By Colin Dayan, Vanderbilt University, via The Conversation
As recently as 50 years ago, the pit bull was America’s favorite dog. Pit bulls were everywhere. They were popular in advertising and used to promote the joys of pet-and-human friendship. Nipper on the RCA Victor label, Pete the Pup in the “Our Gang” comedy short films, and the flag-wrapped dog on a classic World War I poster all were pit bulls.
With National Pit Bull Awareness Day celebrated on Oct. 26, it’s a fitting time to ask how these dogs came to be seen as a dangerous threat.
Starting around 1990, multiple features of American life converged to inspire widespread bans that made pit bulls outlaws, called “four-legged guns” or “lethal weapons.” The drivers included some dog attacks, excessive parental caution, fearful insurance companies and a tie to the sport of dog fighting.
As a professor of humanities and law, I have studied the legal history of slaves, vagrants, criminals, terror suspects and others deemed threats to civilized society. For my books “The Law is a White Dog” and “With Dogs at the Edge of Life,” I explored human-dog relationships and how laws and regulations can deny equal protection to entire classes of beings.
In my experience with these dogs – including nearly 12 years living with Stella, the daughter of champion fighting dogs – I have learned that pit bulls are not inherently dangerous. Like other dogs, they can become dangerous in certain situations, and at the hands of certain owners. But in my view, there is no defensible rationale for condemning not only all pit bulls, but any dog with a single pit bull gene, as some laws do.
I see such action as canine profiling, which recalls another legal fiction: the taint or stain of blood that ordained human degradation and race hatred in the United States.
Bred to fight
The pit bull is strong. Its jaw grip is almost impossible to break. Bred over centuries to bite and hold large animals like bears and bulls around the face and head, it’s known as a “game dog.” Its bravery and strength won’t allow it to give up, no matter how long the struggle. It loves with the same strength; its loyalty remains the stuff of legend.
For decades pit bulls’ tenacity encouraged the sport of dogfighting, with the dogs “pitted” against each other. Fights often went to the death, and winning animals earned huge sums for those who bet on them.
But betting on dogs is not a high-class sport. Dogs are not horses; they cost little to acquire and maintain. Pit bulls easily and quickly became associated with the poor, and especially with Black men, in a narrative that connected pit bulls with gang violence and crime.
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That’s how prejudice works: The one-on-one lamination of the pit bull onto the African American male reduced people to their accessories.
Dogfighting was outlawed in all 50 states by 1976, although illegal businesses persisted. Coverage of the practice spawned broad assertions about the dogs that did the fighting. As breed bans proliferated, legal rulings proclaimed these dogs “dangerous to the safety or health of the community” and judged that “public interests demand that the worthless shall be exterminated.”
In 1987 Sports Illustrated put a pit bull, teeth bared, on its cover, with the headline “Beware of this Dog,” which it characterized as born with “a will to kill.” Time magazine published “Time Bombs on Legs” featuring this “vicious hound of the Baskervilles” that “seized small children like rag dolls and mauled them to death in a frenzy of bloodletting.”
Presumed vicious
If a dog has “vicious propensities,” the owner is assumed to share in this projected violence, both legally and generally in public perception. And once deemed “contraband,” both property and people are at risk.
This was evident in the much-publicized 2007 indictment of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for running a dogfighting business called Bad Newz Kennels in Virginia. Even the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – two of the nation’s leading animal welfare advocacy groups – argued that the 47 pit bulls recovered from the facility should be killed because they posed a threat to people and other animals.
If not for the intervention of Best Friends Animal Society, Vick’s dogs would have been euthanized. As the film “Champions” recounts, a court-appointed special master determined each dog’s fate. Ultimately, nearly all of the dogs were successfully placed in sanctuaries or adoptive homes.
Debating breed bans
Pit bulls still suffer more than any other dogs from the fact that they are a type of dog, not a distinct breed. Once recognized by the American Kennel Club as an American Staffordshire terrier, popularly known as an Amstaff, and registered with the United Kennel Club and the American Dog Breeders Association as an American pit bull terrier, now any dog characterized as a “pit bull type” can be considered an outlaw in many communities.
For example, in its 2012 Tracey v. Solesky ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals modified the state’s common law in cases involving dog injuries. Any dog containing pit bull genes was “inherently dangerous” as a matter of law.
