Pit Bull Conspiracy – Where does the name Pit Bull really come from?

WARNING: THE PHOTOS IN THIS POST SHOW GRAPHIC ACTUAL PHOTOS OF OPEN WOUNDS CAUSED BY PITBULL ATTACKS. NOT RECOMMENDED VIEWING FOR CHILDREN

Friday night around 11 pm, April 8, 2011, two pit bulls dismembered a live cat with their teeth in North Oak Park, Sacramento. A 44 year old woman, who witnessed the attack from its beginning, collapsed in hysterics and shock on the pavement outside her house. It wasn’t the woman’s cat, but witnessing the viciousness of the attack was so traumatic that the woman had to be assisted to her home by two neighbors. Other neighbors soon caught the two Pit Bulls in question and the cat died later that night. The Pit Bulls’ owners were out at the time.

While “Dog kills Cat Friday Night” is not big news, what makes it pertinent is that seeing it happen and the effects on a neighbor puts the real danger of Pit Bulls on my doorstep. I was one of the neighbors that witnessed part of the attack and helped the woman back to her home; the experience left all of us visibly shaken. I also happen to be a former dog trainer and worked for several years under international dog judges and dog breed experts in the 1970’s as a teen.

Pit bulls are more dangerous than other dogs because they are genetically designed to be vicious, attack and fight, with a locking jaw that exerts 2000 kg per 1 sq cm of pressure. Pit Bulls were never bred to be family pets or life companions, or safe with children, or safe in a community, nor hunting or farming. There are plenty of gory photos of the results of pit bull attacks on the web: grown men and little children with half their faces bitten off, photos too explicit and too gory to show to children or even to sensitive adults.

Because Pit Bulls are cute and lovable their well meaning but naïve advocates and neglectful owners have made the breed popular by giving it publicity with increasing attacks on other animals, children, and adults. Not deliberately, but by the statistical fact that their numbers are growing at an alarming rate. Pit Bull advocates have even faked the dog’s history on the Internet and in books saying the breed goes back as far as the Romans. While some of the various breeds that make up the Pit Bull do go back to the Romans, the actual Pit Bull breed as we know it today was developed in the mid 20th century for the purpose of making money in the dog fighting pits. It’s where the prefix Pit comes from, Pit is a modern English word, not ancient Roman. The Latin word for pit is cavas and the Italian word for pit is pozzo.

The name Bull comes from the various breeds of dogs in different countries used for herding, controlling, hunting and bringing down and killing large wild buffalo and large wild pigs in hunting and bringing down enemy horses and beasts of burden in war. These dogs include breeds such as Bullmastiffs and Bullterriers. Characteristics of the Bull genes are powerful bodies, large jaws (Bullmastiff), high-pressure locking jaw (Bullterrier), and tenacious stamina in a physical fight for “control not death” against a large vicious animal. Both Bullmastiffs and Bullterriers have had hundreds and thousands of years of refinement breeding to also have cute dispositions and be good pets, as well as good guard dogs and hunting dogs.

The name Pit comes from modern day pit dogfight promoters mixing the Bull breeds then inbreeding the result to create a vicious bipolar “fight to the death” personality. These Pit bulls were used to fit bears and wild boars tied to polls in pits as well as other dogs. Mixing powerful breeds made a better fight show and had better chances of winning in the pit and making the promoters and dog owners more money. Because animal fighting was illegal then as it is now nearly all information and breeding records were word of mouth. No original written breeding history was kept or as yet public knowledge.

The result is a Pit Bull, a dog that is cute and lovable when it is not feeling threatened, but when it does feel its territory threatened or it is in a pack, it morphs into a vicious killing machine. The Pit Bull has no choice because the vicious bipolar traits have been selectively in-bred into the dog’s brain were we can’t see it. The Pit Bull is the animal equivalent of the genetically designed super soldier in Sci-Fi movies, that can’t live a normal life. The real world result is the equivalent of a sociopath with violent homicidal tendencies due to brain deformity. This is why the Pit Bull is not on popular dog breed charts, because experienced comprehensive dog experts advise that the Pit Bull is not a good dog for anything but fighting, because the Pit Bull is unpredictable to the point of being lethally dangerous.

