Pit bulls and chows are good dogs, the key here is to get them while they are puppies, so they will grow up with the people and animals in the household. Also, the breeder....make sure the parents of the new puppy are calm and this puppy was born in a calm environment. Pit bulls have a nickname..."the nanny dog" because they are so good with children.
I think pit bulls get a bad rap.
bama:silly:

That's a beautiful chow! Looks like a big teddy bear!
I wish I had one!

Bama :silly:

A Belgian Shepard is a great protection dog, it's what most police departments use.

I agree. Nine times out of ten a bad dog started out that way, either indiscriminate breeding or idiot owners. We had a Chocolate Lab puppy that was terrible, I mean TERRIBLE. He bit a kid on the face, acted very aloof, the works. When we finally got the "papers" on this dog, we did the math and discovered his parents were related before they "related". He was a mess, and had to be put down. Paid the vet for an autopsy, and found a tumor in his brain. That dog wasnt wired right from the start.

Get a female Akita...

I've owned (or I should say shared my home with) both Chows and Akitas (I have a thing for Asian dogs).

The Chows look like cute little teddy bears...but they are fierce fighters. In China the emperors owned Chows to guard the palace. They are great dogs, neat, clean, they are "litter box" trained by their mommies and they have sweet smelling breath.

Only problem with Chows is that they are very much a one-person dog. If they bond with one member of the family they will not really listen to orders from other household members (they are very stubborn dogs). Our chow bonded with me and she would spend hours with me out in the backyard while I worked (and played) with my outdoor train layout.

The night she died, I found her body lying next to my train layout, same spot where she would just sit and watch me play with the choo-choos. It was a very sad day.

Chows are good dogs, but in the Florida heat, their thick coat needs constant tending or they will suffer.

Gorgeous dog ya got.
We never even had to paper train our Chows, they instinctively do not make stinky in the house. :scholar:

Ours were black as well.

My first exposure to pit bull mixes was when we adopted a puppy from an animal shelter about 12 years ago. When we got her, we had no idea that she had any pit bull in her. Once she matured, her vet and other dog experts all agreed that she was part pit bull. Easily the best dog I've had. She had unmistakable dominant behavior toward other dogs, but not toward people. Her kidneys failed, we don't know why, so we had her put down earlier this year.

We recently adopted another pit bull mix. She's probably between a year to 1-1/2 years old. We've had her a few weeks and I see no signs of aggression or dominant behavior, but she plays rough with our other dog.

I feel fortunate to have accidentally discovered this breed.

Chow Chows are a curiosity. There was even something going around a few years ago that they were something apart from a dog and a separate animal. Andy's idea of affection is to push his head against you and let you scratch his head. He has never licked me except he likes toecicles when I take off my shoes. They don't actually bite unless they want to kill. They just hit people with their teeth as a warning to back off, but that will break skin. They are fear biter/fighters, meaning that they are fierce out fear. No playing around with these guys as while most dogs go for the neck or head, they will go straight to an animals stomach and just rip out their guts so fast you wouldn't believe it. Doctors expect to see broken bones when the encounter a true Chow's bite. What most people get is just this warning hit. Watching them go fierce is truly frightening, but if you've been with them since they were puppies they will never turn that on you. They've been known to hit their masters, but I think this must come from being abused by someone that can't deal with their stubbornness and untrainability. You must deal with their instinctiveness, and be aware that these are special animals have incredibly powerful front legs, necks, and a bite like a vice. I gave Andy this huge cow bone that was about half his size and weighed about 12 lbs. He'd carry it around like he was doing weight lifting or something, then he puts his paw on it to hold it down and snapped it in two to get at the marrow. He just wound up eating the damn thing.

