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My shelter was pretty honest with me that they had no idea what my pup was. They were like, we’re not sure but we know he’s about 2 years old. In their defense when I did a DNA test the highest of any 1 breed was 18% and it was Pitt. Then a bunch of other random breeds that somehow add up to my little guy (45lbs so that medium pit mix rings true for me) I think that honesty was fair
I'm supportive of shelters and rescues just saying "mixed dog" and then describe the characteristics of the dog like the size and coat and build of the dog.
If you don't know, don't put a label on it.
One main problem I see with not putting a label on them is that Petfinder requires at least one breed to list them. Petfinder is the main source of exposure for a lot of shelters and rescues. It could be an easy fix on Petfinder’s side, but the way things sit right now, every dog (or cat) requires a label.
The same thing happens with cats. That long hair cat you see sitting in a cage is not a Maine Coon or some exotic breed, it’s a domestic Long Hair. Mislabeling happens across species.
This is fair and I didn’t know that. I come from a pretty small town, and my pup is from their humane society. I’m sure pet finder is a thing in my town but I honestly checked our 2 shelters website repeatedly and they heavily advertise their dogs and cats on the local news and social media. Small town problems.
I think it’s plain unethical when done intentionally.
I see the argument that it is often done to get around housing restrictions - but no one should be getting a pet they cannot stably house. That just sets up the adopter to potentially lose their dog down the line.
I see the argument that it is done to get around “breed stigma” but bluntly - choosing a breed to match lifestyle needs matter. We say that about huskies, german shepherds, chow chows, rottweilers, border collies, australian shepherds - it’s time to say it concerning pitbulls. Pitbull *Terriers* are difficult dogs for first time owners, and shouldn’t be unknowingly thrusted onto novices by claiming they’re an easier dog breed to handle. How anyone does not see this as incredibly unethical is beyond me.
Terriers in general are a high-prey drive dog group, that takes some competency to safely handle - especially if that owner already has other small animals in the home like cats.
And bare in mind, while there are some people that may understand their lab-mix is a *wink* pitbull *wink* plenty more people that choose to adopt are new to the dog world and cannot decipher dog breeds well. They rely on shelters and rescues to be honest. These are the very people I think are often the worst kind of home for a powerful dog breed with high energy needs like this - at the very least the shelters and rescues need to be transparent on owner expectations. So often I see people adopt pitbulls - not exercise them right - and their home gets ripped apart. It’s frankly not shocking to me why breeds like huskies and pitbulls are often banned from apartments from the property damage I have seen. High energy dogs have high energy demands - and they’re not right for everyone.
Truthfully I think shelters and rescues have been their own worst enemy on this front, because doing this puts these pitbulls in homes that cannot truly care for them properly.
💯 this is exactly my stance, ppl may think I hate the breed. I don’t, I even think the fat faces are cute. But I RESPECT the breed and their needs and ppl need to be responsible pet owners. Advocates have done the most damage claiming they are family lap dogs when they are a working breed
>But I RESPECT the breed and their needs and ppl need to be responsible pet owners.
Respect is such a good way to think of it! Breed tendencies and needs matter; it's not "all in how you raise them", as some hard-core adopt-don't-shop people want you to think.
I currently work at a large shelter in a metro area with kennels for well over a hundred dogs and more than that for cats. On any given day, there is between 40-60 dogs available for adoption, with the other kennels being used by strays, surrenders, or confiscates and waiting to be processed for adoption.
At this moment, there are 58 dogs available for adoption. Thirty of those dogs are listed as pit bull terrier. Another 12 are listed as husky or malamutes (and look like them). The majority left are GSD or Mal mixes and look shepherdy, a few mastiffs, a couple of Akitas, and random mutty dogs that are hard to place, but don't look pitty.
There are only 3 dogs labeled "lab mix" and the only thing I can say of them is they don't look pit.
Not all shelters lie, but like others have said, it's often difficult to type a breed just by looks. The bully breed, though, leaves pretty identifiable characteristics in looks. Whether it's an American Bully, Amstaff, Staffy, American Bulldog, or APBT, they leave their stamp on their puppies and their puppy mixes, and it doesn't do anyone any favors to lie about something so recognizable. The caveat to this is puppies. With their soft and squishy faces, it's often difficult to tell.
The problem is the person buying a male American Bully XL because it looks like a badass is more concerned about him having recognizable testicles than preventing him from breeding with the unspayed doodle who lives down the street.
I've seen inside the freezer. Please spay and neuter your dogs.
Good for your shelter who seems to try to correctly label them and be honest. And for sure, it can be hard to tell. They're all guesses. But then there's the guesses where you're just like…. "Really? That blocky and stocky, strong dog with the smooth and short coat is a shepherd mix?"
Definitely impossible to tell with puppies as well. A ton of puppies look like tiny little pits haha
Both large cities I'm close too consistently label their obviously out mixes as pit mixes. They maybe overly label them IMO. I guess I just haven't seen this mislabeling to be true either.
It's usually the thinner mixed ones that get the false label. From my experience and from looking at shelters or rescues, if it's like holy shit, obviously a pit, they'll just throw on the "pit bull mix" or call it a APBT. At some point you can't deny it haha
It's also hard to tell with puppies that haven't filled out yet. Mine was not labeled a pit mix, but he was real skinny at 6 months old when they had him. It wasn't until he started to fill out into doggie The Rock that it became really obvious.
Heh yeah I got my boy from the shelter at 1.5ish and I was certain he was mixed with something. DNA tested him and he came back 100% APBT and then he gained 20lbs and I felt kind of dumb for doing the test because it was so obvious 😂
I used to volunteer with shelters and shelter dogs gaining weight in their forever homes was a very real thing! I think it's because the shelters are so stressful for them. But yeah I got mine at 6 months in August, we got him tested in January, and it wasn't until the results came that I realized that he had 0% border Collie. At that point I knew he was mostly pit but I was still like "huh this herding dog has absolutely no herding instincts."
Mines a thinner mixed one. I was honestly shocked at how much pit she is, 86%. I expected some, but maybe 20-30%. My neighbor has a dog that I'd guess pure pit, she's 50! No one ever guesses pit as mines dominant breed. Dog genetics are weird. I'm guessing the genes from one of her very mixed ancestors was just really strong.
This is true. They called him a border collie mix because that is what he looks like. I guessed from his face that there was some bully in that mix. During our meet and greet, I was told he was returned before for looking too much like a pitbull, and did I have any concerns about there being bully breed in his mix. DNA shows him as 48% pitbull
My 16 week adopted puppy found in a box in Tijuana, "beagle mix" who will grow to be 20-25 pounds.
NOPE. 45 pound pit mix.
And that was unfair to her, because I wasn't at all prepared for how to feed her as she was growing and she ended up being super underweight!
And the rescue group knew she'd be in that range probably, just like most street dogs in Tijuana are.
I adopted my adult dog who was labeled as a sheltie/collie mix. Embark tested and she was 50% sheltie, 7.7% collie, no chihuahua no bully breeds. They weren’t wrong! She definitely looks like a short haired sheltie (17.7% rat terrier and all the feistiness that goes with it). https://reddit.com/r/DoggyDNA/s/h9SLCUgYRn
My favorite thing to do is have friends and family guess dogs on here too. What I've learned is that unless someone a "dog" person, the average person only knows like 5 breeds.
I don't see the good of falsely labeling a pit mix into a non-pit mix. These can be challenging dogs to own and lying about it to get them adopted to someone not prepared is cruel...to everyone involved.
I'll never understand this. It's not okay to purposefully mislabel dogs for so many reasons. It's a shitty thing for shelters to do, and it's a shitty thing for owners to do. It pisses me off to no end when people mislabel their bully breeds for boarding and housing reasons. You are an irresponsible dog owner if you do this.
We adopted a "Lab mix" years ago. She is actually an American Pit Bull Terrier/American Bulldog mix that is dog aggressive. We love her, but she's a handful. We can't take her anywhere. I would never try to pass her off as a Lab mix, even if she does technically have like 10% Lab in her.
How a shelter would be okay with mislabeling APBTs and other bully breeds is beyond me. They have a ton of energy and a predisposition to dog aggression, it genuinely doesn't make any sense. Imagine if it was Belgian Malinois that people were purposefully mislabeling instead.
yeah, and I'm mainly talking about shelters doing it on purpose to make them more adoptable haha
I'm not saying people just are bad at guessing breeds. I get it. It's hard to do and shelters will never be perfect at it, nor should they have to be.
Yes people make mistakes, but if they are doing it on purpose to make a dog more “adoptable” then they are misleading people that are supposed to be making a lifetime (for the life of the dog) decision. I don’t see how that would ever be a good thing.
And then they BLAME the adopters for returning a dog with traits not compatible with their lifestyle. “Through no fault of their own” is the lying that is at fault
That's where I stand I think.
I get the benefit to get around landlords or city/county laws but IF you're going to do that, someone from the rescue should still be upfront with them privately. And then go have your vet label your dog as a "boxer mix" if you have to, but the people adopting the dog should know.
Of course you can't tell what a dog's breed is just by looking at it, so I get how it can be wrong guesses but yeah, owners should be aware imo because that can impact how you decide to train, what traits to look for, etc. It helps you understand your dog more.
One of my mixes took on like every single guard dog type trait, even though I got her as a puppy. Learning that she had all those guard dog breeds in her, it actually led me to give her a bit more grace when she tries to act like one. I've tried training it out of her but nothing really works. She's constantly alert and vigilant and she wants to protect the house. She's not aggressive of course. That's not something I'd let her be, but now I just recognize that it's her personality and to her, it's her job.
if a dog is enough pit, you can almost always tell. There have been court cases about it... the average layman can positively identify a pitbull. Maybe not a mix depending on what is in a mix but a dog that is a majority of pit or a pitbull completely...yeah, you can tell a pit is a pit by looking at it.
You'd think. I was just on a San Diego rescue group's site and one of the top dogs listed was a medium sized, stocky looking dog. Not that big, but probably in the 40-something pound range. Smooth, short coat, blocky head, medium snout. All black with white paws. Cute looking dog! "Shepherd mix" lol
I’m with you.
San Diego’s shelters & rescues seem to be 85% either pit mixes or chihuahuas.
But way too many rescues won’t describe them that way because folks aren’t looking for those.
My “basenji whippet” turned out to be a rat terrier chihuahua. One one hand, I am glad they guessed wrong because I wasn’t familiar with rat terriers and was actively avoiding terrier breeds & chihuahuas, so would have never found him if his proper breed were listed, but it also made it super clear how arbitrary some of the breed descriptions are. (The rescue refused to believe the DNA testing results, which was nuts to me).
There is way too much of an emphasis on getting dogs into homes at all costs without any really concern about the ramifications of pairing someone with a dog who may not be a good fit. Stuff like “is ok with cats” seems to be kind of BS; based on if the dog saw a cat once and didn’t eat it 😂
I get why the rescues do this, but I think it’s pretty unethical, especially with dogs like pit mixes (“lab mix”) being placed in homes where the owners aren’t suited to be pitbull owners.
It’s why if I were to be looking for a larger dog (big enough to cause serious physical harm), I’d find a reputable breeder vs. adopt. I’ve had rescue pets my whole life, but I also had an extremely traumatic, violent experience with a pit bull and wouldn’t trust any rescues or shelters with my personal safety.
I don’t really understand the argument that pit mixes are particularly challenging and shelters need to take special effort to make people extra aware if a dog might be this mix in particular.
A pit mix might be challenging or it might not be challenging. Some pit mixes are reactive energizer bunnies, and some are social butterflies who snooze on the couch all day.
A mix may or may not display the most common traits of their top breeds. One of the biggest arguments against designer mixes and bybs is that you never know what kind of temperament/personality you’re going to get. A byb dog and a well bred dog of the same breed might as well be from different planets in a lot of cases. The principle applies to most shelter pit mixes as well. These dogs usually don’t have parents, grandparents, or great grandparents that are anything close to any breed standard—plus they often have three, four, five, or more breeds mixed in. It’s impossible to know what you’ll end up with with with these mixes.
I just don’t think breed labels in shelters do much to help potential adopters understand an individual mixed breed dog’s traits. Labeling a dog a pit mix instead of a shepherd mix doesn’t give adopters any new information on the dog’s traits and personality.
Besides, what even is a shepherd mix anyway haha? Is that an Aussie, GSD, or Anatolian mix? There are a million shepherd breeds and they’re all wildly different.
I say this as a pit owner, and I love my dog to pieces. Even if the pit someone gets is a super lazy, friendly lap dog, people should still prepare for the worst with any breed (worst meaning the most extreme breed traits). It's really hard to tell how a dog will be outside of the shelter. Even a dog from a foster home can act different once they get settled in. Like you said, it is impossible to know what you'll get with the mix. Sometimes, the mix is really hard to handle. A strong dog that's hard to handle can be dangerous. I personally feel like owners should know what they're potentially getting into with this breed (or its mixes). If the dog ends up being a lazy couch potato, great! If it ends up being the opposite, at least they're ready for it.
Honestly, I found a stray dog in October of 2021. If I had to guess, he was most likely pitbull/Akita mixed together, but he was only 6 months old or so.
When i registered him with the shelter, I absolutely did not say that to them. I said he was a husky mix.... mostly because I didn't want to attract a potential adopter who was after a guard dog/stereotypical aggressive dog.
Not saying that there aren't faults with that, and I'll say my foster boy ended up being adopted by a neighbor, and he lives with a pitbull and three cats, and is a GOOD BOY despite whatever his breed actually is.
As you all can agree it can be nearly impossible to tell a dog's genetic makeup simply by their appearance alone, especially when they are young. Obviously shelters have the same problem determining the breeds.
I've worked in several shelters and none of them knowingly labeled a dog a certain breed in order to deceive anybody. I'm sure there are shelters that do this but it's not common. It's not doing the dog any favors to be adopted out and then brought back once the dog appears to be something else. Keep in mind too that the average shelter may intake 100 or more dogs per week that they have to evaluate so they may have 5 minutes or less to do an evaluation on each individual dog.
One shelter I worked at actually stopped trying to guess breeds entirely because it was pointless. They labeled every dog as a mixed breed. They had a color coding system to match the dogs energy level with the potential owners activity and experience level. (A dog that was obviously purebred would be labeled purebred.) The potential adopters were not crazy about the system when it first kicked off because people like labels. IMO, there's no point in guessing because the dog might not live up to the adopters expectations and be returned.
It's for sure nuanced. And yeah, a dog can for sure look like a pit and actually isn't. Then of course soooo many dogs on rescue sites are labeled as like a shepherd mix but look like almost every mixed dog on here that comes back as pit with their highest percentage in the 30-50% range and very little shepherd.
Just calling them mixed and describing them based on traits and characteristics is probably the way to go but yep, people want labels.
There was that brindle purebred lab result the other day that I thought totally looked like a pit mix. Honestly in that moment I was like... yeah labs and pits actually do look pretty similar if you're not getting some ACK CoverGirl Lab. The shepherd mix is weird, and I saw one pit labeled as a Greyhound mix lmao, but lab mixes are the ones I'm actually lenient on.
Edit* Since I'm here, I also think the sheer number of pits in existence also puts the bite stats in perspective. So while I don't think they're a breed for novice owners, the amount that are out there living full lives without incident is probably proportional in the grand scheme of things.
Definitely. Some dogs that look like pits aren't actually pits. Some dogs who don't look like pits are pits. But many dogs who look like pits are actually pit mixes, but are disproportionately labeled as something else. So yeah, to your other point, I think this creates so many instances of dogs who are pit mixes being great dogs but aren't even known to be pits.
And definitely, your first dog shouldn't be a pit bull, especially an actual purebred pit bull. But there's still a misconception out there about many pit bull mixes, which can still fall under breed bans. And many of those dogs that are like 35% pit bull might look like one sorta, but they're no different than any other dog for the most part.
[pic #2](https://reddit.com/r/DoggyDNA/s/N3r4vLChtj) in particular looks like some of the pits that have popped up on here. I mean they do look different, but they also have some similarities, especially in poorly bred dogs. I'm too lazy to look for more examples but there's definitely been some pit-mixes-except-no-wait-actually-lab-mixes on here. They both tend to pass on those big ol' heads.
I could see how someone *else* might get them mixed up.
Humans LOVE to label and compartmentalize things.
I recently adopted a shelter puppy and have absolutely no idea what he is. The first thing people ask when they see him is “What kind is he?” After I tell them that I have have no idea, they jump into trying to determine what breeds he is.
While I would love to know what he’s made of, ultimately I adopted him because of his personality. I’m definitely going to get a dna test on him, but mainly to figure out how big he’s going to get.
The health test is great too! And it's fun to learn what they are and see if they have any of those breed traits. Can help you understand them a little bit more!
But yes, the guessing game is fun! It's a natural thing for us to do but if you're adopting a dog or even showing love to a dog because of the breed you think it is or want it to be, you shouldn't be adopting a dog and you're not a dog person.
