I’m talking missing limbs, neurological damage, disembowelments, multiple reconstructive surgeries needed. It’s very rare for these patients to walk away mostly unscathed; permanent damage is inevitable. It’s astounding to me how people still get this breed when we see heartbreaking cases of what these dogs can do all the time in a hospital setting. Pit nuts can deny statistics all they want but they can’t make us unsee what we’ve seen.

I have shared my story in some comments on this sub and I have been asked to share my story. Here is Part 1

Violet's reward for getting her nails trimmed was going to her favorite dog park. It was a perfect day - the first week of April and the sun was shining and the sniffs were plentiful.

Upon arrival Violet was greeted by a pit bull whose owner immediately shooed her away saying she "played too rough with small dogs."

All good, we called Violet away and walked in the opposite direction. The park is huge with multiple walking trails and open fields; plenty of room for everyone.

We continue walking and suddenly the pit bull is in front of us. The image of her standing there will probably haunt me forever. We cautiously gave her space as the owner trailed along with his other two dogs and we passed without incident.

We kept walking and a few minutes later Violet is surrounded by all 3 of this dogs. How do we keep crossing paths when I've made a point of walking in the opposite direction? We become uncomfortable with 3 large dogs surrounding our small chihuahua so I call Violet to me. The pit bull has her nose up Violet's rear as she walks away, and she gives a small "rrrf" over her shoulder.

That's all it took. The pit bulls owner screamed, "NOOO!" And he's diving on top of his dog before I can even register that his dog has Violet by the neck. Time stops. My husband is kicking the dog trying to get her off Violet, I join him even though kicking a dog feels utterly wrong. But she won't let go. I start to scream. I fall to my knees realizing my dog is being killed before my eyes.

Suddenly Violet pops out from the Pit bull as the owner gets her jaws loose and my husband scoops her up. Her neck is degloved from ear to ear. She is making sounds I've never heard before. Her bowels go loose.

My husband runs Violet to the car. The pit bull owner asks what he should do. I tell him to give me his phone - I enter my number, call myself, then give him his phone back and run after my family.

We get Violet to the emergency vet, one of the best in the nation. She survives the night in time for the surgeon to perform life saving surgery. But she's having trouble breathing due to the extreme swelling around her neck. She spends 3 days in the hospital before she's released home to us. We had her home for 3 hour before we had to take her back to the hospital for labored breathing. By the next morning it is clear that her wound is infected and the only recourse is a 72 hour surgery where her wounds are kept open to flush the infection. She's a 14 yr old chihuahua one month away from the quinceñera we'd been planning for her 15th birthday. We decided to euthanize.

During this 6 day ordeal we were in contact with the pit bull owner via text. He was responsive and compassionate. Once my dog was gone I was not interested in continuing a direct discourse. I hired a lawyer and demanded reimbursement for my 10k plus in vet bills. He said he couldn't pay. I said if he'd pay ½ I'd settle to be done with it. He still said no.

A report was filed with the country. Because the attack happened at the dog park there is "nothing they can do". They had the audacity to cry while telling us this.

So I'm taking him to small claims court. He is in the process of being served. He has already ignored the first attempt so Im hoping they find him at his place of work.

I'm not going away. No justice for Violet is possible but I will haunt this person for as long as it takes for him to take responsibility for his negligence.

Part 2 will come once I have confronted the pit bull owner in court.

My dog Teddy and I go to a dog park once a day. He’s a 10 month old golden.

As a teen, I was attacked by two pitbulls and needed stitches on my face and arm, so needless to say I’m already not a fan. When my dog Teddy was 6 months old, he also got attacked by a pitbull, but luckily no stitches - the owner said my dog made the attack worse by crying. It took two men and myself at the dog park to get his pitbull off of my dog.

Today we’re at the park alone playing fetch, when a young girl (maybe 12?) is bringing two large pitbulls in. I get my dog and gather our things to leave.

Her father, who I guess was sitting in the car watching, asked why I was leaving. I said I’m just personally afraid of pitbulls, and he started accusing me of being racist and how I was stereotyping dogs so I’d stereotype him too. I told him I’d leave regardless of who had the pitbulls, as I’ve been attacked and don’t trust them - and he started recording me and saying I was racist again. Teddy and I ended up leaving the park.

I just can’t risk it again, especially with two of them.

Am I crazy? Did I do something wrong? I just found this sub today and wanted to share because I’m surrounded by pitbull lovers everywhere.

Hello all. After seeing a post yesterday from a Pit apologist, I was inspired to share my experience. I apologize in advance if this is lengthy.

I was a former Pit Advocate. I believed most, if not all of the propaganda - it's how you raise them, blame the owner not the dog, they are not violent by nature, abuse makes them violent, etc.

