Marauding pit bulls attack six

[chuddo]

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What are other fighting dogs?


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[Blarg]

Remember that lesbian who got torn up in San Francisco by her neighbor's two dogs? One was a Canary Island something or other, which apparently are big and often very mean dogs.
Rottweilers have that rep too.

Some German strains of German shepherds are bred for meanness too, but that's to make them scarier guard dogs, not to fight other dogs. Same with Dobermans, who are often psychologically way out there on the edge.

But I don't know what that city council defined as fighting dogs. I'm sure pit bull is always the first breed whose name comes to mind.

[raisins]

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What are other fighting dogs?

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There is a large Japanese breed called a Tosa (?), Dogo Agentino, and the Presa Canarius are three of the more obscure breeds of fighting dog that still have a lot of gameness and dog agresiveness in their bloodlines along with the Pit Bull. The bulldog was bred solely for the sport of bull baiting. Bull baiting consisted of tying a bull to a stake and setting 3-5 dogs loose on him and watching the mayhem. Over the years the bulldog has lost much of its aggresiveness as it has been bred solely as a pet. Pit Bulls are still fought and even if a minority of them are fought many of them have ancestors that did fight a few generations back. "Few" being relative to most other dogs breeds. Some are also used as protection dogs and others in pulling contests and this motivates breeders to select parents with drive and some degree of assertiveness along with temperment.

Still, I think they are fantastic dogs and some of the sweetest dogs I have ever met have been Pit Bulls or Pit Bull crosses. Obviously they need a lot of supervision and attention. Most of the agression I have seen from the breed has been directed towards other dogs and not to humans.

regards,

raisins

i think someone else mentioned this, but there is a breed, the argentinian dogo i believe, which is pretty fierce. i think they're illegal in many countries. someone in my town got a hold of a male and female, and they had a batch of puppies before the lone male was neutred. a friend of mine got one of the puppies. it grew to be about 100lbs, and looked ferocious. had the big jaws of a pit.. was mostly white, wiht some brown i believe. really sweet dog though. never bit anyone. the patriarch of the dogo family was an absolute savage though. one of two dogs i've ever been scared of. the other is a husky shepard mix that my friends family adopted from a shelter. thing is a monster. not in size, just personality. friendly towards the family, but anyone els3 is fair game. i've been around dogs my whole life, and while i'm sure breeding plays some role, i think that most of a dogs demeanor comes from how it is raised. i have met many friendly pits, and many nasty poodles. i think one reason pits have such a bad rap is alot of the people who buy them are idiots who want a mean looking dog, and in reality have no business owning a dog. mmany of the college aged nuckleheads that i know who own dogs have pits prolly for this reason.

[Lazymeatball]

Argentinian Dogo's are pretty incredible dogs. This is all rumors but I've heard they were bred to hunt bears or chase down escaping slaves and stuff, which is pretty cool. (not the slavery part, but the hunting of man part) Obvgiously personality is dog specific but of the few dogo's I've known they've all been pretty mellow. They were deliberately bred maybe 100-200 years ago mixing america bull dogs, grey hounds, big mastiffs and all sorts of other big dogs.

yup, thats the dogo alright. also one of the most athletic dogs i've ever seen in action. if i were an escaping slave, i would not want that on my tail.

[Lazymeatball]

Pitt bull's aggressiveness are a result of the humans breeding or owning/training them. Any dog can make mistakes, but the nature of pit bulls jaws and mental determination means that when they make 'mistakes' they make big mistakes. I strongly believe that the type of owner who is attracted to pit bulls or rottweilers or whatever big scary dog is the kind who encourages that kind of aggressive behavior or who is not qualified to train them properly.

That being said, a nervous frightened pit bull can be one of the more dangerous dogs at the animal hospital I work at.


ps. Canary dogs are pretty badass

[Blarg]

I'm curious -- how exactly does it work that some dogs -- e.g., those of the pit bull -- can somehow "lock"?

[Lazymeatball]

I'm not fully qualified to answer this, but I don't believe that pit bulls' jaws have some special ability to "lock." I believe it's more a quality of the mental determination of the dog to keep going no matter what. In old school dog fighting circles this mental determination is referred to as "game," as in how much game that dog has.

[Blarg]

I seem to have heard before that some dogs have some sort of anatomy that lets their jaws "lock," so that even when they're dead they can still be hanging on. I'm sure other dogs are just as determined, when life and death are at stake, even if pit bulls are a bit crazier.

I think I may have heard that bulldogs can do this too, but am not sure about the whole thing.