Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Damn Pittbulls

You can see it in their eyes.

My neighbor has pits (in kennels, in their living room)

They drove way out to western SD to get a bull terrier/pit mix off a reservation that was tied to a tree and left for dead.

I stopped over at their place to borrow a tool and they brought him out and said how nice he was. I was stroking him between the eyes during our conversation and he was wagging his tail.

I looked down at him and his eyes went from brownish to pure black. I told the neighbor "Get him away. He's going to bite" The neighbor said "haha no he won't, he's nice"

I pulled my hand as quickly as he went for it and only ended up with scraped fingers. Little blood.

My point is, no matter how much you think these dogs are good, you never know when there will be a fire in the attic.

Got it. And that is sensible reply. But would you trust that dog if it got loose and was running around the neighborhood with other dogs and little kids? Can you say for sure that it won't freak out like a lot of pits do?

3 Months ago the gf friend showed me a post, of a pitbull at a high kill shelter that was going to be put down that day if it wasn't going to be adopted or fostered. I wasn't to keen on the idea the write up said it was a 60 pound puppy just begging to be loved who was rescued from a puppy mill. Well long story short we decided to foster the dog as opposed to adopting it that way if it didn't work out we could return the dog. She turns out to be a 90lb tank of a dog, I didn't think we would keep her for a week, I made sure there was a gun available if need be. Well a picture is worth a thousand words so

We have a pitbull mix i got as an 8-week-old pup.

I never let him outside of the fenced back yard unless i was there. For the 1st 9 months or so, he would run out to "meet" other dogs walking by and I would immediately intervene (sprinting to engage). He didn't want to "fight", just do the normal butt-smelling stuff.

Understandably, the passersby did not know that hence my instant running out to secure him and apologizing profusely (then instilling hefty negative reinforcement).

However, after nine-ten months of getting his head literally hammered (not literally by a hammer...just my hand), he learned unconditionally I was the alpha. We also were lavish in loving on him - he thinks he's a lap dog..... at 85lbs, he's a bit much!

I had consulted a police K9 trainer i personally know about socializing and training strong-willed dogs. As I had participated in some of their "training events" (I was a bad-guy wearing a padded suit!) multiple times I had seen my friend use some seemingly too-rough discipline on his 105lb Belgian Shepherd (a sharp crack on the head via his 6 D-cell MagLite). He assured me then the dog was OK and some needed a little more "convincing" than others. He just seemed strange, but he had been a K9 trainer for over 20 years and was well-regarded in police K9 circles (he was a well-known trainer in the state i lived at the time).

He encouraged me to have my young children involved in the leash training i had learned from him as well. It was simply making the dog sit if he pulled the leash at all. With the added pronged pinch collar to assert the dog's low position on the authority "totem-pole" our dog learned very quickly who was who in the "pack" pecking order.

It has all worked very well and our "dangerous" pitbull is very well adjusted (we semi-frequently have 25-35 people at our house for my wife's work functions). He is very social and loves being petted (and fed!).

When i am working outside on our never-ending landscaping projects/updates, he will just lay on the and driveway in the sun. If another dog walks by on the sidewalk, he remains sitting and doesn't even stand up.

But all this positive behavior came after a year of (seemingly harsh) head-cracking negative reinforcement of unapproved behaviors.

He is a superb watch dog though. Our neighbors (we share a fence with) have came up the stairs to our front door (when we weren't home) and reported he was nothing but 85lbs of popping teeth and growling/barking.

It took nearly two years for our dog to accept our friends who come to take care of our chickens (and have known him since our adoption) when we weren't home. Now, they board him at their house (they have 3 very small kids) and he protects their house and kids the same as at ours and recognizes them as Alpha's as well.

It all takes a lot of time investment, but is well worth it.

Incidentally, my wife is his "favorite" and he is usually not more than a few steps from her. However, he often shadows me (like now as he lays at the other end of the couch). In fact, if i lay on the floor he will be instantly come over to me and try to lick me to death.

He knows he is loved, but had to learn the "hard" way.

Yeah.... they are the best pet ever, until they aren't.



Clyde

Your prejudgement of the dog, based on breed, caused a fear reaction in you, followed by suspicious behavior picked up on by the dog. Based on this, you should limit yourself to interactions with only the softest of breeds.

If our Pit even remotely did anything that communicated non-compliance or reluctance to obey orders (which are precursors to aggression) I am watching and he gets a thump on the head.

Reminds me of my Chinese sister in law who was certain that my Doberman (an absolutely friendly dog) was aggressive and would attack her, based on her understanding of the breed. One day, afraid of my Doberman, she arrived for a visit and slowly creeped open the door from the garage leading to the laundry room. My Doberman watched this with pricked ears and on full alert. Then, very quietly and slowly, she poked only the top of her head past the edge of the door to peer inside, just up to where one eye passed the edge. My dog immediately detected that someone with ill intentions was sneaking into the house and charged toward the door, barking and snarling. She quickly pulled back and slammed the door closed. She then concluded that this was proof he was no good and that she was right about the breed.

Act weird, scared, and suspicious around most dogs and, unless the dog already knows you, you should expect an aggressive reaction of some kind. In fact, that's how agitators behave around dogs they're assisting in training for protection work. It's designed to rouse the initial aggressive reaction towards suspiciously behaving people (followed by the agitator running away in apparent terror of the dog), which aggressive reaction is then praised by the handler as though the dog was the hero who saved the day.

Your prejudgement of the dog, based on breed, caused a fear reaction in you, followed by suspicious behavior picked up on by the dog. Based on this, you should limit yourself to interactions with only the softest of breeds.

Do i trust him with other dogs? Yep - he's always up for a game of "you sniff my starfish and i'll sniff yours".

to say I was acting suspicious is laughable and you are a F'ing Moron.

Reminds me of my Chinese sister in law who was certain that my Doberman (an absolutely friendly dog) was aggressive
and would attack her, based on her understanding of the breed. ..

Chinese kill and eat dogs like westerners eat beef burgers..
she's probably used to dogs always being on basic instinct survival/aggressive mode ..

Have owned and trained around 10 dogs in life
Never once had had to beat the crap out a dog or thump on the head to get it to listen and obey.
You can't be with an aggressive powerful dog 24 hrs a day
What happens when you're not there to thump it and it sees a dog or child it is programmed
by decades of genetics to kill?

It was suggested you are playing with fire. I'm not sure if you agree with that, but if not, why did you take all of these elaborate precautions in handling the pit?

i won't own another.

PS, isn't it a wonder what poor backyard breeding can to a dog line. There's so much aggressiveness bred into so many of the pit lines it would take a few decades to breed them all back to "nice".

Yep, in the old days pits that showed aggression to people were culled immediately, part of the reason if was told being that officials at dog fights had to be able to reach in to separate the dogs when needed, the other part of the reason being a bad pit was a danger to everybody.

Pits were so trusted that in the South especially you gave one to your kids to keep them safe, like Petey in the Little Rascals.