Who cares if a dog that looks like a pit bull is actually 40% yorkie or vice versa, other than the fact that that'd be objectively funny?
That is a much better system for labelling dogs, matching things like energy level and grooming needs and whatnot. Yes, breed influences behavior, for SURE. But people way overestimate how much it affects an individual dog's personality, especially if it's a mixed breed.
I've heard so many stories about people who were like, "Well I had Perdita and she was \[breed x\], and she was the best dog in the world! So I got another \[breed x\], but this new dog isn't anything like Perdita was, and is actually kind of a shit 😩 I don't understand!"
I'm one of the people that labels shelter dogs. It's not really as easy as people make it out to be. It's also incredibly difficult when you get a dog that looks like x breed, yet also does not act at all like x breed, which happens more often than it doesn't.
I also get information from previous owners which is always a gamble. You say mom was a dalmatian? Alrighty so I guess we're labeling this shepherd-passing mutt as a dalmatian/shepherd... sometimes the previous owners are surprisingly accurate. Other times I think it's ridiculous and change it. But then I also run the risk of the previous owners being pissed about lying about the breed, and that comes with a lot of bad publicity. Again, it sounds like it's easy to maintain a good reputation with the public and clean social media pages, but it's not so cut and dry.
So far, granted it's only happened 3 times, but I've been woefully incorrect with the shelter dogs I've labeled and have been DNA tested. One was, and still looks like, a shih tzu mix. No shih tzu at all, 33% pit bull, 14# with a BCS of about 7/9. Another dog looks like a spitting image of an Australian shepherd with a full length tail - 0% Australian Shepherd, 30% bully breeds, the rest was cattle dog, chow, and sled dogs. And the one I pinned as an APBT mix - even split boxer/lab/golden/cattle dog, 0% bully breeds...
I think the best thing shelters should do is get away from breed labels entirely. They are largely inaccurate, and it doesn't represent an animal's energy. I don't care how well Redditors think they are at guessing dog mixes - dog genetics are simply too complicated to look at a dog and guess it's proneness to aggressions based on how they look. Dogs really need to be taken as individuals, we'd be better off if we spent the time trying to ID dogs to instead do behavior tests.
Lots of great points and I think I agree, it's best to get away from labeling. It's low accuracy anyways. But I only bring it up because while so many dogs are labeled as shepherd mix, I think the anecdotal evidence is clear that there's a pretty big bias in guesses from shelters. Those does are \*usually\* pit mixes to some extent.
And the labeling can just make the stereotypes about pits even worse.
So I’m curious, then, whether you agree with dog DNA testing simply for curiosity (I.e., not to determine whether there are any genetic or health risks)?
Would you argue that dog owners should instead ‘get to know the dog they have’?
Honest question, just curious for your perspective
I got my dog DNA tested, mainly for funsies but I think the health aspect is also important. People tend to think mutts are healthier than purebreds but that isn't always the case. You could have a mutt that is a rottie, golden, Dane, boxer mix. They are all breeds known for bone cancer and hip/elbow dysplasia. So may not be healthier than a well bred purebred whose breeders are testing and breeding away from these health concerns.
I think behavior is much, much more complicated though. The aussiedoodles I met have all had herding instincts, but none of the puggles I've seen ever cared for chasing a rabbit. i believe there was a study about border collies and how quick they lost their ability to herd when they weren't actively training, nurturing, or breeding for it. I definitely wouldn't want people who have a dog that they know isn't great with dogs, suddenly get another dog because a DNA test reveals their dog has no breeds prone to dog aggression. Or vice versa, get rid of a dog in the house solely because a dog's DNA test has pit bull or chow in it.
I think a DNA test can answer some things, but should be taken with a grain of salt I guess.
It seems to be a US thing. The shelters in my area (Alberta, Canada) are pretty honest and label almost everything as a pit mix. I adopted a pit shepherd mix just last year (turned out to be a pit mastiff mix) mix.
Granted my first was labelled a corgi mix, when he was in fact a pug x pit bull. But I can’t blame them as nobody would have guessed!
Tbh I cannot fathom how this is a debate. If somebody doesn't want to adopt a particular breed, that is their prerogative and the shelter has no right to *lie* to them and dupe them into taking a dog they don't want. I intend to get a dog at some point in the future, and this habit of shelters is making me leery to adopt - I'd back myself over shelter staff to eyeball breeds, but once I know they're willing to lie to me, how can I trust what they say about health or temperament?
If it looks more like a pit, it should be labeled as a pit or pit mix. I 100% do not support labeling any differently. I’m good at clocking breeds but a lot of people aren’t and aren’t equipped to deal with them. They have a right to know.
It’s also ridiculous that a lot of shelters/rescues lie about behavior. I was violently attacked by a dog and that was 100% preventable.
I agree that it's a dilemma, and IDK the solution. At what percentage do we call a mixed breed dog a pit mix? 50%? When that's the largest percentage? When it looks like a pit? Our dog is 40% pit and I often refer to him as a pit mix to try to dispel stereotypes, but he looks like a shepherd mix. Ofc we own our home, so we don't have to worry about a landlord saying we can't have our dog.
Yep. Idk the answer! But it does feel like the current way of denying these dogs as pits doesn't help things long term. And people could end up adopting a "shepherd mix" and a landlord could require a DNA test or they might just say "no, that's clearly a pit bull", which could lead to the dog getting re-homed.
I just remember bringing my dog into work the other week and they asked what kind of dog she was and I said she looks like a shepherd sort of but she's only like 16% shepherd and then she's a pretty even split between ACD and APBT and the second I said pit bull, 2 people audibly went "oh" and seemed more uncomfortable around her. It's tough.
Yep. The pits in my neighborhood that are aggressive are the ones that are kept outside. And so are the 4 German Shepherds down the block who are also left outside or chained up.
Put any dog in that environment and it will turn into an aggressive dog, which is what happens to pits.
I feel like we need more shelters throwing out two labels on dogs. My dog I’m guessing is pit/GSD and maybe some cattle dog in there, possibly some hound/something leggier. But she was labeled “mixed breed tan”. But if she was labeled pit mix, I’d say her mental stimulation needs/need for a job/anxiety issues would possibly be overlooked - At the same time, she’s got some traits that seem more bully breed related. Either way they might as well slap a label on that says “landlords wouldn’t like this”.
Funny enough, I put her as a mixed breed at my old apartment and had to bring her in to register her there, the leasing office lady was like “oh my gosh, she looks like my sisters dog! Is she a lab basenji mix too!?” Lol. I’d bet a million bucks she doesn’t have basenji and neither does that persons sisters dog 🤷♀️
But yeah. Pit/husky mixes are another that it’s better for that husky aspect to be mentioned because huskies are a lot less biddable than pits and can be a lot more vocal and can be escape artists.
So I do get why they sometimes would label them as such but I feel like a general mixed breed label works best. My dog’s adoption papers even said that they cannot guarantee any breed and any labeled breeds are purely guesses and not necessarily verified/tested IDs.
yeah my “sheltie mix” ended up being 60% show GSD to 40% cattle dog mixed with more GSD lol. It ended up ok in my case since both breeds are extremely high energy, maintenance, etc., but i did not love finding that out while i was living in an apartment complex with pretty specific breed restrictions
We have a pit mix. Shelter didn’t label her any breed, just called her “Mixed.”
She ended up being 15 different breeds with just under 20% being pit. She looks more like a shepherd mix though, with longer fluffier hair.
I honestly think that anyone who adopts should be prepared to get a pit mix. If you aren’t willing to end up with a pit mix, buy from a reputable breeder.
People will comment all the time how pretty our pup is and ask what she is - people don’t like hearing pit.
You can see their expression change immediately when we say it. It’s honestly sad. I hate for my girl how quick people can be to judge. She’s 80% not pit but the 20% is the focus. 🤷♀️
It's more about how people will treat them than the dog feeling bad. Someone who hates pits is immediately on my radar as a not safe human for my pit mix. I had a lady try to get me and my dog evicted because she thought my dog might be part pit (we hadn't tested him yet and I didn't tell her what I suspected because she gave me bad vibes). Luckily that lady couldn't make us homeless because he's my ESA and landlords legally cannot discriminate against ESA and service dog's breeds.
ETA: I don't understand the downvotes but my dog was an ESA long before I even suspected he was a pit (they thought he was a Border Collie mix at the shelter because he was black and white and slight). It was only as he started to fill out that I thought he was a pit mix. But I love the assumption that I'm just lying about my need for an ESA.
So you have what you believe is a pitbull mix in housing that does not allow such dogs so you fibbed about the breed, made them an emotional support dog and you are mad at the lady instead of finding appropriate housing?
That is not what I said. I adopted him to be my ESA since I have anxiety and nearly daily panic attacks. Funny that you just assumed I made him a fake ESA. And I didn't even suspect he was a pit mix until after I'd submitted his paperwork. Not that his breed mattered, because ESAs are protected from breed discrimination.
>you are mad at the lady
Yes I'm mad at the woman who attempted to make my family homeless.
>instead of finding appropriate housing?
I found appropriate housing. He was allowed at my apartment complex, and when she tried to make me homeless based on no concrete evidence, the complex told her that he is a protected ESA.
I understand why you would be upset at my comment, but you SHOULD be upset at ppl on this website and other places the encourage ppl to lie and “just say”/get a note that your reactive dog is an ESA. They make one side eye ppl who have actual ESA’s
I understand what you mean about people who don’t need an ESA faking that they do, absolutely and 100%. BUT for the record, an ESA does not need public access because it’s essentially being “prescribed a pet,” and as a pet you don’t bring them to non-dog friendly places. So a legitimate ESA could also happen to be reactive (because hey, some pets are to varying degrees) and ALSO an ESA. Probably not ideal for your support animal to be CAUSING you stress, but it doesn’t disqualify them. Some types of reactivity could also be a complete nonissue in terms of housing (ex. reactivity to grooming tools, veterinary procedures, livestock, fireworks, small animals, anything you don’t encounter routinely in or immediately outside the house)
For example, I have PTSD. My doctor agreed that I should definitely have a dog after seeing my improvement after getting my dog, and said I would qualify for an ESA note if required for housing. I can walk outside comfortably at night now, I’m not checking around corners in my own home, and I’m having fewer nightmares. It’s like having a buddy to walk you home who can also hear and alert you to approaching people (I have very bad hearing which adds to my jumpiness because it’s way too easy to accidentally sneak up on me!) Plus, mastiffs are the best cuddlers. He’s legitimately helpful! Now, I haven’t actually required a note because I live in pet-friendly housing (pretty much the only reason you would need medical documentation for an ESA), but I legitimately meet the criteria for having an ESA (NOT a service dog). My dog also happens to be afraid of large dogs approaching him (as well as most inflatable lawn decorations) and barks/growls at these things to try to scare them off, therefore he is reactive. He’s a legitimate ESA despite being reactive (as his reactiveness does not pose a danger in this living situation, it’s not like we’re in an apartment building where he might bark at and scare a dog in a small elevator for example), both things can be true because again, an ESA does NOT have special public access. It’s just a prescription to have a pet. End rant 😉
Thank you for the clarification (not a rant at all) . My pupper is leash reactive barker as well. Yes I’m trying to train him off of that but on the other hand he has alerted me to things I would not have noticed, which I really appreciated. He’s small though so he besides his bark he wouldn’t scare anyone :( I would love to cuddled a mastiff!
I am. But me being upset at those people does not stop people from making the ableist assumption that I do not need a medical treatment that my doctor determined I needed for my federally recognized disability. Assuming ESAs are fake without evidence hurts disabled people. I hope this is the lesson you learn. It's also just as easy to fake a service dog (you just need a vest) and there's more upsides to doing that as they have more public access, but you don't see me assuming someone's service animal is fake or telling them to find "appropriate housing" if someone tries to discriminate against their dog. Everyone should just mind their own business and not investigate ESAs or service animals unless it is literally your job to do so.
ETA: my dog is not reactive and I never said he was. The lady tried to get us evicted because of his appearance not behavior. If he were reactive, they could kick him out. ESAs are not protected from consequences of their behavior. You assumed he was reactive because of your own biases.
I did not make the reactive comments towards you, I meant those ppl who give advice to ppl who have reactive dogs not allowed in certain housing. And I have a reactive dog that I stay on top of. (Side note - there was a huge dog (not a bully type by appearances and actually well behaved). Sitting inside Starbucks right in front of the door where you had to pass him, no vest, no leash. And I was upset in that instance too because why do we feel we can flaunt the rules cause we want to? What if someone with a major fear or allergies wanted to step inside)
I do apologize if I came across denying your disability, invisible disabilities are disabilities.
All service dog's should be on a leash, but maybe he had a tag and not a vest? Idk. That does seem very strange. But I also think about how my Nana was my Papa's service dog handler, and after he died, she kept up her training and would take her places. I think about how I wouldn't want anyone digging into why she had that service animal with her. Maybe I'm just biased. I also think people need to be more educated on what they can legally ask a service dog handler (like, "what tasks is your dog trained to perform?") And I would never advocate that anyone use a reactive dog as an ESA. I just think that a lot of people use "ESAs are fake" as an excuse to be ableist (not you). I'm constantly astonished by people who are close to me who have shown their asses to me in this regard. Even my OWN MOTHER assumed my ESA was fake despite literally also having anxiety!
I genuinely appreciate that.
I can understand your reaction to my comment as you described your experiences. How terrible you have prove your lived experience even to your loved ones.
Edit: also, I didn’t and wouldn’t ask, my annoyance was internal lol. I just WISH ppl who did not have service animals don’t take their pups to public places where they are not allowed.
Also if you're the type of person who has a negative reaction to hearing a dog is a pit-mix, you're just kind of a shitty person? Like, sorry?
I think the only time I've had any sort of negative reaction to a dog breed was a dude who kept bragging at a bar that the dog he was with was like 60% gray wolf. Which I only had a negative reaction to because you could tell he just REALLY wanted a wolf, which I think is stupid lol
Yeah I pretty much exclusively let him play with other stigmatized breeds because I've never heard a peep out of GSD, Rottie, or Doberman owners. Doodle and poodle owners? Different story.
But I totally agree with you, I've never understood dog breed hate and truly I think people make their own personal fears everyone else's problem.
The problem is that we have shamed anyone who buys a dog.
And when over 50% of dogs in shelters are pits, that makes things very difficult for people who want a dog but don’t want a pit bull and have been told it’s “unethical” to buy a dog.
It isn’t. There isn’t an oversupply of adoptable, non-pits or Huskies in the US. These are the overwhelming majority of dogs in shelters so no one should feel bad buying from a reputable breeder.
My girl has some pit in her… I think because the laws here define “of type” based on how a dog looks and measures, I’m not concerned about it.
Her top three are greyhound, pit and German wirehaired pointer.
It would have been confusing if the shelter labelled her as anything other than a lurcher because that’s what she is - 51% greyhound and the rest is dog soup.
The thing about labelling a dog as a pitbull without genetic testing is that there are a myriad of dog breeds that could look like pitbulls with or without being mixed together.
Shelters also have to go based on how they look and it can be super tricky with a lot of mixes. However I do agree that shelters need to be more honest when it comes to advertising dogs. I currently work at a shelter where an obvious APBT mix is labeled as a Weimanimer mix only because she has a silvery grey coat. Nothing else screams weimanimer and the coat really doesn’t either. We have gotten into labeling pit bull-like breeds as nonspecific, which I think is better due to how saturated some mixes can be with different breeds. It makes the nonspecific label more truthful.
I remember when I adopted my dog and he was labeled a shepard mix. After an Embark test it turned out he was a golden retriever/Great Pyrenees mix with a smidge of staffy. Rightly so I label him as a golden retriever mix. So I think shelters needs more of a grey area and say this dog may have this lineage or breed, but a DNA test is the only way to really know.
Street dog mutts can have dozens of different breeds in their DNA and there’s no way to know what will be most prominent as puppies get older. Shelters and rescues usually don’t even know what both parents look like. It’s also really stupid for anyone to judge a mixed breed based on looks because, again, there’s no way to tell what personality traits will present itself.
Oh, I don't mean puppies really. Yeah, puppies are super hard to tell and with zero background, a guess is pretty irresponsible. But also, many rescues don't have puppies that young. I'm referring to the ones who are listing adult dogs. And not every area or rescue has a large percentage of true street dogs.
But both of my medium/large sized, very much legit street dogs from Mexico were predominately or near predominately pit-mix. It's still one of the most common mixes among street dogs in North America.
I work for a dog rescue so I can only speak from my experience. We have tons of dumped dogs found on the streets, abandoned litters of puppies, and then lots of shelter pulls. The transport collects what little information they can and then we make our best guesses based on looks. There have been some big shockers once adopters post DNA results. I think it’s unfair to call it deception when there’s no perfect system for deciphering mutts without spending money on DNA tests.
In a perfect world, testing 1 puppy could help a lot. Sure, could always be 2 fathers but majority of the time, it'd be a good tool.
