The mother praised him and he got right up and began distracting the child from the door. Within moments the child and he were racing through the house in some form of the game “it”; the child chasing the dog, then the dog chasing the child. It was hilarious to watch, and it is a tactic Max uses with small children all the time. He loves kids.

I guess my point in all of this is to say that whenever we see these media stories surrounding how vicious and aggressive pit bulls are, and trashing the breed, we need to recognize the fact that the problem is not the specific animal or breed, but rather the owners of these dogs. ANY dog can be dangerous if improperly trained or mistreated by its owners.

These problem dogs are a direct result of poor ownership, and it would not matter if these owners had a Jack Russell a Toy Poodle, or a Pit Bull. The result would be the very same; a poorly and socially maladjusted animal that is a threat to those it encounters.

Through my own personal experiences with the breed, I have found them to be fiercely loyal, very intelligent, obedient, faithful, and loving dogs that are eager to please their owners, and more than willing to keep them safe.

My wife and I love our 90 pound Pit Bull, and he loves us right back. And all it took to achieve this was the same exact amount of attention, training, and socialization that is required of any responsible pet owner no matter what the breed.

It is a fact that there are a lot of irresponsible pet owners out there in this country, and the fact that the American Pit Bull is so popular among pet owners, (Outnumbering every other breed by a nearly 10 to 1 rate), is the reason we see so many maladjusted animals in the news. It’s time to stop punishing the breed over the failures of irresponsible pet owners, and instead punish the owners themselves.