This subjected owners and landlords to what the courts call “strict liability.” As the court declared: “When an attack involves pit bulls, it is no longer necessary to prove that the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous.”
Dissenting from the ruling, Judge Clayton Greene recognized the absurdity of the majority opinion’s “unworkable rule”: “How much ‘pit bull,’” he asked, “must there be in a dog to bring it within the strict liability edict?”
It’s equally unanswerable how to tell when a dog is a pit bull mix. From the shape of its head? Its stance? The way it looks at you?
Conundrums like these call into question statistics that show pit bulls to be more dangerous than other breeds. These figures vary a great deal depending on their sources.
Any statistics about pit bull attacks depend on the definition of a pit bull – yet it’s really hard to get good dog bite data that accurately IDs the breed.
Over the past decade, awareness has grown that breed-specific legislation does not make the public safer but does penalize responsible owners and their dogs. Currently 21 states prohibit local government from enforcing breed-specific legislation or naming specific breeds in dangerous dog laws. Maryland passed a law reversing the Tracey ruling in 2014. Yet 15 states still allow local communities to enact breed-specific bans.
Pit bulls demand a great deal more from humans than some dogs, but alongside their bracing way of being in the world, we humans learn another way of thinking and loving. Compared with many other breeds, they offer a more demanding but always affecting communion.
Colin Dayan is a Professor of English, the Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities, and a Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Pitbulls we’re bred for two reasons: 1. Fighting, Taking down large animals 2. So people can hug them nervously and say how misunderstood they are
Haha!!! Brilliant second point mate
Earlier this year, a stray (but well fed and clean) pit bull walked in my front door and unceremoniously bit my sixteen year old dachshund in the heart, killing him instantly. They aren’t bad dogs, but all it took was the wrong one at the wrong time.
How about the two pitbulls that hadn’t shown agression for eight years and then killed two children and severely injured the mother who tried to save them? Pitbulls should be banned.
“It loves with the same strength” – all you need to read to see how deeply unserious this piece is. Shocker, a boomer lit prof who *checks notes* owns a pit bull, can’t seem to reckon with the empirical evidence that these dogs in fact do – and disproportionally relative to other breeds – precisely what they were bred to do: maim and kill. The clumsily interjected racial analysis makes the argument even sillier. Why not make the case about the breed/s, instead of some essential penchant for ethnic cleansing among the whites? The legal argument sucks too: hard to classify doesn’t = unclassifiable. And worst is the scientific claim made on the same basis: mixed breed pits make attack attribution difficult, but how the hell does it follow that genetic factors are impossible to analyze? Lousy lazy writing.
Pitfalls are very dangerous. Most people are idiots. That’s a very bad combination. End of story
Good job, Butch!
Animals 24-7 has a SCATHING response article to Colin Dayan’s article
“The Conversation” & the pit bull shit
Perfectly said!!
The author needs to get her money back from her university!!
Pits are not the most popular. Unless you’re talking about filling shelters/rescues.
They seem to be so popular as shelters/rescues/advocates are constantly trying to cram their maulers down your throat.
They consist of only 7% of the dog population.
So let’s thing logically here. You have a dog type that’s only 7% of the dog population, but is 70-90% of the shelter/rescue population. Most animals being 1-3 years old.
Why?
BSL is RARE. So you can’t blame that.
We’re buried under propit propaganda constantly. So everyone should think they fart rainbows and cuddle bunnies.
Most pit attacks never make it to the news, and most are localized.
Pit advocates set these dogs up for failure. Genetics matter. Breed matters.
People are told if they get a puppy, raise it right, then their pit puppy will never grow into its genetics.
But it does.
One look at shelters/rescues and you’ll see pits listed as only animal, no kids, anxiety, reactivity, etc. They’ve grown into their genetics, and the people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
So at 1-3 years of age, pits get dumped. And the cycle continues.
If pit advocates were truthful, fewer pits would be born and killed. There would be fewer victims.
There are many other breeds with dog/animal/gender specific aggression. They just don’t have the quacks pushing them on unsuspecting people.
Your comment is really all that needs to be said. Too bad most won’t heed or, or the fact that those 1-3 year old dumped dogs have bite and aggression histories hidden by pit pusher rescues and shelters.