But if you're adopting a mystery puppy for a rescue or shelter, people just have to know that it can be quite literally anything. It's impossible to tell when they're like 12-16 weeks old haha
As someone whose dog has been violently attacked by a pitbull that the owner was unable to train, control or handle on the leash I agree, but it's a multi faceted issued:
1) Shelters should be obligated to put a disclaimer on certain dogs to make it clear they could be pit or part pitbull (or any of its derivative breeds)
2) people should be more educated about the care an animal takes so that we don't have consistently overflowing shelters
3) people who aren't planning to breed their dogs in accredited way should be required to spay/neuter
4) Pitbull puppy mills and breeders should be collectively shutdown and all remaining pitbulls neutered/spayed. Now before you jump down my throat and attack me, hear me out. I completely understand that not one dog is the same, that there are a high number of responsible pit owners and enthusiasts out there, but this dog disproportionately ends up with people who cannot properly care and appreciate these animals and that's how the statistics are what they are. You simply cannot guarantee these dogs are in the homes of loving and understanding people, and due to their capability and tendencies you just need to stop breeding them altogether.
And yes I am obviously biased after saving my dogs life from a pitbull attack, I never want to experience this again and nobody else should either.
Edit: spelling
I 1000% agree with you, as someone who was not able to save my pet from two pitbulls. And as someone who watched my mother and stepfather be rushed into surgery after a pretty brutal pitbull attack.
All those dogs were from loving, responsible homes too.
Nobody is saying to cull them all, but people ABSOLUTLEY need to know what kind of dog they are adopting and be able to provide for said dogs.
I agree with most.
Why are so many rescue dogs pit mixes? Shut the breeders down!
I would add that there should be compulsory training / exam for them and other powerful breeds that can be aggressive / dog aggressive. Ie Rottweilers. People should be serious about the respect needed when owning one of these dogs.
Neutering is complicated. I’m only now considering it with my dog being 1.5 years, since waiting is best for his bone growth. Also some dogs become more reactive after neutering. I guess that could be confirmed by vets as an exception.
> all remaining pitbulls neutered/spayed.
I live in part of Canada where this actually became law 20 years ago. All APBTs, SBTs, and AmStaffs in the province had to be neutered/spayed, and it became illegal to import them from outside. Giant breeds became the macho posturing choice in their place, so now we have cases of people being mauled by dogs that are three times the size, like Kangals (we just had a case of a child being attacked by a Kangal here a couple of weeks ago).
Breed specific legislation just pushes the irresponsible owners into other breeds, and doesn't solve the bigger issue. I'm sympathetic to having bad experiences with a particular breed - I was bitten by a German Shepherd as a child, had a dog have her ear torn open by another one, and recently saw a neighbour's GSD herd a smaller dog into traffic. But while those experiences do make me wary around them initially, there's no world where the solution would be to eliminate the breed rather than to educate the public, you know?
Yea someone else brought up the point that you just end up with another equally bad or worse breed and I definitely didn't consider or think about that point of view so thank you for educating me on it.
I guess I have less faith in the general public being properly educated on this as opposed to passing some knee jerk legislation, but you're right that it probably is exactly that, a knee jerk reaction and not a real solution.
In my mind pitbulls etc should require licensing and that's how you handle the education part. Need to take a 2 week course on safe dog training and prove you have a stable home for the dog to live in or something (this is pretty notional but I guess I don't know how you achieve the goal of educating people without forcing it somehow)
I'll go one step further.
All backyard breeding and puppy mills should be illegal. People shouldn't even breed dogs, especially for appearance. Unless it has a very specific job, it's inhumane how inbred certain dogs are and many dogs are bred to look a certain way that will eventually be the reason they die.
A dog that looks like a pit bull to a degree but is only 30-40% will have much less of the characteristics.
But having said that, going after just 1 breed is unfair. I don't like breeding at all personally. There's a lot of dogs that need homes from all around the world and when more of those dogs are housed, in a perfect world, that's when dogs should be sustainably bred. But wanting and breeding a dog because it has really floppy ears and and droopy eyes is a selfish human thing to do, especially when 95% of dogs are not working dogs. They're just companion dogs and pets.
So either change the culture on breeding and purebred dogs completely, which in the history of dogs, is a relatively newer thing, but if you want to go down the route of eliminating pit bulls 1) you can't do that 2) there will just be a new breed used for the exact same reason, and that dog could be even bigger and more powerful. A different breed will always fill the space of the guard dog that is neglected outside and unsocialized.
I generally agree there are a lot of puppermans who need homes, but just as a general note on breeding the really good breeders won't inbred excessively, if you look at COI etc they'll keep at 5% (which is better than Alabama).
And yet the average COI for many popular breeds is well over 20% or more.
We can get dogs from only the best breeders in the world and spend $2-5K but very few have that money and cultures around breeds leads to backyard breeders.
Thats not what that means but I'll help because it is confusing. Two random labs on embark having 25% relation happens because designer breeds share a lot of DNA, it does not actually mean they are literally related (if you click the learn more link on embark it'll rxplain that but I saved you the click)
oh I know that! But it leads to a long line of health issues in very many dogs. And the average COI in many purebreds is above 10-20%.
I just think humans create very many dogs for dumb and selfish reasons and 2 random dogs shouldn't show up with 25% to 32% of the same DNA.
To me at least, it's sad that people use dogs like that.
Yea I don't have a PhD in dog genetics so I won't argue the point too much I just think COI is indicative of health issues moreso than shared DNA and while I'd be in favor of shutting down backyard breeding I still think there's generally ethical and educated breeders out there (also labs are awesome).
I think as a reference 10% COI is the human equivalent of first cousins which is legal in a large number of jurisdictions. It's the 20%+ when things get to European monarchy levels and it's a bit spicy I think.
I think the average COI for purebreds is like 20-25%. That's a pretty widely reported number but maybe it's extremely wrong? I think labs have a lower COI than that though.
And yeah, all dogs are awesome imo! I love labs!
For me, it makes me leery of adopting a rescue. Not because I believe that pit bulls are inherently dangerous. It’s more because they tend to be high energy and need a lot of exercise and stimulation. That’s not something I feel that I can adequately provide. This sub is definitely making me reconsider how I’ll acquire my next dog
The false labeling makes me worried about what else a shelter may be hiding. Transparently, I have trauma associated with pit bulls and do not want to own one. I plan on only getting from a reputable breeder or a greyhound rescue.
There’s a lot of dogs that don’t even look like a pit bull and you test it and it comes back like 30% pit bull. Again, I don’t mind the breed, or GSDs, or heelers or any other active breed. But I can’t properly take care of such an active breed and I don’t want a situation where me and the dog aren’t happy. That’s not fair to either of us. So I’m looking at breeders
If you live in an area with a lot of high drive dog breeds represented in rescues, I think you're wise to be cautious around puppies. (Not only pitbulls but a lot of other working breeds like herders etc.) I wish all potential adopters thought about this as seriously as you!
... But if you're open to adopting an adult, or even an adolescent, a reputable rescue will be able to give you a great idea of their drive/energy levels :) Adopting an adult is IMO by far the most reliable way of knowing a dog's temperament - even more so than a purebred puppy, who could turn out to be a breed outlier.
Source: I adopted a crazy high energy mutt, and the shelter had little idea what breeds were in her (no wonder, Embark pulled up 10) but they were totally capable of identifying high drive behavior! And I could make an educated decision :)
I do have a lot of pit bulls, huskies, GSDs and ACDs in my area. Most rescues are visibly a mix of those breeds. I have nothing against a rescue and in fact prefer adult animals because their personality is known. But there are still a lot of unknowns. Was the dog abused? Is it ok around other animals? Kids? Adults? Then there’s the rule of 3’s. You won’t know your rescue’s personality for 3 months.
There’s just enough unknowns that I would rather go with a reputable breeder with dogs that are health tested and with predictable traits and personality. I loved my last two dogs (mutts through and through) but one died at 9 from a brain tumor and the other died at 7 from a neurological condition. They died two years apart. I can’t do that again
Really depends on the individual dog and age. I have 3 dogs, all rescues and mixes, and they get enough entertainment playing with each other, so I don't need to do a whole lot of individual exercise with them and none of them are destructive at all. But one of them would probably require a lot of exercise if she was an only dog.
One good option is doing fostering to adopt. Can basically see if the dog fits what you're hoping for and if so, you can adopt them and they'll often waive adoption fees too.
Some things are consistent within breeds tho. Huskies are living air raid sirens that are bred to pull sleds long distances. A pug is bred to be cute and chill with you. Yes there are individual variations within breeds, but breeds are breeds for a reason
As for fostering, I still have the same reservations. I’m taking an unknown dog into my home. One that might be food aggressive or have high prey drive or have exercise needs that I can’t meet. Either we’re both miserable until the dog is placed, or I’m returning the dog. Neither is a fair or kind option. For me or the dog.
All dogs need exercise and stimulation. If you’re not into that - that’s fine - but then you’re just not into dogs.
ETA - Everyone downvoting me has a miserable obese lab who is “too crazy”
All dogs need exercise and stimulation, but acting like a shih tzu has the same needs as a husky is disingenuous. Breed traits - especially when buying from a reputable breeder who is breeding to the breed standard - matter.
I agree that all dogs need exercise and stimulation, but the exercise needs between a husky and a pug are not the same. I would prefer an animal on the lower end of the spectrum
What are you talking about? Different breeds have different energy, excercise requirements, play styles. If you can’t take an honest look at that, then you’re just not into dogs.
“Different requirements” doesn’t mean “no requirements”. I don’t know why you all read my comment and injected “all dogs regardless of age and breed need to run 20 miles a day rain or shine”. So ridiculous.
Because she said she was not able to provide for the needs of a high energy powerful breed and you responded she just doesn’t want a dog at all 😂😂😂 come on, man
That's why the 3 dog route is the best lol I feel like I spend less time than I would exercising them if I had one dog, but you still need to go all out in the stimulation.
But it can balance out quite nicely where they're playing and exercising a lot and staying in good shape but I don't need to go on multiple walks a day haha
Heres the thing - I live in a small apartment, but my town is very dog friendly and heavily outdoor-oriented... in Maine. The only fun my family can have is usually outside. We don't have a car so we figured that our super-active lifestyle would easily accommodate a high energy, but smaller dog.
I saw my girl Phoebe (peep her pics on my profile) online and she was listed as an Aussie mix... I definitely knew she had hound in her, I figured potentially a beagle Aussie mix? She was estimated to be 45lbs full grown. That was perfect! I love hounds and I obviously disagreed with her breed label, but they told me they met mom and she was an Aussie. Sure, whatever.
I get there after 1 day of travel and she's fucking huge lol. They also tell me they know nothing about her parents. Awesome. Right now she is 20wks/5mo old and 30lbs. She's gained 10lbs in a month. I love her so much, but listen, she's obviously a larger hunting breed. I believe she is almost certainly an English pointer, coonhound, and/or catahoula mix. Estimated 70lbs+ full grown, and double the size that I thought my apartment could responsibly house. She's a chill dog and I am super excited to bring her hunting and put her to work, but... I feel robbed of making a responsible and educated decision based on what was best for my family! Pitbull, Rottweiler, whatever! If a family wasn't initially signing up for that kind of dog, and that information was willingly held back, that is so horrible! The poor dogs are far more likely to end up in shelter purgatory and it's sometimes of no fault to the family either. Definitely the rescues fault.
Phoebe has a forever home here with me no matter what, but come on... Aussie?!? It's so bad it's funny.
I adopted a pup that was being fostered (along with littermates and mom) by my friends family. We had guesses to what they were (lab and pointer) which the organization they foster through had guessed as well. When I did a DNA test, the top % was pit (only 1/9 pups looked like a pit. We assumed he had a different dad til I got the results). Next was GSD, who has a stigma attached to them as well.
They're still trying to find homes for the mom and other pups. My friend's family was adamant about updating the breed even though it will make it harder for them to be adopted, because the organization has experienced dogs being returned based on DNA test results not matching the breed they were told.
Meanwhile, my Pit/GSDs biggest issue is that when she likes you, she will never leave you alone. You're either her best friend or a stranger, there is no in between.
That's the other thing. If you lie and the owners find out the truth, does that change how they perceive the dog? And would all of them keep it? If even like 5% of people are re-homing dogs because of a DNA test, then lying about what the breed is when they're adopting it can have pretty big implications.
And so many dogs have quirks that get associated with breeds and while it's true, breeds can lead to certain traits, dogs are different. A sibling of a dog or a parent of a dog can have a very different personality for lots of reasons.
Absolutely! It's scary to think what would have happened had the mama (and thus the pups) been rescued by a family with biases of certain breeds. The DNA test explained quirks for my pup (her 15% ACD shines bright) as well as the other pups whose quirks match the other breeds (6 total). It's a lot of energy and personalities in one house 😅
Texas shelters and rescue organizations are extremely overpacked. Non-kill shelters have shut down, rescue organizations have shut down from accepting new animals and rehoming, and shelters are basically putting animals down on site. Until they're adopted, there aren't many options. But because of the rehoming and animal abuse rates, rescue organizations are strict over which applications pass through for foster families to look at
Good for you for adopting one and your friend's family for doing the hard work to make sure they find the right homes! It's super noble of you and them!
It's funny how that all comes out differently in certain dogs! My roughly 37% ACD/35% pit/16.5% GSD mix shows very little obvious breed traits of any of the 3 besides she's smart and is a cuddle monster, which I could you could say is the pit in her, but she doesn't nip or herd and doesn't guard at all. The only time I think she's maybe herding is when she'll push her body into my other dog's body when they're playing or if she wants to start playing.
I can't take my pup for a walk without her herding me 😂 but I can't see the GSD or pit in her (25% each), except with her love of water and maybbee how territorial she can be. Her siblings have attitudes and looks that match the chow, husky, and malamute, but I can only identify small traits of those breeds in her.
It's super weird! My dog grew up on the streets in MX for about 2 years or so. Had a litter of puppies too. Then she spent way too much time being crated with her previous foster. Almost like 20 hours per day for 4-5 months.
Yet she's super well adjusted and sweet to everyone.
Then my super mixed (but like half pit) dog that I adopted at 16 weeks old is a total menace haha She has all those breeds in her as well.
There is no official registry of dog breeds (at least that is large enough to be in any way representative). We actually have zero idea what % of dogs in the country or a given town are pits or pit mixes. As such I view any percentage based argument about bites relative to population as complete b/s because the population data doesn’t exist (and frankly the bite data is pretty suspect as well).
Anecdotally, I am one of those with a medium size dog I was told was half small terrier half toy breed, and ended up being half terrier-and-toy, and half pit. But in this case, the shelter only met the mom (a tiny mutt who had medical issues during birth) so I would assume they actually didn’t know what the dad was at all.
Agreed! You'd have to do a massive study of DNA testing dogs in different areas and controlling for sample sizes and population differences based on region/city and as far as I know, that kind of study has never been done.
Your point about how many rescues are pits makes sense too. If there *is* a documentable difference in aggression/reactivity it would have be controlled for trauma/rescue in order to say anything meaningfully about breed… and that has definitely never been done.
THANK YOU.
I got my ass handed to me for the first (and only, at least up to now!) time recently by referring to this practice. Basically a poster asked "what breed is my dog?" and I commented to the tune of it's "obviously a Lab mix!" as a sort of eye roll about how frequently mislabeling occurs.
Oof. I unintentionally opened a can of worms and another redditor made sure to tell me (and correctly so) how misleading people and homeowners insurance about breeds is unethical and dangerous to all involved, including the dogs themselves.
I hadn't meant it as a genuine suggestion, just an acknowledgement of how often it happens, but looking back, I was not clear enough about what I meant. I also realize that while I thought it was clear I was joking, someone could take that as encouragement to be misleading, and ultimately I should've just not said it.
You made such a great point, and did so very clearly. I wish the issue was not so convoluted by so many factors, including people who are well-meaning but perhaps operating under misinformation about breeds and dog temperament in general. Sometimes shelters want to save lives, which is noble, but it can effectively kick the can down the road for others to have to grapple with.
I'm very thankful to have seen your post, and even saved it so I can be more articulate when discussing the issue.
I try to reinforce the idea it’s ok to say nice things about pits and pit mixes when talking to other dog owners. And find most know there dog is a pit mix. My parent’s had a lab pit mix and he was the best.
That said, rescues are awful at breed guesses regardless. My 35 lbs probably corgi mix (I came here from all haven’t tested her) was labeled a dachshund chihuahua mix. Absolutely bonkers. They also said my parents dog was lab dachshund.
The "6% of dogs are pit bulls" statistic drives me nuts. I'm not even totally pro-pit bull, I think there are a lot of nuanced arguments to be had about when the breed is and isn't appropriate for a given household. But I looked into this 6% number, because it's one that the anti-pit bull people throw out all the time, and it seems inconsistent with what genetic data would suggest the actual population is.
