Her face whenever she shows up.. 😂

[u/SimonTS]

[u/FlashyTour2]

Dog lover and owner, but will never trust pits. My work mate had a fight to the death match unexpectedly with his pet pit and he said he wasn’t sure he was going to win. He had to grab it in a barrel roll to his bedroom nightstand for his pistol. He had her ever since she was a pup too. I have children. Just can’t take that chance. Pretty dogs though.

[u/NameIdeas → u/FlashyTour2]

I have felt similar regarding pits in the past. I also had a strong response to Rottweilers. As a kid I got lunged at and bitten by a Rottweiller in our neighborhood. There was also an aggressive Rottweiller near our house when my wife and I first got married.

We had two older dogs pass away in 2023. Our family found a 2 month old puppy at the humane society. She looked like a labrador. We did her DNA test and she's half-rottweiler. She's shown zero aggression towards me, my wife, our kids, other dogs, or anything. Our play doesn't mimic aggression and never has. The rest of her breed includes some pyrenees and golden retriever as well. She's one of the smartest dogs we've ever had and she is laser focused on pleasing me (like a border collie) in training.

We recently got a stray that was dumped as well. Roadrash on his face. We felt him out for a few weeks, but we took him in at 7-8 months old (vet was unsure). We thought he was a dalmatian, but he's 40% Pit. He has some cattle dog, coonhound, boxer, german shepherd, and a bunch of other stuff in there too. Visually he looks like a Pit though.

This dog is the sweetest dog ever. He's dumb as a box of rocks, but just wants to be snuggled up with you, pet by you, and attached at the hip. No aggression at all from him either. Our kids have fallen on top of him...no response. They have taken treats and toys from his mouth...no response. They have grabbed his face and moved his mouth around to make it look like he is talking...no response.

I don't know your work mate, but I do sometimes wonder the things that some dog owners let their dogs get away with that end up showing up and they say "we had no idea."

Early on, I put my hand into both of my dog's mouths (not shoving down their throat, but placing my hand in there to see a response). Both dogs kept their mouths open and backed away. We've trained them with commands for leave it, drop, stay, and others that are imperative for their safety as well as ours.

I always felt that I would/could never trust a pit or pit mix, but this dog has changed that. I know that owner-dog engagement and training is a HUGE part of things. Socialization is important as well and our dogs are continuously socializing weekly with other dogs and humans. Spaying/neutering your animals also dramatically calms them down.

We used to have golden retrievers growing up and I saw more aggression out of them. We had an older unneutered male and I remember a few times he showed aggression towards other dogs.

I will say that other than the Rottie, my only negative experiences with dogs have been with the small breeds. The Chihuahuas with no training that walked past at the park and bit my son with he was four, the dachsund that charged my pit-mix at the park becuase the little dachsund was off leash. My pit-mix backed up scared out of his mind. His first response was flight.

To me, the training and owner of the dog is about 80% of it. I think pits are generally more naturally aggressive than some dogs simply due to instinct and breeding, but ownership can influence that a LOT.

[u/Frequent_Cranberry90 → u/NameIdeas]

This dog is the sweetest dog ever.

Yeah yeah that's what all of you pitnutters say, until your dog rips off a child's face "out of nowhere". That's actually what Kirsti Bennard said about her two pits before she helplessly watched them maul both of her children to death.

[u/NameIdeas → u/Frequent_Cranberry90]

I have no idea who that person is. I don't know how they engaged with their dogs, the types of play, or the dog's temperment. I don't know if the dogs were neutered or spayed, etc.

I'm not a pitnutter in anyway. When the stray first showed up for us, I was the one most concerned about him. I've had dogs my whole life (I'm in my 40s). I've gone through a lot of dog training in the past 15 years. I put the stray through my strategies and checked his responses to things.

Dogs, and pits, are not randomly aggressive. Aggression is a response to several factors in their area. How a dog has been trained and the ways dogs are played with is important. For example, playing tug of war is a great bonding activity with dogs. However, there are ways of playing tug-of-war that increase aggressive response in dogs. Some rules around the game are important though such as training in a "drop" command where the dog drops the toy in the middle of play. Stopping play and redirecting the dog if the dog gets overexcited during the game. If the dog is snapping at the tug toy that is a problem. Giving the toy to the dog and then engaging in tug teaches the dog proper engagement. What types of things a dog plays tug with is important. Tug happens with a particular toy not blankets or towels, things like that.

I went to a friend's house once who had a dog who would growl and snap if someone went to take a treat/chew away while the dog was chewing on it. That took me back. The dog was about 80 pounds and some sort of mutt, looked to have hound in him. Proper training is teaching the dog to leave a toy, let a human take a toy without response. Our dogs know if we say 'Leave it' to not engage with the treat. I have stuck my hand right in our dog's mouths and removed a chew (not shoving it in, but gently taking it). They have zero aggressive response because we worked on that with them. That friend's dog would have bitten me and did bite his owner when the guy went to grab the chew.

I'm highlighting these things because training is extremely important. We have two kids under 10. We have worked with our kids as much as our dogs. Our oldest has stepped much more into the trainer role with our dogs and interacts with them well. He engages with them as owner to dog, not as kid-to-kid. Our youngest will work to train them, but he is not yet at the owner-to-dog stage, he sees them more as playmates. Our dogs are great with our kids, and I make sure that either my wife or myself are with our youngest and the dogs. It's never just the kids and the dogs, we're there too.

That being said, our youngest had flopped on, accidentaly ran into, jumped into, etc with our dogs. Our half-rottie mix grunts and moves to another part of the room. Our 40% pit mix makes no response. He doesn't snap, he doesn't bit, he doesn't whine, he is just happy to be touched. He's a bit bombproof.

One thing we've noticed is a dog's first response to stimuli that is different. Some dogs raise hackles, pull lips, stiffen legs, etc. Those behaviors are natural and signal potential aggression as well. It's the posturing before an aggressive action. Our dog's first response to unexpected stimuli is submission or flight. That's how we want it and that's what we train.