My staffy is a deadly killer.....
Any dog can be dangerous. Like others have said, puppyhood, how it was raised and the conditions it lives under all play large roles in how dogs behave. I treat my stafforshire like she was my daughter, and her personality is the most human i have ever encountered in anything save an actualy human being. I find it sad that people have such a twisted bias against these dogs. When I was a child we had a full blood wolf dog. She was an absolute sweetheart. Looked menacing, sounded even more dangerous and was an excellent guard dog. But when I was about 4 or 5 years old I thought one day it would be funny to take her doggie biscuit away and play keepaway. She bit right through my hand. She was also a puppy, only a little over a year old herself. I remember looking down at my hand and watching the blood ooze out of the dozen or so tiny punctures on both sides. My parents almost put her down, but I pleaded with them not to. So they watched her. And guess what? 15 years later she died of old age. In those 15 years, she never again came even remotely close to biting anyone. I learned my lesson and didnt bother her while eating. The fact is, this breed of dog is 10 times more unpredictable than a pittbull. Hell, this dog had two paws over the fine line between wild and tame. Yet aside from my stupidity that one morning, she was never agressive towards another human again.
Im sure I could have been tramatized for life and decided to hate wolf dogs because of it, but instead I just learned my lesson and went with it. At the same time, we had a little mutt dog that was dumped on our property in a cardboard box. She was obviously abused and starved, because it was the most frightened little puppy I had ever seen. We nursed her to health and gave her our love and she came to love my parents and I, but would not let anyone else so much as get near her. Likewise, if you petted her in the wrong spot she would yelp and cry and run away, even 12 years after we found her. It still angers me deeply to this day to know someone could be so cruel to a helpless little animal. Her brother was found along with her in the box, and he was so traumatized he would piss himself every time you touched or came near him. We found a family to take him because he was even more screwed up than my mutt.
My point is, my mutt RC never ever trusted people after her horrible puppyhood. Her entire life she never forgot what those people did to her. All it takes is one bad experience, one horrible person, to ruin a dog. That is why when people tell me pitt bulls attack people for no reason, I have to call BS. Maybe these dogs are just getting placed into an incredibly similar experience to something terrible they went through as a puppy. And they freak out. The same thing can happen with human beings.
My parents were the type of people to buy into the propaganda and believe everything they heard about pitt bulls. they tried again and again to prevent me from buying one. As soon as I brought her over and they got to watch her start growing up, they changed their minds completely. They now claim pitt bulls are their favorite type of dog.
I feel blessed to own such a wonderful dog. She is the best companion I have ever had. And no matter how much of a a little turd she can be at times (such as eating my haynes repair manual the other day) I love her to death.
There are always going to be bad dogs. Pitt bulls are no exception. just like any breed of dog, they can be good or bad. Singling them out over any other breed just spreads ignorance.