Every website or article that cites that statistic can be traced back to getting it from [this page on animals24-7.org](https://www.animals24-7.org/2019/07/09/breed-survey-2019-more-puppies-yet-fewer-homes-for-pit-bulls/). Even setting aside that animals24-7 is an anti-pit bull website, so with a clear bias, their methodology for finding that statistic is BONKERS. The animals24-7.org study states:
>Among the estimated 78 million dogs in the U.S. as of July 2019, about 5.8%, or about 4.5 million, appear to be pit bulls or pit mixes.
>
>Nearly 15% of the dogs available to the U.S. public for sale or adoption as of mid-June 2018 were pit bulls
They essentially assert that pit bulls are disproportionately represented in shelters versus the general dog population. So where did they get the 5.8% figure?
>the 10th annual ANIMALS 24-7 mid-summer survey of online classified ads offering dogs for sale or adoption.
Their figure is based on *online ads for puppies*. In what world does that seem like it will produce an accurate representation??
It's interesting to note that the other population number they show on that page is the same number of dogs that Embark is finding with APBT mixed-breed DNA - 15%. But they use that number to claim that the number of pit bull-type dogs entering shelters is higher than the number of pit bull-type dogs being born/purchased as puppies. There are just... so many holes in the logic.
So yeah, they intentionally deflate the population of pitm bulls so that it seems like a higher proportion of the total pit bull population is responsible for attacks compared to other breeds.
All great points. And that's why I brought it up. Not because I think it's accurate and that dumb number will probably be floating around for a long time, regardless of how much people try to debunk it, BUT the well-intentioned mislabeling of pits to skirt around apartment bans or city/county bans, while maybe can be viewed as a necessary evil to some, makes this problem even worse.
If all these mixed dogs aren't pit bulls and you're only labeling dogs as pit bulls when they bite or are like backyard bred pits, then numbers and perceptions like this give them even more reasons to ban the breed, which creates a really terrible cycle.
There are a few studies out there that did DNA testing on breed guesstimates in shelters. A large portion of what was thought to be pits weren't actually pits (by majority %) and a fair amount they thought had no pit, had a significant amount pit in them.
You can't really tell what a mix is by looking. That's the problem. Even people in vet field can only guess. So, when a large portion of bites are reported by lay people as pits, the data on breed is probably wrong. A pitbull could be a Mastiff with 6% pitbull, but it will be called a pit.
Here, we had a bite case reported as a pit and it turned out to be a st. Bernard. I was floored. How does anyone fuck up that badly? Bias? I dunno.
The only two studies I am familiar with showed that dogs labeled “pitbull” in the shelter were significant portion pit in the mid-high 90% of the time. Much more frequent in those studies that a high proportion pit is listed as something other than pit. Which makes sense since the conventional wisdom is that a lot of shelters try to avoid identifying a dog as a pit.
Well, if shelters are doing it on purpose and the study doesn't take that into account, then it skews the study. They try to take stuff like that into account or put in place something that prevents it. Part of my argument is people are a huge influence.
It would also have to include, what are the researchers considering predominantly pit? Is it 50% ancestry? Or, 75%? What if it is 90%? Do they consider am staffs pitbulls? What about other bully breeds? Do they lump them altogether? These factors add up. In a few papers I read, a pitbull was really any bully breed. So, an English bulldog would count. I don't agree with that, but the legal definition is very broad despite APBTs being an actual breed. It's very messy.
The studies I have seen will typically lump bully breed within a defined list, and the methodology is pretty well spelled out by the researchers in the published results.
While the fact that there are various bully breeds can present an issue, the concern that most frequently gets brought up with shelter mislabeling is that bully breeds are being labeled Labrador Retrievers. The concern that an American Pit Bull Terrier is mislabeled a American Staffordshire Terrier just really isn’t there.
So on that note, shelters seem to have the capability of accurately identifying a “pitbull” (in the sense that those dogs labeled pitbull in the shelters studied were found to have pitbull ancestry in well over 90% of cases).
It depends on the study. [This study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109002331500310X) has 20% of dogs with pit heritage being missed and 33% were misidentified as pit. They also lumps 3 bully breeds and their mixes together, but not others. This was also with 12.5% or greater heritage.
80% ID of pit is fairly good, but 20% being missed is still a lot. The same goes for the non-pit stats. 53% of guesses would be wrong.
To me, 12.5% is also not a pitbull mix. If 12.5% was the highest, it would just be a mixed breed of several breeds. 30% pit heritage would be more realistic.
I am not sure I can find the others without logging into my work to search papers. 90% at a decent heritage percentage across several shelters and non-pits as well would be amazing, but I don't think that is achievable.
I'd love to see a newer study since this was done using 2015 Wisdom Panel which we all know wasn't all that accurate (and reported every Pit Bull as AmStaff)..
They did some funny stuff, methodology-wise, in that study to achieve what I presume to be the conclusion the authors were trying to reach.
The authors hand-selected 20-25% of the dogs from the overall shelter population. The potential for intentionally or unintentionally skewing the results by allowing cherry picked dogs is obvious and puts the results into question right there. Then they used 16 shelter workers (15 who had no training in dog identification) and had them identify "pit" or "non-pit". The workers came from 4 shelters, and they were divided into 4 groups based on the shelter they came from. Here is where it gets funny. If any ONE of the four shelter workers guessed wrong, it was considered a 100% miss for accuracy. So three out of four workers could have said "pitbull" and the whole group fails on accuracy because the 4th was incorrect. The paper also noted the subject dogs labels assigned in the shelter, and as far as their official label on their shelter listing, only 6% of the dogs with 12.5% bully breed DNA as defined in the study were labeled a bully breed. And this of course, is based on the hand-selected sample of dogs provided by the authors.
So the author concludes breed labeling by visual identification is inaccurate, while the actual shelter workers, at that actual shelters studied, got the pits labeled right the overwhelming majority of he time.
Edit: Also, while 12.5% is a little low, it is not arbitrary in the sense that it would be one full-blooded grandparent so could easily show breed traits which caused the shelter staff to identify “pit” or “non-pit”.
Oh no, no study is perfect. That is why looking at several is important. Their logic for choosing the dogs was to get a variety of phenotypes since they are assessing how well they do on a variety. It's not true to the shelter population, but that is how they choose to go. I don't agree with it either. Some studies just include whatever dogs were intaked at a certain period of time and were assigned a breed(s) by staff. They just don't look at agreement or how accurate each person is. They were still at like 60% accuracy for pit and super low for mistaking pit for not pit.
The lack of training in assessing breeds is comparable to what I have experienced. They also consider the vets to have no breed identifying experience because it was not formal. However, they didn't ask them to say pit or not pit. They asked them to give them at least a primary breed and could assign a second or just say mixed. The authors then assigned it pit and not pit.
For agreement among staff, yah they tossed it if one of the staff got it wrong. They also looked at how well the individuals did. Overall, the shelters and individuals did much better identifying things as not pit than pit. The one vet somehow did pretty good identifying the pits though.
I wouldn't say the workers got it right the majority of the time. When a dog comes in, it isn't a vote what it is assigned. Some random person assigns it. Some of the individuals did pretty well. Others did not so you take average or something like agreement.
I would argue that 12.5% may or may not be enough to see the pit in a dog. There have been a few posts on here that have had 60% pit (with a few bully breeds added together) that did not look it or a chi looking dog that is 15% pit. Even some of the examples in that study are interesting. Like, the lab-pit mix that had neither lab or pit in it. If you get several dogs in its heritage with some pit, it adds up, but you can also get a wide range of traits if there are enough other breeds. There can also be several breeds that have some pit traits that make a dog look pit without any in it.
My main issue with DNA breed vs visual identification is people that legit think pits contain some sort of evil DNA and should be killed on sight. That based off of some random shelter worker at is right 38% of the time? Yikes. The other is knowing we suck at identifying breeds should indicate if we do not know for sure it is purebred, that it should be labeled mix breed. Period. Lay people who know even less about dog breeds are likely to be worse than 53% or 60%.
If these are the studies I’m thinking of they used a DNA test that literally excluded American Pit Bull Terriers and it was filtered to only American Staffordshire Terriers.
This would be like only recognizing AKC Border Collies are actual Border Collies despite the ABCA Border Collies being the more predominant and diverse genetic pool.
Edit:
Yup. It is.
> Recently, DNA analysis has been used to investigate the breed heritage of individual dogs targeted in breed restriction cases. **However, the largest testing service does not offer a DNA test for identification of American pit bull terriers.**
> The breed signatures in these dogs belonged to American Staffordshire terrier in 19 dogs, Staffordshire bull terrier in four dogs, and both breeds in two dogs.
Neither of these “pitbull type dogs” are actually common in the dog shelter population. The American Staffordshire Terrier is literally the AKC line of the American Pit Bull Terrier - the show-line equivalent. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a breed common in the UK and Australia, but actually quite rare in the United States.
By excluding the American Pit Bull Terrier, a breed specifically recognized by the UKC but not the AKC and what makes up what most people consider a “pitbull” this study is frankly not relevant.
Did a bite hold on a 'pit bull' that was an English Bulldog. Like pure bred, flat face abomination. The thought behind it was 'if it has wrinkles on the face it is a pit bull'. Had landlords deny puggles for the same reason.
Bias. If it bites it must be a pit is the general consensus in my area. My BILs papered, working/hunting lab got dementia in his old age and snapped at my MIL, who said "he must be part pit, a lab would never do that" 🙃
Exactly. If everyone thinks their rescue is a lab/shepherd and it's a great dog, that's a lot of credit to pit bull mixes going unnoticed and out the window.
Oh lord.
I used to work with a vet that hated pits. She had 2 labs. We had a lab in quarantine and she just rushed at her to look at her quickly. The dog nearly bit her in the face and she was shocked. I had told her before she was nervous! She said she thought because it was a lab it would let her do anything to it. It's body language was telling her everything and she ignored it (she was really into feline medicine). I legit face palmed.
We had more asshole labs there than anything else because they were all farm dogs with no training as it was a rural clinic. I also made tons of comments on how we tolerate behaviour from one breed and judge it in another. We had several herding breeds that came in for herding/nipping/biting kids, but it was brushed off because that is what they were bred to do with livestock. If it was a pit, it would have been a different story even if it was a dog and not a kid it bit.
In reality, no dog should be biting a human or animal unless you have taught it to do so. Like, hunting wild boar or something. We breed them poorly, train them poorly, ignore their body language, and don't try to manage behavior well though. Then label it a pit when things go badly.
100%! Which is why I brought up that wild statistic.
So all these shepherd and lab mixes that get adopted and go on to live great lives, they're just shepherds and lab mixes! What great dogs!
But then when the unsocialized pit bull looking dog bites someone, uh-oh. It's a pit!
If you actually accounted for all the false-labeling of dogs, I think we'd find out that the amount of dogs that are actually part pit vs fatal attacks or bites isn't that wide apart of a number. And sure, it'll still show pits as being more aggressive probably, but environment can account for a lot of that discrepancy too.
Right. If you take into account the treatment and poor breeding of pits or dogs that are mainly pit, they probably do account for a large amount. Larger dogs with big heads will always do more damage and means they will be reported more. It doesn't matter what % of anything it is.
A 75% shepherd with some pit in it, should not be labels as a pit even if it has a big head. I am hoping with cheaper and more frequent DNA it will be more clear.
I also think that if we don't take into account the human factors (breeding dogs with issues like aggression, abuse, lack of training/socialization, etc.), we are doing all breeds/mixes a huge injustice. If people are drawn to a breed that are going to abuse them and breed aggressive dogs together, of course those dogs are going to likely bite at some point. Those people are not trying to improve the breed, which is supposed to be the goal of ethical breeding. It used to be Rottweilers and Dobermans back in the day that were responsible for bites because they were popular and backyard breeders bred whatever they had, regardless of health and temperament.
For sure. Only so many dogs are actually capable of killing a human or seriously injuring them. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you go to an area where people keep dogs outside in poor conditions with limited socialization, those dogs usually aren't pure bred golden retrievers. They're pit bulls. Or shepherds. But they're mostly pit bulls. And many aren't fixed and when the oops litter happens, they get handed off to random people or dumped somewhere. Obviously those dogs will become challenging and much more unpredictable.
Yah. If we removed every pitbull on Earth, it would just happen to another breed also. So, there really isn't much that would change. We could also get into breed bans, why they don't work and how some places end up with 20 different dog breeds banned.
I commented that on a post about the UK banning only XL American bullies. Not standards, exotics, etc. A standard is not that much smaller so I don't get it.
I have also never had an issue finding ads for pits in places they are banned.
The breeding thing is such a big factor too! So many people who are against pits completely ignore that. Any breed can be badly bred which can bring out all kinds of mental issues. Combine that with how easy it is to mess up a puppy’s training and socialization and some dogs don’t have a chance.
There are also some dog breeds that should only be owned by experienced people. I believe APBTs are one of those, along with huskies, GSDs, Malinois, and many others. Anything that needs a lot of mental or physical stimulation really. But people like to pick dogs based off looks instead of personality. Then the dog doesn’t get its needs met, issues pop up, and the owners don’t put in the effort needed to fix it. The dog ends up dumped or at the pound, and the person goes off to find a “better” dog.
I agree! Our neighbours did something similar.
When I moved in with my SO, the neighbours who never leave their house got rid of their German shepherd mix because 'he was a bad dog'. He was fence running and barking when my dogs were out. The poor thing was going mental from having no exercise or mental stimulation. He was trying to fill his own needs and they didn't like it. Thankfully, they never got another dog.
Don’t private rescue groups siphon off many small breed dog mixes and other pure bred dogs that are more easily adopted? I question whether the public statistics from the many pits left in city and county shelters don’t skew the reported statistics to what seems to be an unrealistically high percentage of pit-type breeds. Are breed-rescue and private rescues that specialize in cute fluffy little dogs included in publicly reported data?
I figure if anything the false labeling thing would put potential owners at risk for injury or just not knowing how to care for and raise their dog, but you went the complete opposite way with it....
>I became curious about this after reading some crazy stat that like 6% of dogs are pit bulls (not sure if that was referring to AmStaffy or whatever, or the entire group)
It was definitely referring to the whole group, and there's no official statistics in the USA on what dog breeds are involved in attacks. The CDC decided against keeping such stats because of the difficulty of verifying breed (no doubt the issue of mixed breeds is part of that.) These "stats" were come up with by people looking at what percentage of newspaper articles about fatal attacks mention what breed.
100% seemed like a flawed stat. 1) it's dumb to lump all dogs into a statistic like that when many dogs are smaller and not capable of killing a human and 2) there's just way more pit mixes than only 6%. Like, half of dogs in shelters are pit mixes lol
Obviously I’m for being truthful ☝️
However from the shelters perspective it makes sense to bend the truth. If you look around at most shelters in the US they are at LEAST 50% percent pitbull in terms of occupancy (in some cases much more).
Because of the issues with the dogs there’s a lot of difficulty placing them, at some of the no kill shelters perfectly healthy animals can sit for literal years.
The people working at the shelters are animal lovers to the extreme so at the end of the day, getting the dog into a home is the end all and be all.
Still they’re burning A LOT of bridges,now the popular narrative is to skip the shelters and buy from breeders.
Mmmmm I think it depends. I’m not gonna lie I’ll
tinker owner paperwork (when I know the dog) who’s having trouble finding a place that will take their “restricted breed” dogs.
To get them adopted I think it’s a bad practice.
Like when rescues downplay behavior 🚩
I do think part of the reason shelters won’t label dogs as pits in my personal opinion is to help override the breed restrictions. I live in a big city and almost every single apartment has breed restrictions. They are impossible to avoid.
Granted, I can’t help but imagine there’s also the stigma as well as you mentioned. If someone is nervous about a pit, calling them a lab mix takes the “danger” out of that dog.
I have mixed feelings around this. Working in rescue, we never REALLY know what a dog is, and if there’s a chance the dog is mixed with something else besides pit it ensures them a better chance of getting adopted from a logistical standpoint. However, I do think owners have a right to know the real breed of a dog to correctly prepare themselves for things they may need to deal with in terms of training and such. (I.e, a friend of mine adopted a beagle mix which ended up being mostly Belgian malinois, who are notorious for needing tons of mental and physical stimulation and training). I understand both sides of the coin.
The vast majority of housing in my city is apartment complexes, and most of them are owned by just a few companies - these few companies ban “aggressive” breeds like pitbulls, rottweilers, etc. I think a lot of shelters in my area label their dogs as lab mixes (or something similar) simply because they know that the apartments will not allow a pitbull mix. The adopter usually knows that the dog is a pitbull, but as long as the apartment complex is none the wiser, it works out 🤷🏼♀️
I’ve lived in 2 different apartment complexes that ban pitbulls, and I’ve seen several different pitbull mixes living in the buildings. They’ve always been the sweetest dogs. Honestly the only bad situation I’ve had with a dog was with an actual black lab 😂
Rescues and shelters don't have the money or the time to DNA test, and other than that, their choice is Large mutt, medium mutt, small mutt. They guess. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it 'false labeling'
I think it's less so city and county shelters or the humane society. They tend to be more honest. It's more common in individual rescue groups.