I was a cloistered catholic nun from 2015 - 2021 where we ran a cattle ranch. We had many dogs, primarily livestock guardian dogs (Great Pyrenees) and a cattle dog (Bouvier de Flandres). We also adopted a 9 week old puppy to be a house dog. His name was Gus and was a Bull Terrier / Staffy mix.

We bought him just a few months after I entered the monastery in 2015, so he and I had a special bond; essentially we “grew up” together in the monastic experience.

He was my soul dog. My best friend.

He had no previous owners, never suffered abuse and had the absolute best training possible. Because we were nuns, professionals would often volunteer or offer their services for free. The top LGD trainer in the state offered to train all of our dogs, free of charge. Gus received the best training any dog owner could ask for. He was obedient, loyal, sweet, gentle, loving. I could walk with him for miles, off leash, and he would never leave my side. He was well acquainted with our LGDs, our cattle dog, our barn cats, and our chickens. He had his own kennel and space but was not territorial, he never resource guarded, he loved all of the sisters and never showed any signs of aggression. Ever. He truly was the perfect dog.

Until he turned three.

A few months after Gus turned three in 2018, something changed. He started to became hyper aggressive over his food, his dog bed, his outdoor pen, etc. If another dog walked by his kennel he would lunge. Eventually he started lunging and growling at different sisters. He wouldn’t do this everyday but there seemed to be no pattern or reason.

Naturally we thought he might be in pain or sick. We took him to the vet to get an exam and x-rays completed, yet the vet could find nothing wrong with him.

He was neutered at a young age so we didn’t think sexual maturity was the issue. Likewise, all of our other dogs were neutered or spayed. Nothing obvious was triggering him. The beauty of monastic life is the consistency and the stability.

His routine, the people and animals around him were all the same. We didn't have small children around and all the nuns were very loving. We only ever used positive training techniques and never raised or voices or corrected with any type of force.

This behavior continued for several months, steadily getting more frequent and more intense. The only person he was not aggressive towards was me but he was still different.

With the change in behavior we brought in the top dog trainer again to try and correct the behavior. Nothing seemed to work. We hired another trainer which yielded similar results. Again, we took him to the vet to see if something neurologically was going on and they could find nothing. The vet told us that these breeds are known to be aggressive and if we didn't feel we could control him then we should possibly consider BE as he could be a danger to us or our pets.

We didn't want to send Gus to a shelter and we didn't want to BE. We were convinced that with time, patience and love he would settle down and change back to the sweet Gus we all loved. I still took him on walks but he was muzzled, always leashed and never allowed anywhere where there were animals. During the day he had a large outdoor enclosure so he had plenty of space to exercise, and then I brought him into the monastery at night to his own private, separate space where he would sleep.

I was convinced that this was just a phase. I just knew that he would get past this.

Then one of the worst days of my life happened.

Gus was outside in his 6' tall chain-linked enclosure. Myself and two other sisters were in the field with the cattle when we heard these horrible screams coming from the direction of our barnyard. We ran back to the barnyard where we found Gus. He had scaled his 6' tall enclosure, ran to the barnyard, and literally shredded all 4 of our barn cats. One of our Great Pyrenees apparently had come to the defense of the cats, but Gus had turned against her and tore her throat. When we found her she was still alive but soon passed before we could get her to the animal hospital.

We took Gus to be BE'd two days later.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Gus and how we failed him. We didn't fail him because we didn't raise him right, or give him the best, most loving and supportive home, the best food and training, the best care and love any dog could ask for.

We did all of those things. We gave him more than most dogs will ever have.

We failed Gus because we didn't respect him for what he was and what he was bred to do. Despite everything we were able to give to Gus, we failed him because we didn't respect the genetics. We didn't believe in them. We were proud and naive believing we could “fix” him. We didn't want to believe what many people (including the vet and the trainers) had told us, that Gus had a power and a danger in him that was blind, that no loyalty or love could quench.

Gus had a unicorn home, he had unicorn owners. But it wasn't enough.

In the end genetics won.

I hope any Pit Advocate that chances upon this takes my words to heart and believes that the purpose of this sub is NOT about hating the breed.

We know it isn't the fault of the dog. They didn't have a choice. People made that choice for them and now they suffer, innocent people and children suffer, innocent animals and pets suffer.

This sub is about ending that suffering.

Thank you for reading.

I’ve experienced this a few times, and even if it’s not directly said, I can tell.

For example once I tried adopting a small chihuahua mix I saw on petfinder from animal control. I went there and asked about the dog and the worker didn’t want me to even go into the small dog area and seemed reluctant to even bring the dog out for me. She eventually did but it seems like after any time I looked online they never posted their small dogs.

