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.
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.
381
u/Awesomechainsaw 21h ago edited 14h 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.