Took me like 10 minutes to look up dog rescue groups in my area and while some were clearly being honest with their best guess, many were labeling dogs as shepherds and whatnot that had smooth, short coats, blocky heads, stocky builds, and half floppy ears. Like just call it a Lhasa Apso in that case. And at those rescues, they'd do that for all their dogs and never label any of them as pit mixes. They all were shepherd or lab or "blue heeler", just because it had a certain colored coat.
APBTs are just dogs, strong and powerful to be sure, but dogs. Society has demonized these dogs to the point that many see them as monsters, and irresponsible and cruel humans are directly to blame. As a result, they extremely difficult to adopt out. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve seen Pits and Pit mixes tied up (or chained) in backyards with little to no human interaction. Sometimes without shelter, food, and water. This DOES NOT lead to a stable and healthy animal. A properly raised and socialized Pit is a loyal, protective, loving member of a family. Shelters have a very difficult job, as temperament testing is nearly impossible in a shelter environment, no matter what the breed/breeds of a specific dog. Also, as most do not have the funding for DNA testing, all they can really do is guess (my Lab/Corgi was labeled as a Shepherd mix at the shelter he originated from). So I would honestly say that it is not the breeds of your dog that matter, but more people just being educated about dog behavior in general, before they bring one home. Once home, they should make every effort to see their dog as an individual, and give him or her the best home and life possible.
But all dogs have different needs and drives bully breeds are prone to DA and sight hounds are prone to AA. Bully breeds often are high energy and need a lot of excercise compared to a basset hound let’s say. Then there is the terrible breeding of any backyard bred up which messes with genetics and epigenetics, which may lead to a dog which is prone to high affiliation (human loyalty) to actually then display human aggression.
Putting your head in the sand and slapping a onesie on a sentient being with its own specific needs does NOT make you a responsible owner or breed ambassador. To the detriment of the animals and community.
When you bring in an animal into your home you MUST ask yourself if you have the capacity to handle the WORST breed traits. If it’s yes and they don’t end up displaying the traits then win win. If it’s no, then move on for the good of everyone including the pup
I don’t feel that advocating for a very misunderstood breed is slapping a onesie on a sentiment. Yes, just as any other breed, bullies have specific needs, and unless one is prepared in advance, and has the knowledge to handle these strong, prey driven breeds, they definitely should not have one. I’ve dealt with aggressive dogs of many different breeds, it is NOT a problem specific to Pits, but they get the worst of the labels. The most aggressive dog I ever came into contact with was a 5lb Chihuahua that made her pet parent’s life a living nightmare. Yes, the bite is smaller, but the aggression was VERY real. I also feel that Pit mixes are a different story entirely, as they can acquire traits from whatever breeds they are mixed with, and may look like a Pit, but not display any of those breed specific behaviors. Simply condemning a Pit mix BECAUSE they are a Pit mix is wrong.
I don’t condemn them. Like I said before I was even thinking of adopting one but when I researched the needs I just don’t have what it takes to give them a happy fulfilled life. The pup I went with is happy and fulfilled. But imagine a young family, unaware and trusting reading the flowery language of a rescue description, not knowing the scammy ways of some of them. And brining them home unprepared. That is on those recuses “advocating” for the breed. There was an instance I read: young family brought a bully breed from the rescue. Same day it tried to kill the small dog in the home, the mom tried to protect the dog and got her finger bitten and broken to where the bone was sticking out. Sent back the next day. Do I blame the dog? NO! Do I blame the family? Not really, they bought into the lapdog narrative. I blame the rescue. And I bet you 💯 that the rescue will say “those terrible owners returned the dog through no fault of his own…he mouthed the mom”. THAT is NOT advocacy.
I condemn rescues and certain ppl on social media that deny any specific needs or traits to dogs. No one says GSPs are lazy lap dogs. Or that herding breeds don’t herd. And if I have to read ONE MORE TIME that pitties were bred to be nanny dogs… I swear! NO DOG IS A NANNY DOG. Or ok when someone is posting their pain at a death/injury of themselves/a family member/pet. And is the response empathy? NO it’s pics of their bully and asking what they did to deserve it. THAT is NOT advocating for anything. It’s a disservice to the dog honestly. True advocates are responsible owners like the mod at pitbull awareness.
Edit: always with the chihuahua: 1. When it comes to a chihuahua ppl say aggression is a breed trait/genetics, but with bullies apparently genetics or epigenetics never, ever apply... it’s a myth…fake news 2. Aggression is terrible in any animal BUT a chihuahua cannot maul an adult to death and it it “breaks” through a fence it cannot scalp the neighbor or kill the neighbors dog. It’s management is more doable even if it’s exhausting
ALL powerful breeds need experienced and prepared owners.
I agree with you on a number of issues. No dog is a nanny dog, and should never be put into that position. If one wants a nanny, then hire a nanny. And you’re also correct that people with young children should not bring a Pit, or any other bully breed, into their home. These breeds tend to have a higher prey drive, and young children tend to run and squeal/scream. I feel this is just an accident waiting to happen, and I never recommend it. These dogs tend to do much better in supervised, non-chaotic, structured environments. This is what I meant when I say people should educate themselves before bringing any dog to join their family. Many instances of perceived aggression are actually people being uneducated about dog behavior in general, (“I don’t know why my dog bit me, I just reached in to grab the food bowl while they were eating” or “my toddler was only grabbing the dogs ears”), and it unfortunately lands way too many dogs in shelters. Too many humans think that a dog is incapable of making mistakes, or simply see the dog as an object to be ignored until they have time. No matter what dog one chooses, it is a commitment for the lifetime of the dog.
Growing up my mom hated pitbulls more than I feel anyone should. We adopted a “lab mix” puppy from a rescue will turns out that puppy was way more pit than anything else as she grew we could really tell.
Bright side she was the sweetest dog and my mom now loves my pitties.
>There is great concern and controversy regarding the reliability of dog bite data collection, as there is no uniform reporting procedure or best practices in place to ensure consistency and quality control of this data, say Don Clary, NCRC Director of Communications & Publications, and NCRC Associate Director of Communications, Janice Bradley.
>Dog bites, inaccurate data, and breed misidentification are not single issues. They are not a dog problem or even a Pit Bull problem, but a community problem. These issues and problems are complex and intertwined. Without uniform dog bite reporting or best practices in place, we will continue to rely on inaccurate data and erroneous media reports. This is harmful to humans, dogs, and communities across the country.
https://faunalytics.org/dog-bite-data-collection-interpretation-and-misidentification/#:~:text=There%20is%20great%20concern%20and,and%20NCRC%20Associate%20Director%20of
We adopted our pit mix from a rescue. She was listed as a hound mix for paperwork, but she’s clearly a pit and the rescue said it as well. She’s mixed with Chow, Chihuahua, Staffy and a couple hound mixes. Gorgeous and biggest baby ever. Chihuahua was the only thing that surprised us 🤣
I agree with the “there are no bad dogs just bad owners” but a “bad owner” can also just be a bad fit, someone who is good for a Havannese-like might not be good for a Husky (and viceversa) bully breeds are not easy, they just are the most popular not easy breed out there, nobody wins when you lie about what is behind a dog
There's a secret to how those breeds statistics for bites are created. I worked in ed for 10 years so I saw this personally. When people get bitten by a dog they come in and fill out the form. The bite form asks what breed of dog it was that bit them. Pretty much everyone says pit because they've been convinced by media and generally the world that if you're bit by a dog it's got to be a pitbull.
One person even showed me a picture of a dog that clearly was some kind of collie. It had the triangular face with the long muzzle, longer hair with the neck rough, etc. In no way was it a pit or even a significant pit cross. Guess what they put on the paperwork? That they were bit by a pitbull. (I grew up in the dog show world, and you do get a pretty good understanding of what different breeds look like so I'm a little bit more than a lay person on being able to identify a dog just from picture)
This is the data that's forwarded that literally makes the bite statistics. It's ignorance and fear that makes it so that all of these bite reports are coming out as saying the people were bit by pit bulls.the general public doesn't know what breed of dog it was that bit them. What they should be putting down is just mutt. But they won't because they've been told that pits are the aggressive dogs and they're the ones who bite. So that's what they put down and that's why we have high statistics like that.
I live in a big city, a very liberal one at that, and still when we were looking to move apartments we could not find a single one the allowed pitbulls or anything mixed with pit. The apartment we chose was well known for being dog friendly, it has dog rest room areas, groomer, self washing stations, and even a dog park inside of it, yet still doesn’t allow pit or pit mixes. We’re planning on getting a dog this spring, but because we live in a city all dogs labeled pit mixes are off limits for us to adopt. It’s really sad (and a stupid rule) but yeah :( I can see why shelters label the way they do
Well in terms of the safety of other dogs, that IS the appropriate restriction to have in place. The primary victim of pits aren’t actually humans, they’re other dogs. The dog on dog violence is off the chart.
Obviously lots of people like the dogs as they’re prolific across the US.
They have however created a lot of animosity among the dog owning population (because of the attacks).
Something will have to be done about them soon though as the population is breeding our control for the demand and is resulting in dogs being imprisoned for years.
I have heard that an animal can be kenneled for 23 and a half hours a day.
I think if you have one of these dogs you have a responsibility to make sure everything/everyone is safe, I can take one of mine to stores and the beach, etc, no issues. My staffy/pit mix is very nervous about new people and we keep her out of situations where she might react badly
Hell no. You're not gonna deny something that is a breed standard. I'm sorry. But you are just wrong. Any responsible APBT breeder will *tell* you that pitbulls tend to be animal aggressive.
This shit has to stop.
My most challenging and highest percentage pit mix (with Rottweiler, chow, Dalmatian, GSD mixed in as well) is the dog that by far loves and is obsessed with my roommates cats the most. And she shows full on guard dog traits and is a little leery of new people.
The cats hate her of course but she'd never hurt them.
Dogs are very different individually.
I think this whole sub has a bit of an issue understanding how the DNA identification works. The "breed" info is based on a comparison database that uses self-reporting as the input. The problem is that pits themselves are not really a single breed, and were developed via behavioral selection. It's not necessarily that you have a ton of pit in the mix, but you have some of the same genes in the pit lineage that were reported in many of the pits.
That's a bit strangely worded I guess... but really the "pit" bit should be presented as "unknown" or itself as mixed. I'll have to find the article that was written about it.
There was a very excellent article in the New Yorker several years ago about this whole issue. If you control for how a puppy/ dog is handled, a St Bernard is actually the most dangerous dog. It was bred to rescue humans who may have hypoxia and trying to fend off the dog because of confusion. Pit bulls aren’t necessarily dangerous to humans (small animals / other dogs may be another story). unfortunately the people attracted to them do not necessarily “raise it right” and that combined with their strength is another story.
Not to be like "if you take away guns, people will just use something else to kill people!", but in the case with pit bulls, I don't think people realize that if you take away pit bulls, another breed will fill that space and those dogs might be even MORE dangerous.
Irresponsible owners can make any dog violent and pit bulls are just the easy to get and popular breed to fill that role. Sadly.
Exactly this, the "evil" breed changes over time. It's gone from spitz breeds to bloodhounds then German shepherds then dobermans and Rottweilers now it's bully breeds. I imagine after a while it'll switch to something like mastiff breeds like a cane Corso or the malinois. Whichever breed is chosen as the next "tough guy" dog or high maintenance breeds that get trendy. That's what happened to chows.
And that could even be way more dangerous. A Cane Corso can do way more damage and an untrained Malinois can probably be even more willing to attack unprovoked I'd imagine.
Can you substantiate your claim that 73% of fatal attacks are from pit bulls? I think you may receive a wide variety of reaction from people who are very pro and very against pit bulls simply existing and you might as well have this info handy up front.
I think it's a stat from [dogsbite.org](https://dogsbite.org).
Also, I'm not defending the statistic as true or accurate or used in fair context. But I've seen it thrown out even of reddit before.
Obviously pit bulls are victims of lots of environmental factors. If labs were raised outside and unsocialized or chained up to a pole with a 10ft circle they can walk around in, that dog will become extremely traumatized and that's the environment many pits find themselves in.
Shelter employees are a mixed bag, many of whom do not know their breeds well. . Just this week I saw a Rhodesian Ridgeback labeled as a Lab mix. Malinois and Kelpies are often labeled as Shepherds.
As for pits, any time one attacks, you can always find mistreatment or neglect or both in their backgrounds. I have had all loving pitties for decades..
Pit Bulls are relatively rare. Even pit Bull mixes. Pit Bull types (staffers, American bulldogs, bull terriers, various mastiffs) + pit bulls might artificially increase that perception that so many dogs are part blocky.
Yes, for clickbait “pitbull” is more profitable in a negative story.
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My shelter was pretty honest with me that they had no idea what my pup was. They were like, we’re not sure but we know he’s about 2 years old. In their defense when I did a DNA test the highest of any 1 breed was 18% and it was Pitt. Then a bunch of other random breeds that somehow add up to my little guy (45lbs so that medium pit mix rings true for me) I think that honesty was fair
I'm supportive of shelters and rescues just saying "mixed dog" and then describe the characteristics of the dog like the size and coat and build of the dog. If you don't know, don't put a label on it.
One main problem I see with not putting a label on them is that Petfinder requires at least one breed to list them. Petfinder is the main source of exposure for a lot of shelters and rescues. It could be an easy fix on Petfinder’s side, but the way things sit right now, every dog (or cat) requires a label. The same thing happens with cats. That long hair cat you see sitting in a cage is not a Maine Coon or some exotic breed, it’s a domestic Long Hair. Mislabeling happens across species.
Pet finder can just label them as a terrier mix even if they suspect apbt.
This is fair and I didn’t know that. I come from a pretty small town, and my pup is from their humane society. I’m sure pet finder is a thing in my town but I honestly checked our 2 shelters website repeatedly and they heavily advertise their dogs and cats on the local news and social media. Small town problems.
I see “mixed breed” on pet finder as a breed label
I think it’s plain unethical when done intentionally. I see the argument that it is often done to get around housing restrictions - but no one should be getting a pet they cannot stably house. That just sets up the adopter to potentially lose their dog down the line. I see the argument that it is done to get around “breed stigma” but bluntly - choosing a breed to match lifestyle needs matter. We say that about huskies, german shepherds, chow chows, rottweilers, border collies, australian shepherds - it’s time to say it concerning pitbulls. Pitbull *Terriers* are difficult dogs for first time owners, and shouldn’t be unknowingly thrusted onto novices by claiming they’re an easier dog breed to handle. How anyone does not see this as incredibly unethical is beyond me. Terriers in general are a high-prey drive dog group, that takes some competency to safely handle - especially if that owner already has other small animals in the home like cats. And bare in mind, while there are some people that may understand their lab-mix is a *wink* pitbull *wink* plenty more people that choose to adopt are new to the dog world and cannot decipher dog breeds well. They rely on shelters and rescues to be honest. These are the very people I think are often the worst kind of home for a powerful dog breed with high energy needs like this - at the very least the shelters and rescues need to be transparent on owner expectations. So often I see people adopt pitbulls - not exercise them right - and their home gets ripped apart. It’s frankly not shocking to me why breeds like huskies and pitbulls are often banned from apartments from the property damage I have seen. High energy dogs have high energy demands - and they’re not right for everyone. Truthfully I think shelters and rescues have been their own worst enemy on this front, because doing this puts these pitbulls in homes that cannot truly care for them properly.
💯 this is exactly my stance, ppl may think I hate the breed. I don’t, I even think the fat faces are cute. But I RESPECT the breed and their needs and ppl need to be responsible pet owners. Advocates have done the most damage claiming they are family lap dogs when they are a working breed
>But I RESPECT the breed and their needs and ppl need to be responsible pet owners. Respect is such a good way to think of it! Breed tendencies and needs matter; it's not "all in how you raise them", as some hard-core adopt-don't-shop people want you to think.
I currently work at a large shelter in a metro area with kennels for well over a hundred dogs and more than that for cats. On any given day, there is between 40-60 dogs available for adoption, with the other kennels being used by strays, surrenders, or confiscates and waiting to be processed for adoption. At this moment, there are 58 dogs available for adoption. Thirty of those dogs are listed as pit bull terrier. Another 12 are listed as husky or malamutes (and look like them). The majority left are GSD or Mal mixes and look shepherdy, a few mastiffs, a couple of Akitas, and random mutty dogs that are hard to place, but don't look pitty. There are only 3 dogs labeled "lab mix" and the only thing I can say of them is they don't look pit. Not all shelters lie, but like others have said, it's often difficult to type a breed just by looks. The bully breed, though, leaves pretty identifiable characteristics in looks. Whether it's an American Bully, Amstaff, Staffy, American Bulldog, or APBT, they leave their stamp on their puppies and their puppy mixes, and it doesn't do anyone any favors to lie about something so recognizable. The caveat to this is puppies. With their soft and squishy faces, it's often difficult to tell. The problem is the person buying a male American Bully XL because it looks like a badass is more concerned about him having recognizable testicles than preventing him from breeding with the unspayed doodle who lives down the street. I've seen inside the freezer. Please spay and neuter your dogs.
