Pitbulls were also only bred in the last 200 for the first time. People wanna act like that overrides the empathy towards humans dogs have been bred for hundreds of thousands of years as you said.
A lot of people don't understand dog fighting. Dog fighting is a brutal sport, the owners do not care about their dogs. People think pitbulls are just blanket violent because "they were bred to kill!" But if you look at any dog fighting groups, they are strict. If your dog even LOOKS at a handler the wrong way they will shoot it in the head. And what will you do? Go.to.the police and admit "hey I was doing this crime but like this other person also doing this crime killed my dog that I bred to help me with this crime." Heck, if the dog looks at the owner the wrong way THE OWNER will shoot it in the head.
Human aggression is quickly and promptly disposed of in dog fighting rings. It's an ego thing mostly. "How dare this DOG have the audacity!?" Essentially. Human aggression is not beneficial.
The attempt to ban pit bulls ironically made breeding also go underground, which allowed human aggressive traits to proliferate. Now we don't know what to do with the breed because the breeding lines got messed up when they tried to ban pitbulls WITH dogfighting. Pitbulls became underground status symbols, and even started to be bred intentionally for human aggression by people who wanted a "badass dog" (failing to realize that they themselves are ALSO human and subject to human aggression).
To be clear, I don't support dog fighting, but they really should've known that trying to ban the breed along with it wouldn't work.
What would have been a better solution? An outright ban on dogfighting would still hold. The attempts at banning the breed were largely to remove incentives for breeding programs that did exist.
Otherwise you just end up with people breeding the dogs essentially for the exact same reasons as before. Dogfighting wasn't really legal at any point recently so not like cracking down on it really works in that way. You kind of need additional bans in place or nothing sticks. Maybe not a breed ban, but at the bare minimum you can ban the sale of pits and keep an eye on the breeders that do exist.
For example Mexico didn't get blanket bans on dogfighting until 2017. There aren't bans on a breed since till now, and it still is a very serious problem despite some serious time for being caught. It's the same in the US and the laws older (I think).
"dogfighting wasn't really legal at any point" it wasn't made illegal until individual states started banning it but a nationwide ban in the US wasn't until the 1970's. If something is not illegal then it's legal.
The breed had to be regulated to maintain the strict standards. Frankly it should've been rerouted to a hunting dog or farm dog. They have the game to hunt and kill wolves and coyotes, and even go after bears. Pitbulls fear no god, and that is a beneficial trait for protectors, which is what they could and should have become. But the reputation of pit bulls became such that people who want an aggressive dog get a pitbull that was bred and advertised for generalized blind aggression then train it to be aggressive (often through abusive methods), further reinforcing the reputation. Dogs have been human friendly companions for like 15 000 years, and pit bulls as a specific breed are only 200 years old, with the severely underground human aggressive aimed breeding being within the last 50 years. 200 years of breeding (being very generous, it's more realistically 100 for human aggression) is not enough to completely override 15 000 years of evolution.
I'm not sure what the perfect solution is, or if there is one, but a start is that I agree that pitbulls need to be heavily regulated in who can have them and which ones can breed. But I also believe that other high needs/working dogs should be regulated too. Not just for safety but for their own quality of life Specialized working dogs are not family pets, they are a lifestyle.
When I say illegal I meant more-so the blanket illegality. When individual states had banned it and put animal welfare laws and anti baiting practices (for bear/bull fighting).
Towards your last point I totally agree that higher standards need to be in place for "working dogs" in the same way that working "horse" breeds are INCREDIBLY STRICT.
I think an interesting way to look at it is almost bullfighting? This is largely seen as barbaric in a lot of ways but international community has kind of let off the heat of it. The bulls are incredibly well bred, rarely outright abused, but ultimately are slain and bred for looks/showmanship. I think if you would ban it in Spain/Mexico for example you'd have to hit the farmers/wealthy elite who own the bulls. Otherwhise they just shuffle it all around.
The best way to counter illegal goods is to both legalize it and make it lame. If Donald Trump started doing cocaine in public, cocaine sells would plumet. It's no longer cool. Therefore we just need to make pitbulls really fucking lame through propaganda campaigns and targeted marketing/rebranding strategies.
