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Originally Posted by StewiesMom Pit Bulls were not originally bred to fight. Many dogs are classified as "Pit Bulls" even when they are in fact NOT. I believe Summer (PinkMartini) posted a website awhile back challenging the reader to pick out the dog who is the Pit Bull. Its nearly impossible. |
There are 3 types of digs that people typically think of as pitbulls:
(1) The American Pitbull Terrier
(2) The Stafordshire Terrier
(3) The Staffordshire Bull Terrier
Really they all do look pretty similar and they share many of the same characteristics, are in the same family, etc. Pitbulls come from the other 2 originally.
I hate to say this but honestly yes the American Pitbull Terrier was bred initially to pit fight. Hence the name pitbull...They are originally a mix of a staffordshire terrier and bull terrier and became common aroung 1835 when the sport of "bull baiting"(having dogs attack livestock) was banned and dog fighting became all the rage. First, they bred bull dogs with terriers and got a fearless, agile, and hearty stock, then they began breeding the bull terriers with more and more terrier producing eventually the American Pitbull Terrier. This breed ended up being unmatched in strength, agility and tenacity in the fighting ring, this is how it was bred and this is why it was popular. Dog agression was actually bred into pitbulls with proper training and socilalization this is obviously taken care of and it is important to remember they are not generally human agrressive.
In fact the UKC was created in 1898 especially for pitbull registry. At that time in order to be registered as a pitbull terrier a dog had to have won 3 dog fights. Later the American Pitbull Breed Association was started and registered the dogs including still a performance requirement but eliminating fighting requiring dogs to be in weight pulling competitions and conformation shows.
I actually researched this after reading this thread because it seemed really odd to me that a dog with the name PITbull would have never been used for pit fighting!