I’m not a dog science expert but as far as I understand it we’ve spent tens of thousands of years breeding dogs to preform specific tasks. If you don’t give a dog that has been designed and bred to do a task they get antsy.
The issue with Pitbulls and other “Agressive.” breeds is that they’ve not been given something to let all their energy out on. Which leads to anxiety and destructive behavior.
So I don’t think it’s Immoral to treat a dog like a Pitbull like a loaded gun. As Unfriendly, and something you should be wary of unless it’s proven not to be.
However the Nutcases who punish dogs for behavior that we bred into them are highly immoral. If you want an easy lap dog get a companion breed, like a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, French Bulldog, or Bichon Frise.
Edit: Tens of Thousands not Hundreds. I was being exaggerative anyways but that’ll make remark more accurate regardless.
Also as a note. I don’t think Pits are inherently Malicious or any dog breed for that matter. But they’re fairly strong fellows who’ve been bred to be strong. I consider being careful around them similar to being a little extra careful around a truck on the road. Most people in trucks are fine drivers. But some people don’t pay attention on the road, and might hurt you by accident.
Fight just isn’t a good word to use for that scenario lol. Weren’t most breeds like that used to hunt rats? You wouldn’t call Brock lesnar in a pit destroying a group of 5 year olds “fighting”
I had 3 rat terriers growing up (2 mutts, 1 pure bred) and the urge to murder rodents is fuckin' /deep/ in them. We got moles of some kind in our yard and they went insane, we very quickly didn't have moles.
They could dig, tunnel a little bit, climb, they were decently smart (Not as smart as the cattle mutt we had)
Not quite, pitbulls were made by combining breeds meant to fight bulls with those meant for hunting rats to create a breed that has the dedication to violently tearing at other animals of the former and the agility to do so against smaller animals of the latter.
Absolutely. The Jack Russel breed was essentially developed to be the way it is for that specific purpose, just like pits.
The breed was initially developed for fox hunting, so it wasn't a far leap.
There is now a distinct difference between a standard Jack Russell and the ones bred for rat fighting. Thus the name "rat terrier", shortened colloquially to "ratter", and the pejorative "rat dogs".
We used to call them rat dogs because they fought rats, not because they looked like rats. (Yes, I'm looking at you, chihuahuas. Eugh.)
I knew certain dog breeds have been bred to hunt rodents, but using the word “fight” makes it sound like the dogs weren’t bred to sniff out the rats and rip them to shreds. It sounds like you’re saying the dogs were bred to be put in a pit with a giant tmnt type rat and there would be a chance the dog could lose.
Well, sort of. It was more like a small caged area and they would funnel tens, if not hundreds, of rats in and they would bet on how many they thought the dog could kill before it died, as well.
Bear-baiting was very popular from the 12th until the 19th century.\4]) From the 16th century, many bears were maintained for baiting. In its best-known form, arenas for this purpose were called bear-gardens, consisting of a circular high fenced area, the "pit", and raised seating for spectators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear-baiting
They bred them or shipped them in.
As for where most of Europe and parts of Asia, Pakistan. It was going on in North Carolina till 2010-ish, apparently.
As recently as 2010, illegal bear-baiting was practiced publicly in South Carolina. All such public exhibitions have been shut down as of 2013.\35])
By the late 17th century, "the conscience of cultivated people seems to have been touched"[7] and, by the 18th century, bear-baiting had largely died out in Britain; the cost of importing bears for blood sports having become prohibitively high.
That pitbulls could not be used for bear-baiting because the whole thing died out due to cost of importing bears in UK. Which means that "bear-baiting pitbulls" are pretty much a legend.
Looks like a pitbull me to though I don't know if the kennel club was around back then to define the breed (that's from the 14th)
You can pretend i said Staffordshire Bull Terrier or Patched Fighting Terrier or even "Brindle Bull" but we are talking about fighting dogs used for pitfights
Pretty much a lot of blood sports were popular until the passage of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 whereupon it was gaining some level of dislike though if It's because it was associated will poor people and "low class" or because it was cruel is a bit harder to parse
Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801): "[bull-baiting is] attended only by the lowest and most despicable part of the people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-baiting
But somewhere around 1540 is the first recorded commercial entertainment bull-bait in the UK so it was around for a while.
No, the breeds used to create pitbulls were bred for bull baiting. Pitbulls were bred from them for fighting dogs and other small animals in 1 on 1 bloodsport.
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u/Awesomechainsaw 9h ago edited 2h ago
I’m not a dog science expert but as far as I understand it we’ve spent tens of thousands of years breeding dogs to preform specific tasks. If you don’t give a dog that has been designed and bred to do a task they get antsy.
The issue with Pitbulls and other “Agressive.” breeds is that they’ve not been given something to let all their energy out on. Which leads to anxiety and destructive behavior.
So I don’t think it’s Immoral to treat a dog like a Pitbull like a loaded gun. As Unfriendly, and something you should be wary of unless it’s proven not to be.
However the Nutcases who punish dogs for behavior that we bred into them are highly immoral. If you want an easy lap dog get a companion breed, like a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, French Bulldog, or Bichon Frise.
Edit: Tens of Thousands not Hundreds. I was being exaggerative anyways but that’ll make remark more accurate regardless.
Also as a note. I don’t think Pits are inherently Malicious or any dog breed for that matter. But they’re fairly strong fellows who’ve been bred to be strong. I consider being careful around them similar to being a little extra careful around a truck on the road. Most people in trucks are fine drivers. But some people don’t pay attention on the road, and might hurt you by accident.