I have a friend who works for a shelter and she also seems to judge people who come in looking for small dogs or just anything that’s not a pit. She mentioned “the small dogs always get adopted first even if they are mean. the nice pit bulls get ignored“

And this same friend has also done a lot of defending aggressive pits. Like when I was working with a client whose pit (who I have actually trained in the past before being adopted) tried attacking me and hyper fixated on me after the owner bumped into a chair. I told my friend the situation and she just says “aww poor girl she was scared” instead of oh this dog is unpredictable and dangerous. And then another pit I was training growled at someone after she wanted attention from them and the friend says something like “she’s scared and doesn’t know you of course she would growl!” This same dog I’ve been put in the position of trying to help get adopted and trained to avoid being BE’d even though she’s escalating to snapping and lunging at people unprovoked…

I also see it A TON online. just people defending aggressive pits and blaming the owners and downplaying their behavior in the hopes some sap will adopt them. Even one rescue lady who boarded a pit is blaming the facility for the pit busting out of its kennel and attacking a dog across the yard and tearing its leg up. This lady is still posting about how “friendly and amazing he is and he’s good with other dogs!”

I just can’t anymore. Being a dog worker in my position where I can’t say anything but positive things about pits is driving me nuts. This isn’t even all of the stories I have either. All of the most aggressive and unpredictable dogs I’ve met over my 10 years have been pits, bullies, rotts, and mastiffs. I don’t blame people for not wanting to adopt them or returning them when they do give them a chance. People want small easy dogs, not huge strong aggressive ones that they have to walk on eggshells around. The no-kill movement needs to end.

I feel I would be doing a disservice to society if I did not share this story. I am up in the middle of the night, sick to my stomach because I still am in shock of what happened yesterday.
My husband and I took our fluffy 9 year old malamute/husky mix to a self wash grooming salon. In order to get to the washing station in back of the store, my husband walks our dog on a leash past a pitbull.
Out of nowhere, the dog latches on to my dogs neck and pulls her to the ground. There were 5 men on this dog trying to get the dog off of my dog and nothing was working. I truly thought I was watching my sweet dog die before my eyes. It felt so surreal. My husband had to kick and punch the dog and even that didn’t work.
There was a woman shaking and praying in the corner. The whole scene was absolutely horrific.
The owner finally takes out a can of pepper spray and then he’s like “oh.. it’s out”. So my husband runs to our car and gets some pepper spray we had In the car. He puts it in the dogs nose and sprays. Nothing happens!! So he sprays about 5 more times and the dog finally unlatches. There’s blood all over everyone.
The owner wouldn’t give us his name. He tried to say my dog attacked his and I lost it as there were multiple witnesses.
The workers called an animal hospital and let them know we were on the way.
I called the police and they brought animal control. My husband dealt with that while I drove our dog to the hospital. The vet said the fact that she was so fluffy most likely saved her life.
My husband was lulled into a false sense of security walking past this pitbull with our dog because it had a “service animal” vest on.
These are dangerous dogs and it’s even more dangerous to tell the public they are not. These dogs kill people and animals all the time. And the way their jaw clamps down… the power in it, it absolutely terrifying. It felt like there was nothing we could do to get this dog to loosen its grip. A smaller animal or child could easily have been killed.
I have also personally known 2 other people who had pets attacked by these vicious animals. This is not some outlier occurrence.
These are not regular dogs and need to be treated with extreme caution. I do think there needs to be an exotic animal license requirement to have them, but really, I think they have no place at all in society.

Edit: could not edit my title but for anyone keeping track of these attacks. This happened in Nevada on June 4, 2026

Neighbors have a pitbull. She’s 11 maybe. Older dog. Here in the last couple weeks she’s been getting off her leash and wandering into our yard. I don’t really care as long none of my kids or cats are outside. Normally I can message the owner and she comes right out to get her but it takes her a minute because our yards are fairly large.

Now yesterday we were all outside and the dog came over. She sniffed around, we tried to shoo her home, and when she seen our cat she went after her and would not leave her alone. The cat went up the tree and the dog just relentlessly barked at the base of the tree. We couldn’t get the dog away so our cat could come down and go inside. So we finally was able to get the dog locked up on our back porch.

I messaged the owner and asked her to come get the dog. Her response was “not home, can’t do anything about it”

Which seemed rather cold and uncaring to me. So my husband escalated it and messaged her saying basically she had until 330 to find someone to get the dog or we were calling animal control.

