And if you scraped off the paint, you could see the Budweiser logo under the paint. :D

time to put a muzzle on that puppy......

http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_2_scared_of_pit.html

"The infamous locking jaw is a myth. The American Pit Bull Terrier and related breeds are physiologically no different from any other breed of dog. All dogs are from the same species and none have locking jaws. Dr. I Lehr Brisbin of the University of Georgia states, "To the best of our knowledge, there are no published scientific studies that would allow any meaningful comparison to be made of the biting power of various breeds of dogs. There are, moreover, compelling technical reasons why such data describing biting power in terms of 'pounds per square inch' can never be collected in a meaningful way. All figures describing biting power in such terms can be traced to either unfounded rumor or, in some cases, to newspaper articles with no foundation in factual data." Furthermore, Dr. Brisbin states, "The few studies which have been conducted of the structure of the skulls, mandibles and teeth of pit bulls show that, in proportion to their size, their jaw structure and thus its inferred functional morphology, is no different than that of any breed of dog. There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of any kind of 'locking mechanism' unique to the structure of the jaw and/or teeth of the American Pit Bull Terrier."

http://www.austinlostpets.com/kidskorner/2October/pitbull.htm

Probably just got spread around because big dogs naturally have strong jaws.

here is a link that shows dog bites for individual breeds grouped by Attacks doing bodily harm, Child victims, Adult victims, Deaths and Maimings. notice the colum for Pit Bulls under "Attacks doing bodily harm" and "deaths". AT 1110 for "Attacks doing bodily harm", they commit over twice the number of bites than the next closest competitor, the Rottweiler at 409.

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/Dog%20Attacks%201982%20to%202006%20Clifton.pdf

I stand corrected on the "locking jaw" myth, there is no such thing. however, there is a term used among some pit bull breeders known as "Dead Game". it appears to imply that some pits are better than others because they will continue to hang onto the other dog even in death. this may be where the "locking jaw" idea came from... as in "my dog will continue to fight your dog even when he's dead".

Do APBT's really have 1600 psi biting pressure and locking jaws? [Information gleaned from the ADBA phamplet titled "Discover the American Pit Bull Terrier]

No, they do not have either. Dr. I Lehr Brisbin of the University of Georgia states, "To the best of our knowledge, there are no published scientific studies that would allow any meaningful comparision to be made of the biting power of various breeds of dogs. There are, moreover, compelling technical reasons why such data describing biting power in terms of 'pounds per square inch' can never be collected in a meaningful way. All figures describing biting power in such terms can be traced to either unfounded rumor or, in some cases, to newspaper articles with no foundation in factual data." Futhermore, Dr. Brisbin states, "The few studies which have been conducted of the structure of the skulls, mandibles and teeth of pit bulls show that, in proportion to their size, their jaw structure and thus its inferred functional morphology, is no different than that of any breed of dog. There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of any kind of 'locking mechanism' unique to the structure of the jaw and/or teeth of the American Pit Bull Terrier."



My Uncle's Friend's Wife's step-brother said that APBT's are born mean and can't be trusted. Is this true?

No, this couldn't be further from the truth. Most people who think or say that "Pit Bulls" are inherently mean, have most likely never met one and rely on the inaccurate media hyped portryal of "Pit Bulls" as the basis of their opinions. Like any other breed of dog, the key areas of focus for ensuring a happy, well adjusted American Pit Bull Terrier as a pet are: owner education, proper breeding, socialization, and training. A break down in any one or more of these areas could lead to problems down the road. The APBT is, contrary to popular belief, very human-friendly and will not naturally be aggressive towards humans. The APBT is, however, very loyal and eagar to please, so that if an owner wants a dog to be aggressive toward humans and reinforces this behaviour from an early age, the dog will most likely be aggressive towards humans as an adult.
Many people equate or confuse aggressivness towards other dogs with aggressivness towards humans. I have seen newspaper reports in which "concerned neighbors" are quoted saying things like, "This time it killed a stray cat; tomorrow it may be my children." Yet animal-aggressiveness is an entirely different thing from human-aggressiveness. There is no reason to infer from its killing a cat that a dog--any dog, not just an APBT--will ever show aggression toward human beings. Dogs can and do discriminate, even if irate neighbors cannot.
One of the most enduring urban legends involving dogs is the one about Doberman Pinscher's supposed tendency to suddenly "turn on" their loving owners. This violent change in behavior is said to be precipitated by a natural swelling of the dog's brain at a certain age (the exact age differs according to the retelling). Of course this legend has no basis at all in fact. The "pit bull" has replaced the Doberman Pinscher as the stereotypical "vicious breed," but the same human ignorance and credulity is behind the persistence of such legends.



