My brother had a pit bull for awhile. A real pit bull, not some other blocky headed breed.
He got it because a good friend of his was forced to give it up, by his wife, who said “either the dog goes or I go”.
Seems the pit bull (who had never been trained to fight or guard or be belligerent in any way, and was actually quite friendly to people) had caught the wife’s cat under the bed... and bit it in HALF. With a SINGLE BITE.
As my brother used to say, “it wasn’t a fight, it was a bite”.
Those dogs are powerful. They are very very powerful. They have far more power than any dog should have.
Unless you’re using it to guard a military base, or a weapon’s stash, or a drug operation.
I remember that dog well. I used to play ball with it. I would bounce a rubber ball against the house in the back yard and that dog looooovvvved to go after that ball. Sometimes he would give it right back to me, sometimes he would want to hold on to it. If he held on to it, I could swing up in the air — a big, honkin’ heavy pit bull swinging way off the ground — swing him in a circle, and the only way I could get him to let go was to drop him in the pool.
He didn’t like being in the pool.
And I remember walking him on a leash, outside. When he saw another dog he would strain against the leash has hard as he could and it would take quite a bit of strength — with a choke collar — to hold him back. I was stronger than him so it wasn’t a problem, but I often thought about, what if I wasn’t?
He wouldn’t bark or snarl or growl. He didn’t want to fight. He just wanted to BITE.
I used to joke with my brother, if you put a steak on a plate and bounced a ball against the wall and let a cat loose running by, what would doggy do? What would he go for first?
It was just a joke, because of course we knew the answer: the cat.
He LIKED cats. And he LIKED dogs. And I can imagine that a cousin of his might LIKE kids, too.
Way, way, way more powerful than a dog ought to be. At least in human company. At least with children anywhere in the neighborhood.
I miss that ole’ dog. I had a good relationship with him. But we treated him with RESPECT. We treated him as if we were dealing with a freaking chimpanzee. We didn’t leave the door open or the back yard fence. Ever. Not ever. Not once.
We knew he wasn’t looking for a fight; but we sure as h*ll didn’t want him to take another BITE.
I understand where you’re coming from - I really do. Even the most ill-tempered and pissed off dachshund isn’t likely to kill someone simply because they don’t have the size and body type.
But you sort of illustrate my point about owner behavior. An owner should respect the breed, understand its capabilities, and train it accordingly. It sounds like the dog had little to no training before you and your brother came along.
I’d be willing to hazard a guess that the previous owner probably thought it was “cute” to see him chase the cat when he was a pup and didn’t try to correct the behavior before the dog got big enough to be a real threat. (I had an uncle who was like that - I took my mom telling him to either leave his dog at home or learn to control it or she would shoot it the next time it went after our cat. And no, she wasn’t kidding.)
But just because something is potentially dangerous doesn’t mean that it’s inherently dangerous. We shouldn’t be preemptively punishing everyone for an irresponsible few.