Which pitbulls are vicious

She belonged to a group which was campaigning to convince people that pit bulls are not dangerous. Read the article. This was not an anomaly: in recent years the vast majority of canine homicides have been inflicted by pit bulls. The question we must ask ourselves is whether the risk of this being repeated is worth taking.

When any other dog has a bad day, somebody can get hurt; when a pit bull has a bad day, somebody can get killed. See the year summary of pit bull attacks and maimings, a graphic created by dogsbite. For example, certain strains of Golden Retrievers are now being bred as service dogs, a far cry from their original job of retrieving downed birds.

When baiting large animals was outlawed in the s, people turned instead to fighting their dogs against each other. These larger, slower bull-baiting dogs were crossed with smaller, quicker terriers to produce a more agile and athletic dog for fighting other dogs.

Some pit bulls were selected and bred for their fighting ability. That means that they may be more likely than other breeds to fight with dogs. Other pit bulls were specifically bred for work and companionship. These dogs have long been popular family pets, noted for their gentleness, affection and loyalty. And even those pit bulls bred to fight other animals were not prone to aggressiveness toward people. Dogs used for fighting needed to be routinely handled by people; therefore aggression toward people was not tolerated.

Any dog that behaved aggressively toward a person was culled, or killed, to avoid passing on such an undesirable trait. Thus was born the pit-bull terrier, "the most capable fighting dog known to modern man," Semencic enthuses. Though breeders, realizing the pit bull was an attractive dog when it wasn't scrapping, bred a less feisty version—the American Staffordshire terrier "Pete" of the old Our Gang comedy series is a well-known representative —the pit-bull terrier is first and last a fighting dog.

Its breeding history separates it from other tough dogs like Doberman pinschers and rottweilers, which have been bred to guard their masters and their property. Pit bulls are genetically wired to kill other dogs. T he pit bull's unusual breeding history has produced some bizarre behavioral traits, de- scribed by The Economist' s science editor in an article published a few years ago, at the peak of a heated British controversy over dangerous dogs that saw the pit bull banned in England.

First, the pit bull is quicker to anger than most dogs, probably due to the breed's unusually high level of the neurotransmitter L-tyrosine. Second, pit bulls are frighteningly tenacious; their attacks frequently last for 15 minutes or longer, and nothing—hoses, violent blows or kicks—can easily stop them.

That's because of the third behavioral anomaly: the breed's remarkable insensitivity to pain. Most dogs beaten in a fight will submit the next time they see the victor. Not a defeated pit bull, who will tear into his onetime vanquisher. This, too, has to do with brain chemistry. The body releases endorphins as a natural painkiller. Pit bulls seem extra-sensitive to endorphins and may generate higher levels of the chemical than other dogs.

Endorphins are also addictive: "The dogs may be junkies, seeking pain so they can get the endorphin buzz they crave," The Economist suggests. Finally, most dogs warn you before they attack, growling or barking to tell you how angry they are—"so they don't have to fight," ASPCA advisor and animal geneticist Stephen Zawistowski stresses. Not the pit bull, which attacks without warning.

Most dogs, too, will bow to signal that they want to frolic. Again, not the pit bull, which may follow an apparently playful bow with a lethal assault. In short, contrary to the writings of Vicki Hearne, a well-known essayist on animals who—in a bizarre but emotionally charged confusion—equates breed-specific laws against pit bulls as a kind of "racist propaganda," the pit bull is a breed apart.

Pit-bull expert Semencic makes a more sophisticated argument as to why pit bulls shouldn't be singled out for regulation. Pit bulls, he says, were bred not to be aggressive to people. But Semencic's argument assumes that the culling of man-aggressive dogs is still going on—which it isn't.

As Robin Kovary, a New York-based dog breeder and pit-bull fancier, acknowledges, "Once the word got out, 20 years ago or so, to youths who wanted a tough dog to show off with, the breed passed into less than responsible hands—kids who wanted the dogs to be as aggressive as they could be.

Y et Kovary is at least partially right when she says, "It's the two-legged beast, not the four-legged one, we have to worry about. Raised responsibly, the pit bull's good side can come to the fore. But pit bulls have become enmeshed in the brutality of underclass culture, magnifying the breed's predisposition to aggression.

Pit bulls are its biggest problem. More than 60, animals, half of them dogs, entered the shelter last year. According to CACC official Kyle Burkhart, "more than 50 percent of the dogs are pit bulls or pit-bull mixes—a huge percentage. Waiting in the CACC's lobby, I got a firsthand look at the pit bull as a standard-issue accessory to underclass life: toughs in baggy pants and stocking caps paraded in and out continuously, negotiating to get their impounded dogs back or to adopt new ones.

Three distinct classes of irresponsible—or, more accurately, abusive—owners are the source of the CACC's flood of pit bulls. First are the drug dealers, who use pit bulls, or pit-bull crosses, as particularly vicious sentinels. New York City cops had to shoot 83 dogs to death in , most of them pit bulls guarding drug stashes. Burkhart showed me a few such sentinels in the center's dangerous-dog ward. Lunging against their metal cages, these pit bulls were the most ferocious animals I'd ever seen: pure animal fury.

Intimidated, I kept as far from the cages as I could. Dog-fighting rings also fill the CACC with abused animals. The rings, moving clandestinely throughout the state, stage battles between pit bulls, sometimes to the death, as cheering spectators wager on the outcome.

In , 26 American females were killed by dogs, and 16 of the 26 were killed by pit bulls. Yet they are responsible for more than half of the fatal attacks on women and girls. As of , pit bulls have killed American children in recent memory. In , dogs killed 15 children out of the 39 total human fatalities.

Pit bulls kllled 8 of the 15 youths. In , dogs again killed 15 children, and pit bulls killed at least 9 of those 15 "at least" because the authorities have concealed the breed of one of the dogs that killed a child.

In , dogs killed 16 children, and pit bulls killed 10 of the Yet they are responsible for killing most of the children who get killed by a dog. In , pit bulls killed 13, dogs, 5, cats and 20, horses and other farm animals.

Approximately once per month during , and , a pit bull has entered the home of a person not its owner for the purpose of killing or injuring people or pets. In addition to homes, the invaded premises have included apartments, schools and even a police station. There were 16 such incidents in , 17 in , and 11 in , with the first recorded one in The authorities either unwittingly or purposely are engaging in a cover-up pertaining to pit bull violence.

In the three decades from t0 , only 45 canine homicides or disfigurements were by dogs of an unidentified breed, but in there were 36 and in there were This means half or nearly half of the nation's pit bulls are seeking homes. Breeding pit bulls potentially adds to that number. All such varieties are referred to as "pit bulls" or "pit bulls and their mixes. All rights reserved. Click here for further legal notices. Pit Bulls: Facts and Figures.

By Attorney Kenneth M. Phillips, author of Dog Bite Law dogbitelaw.