It's the deed, not the breed

Dogs are a man’s best friend but sometimes that love isn't returned.  Before the mid 80’s pit bulls were America’s darlings, but after that they've been faced with a pretty bad reputation.  Media portrays these dogs as an uncontrollable, highly-aggressive beast who enjoys attacking people for fun because primarily, it sells.  When’s the last time you looked at the news and saw “Killer Poodle Attacks Owner”?  Probably Never.  

Now let me explain to you why pit bulls are still the darlings they always have been. 

Pit bulls, contrary to many peoples beliefs, are multiple breeds of dogs including the American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terrier, and American bull terrier. All of them have a very muscular build and can sometimes look more aggressive than they really are, which is assumably the main reason people are so scared of them. From personal experience I can tell you that just about all them are big babies who are scared of pretty much everything.  These breeds of dogs are especially great with children and small animals (after they get over the fact that it’s not food) and are referred as “nanny dogs”. 

These dogs seem perfect, so why are they banned?  Mostly because society likes to blame the breed and not the owner.  Dogs, pit bulls especially, love to please so if your going to train them to attack and be vicious, don’t be surprised if they do.  The breeds are banned in Australia, Ontario, Manitoba and 17 states in the U.S.A.  Not mentioning the several other places who have restrictions over them.  We tell people not to judge others by how they look but here we are banning dogs because they look aggressive.  Sure they have the ability to hurt someone, but so does that guy who bought the pocketknife at the store today.  As Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer said, “a breed is like a suit of clothes, it doesn't tell you anything about the dog inside.” 

So many myths and rumours are made about these innocent dogs, such as they have a locking jaw, they hate small animals, and that they have the strongest bite force of all dogs.  All of those listed were false, in fact a Doberman, Rottweiler, German shepherd and many other dogs have a stronger bite than a pit bull.  Now with pit bulls being one of the most popular breeds obviously there will be more bites.  But even with there being such a large number of them they’re not responsible for the largest number of dog attacks, last years statistics show that Rottweilers took that title.  

Hopefully society will start to see the error of their ways and realize that they should be blaming the deed and not the breed.

Shylo Sheppard