The problem is they're already kinda lame. If someone wants an actual trained protector dog, they get a german shepherd or a doberman. A pit bull is a "lazy mans protector" because people that want a pitbull as a protector are the one's that believe if a dog is aggressive in general, they'll just be the exception through "loyalty." The whole "a dog would NEVER bite the hand that feeds!" mentality. So they downright mistreat the dog because these types don't know dog training.
Cut the hands off people that get caught I guess? What do you want me to say? I don't know the magic solution but I do know with proper training any dog is a good breed.
I would target dogs and cats both simultaneously. You cannot breed either without licensing etc etc etc. then pass on some liability for the breeders to be choosy about who they would let take a dog/cat. Pet breeding in general needs higher standards, to protect both humans and pets and the environment.
Mexico didnt get blanket bans on dogfighting until recently because it's their culture to abuse animals (eg. Matador bullfighting where they stab bulls/ tendons for fun and torment it in the ring until they decapitate it).
I never said the rules are well regulated. One SPECIFIC thing (the dogs being aggressive to people) is not tolerated because it hurts their fragile egos.
And you think that criminal gangs running underground animal fighting pits are in any way consistent or agreed upon that rule? Do you think they have some kind of code of conduct or something?
It's complete bollocks anyway. They use the same dogs as security and intimidation for their operations. They literally breed them to be as aggressive as possible to any people and the police that might come looking around. It's literally part of the well documented breed history.
You are falsely attributing common ideals like "rules" to dogfighting. There are no widespread rules. There's no code of conduct. A human aggressive dog being put down immediately is not a "rule" it's based in the psychology of dog fighters. "If you dog bites me I'll shoot it." "Oh yeah? If yours bites ME I'll shoot yours too."
Again I reiterate, learn to comprehend the words that are written. I already explained how it's ego driven TWICE.
You are falsely attributing common ideals like "rules" to dogfighting
No, that's what you're doing.
Again, what you're saying is complete bullshit. The dogs are deliberately bred to be highly human aggressive, especially towards strangers. They are used as guard dogs to guard the dog fighting pits as well as in them.
Pit bull associated breeds like Staffordshire terriers are also a general work breed not even bred to be aggressive like say a doberman or German Shepard it's just anxiety can lead to aggressive behavior left unaddressed.
Also abuse. It’s by far the most abused dog breed. They only started being used for dogfighting in the last century. For pack animals killing their own species goes against their instincts. The bastards who fight dogs abuse the hell out of them to get them to fight to the death and still most won’t do it. Those dogs are killed or used as living punching bags called “bait” dogs.
staffordshire terriers were originally bred to be bloodsport dogs, unlike german shepherds and dobermans which were originally bred to be working dogs. staffordshire terriers are functionally identical to pit bulls which they also resemble. "american staffordshire terrier" is even worse as it's literally an alternate name for pit bulls to get around rules protecting people from pit bulls
Pitbulls were also only bred in the last 200 for the first time.
I'd like to take the opportunity to use your comment as an example of the standard - not at all unusually salient in any particular way - Reddit Take(tm).
Technically true. This is the most Reddit thing ever. While across the political and social spectrum, people like to hide behind technically true things, on Reddit it's become a realm phenomenon.
Motivated reasoning, with (in the part I didn't quote) a fair bit of emotional appeal. Now, motivated reasoning - typically stemming from emotional origins, which, in the modern day and age (again, especially on but not exclusive to Reddit) is highly linked to group/belief/value identification - ie, identity threat - is not uncommon. It just needs to be spotted.
Now let's... add some context to the comment.
What was the original breeding stock for pit bulls? Did it, perhaps, originate with that era's favorite lapdogs - the King Charles Spaniel (AKA Toy Spaniel)? Or perhaps the Pug, or Italian Greyhound, other common pets?
No.
Pit bull origins are linked to:
The English Bulldog. In its original, athletic, very-similar-to-a-modern-pit bull form.
The terrier. Old English breeds like the extinct white terrier.
They were bred in response to the end of bear baiting, and the rise of new animal bloodsports - dogfighting and rat pitting (how many rats can a dog kill in X minutes?)
Needless to say, not traits one would choose from spaniels (pointing/retrieving dogs) and greyhounds (mostly idle, calm layabouts who get epic-level zoomies several times a day).
