Alexandra Semyonova is bang on! Why the denial of heritability? Pit Bulls were originally created for one purpose…animal aggression…specifically dog fighting. Dogs were selectivley bred not to respond to normal canine appeasement behaviours. They were expected to fight to the death. Purportedly, human aggression was not generally tolerated by the “dogmen”.

Over the last 20 years Pit Bulls became the “power breed” of choice. While other larger Mastiff breeds might have been more formidable, Pit Bulls had the dubious advantage of being more available. Very cheap and easy to obtain…and to maintain. indiscriminate and downright scary breeding practices often resulted in unstable animals with serious human aggression issues. The owners of these dogs were usually less than stellar members of society with aggression problems of their own.

I have known well trained and thoughtfully managed Pit Bulls…truly nice dogs …but they tend to be the the exceptions. I believe the breed requires an owner with considerably better than average dog skills and a high level of dilegence. Too bad that the skilled and the dilegent owners seem so outnumbered by the careless and the clueless!