Originally Posted by 700LH
Originally Posted by The_Real_Hawkeye
No one who knows the breed doubts they are the number one most capable of misdirected harm when in the wrong hands. The problem is that they've been in the most possible wrong hands since they came to be celebrated within the "gangsta" hip hop culture back in the late 1970s. Within that community, their numbers have been wildly high since that time, and they've been encouraged by these folks to be human-aggressive by long-known methods. Prior to that, however, they didn't even make most lists of dogs that bite. Look at a World Almanac from the 1960s, which always maintained such a list, and they don't even make the top ten. I believe it was German Shepherds that topped the list at that time.

For a while in the 60's I lived in a neighborhood with at least 100 kids,Everyone had a large yard, most families had a dog, dozens of dogs there, plenty ran loose, there wasn't one Pitt bull. I don't even recall one from my childhood.


They were all quietly held by White Southern hunters and White dog fighters, who had zero interest in conditioning them for human aggression. Quite the contrary, since they had to work closely with them in boar hunting and pit fighting. Absent such intentional conditioning, they loved their work in gripping hogs and fighting other pit dogs, and many were simply kept by these folks as house dogs (almost certainly the majority of them), making no headlines. Wake up, Larry.