SmoothSavage
Eloquent Gawker
Edit: Yes, I know some of my links no longer work. sad Unfortunately, goodpooch.com shut down. Hopefully I'll have some new links up and running soon. Thanks for your patience!
DISCLAIMER: Okay. First off, please take the time to read this thread. All of it. Yes, it's long, but this is Extended Discussion for a reason. You can handle it. And yes, I own an APBT. However, I am not biased towards the breed from owning one- I got one because I fell in love with the breed after working with dogs for so long. I work as a professional groomer, and before that I worked at a kennel for over two years, and those places are where I found my love for Pit Bulls.
Before posting in this thread, please take the time to watch this Flash movie, Pit Bull Problem. It only takes a few moments, and very many excellent points are made in it.
So on to the subject matter. I'm sure everyone has heard how evil and aggressive Pit Bulls are. The media has turned these dogs into monsters.Everyone always sees on the news that a Pit Bull attacked this child, or that old lady. Attacks by other breeds are simply ignored, no matter how serious the injuries sustained. How often do you hear of people being attacked by Labrador Retrievers? Never, although bites from Labs are fairly common. The media just fails to report them. In fact, here is a link to some attacks by other breeds. Please note that I do not approve of discriminating against any breed- These are just examples.
Also, many dog attacks are wrongly attributed to Pit Bulls. The majority of the population regards a Pit Bull as anything being muscular and shorthaired, and a lot of people think they're gigantic, weighing up to 150lbs. In reality, a Pit Bull should be between 35-65lbs. Anything much larger is probably a cross. There is a test online to see how well you can recognize the breed... Can you find the Pit Bull? Feel free to tell me your results. :3 This idea is credited to Liquitex.Note: The test says that if you click on a picture, it'll take you to a page telling which breed it is, but it doesn't. The page will only change if you find the Pit Bull, so don't think the page isn't working.
There are a lot of myths circulating about Pit Bulls, one being that they have "locking jaws". Supposedly, they have this because they were bred to be bear baiters or attack dogs. This is not true. Not only do Pit Bulls not have locking jaws, they were never meant to kill bulls, bears, or other large game. They were bred specifically for dog fighting- Although this doesn't make them aggressive towards humans, as is dicussed later in the post.
Stories about Pit Bulls doing good are never reported, either. I'm sure very few know the story about the lady who was being mauled by a Chow Chow and was saved by two Pit Bulls. Or the story where an old lady fell on the ice and was dragged back to her house by the neighbour's Pit. There was even a Pit Bull who saved his owner from a fire (article here).
As a result, the population as a whole is terrified of Pit Bulls, to the point where mothers snatch their children away from any dog that looks even remotely like a Pit. Pit Bulls have even been banned in certain cities in America, and also in Ontario, Canada. People discriminate against these dogs without even thinking. Goodpooch.com has set up a reporting system, where owners of Pit Bulls and other "dangerous breeds" can report incidents where their pets have been discriminated against. The reports can be found here. Some of the reports are appalling. There is also a page on that website proving that BSL doesn't work.
I have worked at a dog boarding kennel for years, and now work as a full-time groomer, and trust me, we see the absolute worst in dogs. Dogs being boarded or groomed tend to act very different than they do at home. Aggression, nervousness, and bad behaviour are very common, in any breed. I personally have been snapped or lunged at by dogs from Bichon Frises and Cocker Spaniels to Labrador Retrievers and German Shepherds. I have never, however, even been looked at in a threatening way by a Pit Bull. They have been uniformly friendly dogs, ecstatic to see people.
Sadly, it is true that Pit Bulls tend to be dog aggressive. They were bred to be pit fighters, and so dog aggression runs strong in them. However, that same background makes them inherently friendly towards people. During pit fights, people had to be able to break the dogs up and treat injuries without getting bitten. Dogs were also bathed by their opponent's owner proir to the fight. During fights, dogs often became "fanged", or caught their lip on their own tooth. Referees, total strangers to the dogs, hand to lean in the fight and unfang the dog without fear of getting bitten. Human aggression was not acceptable. Any dog that showed aggression towards people was put down immediately.
Today, however, things have changed. Pit Bulls are strong, intelligent dogs, and people can see that at a glance. People want to use them for guard dogs, or dogs to scare people with. Thus they are beaten, tortured, and starved in order to make them into vicious animals, capable of seriously injuring someone. When these dogs escape, chaos ensues. This has become more and more common, soley because of horrible people. The dogs are not vicious- People make them that way. An article on dogfighting can be found here, showing exactly what these dogs are forced to endure. I also have a link to Sad Reality, another site showing some of the horrible things done to Pits simply because of their breed. WARNING: The images on Sad Reality are very graphic. Please supervise younger viewers.
