Didn’t know about your personal experience with pitbull violence. A couple of things that keep me here at FR are that people share their personal experiences as well as adding links to information sources, whatever the topic.
I noticed in many of these articles about tragic maulings and fatalities that a common quote goes something like...”the dog never showed any sign of violence before”.
Way back in 1975, a guy I'd grown up with across the street from my mom's house, had a pit bull. He was the first person I'd ever known who owned one. Prior to that, I wasn't even dimly aware of the breed.
I'm sure I'd seen him out walking the dog, but never paid it much mind. The dog didn't seem aggressive, but again, there wasn't anything for me to notice, really.
Well, time came when my mom sold the house and moved out. She left the family dogs at the house overnight while we moved all her things to her new place. The next day I dropped by to pick up our dogs, and was horrified to find that our male dog was in one of the empty bedrooms covered in blood - barely alive.
There was blood all over the walls, and bloody human and dog footprints leading from that bedroom to the back door.
Much of the incident after finding my dog is a blur. I know that we rushed him to the vet who sewed him up and saved his life, but for the life of me, I can't remember any of the other details of that day. I was sort of in shock, I guess.
Afterwards, through some detective work in the neighborhood, I found out that the guy across the street had sneaked into my mom's house and locked our dog in the bedroom with his pit. I can only imagine the horror that ensued. My mind still reels a bit, just remembering the sight of the aftermath.