The Pit Bull is genuinely all cute and lovable and affable on the outside, but the Pit Bull’s brain on the inside where we can't see it is a Russian roulette time bomb. Most Pit Bull owners put their dogs on very big chains and have problems controlling their dogs when out for walks - what does that say to the observer? That even on a good day the Pit Bull is a brain damaged animal that needs specialized expert care, just as a brain damaged human being who kills and maims animals and people needs specialized expert care. It also tells me the dog is suffering by being choked all the time and not being allowed to run freely for proper exercise.

I’m a dog lover myself, worked with show dogs and grooming in my teens and volunteered in animal rescue and fostering off and on for 30 years. I grew up on a farm in Australia where dogs are expected to follow rules without a heavy chain or high fences. If the dog didn’t follow certain rules, such as harming people and other animals without proper authority, it got shot in the head and buried in the back paddock, quick and painless. The farm’s income and its people as well as the dog would suffer if the dog were kept alive; the same as a neighborhood suffers when a dog attacks a human or their pets or children.

We prevent humans with damaged brains and dangerous personalities from breeding and harming others by putting them in institutions and making them infertile. If our canine friends are to be considered real friends, should they not be subject to the same basic rules of mental health and social endeavor as human beings? Thou shall not kill or harm a human being as bibles off all kinds preach and according to human law in an animal’s case not even in self-defense.

Pit Bulls are suffering because there are no strict laws for Pit Bulls to live a normal life without risk of triggering a violent episode. A dog with the muscles and energy of a Pit Bull needs about 10 miles running per day and expert training and handling, as well as specialized fencing to keep it calm and under control. When you see the average Pit Bull owner, do they look like they could run 10 miles nonstop every day, or afford to pay for specialized fencing or an extensive training course? The answer is no, and if you asked the average Pit Bull owner they would say the same about themselves.

I don’t advocate euthanizing all the Pit Bulls in the world, but I do advocate strict ownership, location, breeding, and licensing laws where dogs are kept in minimum 1 acre double fenced yard per 2 dogs for proper exercise, located outside of cities and urban areas, and owners and breeders must undergo specialized extensive training to handle, secure, care for and train dogs with violent tendencies. This gives the dog a quality healthy loving life out of harms way, the same as a person or parent would give a fulfilling safe life to a mentally ill friend or child.
The laws, training and licensing will bring in money to pay for public education and animal control as well as make it less attractive to own and breed Pit Bulls. There are currently and estimated 77.5 million Pit Bulls in the USA according to wikipedia.com but it’s not confirmed as most Pit Bulls are not registered and they breed 6 or 8 pups in a litter, plus gestation time is only 9 weeks. Because there is a market for Pit Bull puppies, $500 to $2000 and more per pup, there are growing lobbies to protect and encourage the uneducated, negligent, and misguided breeding and owning of Pit Bulls.

At the very least all Pit Bulls must be 100% registered, vet approved and tagged, their living and breeding situations inspected and charted and owners and dogs require certified basic training at a respected dog school. The bottom line is that Pit Bull advocates are asking tax payers to freely allow the breeding and public interaction of sociopathic bipolar vicious animals, which the tax payer, animal welfare, and victims have to pay for in injuries, trauma, police, ambulance, animal rescue, animal control, vent bills, and in some cases law suits, settlements, and ongoing medical and vet bills.

I’m not saying that Pit Bulls are the only dogs that attack people or are suffering, but if we can instigate laws to free up resources from animals we know aren’t always safe, we can have more resources to care for animals that are a safer bet. A dangerous animal is an animal that is suffering or feeling threatened and there are simply not enough shelters, responsible owners, quality foster care or free vets for animals who are likely to attack people. Animal owners, lovers, and carer givers need to grow up; there is such a thing as "too much love in wrong places".
Animal control and rescue, police, child welfare, and animal rights groups need to start advocating stricter pet and animal breeding and care and training laws starting with Pit Bulls and animals in general. If each city spent a few million dollars now, they’d save hundreds of millions dollars from now on and save billions of dollars in the future.
Dog and pet associations, government, and dog educators also need to re-educate and regulate the people and organizations spreading misinformation about Pit Bulls.

PIT BULLS ARE NOT PETS

Concerned dog lover and former dog trainer.

Sacramento, California