I also have aPM I recieved from CollaredGirl which I'm including. I'm including it because she makes excellent points, and she has dug up some good links. :3
I want to hear people's opinions on this- Intelligent responses only, please. I don't want to simply hear "Pit Bulls are vicious, they all attack people." Give me reasons you think so, real reasons. I also don't want to hear "A Pit Bull attacked me, they're all evil". I have been bitten through the face by a Siberian Husky and had five bites to the bone in my arms and hand by another Siberian. I don't hate the breed- One dog, or even a few, do not make the breed. Please keep this in mind.
Big thanks to Sola Catella and Jalelia, who help me keep this thread in order. :3
This is a thread about a Pit Bull rescue run by LadyWillow. Talking to her is a great idea if you want firsthand experience with abused Pits.
Like to talk about dogs? Join Sola Catella's Mutts Anonymous. It's a new guild all about educated discussion of our favourite canine companions. Check it out!
If you feel like helping fight BSL in or around your area, check out CHAKO. They've got all sorts of ideas on how you can help prevent doggie racism.
Wanna put a link to this thread in your sig? Mydnyt has made up some banners! I've used Tiny Urls so they'll fit in sigs. :3
Please remember to remove spaces from the coding when using in sigs. :3
UPDATE: I've been hearing rumors about this for quite some time, but I never really thought it was true... Until now. PETA, the animal rights group supports the banning of Pit Bulls and other breeds. Ingrid Newkirk said herself what she thinks on the matter. What really outrages me is that her speech starts out with refreshing clarity on the issues Pits face... And then she turns around and says they're dangerous and should be banned. Ridiculous.
DISCLAIMER: Okay. First off, please take the time to read this thread. All of it. Yes, it's long, but this is Extended Discussion for a reason. You can handle it. And yes, I own an APBT. However, I am not biased towards the breed from owning one- I got one because I fell in love with the breed after working with dogs for so long. I work as a professional groomer, and before that I worked at a kennel for over two years, and those places are where I found my love for Pit Bulls.
Before posting in this thread, please take the time to watch this Flash movie, Pit Bull Problem. It only takes a few moments, and very many excellent points are made in it.
So on to the subject matter. I'm sure everyone has heard how evil and aggressive Pit Bulls are. The media has turned these dogs into monsters.Everyone always sees on the news that a Pit Bull attacked this child, or that old lady. Attacks by other breeds are simply ignored, no matter how serious the injuries sustained. How often do you hear of people being attacked by Labrador Retrievers? Never, although bites from Labs are fairly common. The media just fails to report them. In fact, here is a link to some attacks by other breeds. Please note that I do not approve of discriminating against any breed- These are just examples.
Also, many dog attacks are wrongly attributed to Pit Bulls. The majority of the population regards a Pit Bull as anything being muscular and shorthaired, and a lot of people think they're gigantic, weighing up to 150lbs. In reality, a Pit Bull should be between 35-65lbs. Anything much larger is probably a cross. There is a test online to see how well you can recognize the breed... Can you find the Pit Bull? Feel free to tell me your results. :3 This idea is credited to Liquitex.Note: The test says that if you click on a picture, it'll take you to a page telling which breed it is, but it doesn't. The page will only change if you find the Pit Bull, so don't think the page isn't working.
There are a lot of myths circulating about Pit Bulls, one being that they have "locking jaws". Supposedly, they have this because they were bred to be bear baiters or attack dogs. This is not true. Not only do Pit Bulls not have locking jaws, they were never meant to kill bulls, bears, or other large game. They were bred specifically for dog fighting- Although this doesn't make them aggressive towards humans, as is dicussed later in the post.
Stories about Pit Bulls doing good are never reported, either. I'm sure very few know the story about the lady who was being mauled by a Chow Chow and was saved by two Pit Bulls. Or the story where an old lady fell on the ice and was dragged back to her house by the neighbour's Pit. There was even a Pit Bull who saved his owner from a fire (article here).
As a result, the population as a whole is terrified of Pit Bulls, to the point where mothers snatch their children away from any dog that looks even remotely like a Pit. Pit Bulls have even been banned in certain cities in America, and also in Ontario, Canada. People discriminate against these dogs without even thinking. Goodpooch.com has set up a reporting system, where owners of Pit Bulls and other "dangerous breeds" can report incidents where their pets have been discriminated against. The reports can be found here. Some of the reports are appalling. There is also a page on that website proving that BSL doesn't work.