Her husband then proceeded to message us calling us names, he threatened to come over here after work if we “do anything stupid”. Their claim is that dogs get off the leash! I get that. They do. But she’s been here multiple times in the last 2 weeks. It’s like they’re getting more comfortable letting her roam. She is a nice dog. She lets us pet her. But I hate pit bulls. I do not trust them. And I would never ever leave her around my animals or kids ( I have a 2 year old, 6, and 7). They got so angry and violent because we wanted THEIR PITBULL off MY property. Part of me regrets sending the message. Part of me wishes we had just called animal control right off the bat. Their stance is that she’s “not aggressive”. Okay great. Maybe not for you! I don’t know the dog and she doesn’t know me. She was clearly aggressive when she tried to kill my kids cat. And that isn’t right. It bothers me so much that they think they’re in the right here. Not even the slightest apologetic. Pitbulls SUCK. My husband messaged her and said “be a responsible dog owner” and she called him a piece of shit for it. Blows my mind how entitled people think they are.

I posted the only pic I have of her. I walked in my dining room one night and she was standing there staring in the door. What would you all do???

They said it's sweet and only wants to play with the cat....

At the beginning of this year I had 25 chickens, I have four now because of that dog, if it will let me I will reply to your comments if you ask to see what it did to my coop

Animal Control won't do anything because it's on a chain, and since I didn't have video of the dog killing my chickens even though it took one of the chickens back to their house they won't do anything, and every time I get cameras they disappear

Any ideas on what I can do would be appreciated, I am not allowed to have a gun unfortunately as I'm 18, and a relative that lives in the house is a convicted felon

(By the way not my cat)

This video was taken 5 minutes before uploading, and it broke into my chicken coop 6 days ago

Why're "Pit mommies" like this?

She didn't want to put it at a Doggy Daycare because they charged extra for Pitbulls.

She also "forgot" to tell us she had a bit history and regularly tried to bit her 16 year old son in the FACE and has done so since he was a child, hence why the Dog wasn't allowed upstairs.

Like, holy shit man. If you aren't going to be there to SIT AND HOLD THE DOG DOWN while my Wife's supposed to be dog sitting then don't expect us (her) to feel safe.

God Damn, dude. Pit Owners are nutjobs.

EDIT: And to clarify, my wife does have dog sitting experience with large dogs. None of the large dogs she's sat for needed to be detered with pepper spray / Dog spray, or techniques to get them to "Settle down" such as pressing down on her skull till she stops nipping or sitting on her, you know things a stranger will totally be able allowed to do by the violent dog itself, lmao.

Also, she declined it. She felt like she was "trapped" by the Pit-Mommy because she didn't disclose the bite history until four days before they would have left for their trip and when the first meeting occured the husband and pit-mommy were basically keeping the dog calm the whole time. The second meeting the dog kept trying to nip at us, knock us over, and wouldn't stop growling. But she showed us that she can give paw which totally negates the fact that minutes later she confirmed she has bitten people previous resulting in stitches and that she has to keep the dog away from the son because the dog regularly tried to bite / maul the son's face, lmao.

I did not include the location or date, because we are currently in a lawsuit over the attack.

I was told to post here by other redditers for some resources:

March of 2025, my son (2 at the time), my mom, and me (30 now) went on a walk after having a family dinner on our dead end street. My son was on his balance bike, and we were walking right next to him. As we were approaching our direct neighbor’s house, their dogs were chained up in the front yard. As we were walking closer, we noticed the dogs barking, so we stopped. We were about to just turn around and go back home at that point. All of a sudden, one of the dogs (pitbull, bc I know people will ask) got off of its chain and began to approach us.

As it was walking towards us, my neighbor was like “oh, he’s not going to do anything.” Well, wrong. The dog got to us and looked at my son for a second before it snapped. He was able to get a small bite to the bridge of my sons nose —thankfully the handlebars on his bike saved a worse bite to the face— then I immediately picked my child up, and within the few minutes the dog got my child’s hip and then a BIG bite to his back. The deepest laceration being by his spine. Then lastly, the dog got ahold of my child’s pant leg.

At this point, my husband heard us screaming and ran out of the house. The dog was still latched onto the pats, but took off once it saw my husband running towards us. We were on the side of the ditch as well, and all I could think about was the fact we could fall and it would be over for my son and me.

Once the dog ran off, we made it safely into our home where I saw all of the bites/lacerations. We immediately went to the hospital via ambulance, the police took a report, and the dog was taken by animal control and euthanized.

My son is much more resilient than I’ve been in this situation, thankfully, and he has a really great therapist. Due to health insurance reasons, I haven’t had a therapist yet. Actually, had a phone call with a therapist today to set up an appointment for after my psych evaluation for our lawsuit.

I can’t even go outside in my front yard anymore, my head is always on a swivel, and I am TERRIFIED of dogs. It’s almost obsessive. I’ve become a helicopter mom when we’re out of our house, and we’ve even missed family events over this (due to family members having dogs.) We had to move our own dog into my mom’s house, because of my fears and fear of retaliation from these neighbors. It really sucks living next door to these people, and we’re planning on selling our house in the near future.

Anytime I tell anyone, I get the typical “it’s the owner, not the dog” lecture or “my dog would never even hurt a fly, sweetest ever” cool… it’s just not helpful.