What exactly is "gameness"?

[The following is an exchange that occured on bulldog-l between Scott Bradwell and Wilf LeBlanc. The passages offset with ">"'s are questions posed by Wilf.] Gameness in APBT's is a canine virtue that is most akin to the human virtue of unflagging courage. It is a determination to master any situation and never back down out of fear. It was developed in pit bulls by many generations of selective breeding. It is what allows a pit bull to keep fighting non-stop for two or more hours, in spite of broken bones, torn muscles, blood loss, dehydration, and exhaustion. But it is also valued by APBT owners who would never think of fighting their dogs. It is manifested in the can-do attitude of pit bulls toward any type of challenge, whether agility competitions, climbing up trees, or protecting their family against an armed attacker, etc. (Yes, check out Richard Stratton's books for photos of pit bulls actually climbing up the trunk of a big tree in order to nestle in the branches 15 feet off the ground.)
Generally speaking, a game dog is an emotionally stable, easy-going dog, especially good with kids. Gameness should not be confused with aggressiveness. There are plenty of aggressive dogs that are not game, and there are game pit bulls who are not aggressive toward other types of dogs. Aggressiveness will propell a dog into a fight but will only sustain him for the first few minutes. Gameness, on the other hand, will not necessarily make a dog fight-happy; but if the dog has no other choice but to fight, a game dog will fight until it wins or dies trying, and will keep going as long as necessary. Gameness is an inner quality of pit bulls. There is no way you can tell by looking at a pit bull whether it is deeply game or not. The only test--and for many years the main criterion for selecting a dog for breeding purposes--is actually fighting the dog to see how it stands up to other dogs that have likewise already proven their gameness in the pit. Dogs that are emotionally unstable, or that fear-bite human beings are generally not game. If you want a nice pit, you're generally better off getting one that has been game-bred. These dogs represent the truest exemplars of all the best qualities in the breed. Your questions about my post on the nature of "gameness" posed a couple of very good questions that I would like to try to answer.

• > If it is indeed the case that the only way that you
• > can be sure that your dog is truly "game" is to have
• > a fight to (almost) the death, what is really the
• > point of having a game dog ?Many APBT owners like myself have no interest whatever in fighting our dogs, yet we appreciate the quality of gameness in our breed. I am quite content to know that just about any APBT, even one with only mediocre gameness as far as APBT's go, is still going to be far more game--that is, far more courageous and determined to succeed against any challenge he may confront--than the gamest individuals of just about any other breed. Thus, without ever having to match your dog against another, you can be confident that your dog is game simply by virtue of the fact of being an American Pit Bull Terrier. Of course not all pit bulls are equally game. It has been pointed out in a previous posts that there is a range in the variation in the *DEGREE* of gameness among individual pit bulls. If you plotted a distribution graph, you would get a classic bell curve, with a handful of dogs exhibiting dead gameness, another handful of dogs who are afraid of their own shadow, and the bulk of the dogs concentrated around the average in between these two extremes. If you then plotted the bell curves of gameness for other breeds, you would find that there is little overlap between the APBT's bell curve and those of all the rest. Your second question, Wilf, relates to whether the degree of a particular pit bull's gameness can be assessed by some test other than fighting; I'll return to this question below.