I have worked at a dog boarding kennel for years, and now work as a full-time groomer, and trust me, we see the absolute worst in dogs. Dogs being boarded or groomed tend to act very different than they do at home. Aggression, nervousness, and bad behaviour are very common, in any breed. I personally have been snapped or lunged at by dogs from Bichon Frises and Cocker Spaniels to Labrador Retrievers and German Shepherds. I have never, however, even been looked at in a threatening way by a Pit Bull. They have been uniformly friendly dogs, ecstatic to see people.
Sadly, it is true that Pit Bulls tend to be dog aggressive. They were bred to be pit fighters, and so dog aggression runs strong in them. However, that same background makes them inherently friendly towards people. During pit fights, people had to be able to break the dogs up and treat injuries without getting bitten. Dogs were also bathed by their opponent's owner proir to the fight. During fights, dogs often became "fanged", or caught their lip on their own tooth. Referees, total strangers to the dogs, hand to lean in the fight and unfang the dog without fear of getting bitten. Human aggression was not acceptable. Any dog that showed aggression towards people was put down immediately.
Today, however, things have changed. Pit Bulls are strong, intelligent dogs, and people can see that at a glance. People want to use them for guard dogs, or dogs to scare people with. Thus they are beaten, tortured, and starved in order to make them into vicious animals, capable of seriously injuring someone. When these dogs escape, chaos ensues. This has become more and more common, soley because of horrible people. The dogs are not vicious- People make them that way. An article on dogfighting can be found here, showing exactly what these dogs are forced to endure. I also have a link to Sad Reality, another site showing some of the horrible things done to Pits simply because of their breed. WARNING: The images on Sad Reality are very graphic. Please supervise younger viewers.
I also have aPM I recieved from CollaredGirl which I'm including. I'm including it because she makes excellent points, and she has dug up some good links. :3
CollaredGirl
Oh, this post is a doosey. A lot of it you may already know, but some of it I feel obligated to inform you of, so you'll have more fodder in case you meet another one of those "OMG PITBULLZ R TEH DEVIL!" Please read the whole post, it took me forever to dig up the links.
The media throws around a good lot of s**t on Rottweilers, Dobermans, and especially, the Pit Bull. You always hear about how a pit bull viciously mauled someone, and in some cases, the dog isn't even a pit bull but some mixed breed. This has happened all too often where I lived "OMG PIT BULL RIPPED A BABY'S FACE OFF!" and then a week later, they casually and quickly mention that the dog was in fact, not a pit bull, but a labrador mix. Since they overplay the first report of it being a pit bull, and barely give mention to their inaccuracy, the damage to the breed reputation is still done. People become so hysterical that they will actually scream "MURDERER!" to any dog that even LOOKS like a "dangerous breed". And there are many breeds that look like ABPT, so it's easy to get confused and just label it an "EVIL PIT BULL!"
They also frequently forget to mention that the dog in question was neglected, abused, and in some cases, even chained up and used as a "bait dog". Just like a person, if a dog is abused, it's going to become mentally ******** up. For every person bitten by a pit bull, there are several dogs who are being beaten, mutilated alive, and even set on fire. One man even had his friend hold his dog's head down while he ran over it with a car for losing a fight. But we turn a blind eye to this. Why? Because it isn't a human, and that's terribly sad. I've seen the video you posted in the forum long before I joined Gaia. I couldn't watch it the whole way through, I was in tears. Thinking about it even now makes me choke up to even think of it. In a society where we acquit people based on a horrible childhood, why can't we do the same for an animal who's had it even worse?
The next thing is, the media will gladly publish stories about the horrible things these breeds have done, but dismiss any good acts. Have you heard about the the rottie that saved a woman from a fire? Notice how tiny that article is, how breif it is. If that same dog would have bitten someone, it would be two pages long. Why don't they talk about the rottie that assists learning at Stamm Elementry?. How come they don't talk about the Pit Bull that saved a family from a fire? Why doesn't the rottie who won the ASPCA Dog of the Year title for it's contributions to animal therapy get mentioned on the airwaves?
Oh, that's right... because they're too busy pushing their misinformation through the airwaves! rolleyes CNN even once reported in their newsticker "Pit Bulls are genetically immune to pain." Uh, WTF? Last time I checked, a pit bull is a dog, and dogs are vertebrates with immune systems. Sure, they can feel pain, they are just bred to be very tolerant of it. This does not mean that you could stab a pit and it wouldn't feel it.
Oh yes, and here is a little nugget you might find interesting... A man, to test the theory of media bias, concoted two stories about a dog attack. Both attacks were of equal severity, the only exception between the two was that one story involved a rottie, and another involved a generic mutt. He tried to sell this story to 50 different media companies. None of them wanted the generic dog, and all of them wanted the rottie one, despite the fact that they were both of equal severity. twisted If that doesn't prove media bias, I don't know what will.