I don’t care what any article says, I will never trust a pitbull.
Guess we’ll find you mauled to death and eaten by your 11 dogs….those dogs are genetically unpredictable and it shows how ignorant you are to trust them!
Wow. This article has no business being published on “StudyFinds”. It is not a study. It is a political rant by one Colin Dayan, that he starts off with a big fat LIE. No, Petey from the Little Rascals was NOT a Pitt Bull. Look it up. He was played by multiple types of bull dogs, terriers, and short haired mutts, only one of which ever was a pit bull mix.
And what kind of freak equates recognition of dangerous animals with racism? A Colin Dayan freak, that’s who. We read the news. The only dogs and dog packs that ever maul adults, children, and babies unprovoked and out of the blue, are pit bulls. It is not up to Colin Dayan to demand the rest of us must trust that any pit bull is owned by “the right kind of owner”. There are reasons you are not allowed to keep rattle snakes, bears, lions, tigers, or gorillas as “pets”. Because they kill human beings on a whim, any time they are startled, just like pit bulls do, often even killing their own “right owners”. Jeez. You might as well keep an IED as a “pet”.
So hell to the no. Pit bulls have a congenital brain defect. I’m all for a nationwide constitutional amendment banning the breeding of any dog with even a single pit bull ancestor even a thousand years ago, and mandating the sterilization of any such dog ON SIGHT. By only mandating sterilization, rather than euthanizing on sight, we can give the breed a 15 year long goodbye and sentence their congenitally brain damaged owners and owners’ children to 15 fond last years of maulings, throat rippings, and face disfigurements. That way, there will never be any future doubt by humanity that that extincting the breed was the right thing to do.
Hello I love your comment! This article is the biggest bunch of drivel I’ve seen!!
Dog fatalities in US are 80% pitbull. Check Wikipedia. This author is doing a disservice to humanity. Pitulls ownership should be restricted to exotic animal ststus. Make it a challenge to own them.
A lot of people refuse to discuss dogs as having breed characteristics for one simple reason.
Canine breeds share precisely the same genetic differentiation as the different human races.
Humans also have similar differentiation along different bloodlines, which is why you keep seeing the same person over and over again even though it’s not the same person even within the same race.
That’s the Chihuahua human…and that’s the Pit Bull Human…and that’s the…you get the point. All capable of procreating with each other, just like different types of dogs.
Once you agree that dogs have different inherent traits and attitudes by breeds, it’s not hard whatsoever to ask if the same is true of humans.
You cannot be serious. This is literally one the more ignorant comments I’ve read on the internet. If you are correct then why are people using Chow Chows to herd sheep or Golden Retrievers as guard dogs? I suggest you take a class in animal husbandry.
Yikes. No. Dog breeds are NOT analogous to human races.
Human race is almost entirely a social construct, while every dog breed exists because humans deliberately bred and culled for certain physical AND behavioral traits over centuries. There’s significant genetic difference between dog breeds (which isn’t the case between human races).
While training and treatment obviously influences a dog’s personality, temperament and instinctive abilities are present at birth. That’s why pointers point, retrievers retrieve, and shepherd dogs herd things, automatically.
The same is NOT true of human races. Maybe you actually believe Black children are born with the ability to play basketball or dance … if you do, that makes YOU a racist.
Hello special unique pit bull owners who are SO special that they are 100% certain they have the pit bull who won’t turn to their genetic makeup and tear into someone that annoys them. Any pit bull owners have a “break stick” on them at all times when out with their cuddle pusses? “A lot of newcomers have breaking sticks but don’t know how to properly use them. Most people who obtain a breaking stick because they know they need one, are not shown how to use it, and have some misconceptions of a breaking stick.” Lifted from a Pit Bull rescue page. Do you know you need a ‘break stick’ ?
Some say it’s the owners. Look at what they do and how fast they turn on kids, adults and especially other dogs. Its definitely the breed. I will never own one because no matter how long people have them, some turn and i don’t see the rate from other breeds. I have seen people who say, a Chihuahua can be vicious. They don’t maul people to death like a pit bull can. Get rid of them, end of story.
