It’s not the owner (although pretty often the owner doesn’t help matters), it’s the breed. I sincerely don’t know how many children have to be eaten by these monsters before everyone wakes up to the reality of these dogs. They have bloodsport fighting genetics hard wired into their brains, the same way you can’t stop a pointer from pointing or a herding dog from herding. They are the most impulsive breed, and they turn even on kind and loving owners all the time. Pit bull owners will flock to the comments to gaslight everyone about what wonderful dogs they are and how they must have been triggered by the child breathing or blinking and it’s not the dog’s fault. I’m attaching an image of such an argument I saw today.
I think many pit bull owners secretly like owning a killer dog, and just have some sort of oppositional defiance that makes them want to prove to everyone how wonderful their dog is, and until the dog turns on them will defend them to insane degrees. I think they like seeing people and pets and livestock get hurt or killed. I understand some people get caught up in romantic thoughts shaped by publications like The Dodo of helping a poor abused dog become a wonderful pet, and I totally understand wanting to help, and this isn’t their fault, but stark reality sets in quickly when they bring the dog home and it promptly tears apart their cat.
The Bennard family is a prime example, they are middle class people who lovingly raised their pits from puppies, and when they were 8 years old one day the dogs killed their baby and toddler and hospitalized the mom in the ICU. Pieces of that baby were everywhere. Apparently the reason was because the toddler picked up the ball the mom was throwing for the dogs, but she had had to break up a very vicious fight between the dogs shortly before. For that two innocent children lost their lives, from family pets who were lovingly raised.
I know what many of the comments here will be like, but I stand convinced that not one of these dogs is safe simply because of genetics. They are doing what they are bred for, and it’s high past time people get realistic about them.
I know it’s tiring, and more effort than a lazy mind is willing to give to a class they’ve already decided is ‘evil’ but all things must be judged individually. ‘Pit bull’ is about as useful a term in determining expected behavior in dogs as the word ‘retriever,’ which is to say not much. There are dogs labeled ‘pit bull’ who are massively territorial and defensive, and others that are more likely to hide under a blanket than get into an altercation. People love having an explanation so they can feel clever when they say, ‘oh, he’s a hammer tailed waffle bottom. That’s why he likes to sniff butts. But then she’s a spraddleback retriever, so that’s why she likes to sniff butts for a totally different reason.’ Stop pretending all dogs that are some unspecified number of generations out but bearing the label from some classification some idiot breeders came up with can be reliably expected to behave in this or that particular way. That’s just dog racism. Lots of cartel violence in Mexico, doesn’t mean we think Mexicans are violent. We judge each one individually, because that’s the only way to be fair.