> If gameness manifests itself as climbing trees, > (etc etc) then aren't all these legitimate tests for gameness?Pit bulls will generally excel in activities that require sustained determination and that test their bodies' ability to endure pain and exhaustion to an extreme. But the fact is that there are very few activities that will test a dog's gameness to its limits, or that will provide a basis for comparing one dog's degree of gameness to another's. For example, wild boar hunting, in spite of the high level of risk to the dog involved, doesn't really test the limits of a dog's gameness. The tangle between boar and dog is fast, furious, and generally quite short (compared with a pit contest). Athletic ability, agility, explosive power, strength of bite, and smarts are of a higher priority here than gameness, which never really has a chance to come into play in so brief an encounter. The dog will either take the boar down or be killed before the depth of his gameness can make much of a difference. Several larger breeds of dogs--American Bulldogs and Argentine Dogos--seem to be at least equally adept at boar hunting as pit bulls. But this doesn't make them as game as pit bulls. Just because a game disposition will aid a dog in excelling at many different activities--such as agility competition, flyball races, tree-climbing, etc.--doesn't mean that these activities are sufficient tests for gameness. Gameness is multi-dimensional; the above activities do not stress all of these dimensions simultaneously to their extreme limits . Gameness is, in positive terms, a happy eagerness to pursue a challenge; but it is also, in negative terms, the stubborn refusal to heed the cries of the nervous system to stop struggling and and to flee the situation that is causing so much pain. None of the activities above can fully assess this second dimension. Unfortunately,the only activity that really tests the full extent of a dog's gameness is pit contests. It's a pity that this is the case. Personally, I don't much like the idea of dog fighting, especially when money is involved and takes precedence over the well-being of the dogs. If I knew of another method--say, a DNA test--which could determine gameness, I'd be happily promoting that method right now. But genetic research has a long way to go before it could provide such a test. And with slightly more imporant concerns, such as preventing cancer, I don't expect many research dollars to flow into DNA game -testing. As a result, I'm left in the rather hypocritical position of celebrating a canine virtue that is only made possible by a human vice. So be it. I still prefer game dogs.
I said at the beginning of the post that I am uninterested in finding out just how game my own dog is. You might ask, "Why would anyone be interested in knowing exactly how game their dogs are?" Well, I'm not a breeder. Understandably, breeders only want to choose the very best exemplars of the breed in their breeding programs. If you breed APBTs without regard for their degree of gameness, their gameness will gradually be lost with each succeeding generation. This is essentially what has occurred with Am Staffs and Staffy Bulls, which for many generations have been selectively bred for appearance rather than for the invisible inner quality of gameness. (Furthermore, I should add, less than scrupulous selection of all these breeds also risks the loss of the breed's excellent dispostion toward people.) In order to maintain a high degree of the desired qualities, a breeder must carefully select only those dogs that have them in the highest degree. Gameness was an extremely difficult trait to develop; it took more than a century of tiny, incremental improvements through selective breeding to produce today's APBT. Though achieved only with great difficulty, gameness is easily lost, sometimes even in the hands of good breeders. If you mate two grand champions, you will be lucky if just one or two of the pups is of the same quality as the parents. Traditonally, the job of breeders was to identify these offspring and use only them to continue the breeding program. Sometimes it's the case that two great dogs will not produce any offspring who are their equals.
You are right, Wilf, in the sense that the presence of gameness in a dog has nothing to do with making the dog fight. Fighting a dog obviously will not improve the genes it was born with. But if you were a breeder interested in *maintaining* the gameness of your line, well, that's a different story.



http://www.thebullyhouse.net/pitbullhistory/pitbullfaqsmyths.html

Agreed my man Aklim, Sharpeis are wonderful dogs. Some very kind breeders in the 70's began to weed out the ones with the fighting urge in them and breed the dosile ones. My sharpei is 11 years old and he love babies, cats he loves everyone.
:D

When my Rott was alive, she was TERRIFIED of the Shar Pei who was half her size. My old Pit Bull was also TERRIFIED of the other Shar Pei I had. Both dogs could have killed either Pei without breaking into a sweat but they were taught to respect the Alpha ***** when they were puppies. All our Peis have been rather stand offish as is their nature.

I am not a fan of pit bull dogs but I do think a big part of the problem is a lot of people now want the big tough dog so they get a dog that has too much inbreeding and is bread for a specific attitude and you see it in other breeds also. You could get a chiwawa that would attack if you kept breeding that way. I have had two German shepherds, one loved everyone and you could do anything and go anywhere with that dog, the other we had to put down because we found that it was the victim of a lot of inbreeding and was so unstable that from one day to the next you weren’t sure if he would attack or want attention. As a breed pits have had to much breeding for their own good but that is because of the people who do that to them. If you took a number of years you could breed that trait out of them. As for Vic and others that are into dog fighting I think they should be stripped and tied down and let the dogs out one at a time to deal with him.

Great video, fits this "elderly thread"

Who's the Animal?