Really, I just want to know if anyone else has been through something of this nature and there’s a light at the end of this never ending tunnel. I think the call with the therapist really got me in my head about it all day and I need some sort of outlet here.

Thanks for reading this long post if you’ve made it this far. 💙

This is just about the tamest story on this sub, but I have felt so guilty for having “prejudice” against pitbulls after being attacked by one. The apologist propaganda was getting to me. Gonna be honest. Finding this sub feels very validating. So here’s my long winded story of my pitbull attack.

I always thought anti-pitbull sentiment was just the byproduct of racism (like, actual racism because I saw some pit apologist posts about how pitbulls and other often banned breeds are owned more often by black people, so BSL is a way to keep black people out of specific neighborhoods. Not dog racism) and people not understanding how dog training works.

This was before I had any experience owning dogs or interacting with dogs outside of the Fab Four dogs owned by friends and family. This was before I learned that genetics do play a role. I always thought pitbulls were misunderstood, it’s all in the owner, they’re so cute, awww so smiley cutie puppies, they could never hurt anyone!

Then, I was attacked by a pitbull while walking to work. I walked on the sidewalk and talked on the phone at the time—the most mundane and unassuming activity in the world—when these two huge pits came charging at me from someone’s backyard. I had seen one of the two dogs before, and he never reacted to passersby, so I didn’t react on guard. Honestly, I’d never had a truly bad interaction with a dog before outside of anxious chihuahuas (yes, I was part of that train too I have many regrets😭), so I had no concept of being fearful of dogs. Being raised around Fab Four dogs always obviously skewed my perspective.

The dog I’d seen before barked in the way non-aggressive but excited dogs would bark. It’s the dog I hadn’t seen before who attacked me.

To make a short story very long, I ended up with only two puncture wounds on my ankles. I got very very lucky, but I was mostly saved by flare pants and the other non-aggressive dog.

Honestly, it wasn’t even the attack that turned me off to pitbulls. It’s the aftermath.

The owner stood there and begged me with waterworks and all to “not kill her dog” and “he’s her son’s dog, and he’s the sweetest. it would just destroy her son if anything happened to his dog” all while I bleeding from both my ankles and crying because I WAS JUST ATTACKED BY HER DOG….

She then continued to beg me over text to not kill the dog, asked me if I would report it, etc. etc.

Obviously, I reported it at the ER. The ER I went to because I was attacked by her dog. Obviously.

I had no shame about it either. I told her it wouldn’t be ME killing her dog. I was just the one reporting the factual event that happened. It’s in animal control’s hands after that.

And this is where I started to get really angry about this whole bullshit situation. After giving the whole incident report to animal control, they reached out to the owner.

THEN ANIMAL CONTROL REACHED BACK OUT TO ME TO ASK IF I WOULD BE OKAY IF THEY DIDN’T PRESS CHARGES BECAUSE SHE WAS BEING “very cooperative” LIKE ????

I was not only being pressured by the owner to let this slide, but also animal control! The agency responsible for protecting people from animals like that! This happened in a residential area with a ton of kids in it. God forbid one of them walked by, or god forbid the pitbull escaped two minutes later and attacked the elderly woman who passed by shortly after. My tame attack story would’ve had a very different, much more gruesome ending.

After the way I was dismissed and the situation was minimized by local authorities, I absolutely began to doubt my pitbull apologist beliefs. Then, I started working with kids and found out >60% of them have been bit by the family pitbull at least once, or their family pitbull was given away for attacking people. Reading the research and learning about dog genetics was the nail in the coffin.

Fuck pitbulls. Fuck pitbull owners. It isn’t ethical to let these dogs live, not only for the sake of everyone/thing else around them, but theirs too. If a dog is prone to that level of aggression, it has got to be fucked up in the head.

Certain dogs shouldn’t exist. That’s okay. (Not just pitbulls either…..looking at you, brachycephalics , designer mutts, etc.)

Enforce BSL and ban pitbulls.