“Canine Profiling”. Once I read that I quit reading. What a moron. If ya love your dog, great! If it attacks me or one of my loved ones, I’ll do whatever I deem appropriate to stop the attack. I’m sure that I can convince at least 1 juror that my actions would be justified. Pit Bulls ARE dangerous dogs. they bite harder and WERE, for a long time bred to fight and be aggressive. I’ve met many dogs and I’m a dog lover. but when it comes to unconditional trust of an animal when it concerns my family, a “Pittie” won’t be in the mix. Have whatever dog you desire, but control it. And hopefully, you won’t have a dog capable of doing extreme damage, go wrong around your family or neighbors. Do some research – what percentage of fatal or serious injuries were committed by what breed of dog in the last 20 years? I don’t know. But I DO know that I see lots more of severe “Pittie” attacks in relation to other breeds.
I am a RN. Most dog injuries I cared for were from pit bulls. What exactly is your agenda?
People are so delusional. I work in a hospital and kids come in with bites from more then just pitbulls.
Any dog can attack or bite. Unprovoked! I have 2 pitbulls and one was shot in the face and left for dead. I have nursed him back to health and he is the most gentle kind dog. I dare someone to say anything bad or negative about my dog!
And all you bougee people with your designer dogs need to shut up. What do you care what kind of dog I have? As long as I take care of it.
No dog is inherently bad, but some people are, and clearly they are responding to this article!
Don’t bully the breed!!!
I’ve been a paramedic for over twenty years and have worked in the worst parts of L.A. County. About 90% of dog attacks I’ve responded to in the past several years have been pit bulls. Your hospital experience is no more valid than anyone else’s.
“I dare someone to say anything bad or negative about my dog!”
Or what? Are you going to sic you pitbull on us? Delusional pitbull owners always say the same thing. “He was the best dog ever. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” This is usually said after the pitbull rips a toddler apart.
Goodness, where to begin? I guess with this: I’ve lived with pit bulls myself so I know from experience how sweet and affectionate they can be …. but also how even well-loved and well-trained pits can attack out of nowhere.
Moving on…
1) “Nipper” was actually a fox terrier from Bristol, England, per RCA.
2) Pitbulls are indeed an element of Black Hip-Hop culture. But they’re part of White Nationalist culture, too. The pit bull has long been used as a skinhead (neo-Nazi) symbol, including in graphics and logos, for decades, per the ADL. And FWIW, since the Michael Vick debacle, the pit has also been favored by white liberals, in a trend some have considered “virtue signaling.”
3) Concern about pit bulls is a global phenomenon. At present, pitbulls are banned in 39 countries, from Argentina to Venezuela. Do all these countries ban pits because of American-style racism…?
4) True, pit bulls are a type of dog, not a single breed; in the U.S., most sources define American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, and American Bullies as “pitbulls.” And a meta-analysis over a decade revealed that in the U.S., these breeds accounted for 254, or 65%, of fatal dog attacks despite accounting for only 6.5% of the dog population … more than all other breeds combined. A total of about 35 breeds were involved in all these fatalities, most of them for one or two. This means that the vast majority of HUNDREDS of dog breeds have been involved in ZERO deaths (even though there are “bad owners” for EVERY breed of dog).
5) Luckily, most dog attacks aren’t fatal. The CDC and HSUS say about 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year, 80% of whom require no medical treatment. But 12,480 citizens do wind up hospitalized, most of them children bitten by the family dog — and a total of 14 peer-reviewed medical studies from Level 1 trauma centers all over the U.S. found that pit bulls inflicted a significantly higher prevalence of injuries, more severe injuries, and injuries requiring plastic surgery (usually to the face) from 2011 to 2019. It’s common sense that “any breed can bite” — and several breeds ARE more likely to bite than pits; but Chihuahuas and Cocker Spaniels don’t maim or kill when they do.
6) Among hundreds of dog breeds, there’s great physical variety. Most breeds look NOTHING like any of the “pit bull” breeds. Are people being attacked by poodles, Old English Sheepdogs, Yorkies and whippets, and just ASSUMING they’re pit bulls? (BTW, anyone who actually believes that the media would ignore a severe mauling by a Boston Terrier or a Lhasa Apso has no idea how journalism works.)