The media throws around a good lot of s**t on Rottweilers, Dobermans, and especially, the Pit Bull. You always hear about how a pit bull viciously mauled someone, and in some cases, the dog isn't even a pit bull but some mixed breed. This has happened all too often where I lived "OMG PIT BULL RIPPED A BABY'S FACE OFF!" and then a week later, they casually and quickly mention that the dog was in fact, not a pit bull, but a labrador mix. Since they overplay the first report of it being a pit bull, and barely give mention to their inaccuracy, the damage to the breed reputation is still done. People become so hysterical that they will actually scream "MURDERER!" to any dog that even LOOKS like a "dangerous breed". And there are many breeds that look like ABPT, so it's easy to get confused and just label it an "EVIL PIT BULL!"
They also frequently forget to mention that the dog in question was neglected, abused, and in some cases, even chained up and used as a "bait dog". Just like a person, if a dog is abused, it's going to become mentally ******** up. For every person bitten by a pit bull, there are several dogs who are being beaten, mutilated alive, and even set on fire. One man even had his friend hold his dog's head down while he ran over it with a car for losing a fight. But we turn a blind eye to this. Why? Because it isn't a human, and that's terribly sad. I've seen the video you posted in the forum long before I joined Gaia. I couldn't watch it the whole way through, I was in tears. Thinking about it even now makes me choke up to even think of it. In a society where we acquit people based on a horrible childhood, why can't we do the same for an animal who's had it even worse?
The next thing is, the media will gladly publish stories about the horrible things these breeds have done, but dismiss any good acts. Have you heard about the the rottie that saved a woman from a fire? Notice how tiny that article is, how breif it is. If that same dog would have bitten someone, it would be two pages long. Why don't they talk about the rottie that assists learning at Stamm Elementry?. How come they don't talk about the Pit Bull that saved a family from a fire? Why doesn't the rottie who won the ASPCA Dog of the Year title for it's contributions to animal therapy get mentioned on the airwaves?
Oh, that's right... because they're too busy pushing their misinformation through the airwaves! rolleyes CNN even once reported in their newsticker "Pit Bulls are genetically immune to pain." Uh, WTF? Last time I checked, a pit bull is a dog, and dogs are vertebrates with immune systems. Sure, they can feel pain, they are just bred to be very tolerant of it. This does not mean that you could stab a pit and it wouldn't feel it.
Oh yes, and here is a little nugget you might find interesting... A man, to test the theory of media bias, concoted two stories about a dog attack. Both attacks were of equal severity, the only exception between the two was that one story involved a rottie, and another involved a generic mutt. He tried to sell this story to 50 different media companies. None of them wanted the generic dog, and all of them wanted the rottie one, despite the fact that they were both of equal severity. twisted If that doesn't prove media bias, I don't know what will.
I want to hear people's opinions on this- Intelligent responses only, please. I don't want to simply hear "Pit Bulls are vicious, they all attack people." Give me reasons you think so, real reasons. I also don't want to hear "A Pit Bull attacked me, they're all evil". I have been bitten through the face by a Siberian Husky and had five bites to the bone in my arms and hand by another Siberian. I don't hate the breed- One dog, or even a few, do not make the breed. Please keep this in mind.
Big thanks to Sola Catella and Jalelia, who help me keep this thread in order. :3
LINKS, BANNERS, ETC.
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This is a thread about a Pit Bull rescue run by LadyWillow. Talking to her is a great idea if you want firsthand experience with abused Pits.
Like to talk about dogs? Join Sola Catella's Mutts Anonymous. It's a new guild all about educated discussion of our favourite canine companions. Check it out!
If you feel like helping fight BSL in or around your area, check out CHAKO. They've got all sorts of ideas on how you can help prevent doggie racism.
Wanna put a link to this thread in your sig? Mydnyt has made up some banners! I've used Tiny Urls so they'll fit in sigs. :3
code
[ url=http://tinyurl.com/8zxoy][ img]http://tinyurl.com/a6a98[ /img][ /url]
code
[ url=http://tinyurl.com/8zxoy][ img]http://tinyurl.com/doutb[/img ][ /url]
Please remember to remove spaces from the coding when using in sigs. :3
UPDATE: I've been hearing rumors about this for quite some time, but I never really thought it was true... Until now. PETA, the animal rights group supports the banning of Pit Bulls and other breeds. Ingrid Newkirk said herself what she thinks on the matter. What really outrages me is that her speech starts out with refreshing clarity on the issues Pits face... And then she turns around and says they're dangerous and should be banned. Ridiculous.
