Pit bull terriers

[Freckle]

Can anyone explain to me the attraction of owning a pit bull terrier? Why would you choose that breed over any other? Especially when there are children around and the breed has a reputation for unpredictable behaviour - and don't forget that the breed was developed to take on bulls, so it's not going to be a pussycat in any circumstances.

Another child has been killed by one, apparently owned by her grandmother - here . I don't like flagging up bad news on here, but I'm struggling to understand the mentality of people who choose to own such dogs.

My father was attacked and nearly killed by an Alsatian/German Shepherd when I was 8.

He was across a street from it. It was in the front green of a neighbour's house.

It walked over to him and knocked him down.

Never barked once.

I was next to him.

I can remember the pure terror in his voice as he screamed at me to run, run, run home as fast as I could.

That dog would certainly have mauled a child or smallish person/woman to death.

As it is, my father sustained lasting damage to his health b/c of the attack.

so you did get him in order that he would frighten people off...

this has reminded me of 2 of my mums neighbours, 1 has 2 english bull terriers, the other has a japanese akita, neither are walked on leads, 1 of the bull terriers is very vicious towards other dogs, and the akita is quite vicious to anything that moves, in the summer the vicious bull terrier was let out for a walk, and the akitas owners elderly dad was walking it, off the lead, the inevitable happened, right in front of me........ to see 2 such powerful dogs literally ripping chunks out of each other is absolutly terrifying, and i have never been wary of any dog, i did try at first to seperate them, but 1 of them bit my wrist, and tbh it was pointless anyway, i was nowhere near strong enough to pull them apart, both dogs ended up needing to be rushed to vets to be stitched up.

am now a lot more wary of both dogs, i dread to think what either 1 of them could do to a human if they decided to.

Back in the late 80's in the Cardiff estate where i lived there was a big pack of dogs roaming around.
They were latch key dogs and every morning when their owners went to work they would be kicked out to wander the street until evening.
Usually they were ok but in the autumn when the bitches were on heat they would be very agressive and a couple of times when waiting at the bus stop we had to protect ourselves with our umbrellas and anything that came to hand as they would gang up on people and growl and bark at us.
It all came to a head one day when a child got badly bitten by this pack and the dog warden came round and caught most of the pack.
Had no problems since then.
Personally since then i've not really trusted dogs.
I used to work in a kennel for about 18 months and the scariest dogs were rotweillers as they give no warning they just attack!
Get a cat its much safer!

I was attacked by 2 dog when I was 4, I don't know what breed attacked me, and I don't remember the attack, but my mum told me about it when she realised that I was so scared of dogs. She brought a mongal dog who was the soppiest and most loveable dog ever. But when DH (then DP) was chasing me through the house, she did bite him. As a result I was no longer scared of dogs, but I know that any dog can turn and attack, and therefore I make sure that my kids ask the owners if it is ok if they can stroke their dogs. I have brought up my kids to repect dogs and not be scared, as I know what being scared of dogs can do to you first hand.

sparklygothkat, your staffie is gorgeous, they are 1 of my favourite breeds, want to get 1 but have a 21 month old and am 6 months pregnant, so have enough on my plate at the min, maybe in a few years time.

The ideas re: regulating dog ownership and/or muzzling dogs in public are all very well, but isn't it obvious what would happen? The responsible owners would comply, but the irresponsible yobs with aggressive dogs would ignore the rules.
Exactly the same thing happens with Horse Passports - DEFRA in their wisdom introduced legislation requiring all horses to have a document to prove the animal's identity. The thinking behind this was regulating drugs getting into the human food chain when riding horses go for slaughter. Thousands of equines don't have a passport. People like me had to go to great expense to obtain them for old retired horses kept at home until it was kinder to have them put down. I would never have sent mine to a slaughter house anyway, so what a waste of my time and money.

yes and no, we have not trained him to attack, but just in the hope that people would be wary of him (mainly the w*ankers that made our lives hell) as it is, most people think he is lovely lol.

mongral sparkly.

yeah patch was soppy as hell, but fiercely protective of the females in the house.

i am not fond of staffies myself, not my kind of dog. BIL had a german shepherd dog, friendly as hell, but as soon as i was expecting dd1 it went all strange on me and tried to nip my legs when i entered a room. was very odd.

this is him now he thinks he is human!!!

i'm not really having a go, SGK, it's just that you've confirmed my feeling that people buy these dogs (even well-cared for, trained nanny dogs) to frighten other people. you first came on saying that it irritated you that people think you're dog is a dangerous breed, but in fact you did want some peole to think it is. and as much as i understand why that was, i'm not sure you can have it both ways...

am horrified by my spelling errors...

But it was the rep. that we were going on, rather than the dog itself. Unforturely staffies do have a bad rep. I am not disputing that. But I did read up on staffs before we got him and I realised that the rep. is wrong. I just hoped that the thugs didn't know that. Its not an issue now as we no longer live there anyway. and most people here are aware we have a staffy and they know that we are reponsible owners.

I never wanted people to think that that he is a 'dangerous' dog but just hoped that the rep. would be enough to protect us IYCIWM

btw it takes me ages to type a message because of my spelling mistakes lol

That pretty much confirms what the antis think, I'm afraid - you want it for its image.

well a toy poodle wont scare off many people

but the problem with getting a dog to scare people is that you can't then turn round and say that it gets on your nerves whn people are scared of it, iykwim? that's all i'm saying.

At the end of the day, I can't take away the rep. that staffys have. People do mistake them for pitbulls (my mum and dad being one of them) and they are wary of him, even though he hasn't attacked anyone. He is muzzled when we have large family get together, purely for my own piece of mind, would never forgive myself IF he attacked one of my nieces. He is clusmy and does knock the kids over at times, but we have also taught our children to never, ever let him stand over them, because he will think he is top dog then and that is where problems start.

I'd run a mile from a Yorkie, though! But maybe not for the right reasons

people do confused staffies qwith pit bulls, which would annoy me if i was a staffie owner (but as i said, not my kind of dog).

my parents have a yorkie. we call it an overgrown rat. now that dog is soppy as anything, but i still wouldnt leave my children alone with it, as i wouldnt with any dog.

as i say, i'm not getting at you. i think they are great-looking dogs, but they do scare me. and i've always suspected that the people who own them are trying to scare me, which you have rather confirmed, much as it sounds like you needed that at the time.

I never said that it gets on my nerves when people are scared of him, I actually said that I was fed up with people comparing staffs to pitbulls. I have to admit that I did google pitbulls and yes they do like similar (i always thought they were smaller for some reason) amd can now understand why people are wary tbh.

i think staffies are broader arent they?