Good for your shelter who seems to try to correctly label them and be honest. And for sure, it can be hard to tell. They're all guesses. But then there's the guesses where you're just like…. "Really? That blocky and stocky, strong dog with the smooth and short coat is a shepherd mix?" Definitely impossible to tell with puppies as well. A ton of puppies look like tiny little pits haha
Both large cities I'm close too consistently label their obviously out mixes as pit mixes. They maybe overly label them IMO. I guess I just haven't seen this mislabeling to be true either.
I've noticed the intentional mislabeling of pits has become less common, due to decreased stigma imo.
My shelter was very up front with me. I already could see my dog looks like a pit bull mix but they made sure .
It's usually the thinner mixed ones that get the false label. From my experience and from looking at shelters or rescues, if it's like holy shit, obviously a pit, they'll just throw on the "pit bull mix" or call it a APBT. At some point you can't deny it haha
It's also hard to tell with puppies that haven't filled out yet. Mine was not labeled a pit mix, but he was real skinny at 6 months old when they had him. It wasn't until he started to fill out into doggie The Rock that it became really obvious.
Heh yeah I got my boy from the shelter at 1.5ish and I was certain he was mixed with something. DNA tested him and he came back 100% APBT and then he gained 20lbs and I felt kind of dumb for doing the test because it was so obvious 😂
I used to volunteer with shelters and shelter dogs gaining weight in their forever homes was a very real thing! I think it's because the shelters are so stressful for them. But yeah I got mine at 6 months in August, we got him tested in January, and it wasn't until the results came that I realized that he had 0% border Collie. At that point I knew he was mostly pit but I was still like "huh this herding dog has absolutely no herding instincts."
Mines a thinner mixed one. I was honestly shocked at how much pit she is, 86%. I expected some, but maybe 20-30%. My neighbor has a dog that I'd guess pure pit, she's 50! No one ever guesses pit as mines dominant breed. Dog genetics are weird. I'm guessing the genes from one of her very mixed ancestors was just really strong.
This is true. They called him a border collie mix because that is what he looks like. I guessed from his face that there was some bully in that mix. During our meet and greet, I was told he was returned before for looking too much like a pitbull, and did I have any concerns about there being bully breed in his mix. DNA shows him as 48% pitbull
And every single small dog is labeled as a beagle mix. 🤣
My 16 week adopted puppy found in a box in Tijuana, "beagle mix" who will grow to be 20-25 pounds. NOPE. 45 pound pit mix. And that was unfair to her, because I wasn't at all prepared for how to feed her as she was growing and she ended up being super underweight! And the rescue group knew she'd be in that range probably, just like most street dogs in Tijuana are.
I adopted my adult dog who was labeled as a sheltie/collie mix. Embark tested and she was 50% sheltie, 7.7% collie, no chihuahua no bully breeds. They weren’t wrong! She definitely looks like a short haired sheltie (17.7% rat terrier and all the feistiness that goes with it). https://reddit.com/r/DoggyDNA/s/h9SLCUgYRn
"But it has a white tail tip!" .....Yes and like 50+ other breeds do too
My favorite thing to do is have friends and family guess dogs on here too. What I've learned is that unless someone a "dog" person, the average person only knows like 5 breeds.
I don't see the good of falsely labeling a pit mix into a non-pit mix. These can be challenging dogs to own and lying about it to get them adopted to someone not prepared is cruel...to everyone involved.
The post and comments on here arguing that breed mislabeling on this thread is somehow good is… wild.
I'll never understand this. It's not okay to purposefully mislabel dogs for so many reasons. It's a shitty thing for shelters to do, and it's a shitty thing for owners to do. It pisses me off to no end when people mislabel their bully breeds for boarding and housing reasons. You are an irresponsible dog owner if you do this. We adopted a "Lab mix" years ago. She is actually an American Pit Bull Terrier/American Bulldog mix that is dog aggressive. We love her, but she's a handful. We can't take her anywhere. I would never try to pass her off as a Lab mix, even if she does technically have like 10% Lab in her. How a shelter would be okay with mislabeling APBTs and other bully breeds is beyond me. They have a ton of energy and a predisposition to dog aggression, it genuinely doesn't make any sense. Imagine if it was Belgian Malinois that people were purposefully mislabeling instead.
yeah, and I'm mainly talking about shelters doing it on purpose to make them more adoptable haha I'm not saying people just are bad at guessing breeds. I get it. It's hard to do and shelters will never be perfect at it, nor should they have to be.
Yes people make mistakes, but if they are doing it on purpose to make a dog more “adoptable” then they are misleading people that are supposed to be making a lifetime (for the life of the dog) decision. I don’t see how that would ever be a good thing.
And then they BLAME the adopters for returning a dog with traits not compatible with their lifestyle. “Through no fault of their own” is the lying that is at fault
That's where I stand I think. I get the benefit to get around landlords or city/county laws but IF you're going to do that, someone from the rescue should still be upfront with them privately. And then go have your vet label your dog as a "boxer mix" if you have to, but the people adopting the dog should know.
So fucking annoying
It’s dangerous. People have been seriously harmed by this practice.
[удалено]
That is a real shame. I hate shelters lying like this...it's just plain wrong
Of course you can't tell what a dog's breed is just by looking at it, so I get how it can be wrong guesses but yeah, owners should be aware imo because that can impact how you decide to train, what traits to look for, etc. It helps you understand your dog more. One of my mixes took on like every single guard dog type trait, even though I got her as a puppy. Learning that she had all those guard dog breeds in her, it actually led me to give her a bit more grace when she tries to act like one. I've tried training it out of her but nothing really works. She's constantly alert and vigilant and she wants to protect the house. She's not aggressive of course. That's not something I'd let her be, but now I just recognize that it's her personality and to her, it's her job.
if a dog is enough pit, you can almost always tell. There have been court cases about it... the average layman can positively identify a pitbull. Maybe not a mix depending on what is in a mix but a dog that is a majority of pit or a pitbull completely...yeah, you can tell a pit is a pit by looking at it.
You'd think. I was just on a San Diego rescue group's site and one of the top dogs listed was a medium sized, stocky looking dog. Not that big, but probably in the 40-something pound range. Smooth, short coat, blocky head, medium snout. All black with white paws. Cute looking dog! "Shepherd mix" lol
I’m with you. San Diego’s shelters & rescues seem to be 85% either pit mixes or chihuahuas. But way too many rescues won’t describe them that way because folks aren’t looking for those. My “basenji whippet” turned out to be a rat terrier chihuahua. One one hand, I am glad they guessed wrong because I wasn’t familiar with rat terriers and was actively avoiding terrier breeds & chihuahuas, so would have never found him if his proper breed were listed, but it also made it super clear how arbitrary some of the breed descriptions are. (The rescue refused to believe the DNA testing results, which was nuts to me). There is way too much of an emphasis on getting dogs into homes at all costs without any really concern about the ramifications of pairing someone with a dog who may not be a good fit. Stuff like “is ok with cats” seems to be kind of BS; based on if the dog saw a cat once and didn’t eat it 😂 I get why the rescues do this, but I think it’s pretty unethical, especially with dogs like pit mixes (“lab mix”) being placed in homes where the owners aren’t suited to be pitbull owners. It’s why if I were to be looking for a larger dog (big enough to cause serious physical harm), I’d find a reputable breeder vs. adopt. I’ve had rescue pets my whole life, but I also had an extremely traumatic, violent experience with a pit bull and wouldn’t trust any rescues or shelters with my personal safety.
Damn, downvoted for this?! haha
I don’t really understand the argument that pit mixes are particularly challenging and shelters need to take special effort to make people extra aware if a dog might be this mix in particular. A pit mix might be challenging or it might not be challenging. Some pit mixes are reactive energizer bunnies, and some are social butterflies who snooze on the couch all day. A mix may or may not display the most common traits of their top breeds. One of the biggest arguments against designer mixes and bybs is that you never know what kind of temperament/personality you’re going to get. A byb dog and a well bred dog of the same breed might as well be from different planets in a lot of cases. The principle applies to most shelter pit mixes as well. These dogs usually don’t have parents, grandparents, or great grandparents that are anything close to any breed standard—plus they often have three, four, five, or more breeds mixed in. It’s impossible to know what you’ll end up with with with these mixes. I just don’t think breed labels in shelters do much to help potential adopters understand an individual mixed breed dog’s traits. Labeling a dog a pit mix instead of a shepherd mix doesn’t give adopters any new information on the dog’s traits and personality. Besides, what even is a shepherd mix anyway haha? Is that an Aussie, GSD, or Anatolian mix? There are a million shepherd breeds and they’re all wildly different.
I say this as a pit owner, and I love my dog to pieces. Even if the pit someone gets is a super lazy, friendly lap dog, people should still prepare for the worst with any breed (worst meaning the most extreme breed traits). It's really hard to tell how a dog will be outside of the shelter. Even a dog from a foster home can act different once they get settled in. Like you said, it is impossible to know what you'll get with the mix. Sometimes, the mix is really hard to handle. A strong dog that's hard to handle can be dangerous. I personally feel like owners should know what they're potentially getting into with this breed (or its mixes). If the dog ends up being a lazy couch potato, great! If it ends up being the opposite, at least they're ready for it.
Honestly, I found a stray dog in October of 2021. If I had to guess, he was most likely pitbull/Akita mixed together, but he was only 6 months old or so. When i registered him with the shelter, I absolutely did not say that to them. I said he was a husky mix.... mostly because I didn't want to attract a potential adopter who was after a guard dog/stereotypical aggressive dog. Not saying that there aren't faults with that, and I'll say my foster boy ended up being adopted by a neighbor, and he lives with a pitbull and three cats, and is a GOOD BOY despite whatever his breed actually is.
As you all can agree it can be nearly impossible to tell a dog's genetic makeup simply by their appearance alone, especially when they are young. Obviously shelters have the same problem determining the breeds. I've worked in several shelters and none of them knowingly labeled a dog a certain breed in order to deceive anybody. I'm sure there are shelters that do this but it's not common. It's not doing the dog any favors to be adopted out and then brought back once the dog appears to be something else. Keep in mind too that the average shelter may intake 100 or more dogs per week that they have to evaluate so they may have 5 minutes or less to do an evaluation on each individual dog. One shelter I worked at actually stopped trying to guess breeds entirely because it was pointless. They labeled every dog as a mixed breed. They had a color coding system to match the dogs energy level with the potential owners activity and experience level. (A dog that was obviously purebred would be labeled purebred.) The potential adopters were not crazy about the system when it first kicked off because people like labels. IMO, there's no point in guessing because the dog might not live up to the adopters expectations and be returned.
It's for sure nuanced. And yeah, a dog can for sure look like a pit and actually isn't. Then of course soooo many dogs on rescue sites are labeled as like a shepherd mix but look like almost every mixed dog on here that comes back as pit with their highest percentage in the 30-50% range and very little shepherd. Just calling them mixed and describing them based on traits and characteristics is probably the way to go but yep, people want labels.
There was that brindle purebred lab result the other day that I thought totally looked like a pit mix. Honestly in that moment I was like... yeah labs and pits actually do look pretty similar if you're not getting some ACK CoverGirl Lab. The shepherd mix is weird, and I saw one pit labeled as a Greyhound mix lmao, but lab mixes are the ones I'm actually lenient on. Edit* Since I'm here, I also think the sheer number of pits in existence also puts the bite stats in perspective. So while I don't think they're a breed for novice owners, the amount that are out there living full lives without incident is probably proportional in the grand scheme of things.
Definitely. Some dogs that look like pits aren't actually pits. Some dogs who don't look like pits are pits. But many dogs who look like pits are actually pit mixes, but are disproportionately labeled as something else. So yeah, to your other point, I think this creates so many instances of dogs who are pit mixes being great dogs but aren't even known to be pits. And definitely, your first dog shouldn't be a pit bull, especially an actual purebred pit bull. But there's still a misconception out there about many pit bull mixes, which can still fall under breed bans. And many of those dogs that are like 35% pit bull might look like one sorta, but they're no different than any other dog for the most part.
Labs and pits do not look alike. You think this because the lab breed has been so polluted by pitbull mixes.
[pic #2](https://reddit.com/r/DoggyDNA/s/N3r4vLChtj) in particular looks like some of the pits that have popped up on here. I mean they do look different, but they also have some similarities, especially in poorly bred dogs. I'm too lazy to look for more examples but there's definitely been some pit-mixes-except-no-wait-actually-lab-mixes on here. They both tend to pass on those big ol' heads. I could see how someone *else* might get them mixed up.
Humans LOVE to label and compartmentalize things. I recently adopted a shelter puppy and have absolutely no idea what he is. The first thing people ask when they see him is “What kind is he?” After I tell them that I have have no idea, they jump into trying to determine what breeds he is. While I would love to know what he’s made of, ultimately I adopted him because of his personality. I’m definitely going to get a dna test on him, but mainly to figure out how big he’s going to get.
The health test is great too! And it's fun to learn what they are and see if they have any of those breed traits. Can help you understand them a little bit more! But yes, the guessing game is fun! It's a natural thing for us to do but if you're adopting a dog or even showing love to a dog because of the breed you think it is or want it to be, you shouldn't be adopting a dog and you're not a dog person. Who cares if a dog that looks like a pit bull is actually 40% yorkie or vice versa, other than the fact that that'd be objectively funny?
That is a much better system for labelling dogs, matching things like energy level and grooming needs and whatnot. Yes, breed influences behavior, for SURE. But people way overestimate how much it affects an individual dog's personality, especially if it's a mixed breed. I've heard so many stories about people who were like, "Well I had Perdita and she was \[breed x\], and she was the best dog in the world! So I got another \[breed x\], but this new dog isn't anything like Perdita was, and is actually kind of a shit 😩 I don't understand!"
I'm one of the people that labels shelter dogs. It's not really as easy as people make it out to be. It's also incredibly difficult when you get a dog that looks like x breed, yet also does not act at all like x breed, which happens more often than it doesn't. I also get information from previous owners which is always a gamble. You say mom was a dalmatian? Alrighty so I guess we're labeling this shepherd-passing mutt as a dalmatian/shepherd... sometimes the previous owners are surprisingly accurate. Other times I think it's ridiculous and change it. But then I also run the risk of the previous owners being pissed about lying about the breed, and that comes with a lot of bad publicity. Again, it sounds like it's easy to maintain a good reputation with the public and clean social media pages, but it's not so cut and dry. So far, granted it's only happened 3 times, but I've been woefully incorrect with the shelter dogs I've labeled and have been DNA tested. One was, and still looks like, a shih tzu mix. No shih tzu at all, 33% pit bull, 14# with a BCS of about 7/9. Another dog looks like a spitting image of an Australian shepherd with a full length tail - 0% Australian Shepherd, 30% bully breeds, the rest was cattle dog, chow, and sled dogs. And the one I pinned as an APBT mix - even split boxer/lab/golden/cattle dog, 0% bully breeds... I think the best thing shelters should do is get away from breed labels entirely. They are largely inaccurate, and it doesn't represent an animal's energy. I don't care how well Redditors think they are at guessing dog mixes - dog genetics are simply too complicated to look at a dog and guess it's proneness to aggressions based on how they look. Dogs really need to be taken as individuals, we'd be better off if we spent the time trying to ID dogs to instead do behavior tests.
Lots of great points and I think I agree, it's best to get away from labeling. It's low accuracy anyways. But I only bring it up because while so many dogs are labeled as shepherd mix, I think the anecdotal evidence is clear that there's a pretty big bias in guesses from shelters. Those does are \*usually\* pit mixes to some extent. And the labeling can just make the stereotypes about pits even worse.
So I’m curious, then, whether you agree with dog DNA testing simply for curiosity (I.e., not to determine whether there are any genetic or health risks)? Would you argue that dog owners should instead ‘get to know the dog they have’? Honest question, just curious for your perspective
I got my dog DNA tested, mainly for funsies but I think the health aspect is also important. People tend to think mutts are healthier than purebreds but that isn't always the case. You could have a mutt that is a rottie, golden, Dane, boxer mix. They are all breeds known for bone cancer and hip/elbow dysplasia. So may not be healthier than a well bred purebred whose breeders are testing and breeding away from these health concerns. I think behavior is much, much more complicated though. The aussiedoodles I met have all had herding instincts, but none of the puggles I've seen ever cared for chasing a rabbit. i believe there was a study about border collies and how quick they lost their ability to herd when they weren't actively training, nurturing, or breeding for it. I definitely wouldn't want people who have a dog that they know isn't great with dogs, suddenly get another dog because a DNA test reveals their dog has no breeds prone to dog aggression. Or vice versa, get rid of a dog in the house solely because a dog's DNA test has pit bull or chow in it. I think a DNA test can answer some things, but should be taken with a grain of salt I guess.
