Peter De Smidt wrote:

Dave Mundt wrote:

snip
Now...as the above points out, they [pit bulls] WERE bred for fighting,
whichs means that they WILL have a tendency (hard to overcome) to
fight with other DOGS. However, again, with proper training, it
is possible to overcome this, so the pit bull will not automatically
attack on sight...but...it does require training.
snip

That's quite scary, though, isn't it?

Not if you've ever been around pit bulls. Mostly what they are bred to do is please
their owners.

Clearly most owners are not
knowledgeable or equipped to do such training,

Well, no. It takes works and a little knowledge, but it is not at all beyond the
ability of the average person. You're simply wrong.

and it's a leap of faith
that it's possible to overcome this inborn tendency.

No, it's a clearly demonstrated fact that pit bulls are readily trained not to be
aggressive toward other dogs. They are no more difficult in this respect that
terriers in general. Yes, it takes training. But it is neither rocket science nor
any great mystery. I've seen it done repeatedly and the dogs were perfectly safe
around everything from other dogs to new-born kittens. (Whether the pit bull was
safe from the mother cat was another question.)

You might make it
less likely that your dog will attack others, but will you totally
remove that urge? I doubt it.

You may doubt it all you want. But it is still a fact and easily demonstrable. In
fact a well-trained pit bull is quite capable of standing there and taking it
without retaliation when attacked by another dog.



Consider Siegfried and Roy. Clearly they trained and socialized their
animals much, much more than the average dog owner, but nonetheless
tragedy struck.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Dogs, any dogs, are not tigers. They are the
products of thousands of years of selective breeding to socialize them to human
beings. Tigers haven't been and they are an infinitely dicier proposition to
handle.

Training can mitigate inborn tendencies, but that's not
the same thing as removing them.

The behavior of ANY dog
completely depends on the training and level of attention
that the owner gives to the dog.

That's not true, the behavior of any dog completely depends on it's
training, and on it's genetic pre-dispositions and the environment.
Otherwise you could train a newfoundland to be as good a sheep herder as
your average border collie.

For our purposes it comes down to the same thing.

--RC



-Peter De Smidt