The first thing I have to say is that people need to realize what a pit bull is. There are over a dozen breeds of dogs that fall under breed legislation as "pit bulls". The American Pit Bull Terrier is a registerable "purebred" dog. The APBT registration accepts dogs of several other breeds into their registration as "purebred American Pit Bull Terriers". None of these other breed registries accepts American Pit Bull Terriers. In essence, the American Pit Bull Terrier breed is a bully breed mutt. Back in the day, the APBT was much smaller with males being about 40-50 lbs, and females being 30-35 lbs. Now you'll see registered APBT's weighing in over 100 lbs - mutts.
I own an American Staffordshire Terrier which is one of the breeds that falls under breed legislation. She is my second bully breed dog. I do not think bully breeds belong in the hands of irresponsible owners or owners that just don't know anything about dogs. In all honesty, even as an owner of one of these breeds, I am not against breed legislation. I'm not necessarily for it either, but I think it's better than doing nothing. Usually the problem is the owner not the dog, but there are also a lot of really poorly bred dogs (of all breeds) out there, and sometimes for this reason, it's the dog not the owner, which eventually goes back to the owner that bred it I suppose. I am beyond peeved when I see an article online blaming a "pit bull" when it's obvious to me that there is either no pit bull blood in the dog or very little.
One good thing that breed legislation does do is it protects the dogs in the long run. People abuse the pit bull breeds more than any other breeds of dogs on the face of the planet. I don't know if my heart can handle one more story of some jerk off dragging a pit bull by a rope behind his truck, or some idiots lighting one on fire, or beating it with a baseball bat. All these things just because it is a pit bull. If the breeds are banned, then people will not be able to abuse them anymore. People will probably focus their irrational hate towards some other breed or animal, but at least the pit bulls will be safe. I don't think humanity in general has the responsibility to own pit bull breeds anymore, and I don't say that because it's a particularly big responsibility, I say that because us humans are regressing more and more with every day that goes by. Pretty soon we'll be cavemen again and we'll be line breeding our Chipoms, Puggles, and Goldendoodles to try to create bully breeds again to protect us from lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my.
Here's our Staffie that we adopted when she was 6.5 years old (now 11.5) snuggling our Chihuahua. Btw, the Chi WILL bite.
I just took this pic.