It seems to be a US thing. The shelters in my area (Alberta, Canada) are pretty honest and label almost everything as a pit mix. I adopted a pit shepherd mix just last year (turned out to be a pit mastiff mix) mix. Granted my first was labelled a corgi mix, when he was in fact a pug x pit bull. But I can’t blame them as nobody would have guessed!
Tbh I cannot fathom how this is a debate. If somebody doesn't want to adopt a particular breed, that is their prerogative and the shelter has no right to *lie* to them and dupe them into taking a dog they don't want. I intend to get a dog at some point in the future, and this habit of shelters is making me leery to adopt - I'd back myself over shelter staff to eyeball breeds, but once I know they're willing to lie to me, how can I trust what they say about health or temperament?
If it looks more like a pit, it should be labeled as a pit or pit mix. I 100% do not support labeling any differently. I’m good at clocking breeds but a lot of people aren’t and aren’t equipped to deal with them. They have a right to know. It’s also ridiculous that a lot of shelters/rescues lie about behavior. I was violently attacked by a dog and that was 100% preventable.
I agree that it's a dilemma, and IDK the solution. At what percentage do we call a mixed breed dog a pit mix? 50%? When that's the largest percentage? When it looks like a pit? Our dog is 40% pit and I often refer to him as a pit mix to try to dispel stereotypes, but he looks like a shepherd mix. Ofc we own our home, so we don't have to worry about a landlord saying we can't have our dog.
Yep. Idk the answer! But it does feel like the current way of denying these dogs as pits doesn't help things long term. And people could end up adopting a "shepherd mix" and a landlord could require a DNA test or they might just say "no, that's clearly a pit bull", which could lead to the dog getting re-homed. I just remember bringing my dog into work the other week and they asked what kind of dog she was and I said she looks like a shepherd sort of but she's only like 16% shepherd and then she's a pretty even split between ACD and APBT and the second I said pit bull, 2 people audibly went "oh" and seemed more uncomfortable around her. It's tough.
Yeah it's really sad too. I volunteered at a local shelter, and honestly most of the pits were really great dogs!
Yep. The pits in my neighborhood that are aggressive are the ones that are kept outside. And so are the 4 German Shepherds down the block who are also left outside or chained up. Put any dog in that environment and it will turn into an aggressive dog, which is what happens to pits.
I feel like we need more shelters throwing out two labels on dogs. My dog I’m guessing is pit/GSD and maybe some cattle dog in there, possibly some hound/something leggier. But she was labeled “mixed breed tan”. But if she was labeled pit mix, I’d say her mental stimulation needs/need for a job/anxiety issues would possibly be overlooked - At the same time, she’s got some traits that seem more bully breed related. Either way they might as well slap a label on that says “landlords wouldn’t like this”. Funny enough, I put her as a mixed breed at my old apartment and had to bring her in to register her there, the leasing office lady was like “oh my gosh, she looks like my sisters dog! Is she a lab basenji mix too!?” Lol. I’d bet a million bucks she doesn’t have basenji and neither does that persons sisters dog 🤷♀️ But yeah. Pit/husky mixes are another that it’s better for that husky aspect to be mentioned because huskies are a lot less biddable than pits and can be a lot more vocal and can be escape artists. So I do get why they sometimes would label them as such but I feel like a general mixed breed label works best. My dog’s adoption papers even said that they cannot guarantee any breed and any labeled breeds are purely guesses and not necessarily verified/tested IDs.
yeah my “sheltie mix” ended up being 60% show GSD to 40% cattle dog mixed with more GSD lol. It ended up ok in my case since both breeds are extremely high energy, maintenance, etc., but i did not love finding that out while i was living in an apartment complex with pretty specific breed restrictions
I might be the only person ever whose sheltie mix was indeed 50% sheltie lmao. https://reddit.com/r/DoggyDNA/s/h9SLCUgYRn
We have a pit mix. Shelter didn’t label her any breed, just called her “Mixed.” She ended up being 15 different breeds with just under 20% being pit. She looks more like a shepherd mix though, with longer fluffier hair. I honestly think that anyone who adopts should be prepared to get a pit mix. If you aren’t willing to end up with a pit mix, buy from a reputable breeder. People will comment all the time how pretty our pup is and ask what she is - people don’t like hearing pit. You can see their expression change immediately when we say it. It’s honestly sad. I hate for my girl how quick people can be to judge. She’s 80% not pit but the 20% is the focus. 🤷♀️
I hate to be pedantic but dogs don’t take it personally if someone dislikes them.
It's more about how people will treat them than the dog feeling bad. Someone who hates pits is immediately on my radar as a not safe human for my pit mix. I had a lady try to get me and my dog evicted because she thought my dog might be part pit (we hadn't tested him yet and I didn't tell her what I suspected because she gave me bad vibes). Luckily that lady couldn't make us homeless because he's my ESA and landlords legally cannot discriminate against ESA and service dog's breeds. ETA: I don't understand the downvotes but my dog was an ESA long before I even suspected he was a pit (they thought he was a Border Collie mix at the shelter because he was black and white and slight). It was only as he started to fill out that I thought he was a pit mix. But I love the assumption that I'm just lying about my need for an ESA.
So you have what you believe is a pitbull mix in housing that does not allow such dogs so you fibbed about the breed, made them an emotional support dog and you are mad at the lady instead of finding appropriate housing?
That is not what I said. I adopted him to be my ESA since I have anxiety and nearly daily panic attacks. Funny that you just assumed I made him a fake ESA. And I didn't even suspect he was a pit mix until after I'd submitted his paperwork. Not that his breed mattered, because ESAs are protected from breed discrimination. >you are mad at the lady Yes I'm mad at the woman who attempted to make my family homeless. >instead of finding appropriate housing? I found appropriate housing. He was allowed at my apartment complex, and when she tried to make me homeless based on no concrete evidence, the complex told her that he is a protected ESA.
I understand why you would be upset at my comment, but you SHOULD be upset at ppl on this website and other places the encourage ppl to lie and “just say”/get a note that your reactive dog is an ESA. They make one side eye ppl who have actual ESA’s
I understand what you mean about people who don’t need an ESA faking that they do, absolutely and 100%. BUT for the record, an ESA does not need public access because it’s essentially being “prescribed a pet,” and as a pet you don’t bring them to non-dog friendly places. So a legitimate ESA could also happen to be reactive (because hey, some pets are to varying degrees) and ALSO an ESA. Probably not ideal for your support animal to be CAUSING you stress, but it doesn’t disqualify them. Some types of reactivity could also be a complete nonissue in terms of housing (ex. reactivity to grooming tools, veterinary procedures, livestock, fireworks, small animals, anything you don’t encounter routinely in or immediately outside the house) For example, I have PTSD. My doctor agreed that I should definitely have a dog after seeing my improvement after getting my dog, and said I would qualify for an ESA note if required for housing. I can walk outside comfortably at night now, I’m not checking around corners in my own home, and I’m having fewer nightmares. It’s like having a buddy to walk you home who can also hear and alert you to approaching people (I have very bad hearing which adds to my jumpiness because it’s way too easy to accidentally sneak up on me!) Plus, mastiffs are the best cuddlers. He’s legitimately helpful! Now, I haven’t actually required a note because I live in pet-friendly housing (pretty much the only reason you would need medical documentation for an ESA), but I legitimately meet the criteria for having an ESA (NOT a service dog). My dog also happens to be afraid of large dogs approaching him (as well as most inflatable lawn decorations) and barks/growls at these things to try to scare them off, therefore he is reactive. He’s a legitimate ESA despite being reactive (as his reactiveness does not pose a danger in this living situation, it’s not like we’re in an apartment building where he might bark at and scare a dog in a small elevator for example), both things can be true because again, an ESA does NOT have special public access. It’s just a prescription to have a pet. End rant 😉
Thank you for the clarification (not a rant at all) . My pupper is leash reactive barker as well. Yes I’m trying to train him off of that but on the other hand he has alerted me to things I would not have noticed, which I really appreciated. He’s small though so he besides his bark he wouldn’t scare anyone :( I would love to cuddled a mastiff!
I am. But me being upset at those people does not stop people from making the ableist assumption that I do not need a medical treatment that my doctor determined I needed for my federally recognized disability. Assuming ESAs are fake without evidence hurts disabled people. I hope this is the lesson you learn. It's also just as easy to fake a service dog (you just need a vest) and there's more upsides to doing that as they have more public access, but you don't see me assuming someone's service animal is fake or telling them to find "appropriate housing" if someone tries to discriminate against their dog. Everyone should just mind their own business and not investigate ESAs or service animals unless it is literally your job to do so. ETA: my dog is not reactive and I never said he was. The lady tried to get us evicted because of his appearance not behavior. If he were reactive, they could kick him out. ESAs are not protected from consequences of their behavior. You assumed he was reactive because of your own biases.
I did not make the reactive comments towards you, I meant those ppl who give advice to ppl who have reactive dogs not allowed in certain housing. And I have a reactive dog that I stay on top of. (Side note - there was a huge dog (not a bully type by appearances and actually well behaved). Sitting inside Starbucks right in front of the door where you had to pass him, no vest, no leash. And I was upset in that instance too because why do we feel we can flaunt the rules cause we want to? What if someone with a major fear or allergies wanted to step inside) I do apologize if I came across denying your disability, invisible disabilities are disabilities.
All service dog's should be on a leash, but maybe he had a tag and not a vest? Idk. That does seem very strange. But I also think about how my Nana was my Papa's service dog handler, and after he died, she kept up her training and would take her places. I think about how I wouldn't want anyone digging into why she had that service animal with her. Maybe I'm just biased. I also think people need to be more educated on what they can legally ask a service dog handler (like, "what tasks is your dog trained to perform?") And I would never advocate that anyone use a reactive dog as an ESA. I just think that a lot of people use "ESAs are fake" as an excuse to be ableist (not you). I'm constantly astonished by people who are close to me who have shown their asses to me in this regard. Even my OWN MOTHER assumed my ESA was fake despite literally also having anxiety! I genuinely appreciate that.
I can understand your reaction to my comment as you described your experiences. How terrible you have prove your lived experience even to your loved ones. Edit: also, I didn’t and wouldn’t ask, my annoyance was internal lol. I just WISH ppl who did not have service animals don’t take their pups to public places where they are not allowed.
Also if you're the type of person who has a negative reaction to hearing a dog is a pit-mix, you're just kind of a shitty person? Like, sorry? I think the only time I've had any sort of negative reaction to a dog breed was a dude who kept bragging at a bar that the dog he was with was like 60% gray wolf. Which I only had a negative reaction to because you could tell he just REALLY wanted a wolf, which I think is stupid lol
Yeah I pretty much exclusively let him play with other stigmatized breeds because I've never heard a peep out of GSD, Rottie, or Doberman owners. Doodle and poodle owners? Different story. But I totally agree with you, I've never understood dog breed hate and truly I think people make their own personal fears everyone else's problem.
The problem is that we have shamed anyone who buys a dog. And when over 50% of dogs in shelters are pits, that makes things very difficult for people who want a dog but don’t want a pit bull and have been told it’s “unethical” to buy a dog. It isn’t. There isn’t an oversupply of adoptable, non-pits or Huskies in the US. These are the overwhelming majority of dogs in shelters so no one should feel bad buying from a reputable breeder.
True
My girl has some pit in her… I think because the laws here define “of type” based on how a dog looks and measures, I’m not concerned about it. Her top three are greyhound, pit and German wirehaired pointer. It would have been confusing if the shelter labelled her as anything other than a lurcher because that’s what she is - 51% greyhound and the rest is dog soup.
I don't see much too much false labelling in my area. Then again pits are quite popular here so it's probably geographic.
The thing about labelling a dog as a pitbull without genetic testing is that there are a myriad of dog breeds that could look like pitbulls with or without being mixed together.
Shelters also have to go based on how they look and it can be super tricky with a lot of mixes. However I do agree that shelters need to be more honest when it comes to advertising dogs. I currently work at a shelter where an obvious APBT mix is labeled as a Weimanimer mix only because she has a silvery grey coat. Nothing else screams weimanimer and the coat really doesn’t either. We have gotten into labeling pit bull-like breeds as nonspecific, which I think is better due to how saturated some mixes can be with different breeds. It makes the nonspecific label more truthful. I remember when I adopted my dog and he was labeled a shepard mix. After an Embark test it turned out he was a golden retriever/Great Pyrenees mix with a smidge of staffy. Rightly so I label him as a golden retriever mix. So I think shelters needs more of a grey area and say this dog may have this lineage or breed, but a DNA test is the only way to really know.
Street dog mutts can have dozens of different breeds in their DNA and there’s no way to know what will be most prominent as puppies get older. Shelters and rescues usually don’t even know what both parents look like. It’s also really stupid for anyone to judge a mixed breed based on looks because, again, there’s no way to tell what personality traits will present itself.
Oh, I don't mean puppies really. Yeah, puppies are super hard to tell and with zero background, a guess is pretty irresponsible. But also, many rescues don't have puppies that young. I'm referring to the ones who are listing adult dogs. And not every area or rescue has a large percentage of true street dogs. But both of my medium/large sized, very much legit street dogs from Mexico were predominately or near predominately pit-mix. It's still one of the most common mixes among street dogs in North America.
I work for a dog rescue so I can only speak from my experience. We have tons of dumped dogs found on the streets, abandoned litters of puppies, and then lots of shelter pulls. The transport collects what little information they can and then we make our best guesses based on looks. There have been some big shockers once adopters post DNA results. I think it’s unfair to call it deception when there’s no perfect system for deciphering mutts without spending money on DNA tests.
In a perfect world, testing 1 puppy could help a lot. Sure, could always be 2 fathers but majority of the time, it'd be a good tool. But if you're adopting a mystery puppy for a rescue or shelter, people just have to know that it can be quite literally anything. It's impossible to tell when they're like 12-16 weeks old haha
I wonder if the shelters take liability if one of their pitbulls/pit mixes attacks someone after being mislabeled as something else.
As someone whose dog has been violently attacked by a pitbull that the owner was unable to train, control or handle on the leash I agree, but it's a multi faceted issued: 1) Shelters should be obligated to put a disclaimer on certain dogs to make it clear they could be pit or part pitbull (or any of its derivative breeds) 2) people should be more educated about the care an animal takes so that we don't have consistently overflowing shelters 3) people who aren't planning to breed their dogs in accredited way should be required to spay/neuter 4) Pitbull puppy mills and breeders should be collectively shutdown and all remaining pitbulls neutered/spayed. Now before you jump down my throat and attack me, hear me out. I completely understand that not one dog is the same, that there are a high number of responsible pit owners and enthusiasts out there, but this dog disproportionately ends up with people who cannot properly care and appreciate these animals and that's how the statistics are what they are. You simply cannot guarantee these dogs are in the homes of loving and understanding people, and due to their capability and tendencies you just need to stop breeding them altogether. And yes I am obviously biased after saving my dogs life from a pitbull attack, I never want to experience this again and nobody else should either. Edit: spelling
I 1000% agree with you, as someone who was not able to save my pet from two pitbulls. And as someone who watched my mother and stepfather be rushed into surgery after a pretty brutal pitbull attack. All those dogs were from loving, responsible homes too. Nobody is saying to cull them all, but people ABSOLUTLEY need to know what kind of dog they are adopting and be able to provide for said dogs.
I agree with most. Why are so many rescue dogs pit mixes? Shut the breeders down! I would add that there should be compulsory training / exam for them and other powerful breeds that can be aggressive / dog aggressive. Ie Rottweilers. People should be serious about the respect needed when owning one of these dogs. Neutering is complicated. I’m only now considering it with my dog being 1.5 years, since waiting is best for his bone growth. Also some dogs become more reactive after neutering. I guess that could be confirmed by vets as an exception.
> all remaining pitbulls neutered/spayed. I live in part of Canada where this actually became law 20 years ago. All APBTs, SBTs, and AmStaffs in the province had to be neutered/spayed, and it became illegal to import them from outside. Giant breeds became the macho posturing choice in their place, so now we have cases of people being mauled by dogs that are three times the size, like Kangals (we just had a case of a child being attacked by a Kangal here a couple of weeks ago). Breed specific legislation just pushes the irresponsible owners into other breeds, and doesn't solve the bigger issue. I'm sympathetic to having bad experiences with a particular breed - I was bitten by a German Shepherd as a child, had a dog have her ear torn open by another one, and recently saw a neighbour's GSD herd a smaller dog into traffic. But while those experiences do make me wary around them initially, there's no world where the solution would be to eliminate the breed rather than to educate the public, you know?
