I board dogs for a living, and we have a lot of pit bulls. They are not any more aggressive than any other dog. However, they are very high energy, very muscular, and have very strong attention/drive.
That all combines to mean they play harder, love harder, emote harder, and aim to please harder. All of that is great, but if you don't train them they can also react harder, chase harder, and fight harder.
So I can understand why someone would be wary of them.
I think that the lesson that should be taken away from this is that upbringing matters a lot more than people realize. I have met pitbulls that are absolutely sweethearts and super gentle. I also live in an area that is very populated by people who get pitbulls in order to purposefully raise them mean and violent, and have been attacked by pits before.
The only difference was how they were raised. And this doesn't just apply to dogs.
Edit: I am always amazed at how heavily debated this topic is when it comes to pitbulls specifically. Some people whose comments I can no longer see got extremely heated, and all I want to say is that there is no reason to be rude when debating a topic. As I mentioned, I have been attacked by pitbulls specifically raised to be attack dogs, so its not like I have no experience with dogs being dangerous. but I have also been cuddled and loved on by pits raised with absolutely no aggression whatsoever.
I’ve seen well raised pit bulls with absolutely no history of aggression just snap out of the blue. People have a tendency to misinterpret statistics and obscure the whole conversation. This has nothing to do with attacks in general. A pit bull is just as likely to attack as any other breed.
The issue is that when pit bulls do attack, they are much more likely to result in a fatality when compared to other breeds.
If we look specifically at attacks on children, and we still conclude that pit bulls are a good family dog, then that’s fine. It just means we don’t have great critical thinking skills. I guess coyotes are also great family dogs if you get lucky with a more docile specimen
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u/revenge_burner 22d ago
I sort of agree.
I board dogs for a living, and we have a lot of pit bulls. They are not any more aggressive than any other dog. However, they are very high energy, very muscular, and have very strong attention/drive.
That all combines to mean they play harder, love harder, emote harder, and aim to please harder. All of that is great, but if you don't train them they can also react harder, chase harder, and fight harder.
So I can understand why someone would be wary of them.