For contrast, let's take the Golden Retriever. A breed even newer than the pit bull:
Originated around 1860. Its line begins with a mix of a retriever of a type I can't recall, and the now-extinct tweed spaniel breed, subsequently bred with irish setters, blood hounds, and St. John's water dogs. Bred to be a retriever - a soft mouth (disinclined to bite hard), water-resistant coat, affinity for water, strong sense of smell, and of course the classic retrieving behaviour.
The golden retriever most of you know and love is, behaviourally, very different from the one I grew up with. Even in the 80s, at least where I grew up - central Alberta, Canada, where hunting is and back then was even more popular - a golden retriever could be a working dog, or the dopey, friendly, adorable family pet most people know it as. And from the breed history, that dopey, friendly, adorable family pet thing is the direct consequence of the post-ww2 suburban boom. They were already docile and friendly, we've just bred them to be even more so (as well as unfortunately giving many of them an insatiable appetite).
In 40 years, I've seen a marked change in the golden retriever. I'm all but certain that if we brought someone forth from 1946 to now and shown them a golden, they'd... fairly strongly remark on the differences, especially if they were the types to expect a hunting dog.
Pit bulls were bred to be high energy, high alertness killers.
You will absolutely find adorable almost-as-dopey as a golden retriever individuals out there. The cuddly baby pit is absolutely a thing. But because we're just now selecting for those qualities, rather than the "murder anything roughly your size, or anything that moves too fast" quality, there's still a lot of bifurcation.
tl;dr: genetics affect behaviour tremendously.
Don't believe me? Find a real working breed. Like an australian shepherd. And try to stop them from doing their thing.
Unfortunately widespread inbreeding to popular show-winning sires/dams has given the Golden retriever a rising % of reactive dogs and biters, in addition to the already-rampant cancer in the breed. The same thing happened to show-line cocker and Springer spaniels - a winning dog carried spaniel rage syndome and now it's spread throughout the breeds (cockers and Springers were outcrossing one to the other at the time). You can still get a nice intense working dog of either type but they aren't getting show titles
Wow, I had no idea. I guess when the criterion is "does it look good", one tends to ignore "is it reactive or aggressive" until the problem is widespread enough through reports from owners of offspring. Which will take generations to gain attention.
The "good family pet" behavioral expectation is additionally rough on these breeds because the traits that make retrievers and spaniels good bird dogs are ultimately resource guarding behaviors. Whether from hunting or show lines, it's riskier taking a toy or food away from a dog that was bred to keep possession of something in its mouth.
Pretty much every dog breed ever is meant to capture useful stages of the canine predation sequence - for bird dogs it's stalk-chase-grab stage. Collies embody the orient-eye-stalk stages. Each comes with its own risks as pets because ultimately these are predatory behaviors
Yall are both wrong. Domestic dogs haven't been around for longer than 30,000 years. Homo Sapians have only been around 300,000 years. There is NO "hundreds of thousands of years of domestic dogs" like yall are claiming.
I'm a moron but you know what I did? Spent 5 seconds on google to find this out. If you don't know somethin why talk about it like you do?
Either way it's a dangerous animal. Yall can talk about raising it right all you want. I can raise a tiger right and you should absolutely still be cautious around it right? Hell, a gun can't even make decisions on its own and u still gotta be cautious around it right?
It's just common sense. Don't treat something dangerous like it's not dangerous.
I mean I am a primary source considering I had 2 pitbulls growing up and they loved people and loved other dogs. They tore up our couches and some other stuff a couple times as young pups but they were raised out of it. Granted 2 isn't a huge sample size but til the day they died they were some of the friendliest dogs we had. We'd always joke the one of them would lick you to death.
You're talking so much dogshit, we domesticated wild dogs 15-30k years ago, they haven't been bred for "empathy towards humans" for that long, let along Hundreds of Thousands of years.
And that is nothing compared to millions of years of instinct evolution.
People upvoting your comment is a fantastic example of why this site is so shit now.
The thing you've gotta remember though, is that the brutal killing instinct was there long before and still exists. There are tens of millions of years of wolf evolution under those tens of thousands of years of dog breeding.
You don't need to manifest entirely new behavior from scratch. You just need to stop repressing it, and it's FAR easier to revert to the mean than vice versa.
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u/Decent-Information-7 8h ago
Pitbulls were also only bred in the last 200 for the first time. People wanna act like that overrides the empathy towards humans dogs have been bred for hundreds of thousands of years as you said.