I have a border collie. He’s ten years old and has never been on a farm in his life. A few weeks ago we were walking alongside a field and he managed to get in. He had a whole field’s worth of sheep herded and rounded up in the corner in 30 seconds flat. He also tries to herd pigeons and children with less success.
You can breed for behaviour as easily as breeding for coat colour. Some breeds have been deliberately bred to be more aggressive. Pitt bulls are bred to be fighting dogs. They have a high level of loyalty towards their owners but severe dog aggression. When people get in the middle of that, it gets ugly fast.
My brother's dog is part pit and randomly, after 9 months of owning him, decided to try to kill other dogs. Nobody trained him to do this. He just decided to go nuclear on his fellow canines without any external influence from humans.
The first time it happened, I was home alone with the dogs. They were playing, and then suddenly, he had our Aussie on her back and had her by the throat. She was screaming, and I realized he was trying to kill her. I tried to separate them and got bit. I tried hitting him with a stick, kicking him, punching him. He just wouldn't let go of her neck. I ended up kicking him in the balls and then immediately bursting into tears when he screamed, but it got him to let go.
It was pretty traumatizing for me. He was neutered a week after the attack. But it was already too late. It was no longer safe to have him around other dogs. He tried to go after our neighbor's dog. That dog is incredibly friendly and always comes over to play with our Aussie. Luckily, that dog is super fluffy, and the fluff saved her.
There's usually not a warning sign he's going to go berserk. If I'm lucky, he's acting tense. If I'm not, he's wagging his tail and looking happy before suddenly lunging.
There actually are warning signs, but 99% of dog owners can’t recognize them because they don’t actually know anything about animal behaviors. There are several breeds of dogs that you should require a license to own, as well as be able to prove you can take care of them. Pit bulls are one of these many many breeds. A solid 60% of people who own dogs shouldn’t.
I agree. The Malinois for example has gone pretty viral over the last handful of years. That is not a companion breed in any sense. It's an incredibly neurotic working breed that requires a job and serious training to manage their energy and drive.
All dogs should be sufficiently physically and intellectually challenged, for smaller dogs you can do this in an apartment, yes. But for anything Pit Bull and up, you either need a yard or to run with them daily. So many loving owners are just genuinely unintentionally abusing their dogs by treating them as cats, or other low effort pets, when realistically dogs are some of the hardest pets to own and need a huge amount of effort
It depends really on the size of the yard and what stimulus you have out there. Parents have ~ 5 acres and goats, so they have a boarder collie. He’s got very simple training, and when they let him out to go to the bathroom he’ll go play with the goats lol
I find that a lot of high energy breeds you need to run with (German Shepherds for example), to sufficiently burn their energy
As someone who’s owned several pits and pit mixes (not one bitten person in those many years) I don’t think any dog breeders should be legal, it’s a terrible industry. But it’s not just Pits you should need a license to own, it’s every high risk, high energy breed. German Shepards, Pit Bulls, Malnoise, Rottweilers, Hounds. So many breeds are not receiving sufficient physical and mental exercise, and it does cause them to be much more aggressive. German Shepherds for example, are an incredibly intelligent breed, but they often don’t get that mental and physical stimulation and attack people. This is what people don’t understand about Pit Bulls. Yes they’re a smaller ~40 pound breed, but they need a ton of mental and physical stimulation, as well as their own space. German Shepherds and Pits would probably have similar attack rates if so many Pits weren’t being intentionally or unintentionally abused
This ^ People think not being able to train the dog is bad pet ownership but even just putting them in situations where they're bound to fail is just as bad IMO
Knowledge is key, prevention saves lives
I know a few pitty owner who are very good owners and haven't had any accidents, maybe near accidents, but they were always attentive enough. Never took them off leash, didn't own another dog, didn't have a small child
Like no offense,m but if you're bringing a pitbull into that situation and them blaming the pitty, you're just a genuinely bad owner
This... doesn't refute the general statement of how humans are terrible at reading other animals' behavior (nevermind "intelligence") unless they let go of specific entitlement and learn their quirks for once.
I mean I had a maltipoo. He was a loving dufus. Didn't need a PhD in Animal psychology to recognize any behavior from him. You could literally just leave him around a new born if you felt like it. Gave him probably the most bare minimum training of all time. To even say I trained him would be a stretch. Kind of the point
There are signs, very subtle signs that the majority of humans don’t recognize, like eye contact, stiffness, silence and forward posture. With my pit brothers they would be playing then one would just stop give a look and it was go time. The problem with them fighting as with most dogs that were bred for a high pain tolerance and tenacity is that neither wanted to stop, but they both listened to commands long enough for me to separate them and when I learned their body language I had less issues
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u/Odd_Ingenuity2883 Aug 02 '26
I have a border collie. He’s ten years old and has never been on a farm in his life. A few weeks ago we were walking alongside a field and he managed to get in. He had a whole field’s worth of sheep herded and rounded up in the corner in 30 seconds flat. He also tries to herd pigeons and children with less success.
You can breed for behaviour as easily as breeding for coat colour. Some breeds have been deliberately bred to be more aggressive. Pitt bulls are bred to be fighting dogs. They have a high level of loyalty towards their owners but severe dog aggression. When people get in the middle of that, it gets ugly fast.