He is very gentile when eating out of my hand. His father shared all of what you might think are his unique behaviors. My daughter in law was talking with her neighbor in the front yard and the neighbor had a parrot on her shoulder while Prince was laying at Dori's feet. Something startled the bird and having clipped wings it flew a few feet to the ground. Prince darted over and grabbed the bird to the neighbors horror. He trotted back with a bird tail sticking out of his mouth and gently gave it back to her – completely unharmed. Moments later a cat darted form under the hedge – as quick as you could snap your fingers he turned, killed the cat with one mighty chomp, and immediately started to eat the cat. The kids had their first child a year or so ago and Prince was not a problem, but that was in the last year of his life when all of their traits except loyalty seems to wain. They don't seem to understand that little children aren't just slow moving easy prey, and I've had some real close calls with Andy trying to snatch baby's when walking him. Very scary.
Bringing one home from the pound or adopting one that has bonded with someone else could be a problem, and introducing a new dog, other that another Chow Chow of the opposite sex could be touch and go. Andy has accepted a female dobielabradorpoundhound, but when she was a playful puppy and he didn't want to be messed with (they never want to be messed with) he hit her good once to set the pecking order straight, and that was a vet call with stitches.

Still with all the problems he has never messed inside of the house once. He's laying right at my offices front door right now and at exactly five in the PM he will come over and paw me to remind me that it's time to go for a walk. He can always tell when it's Sat morning and he gets to go with us to breakfast. He still gets all happy and excited when the kids that had him for only 8 weeks as a puppy come around about once a year, and knows our friends and family that don't come out here to the boonies very often. He's going lame now so I know I won't have my best buddy around much longer and it's hard for me to deal with. He's been worth ten times the trouble and I will miss him dearly.
http://managemoney.org/andy2.gif

I agree -- Chows are very different from all other dogs. To highlight that fact, I'll add that Chow owners see a distinctly different animal than non-Chow owners, and that in itself, is decidedly undoglike. I used to bring my pup to a neighborhood park a few years ago, along with several other locals. One teenage kid used to bring his two young Chow-mix pups, brother/sister. The ***** was small and not Chow-like at all. The male was 100+ lbs. and completely Chow-like in every way. He had no use for any person or dog other than his handler and his sibling, and this was at less than 2 years old (I first knew him at about 5 months). His show of affection toward me and mine was in the form of tolerance, and that was as far as it went. He tolerated our presence and would not harm us, but he kept his distance. I came to understand that although Rocky had no real use for us, he considered that we were part of his territory, and I firmly believe he would have fiercely defended me or my pup from any outside incursion as if we were part of his family.

He was an odd duck, and very dangerous at an awfully young age. I had little doubt that he was going to be a source of great trouble to his owner sooner or later, and might even have to be put down. This was just not a dog that belonged in a neighborhood with lots of small children and pups running around.

In truth, most Chows I've met could not be brought to a dog park under any circumstance, so I guess Rocky was ahead of the curve in that regard, but just barely.

Akitas and Chows share one similar characteristic--they are very aloof.

But they do like to play, and they play hard. Our Chow used to love playing "tackle" out in the yard. She would come at me, and hit me at the knees, to tackle me...I would go down and stay down, when she came around to "sniff me out" I would grab her and wrestle her down (not an easy task with an animal that has such a low center of gravity). We could do this for hours.

Our kids were small at the time and people warned me against getting a Chow. But I knew this Chow came from a good family and we socialized her so that she was comfortable around the kids. Even though in China and Japan Chows and Akitas are sometimes used as babysitters, I would never, ever, leave a small child with a dog--no matter how good the dog is.

I do miss our Chow...but the big, dopey Akita is enough to keep us busy for now...:)

I had a neighbor with 2 Akitas that were always outside (pretty cruel in Phoenix, wouldn't you say?). They never made a sound, but weren't unfriendly the couple times they got out of their yard. One day, I'm playing catch in my yard with daughter, and she flings the ball in the neighbor's yard. I scale the 8' cinder block fence, and see the two dogs laying down, eying me like their next meal. I hesitated, then jumped down into the yard. They never moved, didn't bark, and didn't break their gaze for a second. It was a bit unnerving, but mostly just strange. No harm, no foul, no play, no nothing. :confused:

Chows (and to some degree Akitas) suffer from heat prostration and should never be left out on the sun unless there is a place with shade and plenty of water (this is true for all dogs). That is why I told Plantman that a Chow may not do well in Florida.

You probably did not approach their "no-fly" zone. Had you crossed into their territory you might have piqued their curiosity.

I was in their yard, 20' from them. They seemed very intense, but didn't move. And as I said, we did know each, but not well...

You got real lucky, its a good thing these dogs knew, even vaguely. It was probabaly too hot for them to warrant getting up.;)