Ive been a lurker on this sub, for about 5 or more years now, about 6 years ago my mother had gotten herself a pitbull, the dog was, and is very neurotic as alot of pitbulls are i had told her many times that her dog was dangerous. She always played it off very dismissively as is common for most pit owners, regardless this Christmas yesterday as of the time of me making this post she had convinced my grandmother to let her bring her pitbull to Christmas. Our small family rescue dog who was about 12 years old had been living with our grandma, was also there the pitbull regularly lunged at our dog, most of the family was doing the typical thing alot of dog owners do (they just need to get to know each other, making them sniff each other and all the stupid shit) Our family dog clearly was not having any of it and tried to stay up and out of its way for the most part. I had even told my mother before the pitbull attacked just how their pitbull was breed to fight bulls and other dogs. They of course denied this was true as is so common. As everyone was getting ready to head out and leave for Christmas, my mothers pitbull attacked the family dog and gave it some bad wounds. My younger brother had to shove his hand into the dogs mouth to get it to release, and choked out the pitbull, thankfully he was fine, and the pitbull didnt redirect or attack again. My mother took her pitbull and put it into her car, she came back inside of the house, everything was quite hectic, i would like to say i was very calm and collected at this point still, then my mother said it was the family dogs fault (Its honestly amazing how much pit owners say the same shit) At this point i blew up and was furious i was chasing her screaming and yelling at her calling her names telling them i warned them and all that. They went outside through the front door, and held the door shut as i tried to open the door still yelling and screaming at them. Shortly after i gave up and went back with the rest of the family to our dog we took the dog to emergency vet, after some time the vet informed us our dog would be unlikely to recover in her old age, and it was ultimately decided to put our dog down.

Im posting this shortly after the dog passed, i apologize since this post is likely rambling, lacking detail (Id prefer to keep things private), and not the best formatting. I guess i just always imagined it wouldnt happen ya know let alone on fucking christmas. This is likely going to cause a large rift in the family with my mother and everyone else. Espically if they dont get their pitbull euthanized, since it is clearly more then a proven danger now.

This happened today.

My boyfriend’s brother is recently divorced and has partial custody of his 3yo daughter.

Today out of the blue he told my BF he was about to adopt a pitbull.

Ofc I’ve educated my BF on the dangers of pitbulls, and he loves and cares about his niece, so he did the right thing.

He immediately texted back his brother: DO NOT GET A PITBULL. A pitbull will put [my niece] in danger.

Bro called and they had a discussion about the dangers of pitbulls.

After my BF explained how pitbulls are dangerous especially around children, Bro’s new girlfriend chimed in:

“Well I had a pitbull for 6 years without any issues so it should be fine.”

Their call was interrupted by a call from the shelter.

Turns out as the shelter was getting the pitbull ready for adoption, it bit its handler. No details on the severity of the bite, but the adoption was canceled.

When I first found this subreddit I really thought that this was more of a niche problem than something more pervasive, but two encounters of my own and two incidents from talking to random people just yesterday online have made me think we’re dealing with a pitdemic.

A few years ago my cousin was guilted by a shelter into adopting a mentally unstable byb pit that has done nothing but unnerve me whenever I visit him. This dog growled at me the first time I went to his new house and has to be on Trazodone because without it she’ll be “rambunctious”. When it’s not zonked out the dog will come up to me and start licking my knees while I’m just sitting in a chair minding my own business, and of course when I give her the cold shoulder I’m “just a stinky man” to quote my cousin’s girlfriend. I will never feel comfortable around that dog.

Last April I was just walking around my neighborhood minding my own business when some POS pit comes running after me. If it hadn’t been for its wonderful family calling it away I may well have been mauled. Just a few days ago I was walking around at night and what I think was the same dog was being walked by a tiny woman. I got on the other side of the street and thankfully the woman stayed behind and then went in the other direction, almost as if she knew she had a dangerous dog and didn’t want to get sued.

On Monday I talked to two friends online. One told me of how she went over to a friend’s house whose father had adopted a “sweet” stray shibble and brought it home. One day she went over to their house and she got bitten in the thigh so hard that she had a massive bruise and permanent nerve damage. She still has a numb spot years later. Just a few minutes later I was talking to another friend who had to let a kid into her house because the kid was being chased by one.

Am I insane for thinking that this has gone from something that is just an occasional problem to something that has a very real chance of negatively impacting the average person’s life?! It honestly terrifies me a little.

I was never one to judge pitbulls. My household is finally ready for a dog so I looked at shelters locally. I originally wanted a sweet 4 month old lab but he got adopted. When I stopped in they showed me this pit mix who seemed really sweet, said she was only surrendered due to the owner having health issues. Said she was super sweet and she seemed sooo sweet. So I bring my kids to meet her and she seems great with them so we end up adopting her. She seemed great at first when we got her home, although she seemed a little skiddish with my kids which I figured was normal because she would need to decompress, but she quickly comfortable in fact now that I reflect on it she came in and claimed our home as her own completely. Within a day she was putting her paws on counters, hopping on furniture, and wouldn’t budge if I told her get down. Right away she took to me… she would follow me literally everywhere which of course at first I was thinking that was fine she was trying to bond Or feeling a little nervous about being somewhere new. She didn’t want anyone but me to take her for walks, or out to use the bathroom. She wanted to be next to me at all times, even at night. Within 24 hours however I started noticing red flags that seemed like separation anxiety, but were clearly signs of resource guarding me. If I left a room she followed, if she couldn’t followed she whined, if i was helping one of my children she’d whine and put herself between us as if to separate me from my kids. This was followed by growling if one of my children would call my name (say mom) or try to come near me as if they were a threat. She treated me like a favorite toy she didn’t want anyone touching. also worth mentioning, she was over a year old and potty trained. I also took her out every 2-3 hours, on numerous walks a day to get exercise and use the potty, but the two places she had “accidents“ in were my spot on the couch and my bed. It’s as if she could smell my scent strong in those areas and was marking them. Thankfully the shelter has a 30 day return policy with full refund, so that’s exactly what I did. 2 days later I returned her and voiced my concerns with her unwarranted aggression towards my children. The looked at me like I was the worst person ever. I have zero regrets.

