[gracielove]

Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly

I completely understand how some feel about this breed and all potential buyers should(but don't) understand unless you get one from a breeder who has carefully bred for gentle temperament for decades, one could be getting a ticking time bomb. But as a breed, it is not the dogs' fault. When you have one in rescue, you are always on your guard around them but as a family pet, people let their guards down and that is when tragedy can occur.

Expecting one not to act a lot like Tex' attacker is kind of like expecting a terrier not to chase a mouse across the barn floor. It goes against the very grain for many of the Bullys to let go of a bite until its victim is subdued and that trait was just not in that breed along with serious viciousness until irresponsible breeders began selective breeding of highly dominant/aggressive, stubborn, never-give-in Bulldog types to vicious-natured, super-aggressive Bullys for generations to create a fighter who could either quickly disable or outlast others in the pit. And to keep their fighters "pure", they would kill any dog that lost a match to avoid it passing along its DNA to their dogs or sell/trade/gift it. Even though "losers" that were allowed to live might be weaker or less aggressive dogs themselves, vicious genes still lived within and could be passed along to another generation in breeding, as the public soon found out.

I used to feel like you do until I began studying what makes the breed the way they are now and it is such a troubling story of exploitation and abuse by mankind it can sicken. If they do legislate the breed out of general existence, it won't stop the underground crowd from still breeding and fighting them; and the super-aggressive gene pool that will be left will be more appalling than the horrible ones we have now! Inevitably, some of those will make their way into the public sphere to be bred with a Lab, GSD or Rottie, so Pits will still passing along those killer type genes to other known biting breeds and create another similar but different-looking killer "breed". Some line-breeding of those for a while and we have another "breed" that also kills and maims.

Knowing what I know, though I love the Pitbull type and sweeter dogs were never born, I couldn't have a Bully in my home to live as a pet unless I could guarantee a long, long lineage of breeding for temperament and I would never keep smaller animals with one and closely supervise while children, others around.

You said it far better than I ever could. Bullies are just another example of man's exploitation of animals. Just as the Yorkie is being taken advantage of and ruined by unscrupulous breeders so is the Pit Bull. They were used to guard children in England decades ago. Now that they have become a power symbol to dog fighters and people who need an ego boost they have been exploited to the hilt. It is criminal. These people have created a horrible problem for the general public. Of course the uneducated general public is prone to buy a Bully from an unscrupulous breeder just as often as they buy Yorkies from people who exploit the breed.