7) Dog breeds are NOT analogous to human races. Race is almost entirely a social construct, while every dog breed exists because humans deliberately bred and culled for certain physical AND behavioral traits, and there’s significant genetic difference between them (which isn’t the case with human races). While training and treatment obviously influences a dog’s personality, temperament and instinctive abilities are present at birth. That’s why pointers point, retrievers retrieve, and shepherd dogs herd things, automatically. Pit bulls were NOT bred as “nanny dogs,” but to bait bulls and later to fight. Yet almost every severe or fatal attack by a pit bull comes as a total shock to its owner — especially when infants or toddlers are killed, as happened recently in Memphis.
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This isn’t about “hating” or “blaming” any dogs. Dogs are not morally culpable for what they do. Nor does it deny any particular pit isn’t a sweet dog. The problem is the statistically disproportionate risk acknowledged by the 39 countries that ban pit bull breeds.
Just as most smokers won’t get cancer and most drunk drivers won’t crash, most pit bulls won’t maim or kill anyone. But they do pose more risk than HUNDREDS of other breeds of dogs (who, incidentally, deserve forever homes too).
Perfectly said. Nailed it.
Your information is incorrect. The Am Staff is not a Pit Bull . That’s the main reason why it’s called the American Staffordshire Terrier. When the English Staff ( England) and the Irish Dog ( Ireland) known as the Old Family) were imported to America . Those dogs were bred together to create the Pit Bull and Chauncey Bennett ( Ukc) register them as the American Pit Bull Terrier in 1898 . The American Staff started out as an American Pit Bull Terrier under the AkC . The AKC placed American Pit Bull Terrier under the name Staffordshire Terrier because they didn’t want to have anything to do with Dogfighting nor the name Pit Bull. Because the word “Pit “ associated with Dogfighting. The name Staffordshire Terrier was changed to the American Staffordshire Terrier so there will be no confusion with the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. The Am Staffordshire Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier became two separate breeds. The Dogs in TN are not Pit Bulls.
The American Staff terrier is not a Pit Bull. That’s main reason why it’s called the American Staffordshire Terrier. The only and real Pit Bull is the APBT. The English Staff ( England) and the Irish Dog ( Ireland) made the Pit Bull. Once those dogs were imported to America. Those dogs were bred together to create the Pit Bull and Chauncey Bennett ( Ukc) register them as the American Pit Bull Terrier in 1898
Everything you wrote is completely wrong . The only and real pit bull is the AMERICAN Pit Bull Terrier
Exactly! Your comment sums up pit bull owners perfectly!!
Pitbulls are wonderful dogs,…….until they’re not.
Our pitt/dane mis is the most loving dog i have ever had…a gentle creature who loves his family, especially his boy. Pit hate is unfounded. What about rottweilers? German shepards? Sheps are vicious killers. Same with belgian malinois.
EVERY week, the media reports a Pit Bull has attacked or killed someone and/or their owners!
These are extremely UNPREDICTABLE and dangerous dogs! Anything or nothing will provoke them. Why not adopt s purchase a useful breed…..German Shepard, Lab, Collie et.al., NOT some, ,dime-a-dozen” throw-away garbage bag dog, that is so easy to obtain and expensive to maintain?
Thesc “dogs” are not meant to be pets, should hunted/banned, exterminated, and NOT allowed to be bred, again!
EVERY week, the media reports a Pit Bull has attacked or killed someone and/or their owners!
These are extremely UNPREDICTABLE and dangerous dogs! Anything or nothing will provoke them. Why not adopt s purchase a useful breed…..German Shepard, Lab, Collie et.al., NOT some, ,dime-a-dozen” throw-away garbage bag dog, that is so easy to obtain and expensive to maintain?
Thesc “dogs” are not meant to be pets, should hunted/banned, exterminated, and NOT allowed to be bred, again!
I have owned a number of dogs over the years. It is true that German Shepherds (my family’s favorite breed) can be violent if not properly trained and controlled. But pit bulls, and, to a lesser extent, Rottweilers, are another matter entirely. It is instructive that they are involved to a disproportionate degree in killings and maimings in America. Some animals are simply too dangerous for people to own them as pets. They should be rounded up and made extinct. There has already been way too much carnage. Their continued existence is indefensible.