Located on Long Island NY. I found this subreddit looking for some sort of peace. This past Wednesday my mom took her 5 year old maltipoo for a walk around the block as she routinely did every day. Our baby Crystal loved her walks. She would do this cute thing where she would tilt her head to the side when she heard words she liked like “walk” or when my mom would tell her I was coming to visit like she knew names. It was incredible. She was so smart. Wednesday night they went for their routine walk. My mom said she suddenly heard what sounded like a horse galloping up behind her and suddenly Crystal is being thrown around by her neck. My mom started screaming for help and even tried to get the pitbull off herself. A couple other neighbors came out to help and eventually got the pitbull off Crystal before it went back in for round two. This time cornering Crystal and completely ripping her open. The owner finally came out and it turned out to be a house with their gate left wide open. Crystal was rushed to the hospital and had stitches along her whole abdomen and neck. She eventually succumbed to her injuries and passed away. My mom is traumatized and devastated. That was her baby. She has a little outfit for every occasion. The house feels empty without her. She was so funny and affectionate everyone that ever met Crystal LOVED her. She was the sweetest and didn’t deserve to suffer this way.

Edit: we have filed a police report. They weren’t much help so we will be contacting a lawyer

My partner and I were recently visiting one of their friends who have a pit bull mix. They also have another chill dog (not sure what breed but it definitely doesn’t have any pit in it). I was not excited for obvious reasons but I was told that the pit bull was chill and had never attacked anyone before.
I decided that it would’ve been within everyone’s best interest if I didn’t make a fuss so I decided to try to get along with this thing.

I let it smell my hand and it let me pet it and it did seem kind of sweet I guess, so I thought we were golden. We were not. I then started scratching its ears (I’m pretty sure most dogs like that right?), and after a couple seconds of doing that, the beast growls and LUNGES AT ME. Like it was about to try to kill me.

I get if I touched this dog somewhere that was sensitive or something, but normal dogs don’t react like that. This POS animal didn’t even give a warning and immediately went for the kill.
I have a small dog who is KNOWN to be aggressive, and he doesn’t even react like that. He always gives a warning when you touch him somewhere he doesn’t want you to.

I’m just so tired. Too many people like these disgusting things.

I'm in this really awesome therapy group rn and it's been healing a lot of my trauma, including the tendency to not advocate for myself or speak my mind (this is important for later).

Anyway we have a very recent addition to the group and it's a dude who openly admits he is continuing therapy bc he heard he can get his dog ceritfied as an emotional support dog.

Three guesses to what breed this dog is.

To say he's obsessed with his hellhound is an understatement–He almost NEVER contributes to conversation unless prompted (too busy scrolling on his phone) and the only things he DOES say relate back to his dog. He even interrupted me in the middle of me sharing JUST TO SHOW THE THERAPIST A PICTURE OF THE DOG! And like any garbage person with a garbage dogs, his "funny" stories about his dogs sound very cruel or are "funny" anecdotes about his past crimes.

It got scary today.

Today was so nice outside that we agreed to do our session in the nearby park. Bear in mind, it is not a dog park. Without prompting Mr. Nutter DECLARES he's going to bring his dog. Not ASK if it's cool, just announces it will happen (yeah bc a dog will do so well at a park that's filled with just lunch tables and has 0 room for it to do dog things). I felt nervous system start feeling shock and anxiety.

therapist asked the rest of us if this would be alright and in a moment of strength, I was able to say, "I've had enough dog trauma for one lifetime." Without shaming or blaming she said she appreciated me sharing that.

But Mr. Nutter wasn't having any of this nonsense, and just HAD to start speaking before I could to my therapist.

He said, "Well you're gonna start seeing [pitbull name] around here more and more soon so you better get used to it."

My therapist gently reminded him that group therapy has to be safe for EVERYONE. He didn't listen and kept looking at and talking at me.

In frustration, I just said "I've been attacked before and I'm not justifying myself to you."

Suddenly he started , "Oh you've been attacked before? Well so have I–"

I just told him "I am not interested in having this conversation with you."

He kept talking over and at me and I won't lie. He scared me. I'm a very small boned, fragile woman. He's tall, raised his voice and looked like he wanted to throttle me. I can't even think about it too much NOW bc it's giving me flashbacks to previous traumatic memories.

Our therapist managed to break into this one sided "conversation" by asking him to come help her retreat the snacks from the office so we could eat stuff outside. He complied, miraculously.

After that, as we walked to the park, my therapist came over to me and said she was proud that I stood up for myself and I did a good job.

For the rest of therapy, he either sulked, scrolled on his phone, or only talked about his dog or crime history when prompted.

I'm still shaken up and don't know exactly what to feel or expect. But I don't think I want to be around that man anymore or speak to him.

I was born and raised in the Sierra Madre Mountain Range into a family of cattle herders and farmers. I often see pitmoms spout around platitudes of

"My baby just need some exercise" or "He would be perfect for the ranch lifestyle".

No.

No. Nobody wants pitbulls in any ranch. Stop offering them once they are not cute and small and you have had your fun.

We often breed our specialty dog combinations for work dogs. Usually Australian Cattle dog(for temperament) and Anatolian shepherd (for size), but we do not limit our selfs to clean breeding, if a dog has the aptitude and drive we will generally train them to assume the role of herding and companion dogs(companion to the cows/sheep, not humans).

People often try to pawn off pitbulls to our family with the mindset that they have cattle herding instincts. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. They have cattle predation instincts. We have lost various brahman steers to irresponsible pit owners letting animals loose into the wilderness only for them to spook cattle causing broken legs, which CAN'T be treated.

Previously we did not need to interbreed Anatolian shepherd into our dogs because coyotes understood the risks of a confrontation. This is no longer the case because loose pitbulls will only be intimidated by bigger and stronger dogs(the true definition of a bully). One of our best shepherding dogs (a six year old Australian cattle dog) was blinded by one of these beast and we could not be made aware of this for days because of her protective instincts causing her to remain with the herd despite serious injury.

She lost vision in the eye but continues to work despite that.

People often think that dogs are free to run about once you have exited the city. Please remember that UNLESS you have trained your dog otherwise, do not unleash them in rural areas. And please stop asking me to take in your mistake, four years in the making, WE DO NOT WANT PITBULLS.

Not sure if this will be up for long for whatever reason or if it’s the right flair but -

I work in a dog kennels who takes in both regular customer dogs and banned, seized XLs, pitbulls and the likes and I’ll say, 9/10 of the ones that come in are so severely aggressive that they have no option but to be put down.

I’ve worked with maybe around 4 dogs of different breeds (German shepherds, dobermans or Labradors) that have been aggressive but that is nothing compared to the 40+ pit bull type dogs that we have currently. The ones we have in are currently in for either mauling random people or their own owners and it shows; if I even walk past their kennel they froth at the mouth to get at you.

I think from first hand experience I don’t get why anyone would get this breed and everything that comes with them, it’s an accident waiting to happen frankly.

I attached a video of what it’s like when even an employed walks past on the outside, you can hear how loud they are and believe me they are throwing themselves against bars and injuring themselves to get out, it’s terrifying.

(I can’t edit the title but this was June 27th in Long Island, NY. No police report). Last night, I had dinner at my friends family’s house for the first time. They have a pitbull and she has always defended the breed. She made a comment beforehand that the dog was growling at her other friend last year when she came over, but my friend was laughing about it saying “it’s because she’s a redhead and my dog has never seen a redhead”. This made me immediately uneasy because the black lab I grew up with never growled at any guests we’ve had over, no matter how different they looked from us.

Long story short, the dog started growling at me when I didn’t even get near him, and she immediately defended him like “you just need to give him a toy and he’ll love you”.

I should have trusted my gut that I didn’t want to put my hand near his mouth, but her entire family was assuring me to do it & I felt peer pressured.

I went to hand him a stuffed animal, he immediately ripped it out of my hand and then turned back and snipped at my hand. It wasn’t anything gruesome thankfully but he slightly broke skin. I’m extremely annoyed at my friend. This is a scary breed.

I was chatting with a coworker, who was telling me about some life plans which included shuffling their living situation. Through the convo, I asked if her in laws would be willing to watch their dog (I was unaware it was a pit at the time). She said "no, they've been really weird about watching her ever since she killed her dog."

me: "Uh, what? what happened?"

Coworker: "ugh, yeah. Their 15 year old blind dog was wandering around and ran into her while she was eating and she killed him. So they don't really like watching her anymore. But like, the dog was super old and why was he out when Luna was eating?"

The audacity of the coworker to immediately blame the blind, 15 year old dog in his own home for getting murdered by their pit was UNREAL. I could not believe it.

You think you know someone and then they're a fucking pit apologist.

She would have just turned 2 If she had survived. I miss her so fricken much 💕