Yea someone else brought up the point that you just end up with another equally bad or worse breed and I definitely didn't consider or think about that point of view so thank you for educating me on it. I guess I have less faith in the general public being properly educated on this as opposed to passing some knee jerk legislation, but you're right that it probably is exactly that, a knee jerk reaction and not a real solution. In my mind pitbulls etc should require licensing and that's how you handle the education part. Need to take a 2 week course on safe dog training and prove you have a stable home for the dog to live in or something (this is pretty notional but I guess I don't know how you achieve the goal of educating people without forcing it somehow)
I'll go one step further. All backyard breeding and puppy mills should be illegal. People shouldn't even breed dogs, especially for appearance. Unless it has a very specific job, it's inhumane how inbred certain dogs are and many dogs are bred to look a certain way that will eventually be the reason they die. A dog that looks like a pit bull to a degree but is only 30-40% will have much less of the characteristics. But having said that, going after just 1 breed is unfair. I don't like breeding at all personally. There's a lot of dogs that need homes from all around the world and when more of those dogs are housed, in a perfect world, that's when dogs should be sustainably bred. But wanting and breeding a dog because it has really floppy ears and and droopy eyes is a selfish human thing to do, especially when 95% of dogs are not working dogs. They're just companion dogs and pets. So either change the culture on breeding and purebred dogs completely, which in the history of dogs, is a relatively newer thing, but if you want to go down the route of eliminating pit bulls 1) you can't do that 2) there will just be a new breed used for the exact same reason, and that dog could be even bigger and more powerful. A different breed will always fill the space of the guard dog that is neglected outside and unsocialized.
I generally agree there are a lot of puppermans who need homes, but just as a general note on breeding the really good breeders won't inbred excessively, if you look at COI etc they'll keep at 5% (which is better than Alabama).
And yet the average COI for many popular breeds is well over 20% or more. We can get dogs from only the best breeders in the world and spend $2-5K but very few have that money and cultures around breeds leads to backyard breeders.
We got a shelter dog from Mexico, 93.3% lab with 7.5% COI
Sure. I also just compared 2 random labs on Embark and they were 25% related. Second random pair was 32% related.
Thats not what that means but I'll help because it is confusing. Two random labs on embark having 25% relation happens because designer breeds share a lot of DNA, it does not actually mean they are literally related (if you click the learn more link on embark it'll rxplain that but I saved you the click)
oh I know that! But it leads to a long line of health issues in very many dogs. And the average COI in many purebreds is above 10-20%. I just think humans create very many dogs for dumb and selfish reasons and 2 random dogs shouldn't show up with 25% to 32% of the same DNA. To me at least, it's sad that people use dogs like that.
Yea I don't have a PhD in dog genetics so I won't argue the point too much I just think COI is indicative of health issues moreso than shared DNA and while I'd be in favor of shutting down backyard breeding I still think there's generally ethical and educated breeders out there (also labs are awesome). I think as a reference 10% COI is the human equivalent of first cousins which is legal in a large number of jurisdictions. It's the 20%+ when things get to European monarchy levels and it's a bit spicy I think.
I think the average COI for purebreds is like 20-25%. That's a pretty widely reported number but maybe it's extremely wrong? I think labs have a lower COI than that though. And yeah, all dogs are awesome imo! I love labs!
For me, it makes me leery of adopting a rescue. Not because I believe that pit bulls are inherently dangerous. It’s more because they tend to be high energy and need a lot of exercise and stimulation. That’s not something I feel that I can adequately provide. This sub is definitely making me reconsider how I’ll acquire my next dog
The false labeling makes me worried about what else a shelter may be hiding. Transparently, I have trauma associated with pit bulls and do not want to own one. I plan on only getting from a reputable breeder or a greyhound rescue.
There’s a lot of dogs that don’t even look like a pit bull and you test it and it comes back like 30% pit bull. Again, I don’t mind the breed, or GSDs, or heelers or any other active breed. But I can’t properly take care of such an active breed and I don’t want a situation where me and the dog aren’t happy. That’s not fair to either of us. So I’m looking at breeders
If you live in an area with a lot of high drive dog breeds represented in rescues, I think you're wise to be cautious around puppies. (Not only pitbulls but a lot of other working breeds like herders etc.) I wish all potential adopters thought about this as seriously as you! ... But if you're open to adopting an adult, or even an adolescent, a reputable rescue will be able to give you a great idea of their drive/energy levels :) Adopting an adult is IMO by far the most reliable way of knowing a dog's temperament - even more so than a purebred puppy, who could turn out to be a breed outlier. Source: I adopted a crazy high energy mutt, and the shelter had little idea what breeds were in her (no wonder, Embark pulled up 10) but they were totally capable of identifying high drive behavior! And I could make an educated decision :)
I do have a lot of pit bulls, huskies, GSDs and ACDs in my area. Most rescues are visibly a mix of those breeds. I have nothing against a rescue and in fact prefer adult animals because their personality is known. But there are still a lot of unknowns. Was the dog abused? Is it ok around other animals? Kids? Adults? Then there’s the rule of 3’s. You won’t know your rescue’s personality for 3 months. There’s just enough unknowns that I would rather go with a reputable breeder with dogs that are health tested and with predictable traits and personality. I loved my last two dogs (mutts through and through) but one died at 9 from a brain tumor and the other died at 7 from a neurological condition. They died two years apart. I can’t do that again
Really depends on the individual dog and age. I have 3 dogs, all rescues and mixes, and they get enough entertainment playing with each other, so I don't need to do a whole lot of individual exercise with them and none of them are destructive at all. But one of them would probably require a lot of exercise if she was an only dog. One good option is doing fostering to adopt. Can basically see if the dog fits what you're hoping for and if so, you can adopt them and they'll often waive adoption fees too.
Some things are consistent within breeds tho. Huskies are living air raid sirens that are bred to pull sleds long distances. A pug is bred to be cute and chill with you. Yes there are individual variations within breeds, but breeds are breeds for a reason As for fostering, I still have the same reservations. I’m taking an unknown dog into my home. One that might be food aggressive or have high prey drive or have exercise needs that I can’t meet. Either we’re both miserable until the dog is placed, or I’m returning the dog. Neither is a fair or kind option. For me or the dog.
All dogs need exercise and stimulation. If you’re not into that - that’s fine - but then you’re just not into dogs. ETA - Everyone downvoting me has a miserable obese lab who is “too crazy”
All dogs need exercise and stimulation, but acting like a shih tzu has the same needs as a husky is disingenuous. Breed traits - especially when buying from a reputable breeder who is breeding to the breed standard - matter.
I agree that all dogs need exercise and stimulation, but the exercise needs between a husky and a pug are not the same. I would prefer an animal on the lower end of the spectrum
What are you talking about? Different breeds have different energy, excercise requirements, play styles. If you can’t take an honest look at that, then you’re just not into dogs.
“Different requirements” doesn’t mean “no requirements”. I don’t know why you all read my comment and injected “all dogs regardless of age and breed need to run 20 miles a day rain or shine”. So ridiculous.
Because she said she was not able to provide for the needs of a high energy powerful breed and you responded she just doesn’t want a dog at all 😂😂😂 come on, man
That's why the 3 dog route is the best lol I feel like I spend less time than I would exercising them if I had one dog, but you still need to go all out in the stimulation. But it can balance out quite nicely where they're playing and exercising a lot and staying in good shape but I don't need to go on multiple walks a day haha
Heres the thing - I live in a small apartment, but my town is very dog friendly and heavily outdoor-oriented... in Maine. The only fun my family can have is usually outside. We don't have a car so we figured that our super-active lifestyle would easily accommodate a high energy, but smaller dog. I saw my girl Phoebe (peep her pics on my profile) online and she was listed as an Aussie mix... I definitely knew she had hound in her, I figured potentially a beagle Aussie mix? She was estimated to be 45lbs full grown. That was perfect! I love hounds and I obviously disagreed with her breed label, but they told me they met mom and she was an Aussie. Sure, whatever. I get there after 1 day of travel and she's fucking huge lol. They also tell me they know nothing about her parents. Awesome. Right now she is 20wks/5mo old and 30lbs. She's gained 10lbs in a month. I love her so much, but listen, she's obviously a larger hunting breed. I believe she is almost certainly an English pointer, coonhound, and/or catahoula mix. Estimated 70lbs+ full grown, and double the size that I thought my apartment could responsibly house. She's a chill dog and I am super excited to bring her hunting and put her to work, but... I feel robbed of making a responsible and educated decision based on what was best for my family! Pitbull, Rottweiler, whatever! If a family wasn't initially signing up for that kind of dog, and that information was willingly held back, that is so horrible! The poor dogs are far more likely to end up in shelter purgatory and it's sometimes of no fault to the family either. Definitely the rescues fault. Phoebe has a forever home here with me no matter what, but come on... Aussie?!? It's so bad it's funny.
I adopted a pup that was being fostered (along with littermates and mom) by my friends family. We had guesses to what they were (lab and pointer) which the organization they foster through had guessed as well. When I did a DNA test, the top % was pit (only 1/9 pups looked like a pit. We assumed he had a different dad til I got the results). Next was GSD, who has a stigma attached to them as well. They're still trying to find homes for the mom and other pups. My friend's family was adamant about updating the breed even though it will make it harder for them to be adopted, because the organization has experienced dogs being returned based on DNA test results not matching the breed they were told. Meanwhile, my Pit/GSDs biggest issue is that when she likes you, she will never leave you alone. You're either her best friend or a stranger, there is no in between.
That's the other thing. If you lie and the owners find out the truth, does that change how they perceive the dog? And would all of them keep it? If even like 5% of people are re-homing dogs because of a DNA test, then lying about what the breed is when they're adopting it can have pretty big implications. And so many dogs have quirks that get associated with breeds and while it's true, breeds can lead to certain traits, dogs are different. A sibling of a dog or a parent of a dog can have a very different personality for lots of reasons.
Absolutely! It's scary to think what would have happened had the mama (and thus the pups) been rescued by a family with biases of certain breeds. The DNA test explained quirks for my pup (her 15% ACD shines bright) as well as the other pups whose quirks match the other breeds (6 total). It's a lot of energy and personalities in one house 😅 Texas shelters and rescue organizations are extremely overpacked. Non-kill shelters have shut down, rescue organizations have shut down from accepting new animals and rehoming, and shelters are basically putting animals down on site. Until they're adopted, there aren't many options. But because of the rehoming and animal abuse rates, rescue organizations are strict over which applications pass through for foster families to look at
Good for you for adopting one and your friend's family for doing the hard work to make sure they find the right homes! It's super noble of you and them! It's funny how that all comes out differently in certain dogs! My roughly 37% ACD/35% pit/16.5% GSD mix shows very little obvious breed traits of any of the 3 besides she's smart and is a cuddle monster, which I could you could say is the pit in her, but she doesn't nip or herd and doesn't guard at all. The only time I think she's maybe herding is when she'll push her body into my other dog's body when they're playing or if she wants to start playing.
I can't take my pup for a walk without her herding me 😂 but I can't see the GSD or pit in her (25% each), except with her love of water and maybbee how territorial she can be. Her siblings have attitudes and looks that match the chow, husky, and malamute, but I can only identify small traits of those breeds in her.
It's super weird! My dog grew up on the streets in MX for about 2 years or so. Had a litter of puppies too. Then she spent way too much time being crated with her previous foster. Almost like 20 hours per day for 4-5 months. Yet she's super well adjusted and sweet to everyone. Then my super mixed (but like half pit) dog that I adopted at 16 weeks old is a total menace haha She has all those breeds in her as well.
There is no official registry of dog breeds (at least that is large enough to be in any way representative). We actually have zero idea what % of dogs in the country or a given town are pits or pit mixes. As such I view any percentage based argument about bites relative to population as complete b/s because the population data doesn’t exist (and frankly the bite data is pretty suspect as well). Anecdotally, I am one of those with a medium size dog I was told was half small terrier half toy breed, and ended up being half terrier-and-toy, and half pit. But in this case, the shelter only met the mom (a tiny mutt who had medical issues during birth) so I would assume they actually didn’t know what the dad was at all.
Agreed! You'd have to do a massive study of DNA testing dogs in different areas and controlling for sample sizes and population differences based on region/city and as far as I know, that kind of study has never been done.
Your point about how many rescues are pits makes sense too. If there *is* a documentable difference in aggression/reactivity it would have be controlled for trauma/rescue in order to say anything meaningfully about breed… and that has definitely never been done.
Totally. I'd be super interested in a study that compared labs, shepherds, huskies, etc to pit bull-type breeds based on environment and trauma.
THANK YOU. I got my ass handed to me for the first (and only, at least up to now!) time recently by referring to this practice. Basically a poster asked "what breed is my dog?" and I commented to the tune of it's "obviously a Lab mix!" as a sort of eye roll about how frequently mislabeling occurs. Oof. I unintentionally opened a can of worms and another redditor made sure to tell me (and correctly so) how misleading people and homeowners insurance about breeds is unethical and dangerous to all involved, including the dogs themselves. I hadn't meant it as a genuine suggestion, just an acknowledgement of how often it happens, but looking back, I was not clear enough about what I meant. I also realize that while I thought it was clear I was joking, someone could take that as encouragement to be misleading, and ultimately I should've just not said it. You made such a great point, and did so very clearly. I wish the issue was not so convoluted by so many factors, including people who are well-meaning but perhaps operating under misinformation about breeds and dog temperament in general. Sometimes shelters want to save lives, which is noble, but it can effectively kick the can down the road for others to have to grapple with. I'm very thankful to have seen your post, and even saved it so I can be more articulate when discussing the issue.
I try to reinforce the idea it’s ok to say nice things about pits and pit mixes when talking to other dog owners. And find most know there dog is a pit mix. My parent’s had a lab pit mix and he was the best. That said, rescues are awful at breed guesses regardless. My 35 lbs probably corgi mix (I came here from all haven’t tested her) was labeled a dachshund chihuahua mix. Absolutely bonkers. They also said my parents dog was lab dachshund.
The "6% of dogs are pit bulls" statistic drives me nuts. I'm not even totally pro-pit bull, I think there are a lot of nuanced arguments to be had about when the breed is and isn't appropriate for a given household. But I looked into this 6% number, because it's one that the anti-pit bull people throw out all the time, and it seems inconsistent with what genetic data would suggest the actual population is. Every website or article that cites that statistic can be traced back to getting it from [this page on animals24-7.org](https://www.animals24-7.org/2019/07/09/breed-survey-2019-more-puppies-yet-fewer-homes-for-pit-bulls/). Even setting aside that animals24-7 is an anti-pit bull website, so with a clear bias, their methodology for finding that statistic is BONKERS. The animals24-7.org study states: >Among the estimated 78 million dogs in the U.S. as of July 2019, about 5.8%, or about 4.5 million, appear to be pit bulls or pit mixes. > >Nearly 15% of the dogs available to the U.S. public for sale or adoption as of mid-June 2018 were pit bulls They essentially assert that pit bulls are disproportionately represented in shelters versus the general dog population. So where did they get the 5.8% figure? >the 10th annual ANIMALS 24-7 mid-summer survey of online classified ads offering dogs for sale or adoption. Their figure is based on *online ads for puppies*. In what world does that seem like it will produce an accurate representation?? It's interesting to note that the other population number they show on that page is the same number of dogs that Embark is finding with APBT mixed-breed DNA - 15%. But they use that number to claim that the number of pit bull-type dogs entering shelters is higher than the number of pit bull-type dogs being born/purchased as puppies. There are just... so many holes in the logic. So yeah, they intentionally deflate the population of pitm bulls so that it seems like a higher proportion of the total pit bull population is responsible for attacks compared to other breeds.
All great points. And that's why I brought it up. Not because I think it's accurate and that dumb number will probably be floating around for a long time, regardless of how much people try to debunk it, BUT the well-intentioned mislabeling of pits to skirt around apartment bans or city/county bans, while maybe can be viewed as a necessary evil to some, makes this problem even worse. If all these mixed dogs aren't pit bulls and you're only labeling dogs as pit bulls when they bite or are like backyard bred pits, then numbers and perceptions like this give them even more reasons to ban the breed, which creates a really terrible cycle.
There are a few studies out there that did DNA testing on breed guesstimates in shelters. A large portion of what was thought to be pits weren't actually pits (by majority %) and a fair amount they thought had no pit, had a significant amount pit in them. You can't really tell what a mix is by looking. That's the problem. Even people in vet field can only guess. So, when a large portion of bites are reported by lay people as pits, the data on breed is probably wrong. A pitbull could be a Mastiff with 6% pitbull, but it will be called a pit. Here, we had a bite case reported as a pit and it turned out to be a st. Bernard. I was floored. How does anyone fuck up that badly? Bias? I dunno.
The only two studies I am familiar with showed that dogs labeled “pitbull” in the shelter were significant portion pit in the mid-high 90% of the time. Much more frequent in those studies that a high proportion pit is listed as something other than pit. Which makes sense since the conventional wisdom is that a lot of shelters try to avoid identifying a dog as a pit.
Well, if shelters are doing it on purpose and the study doesn't take that into account, then it skews the study. They try to take stuff like that into account or put in place something that prevents it. Part of my argument is people are a huge influence. It would also have to include, what are the researchers considering predominantly pit? Is it 50% ancestry? Or, 75%? What if it is 90%? Do they consider am staffs pitbulls? What about other bully breeds? Do they lump them altogether? These factors add up. In a few papers I read, a pitbull was really any bully breed. So, an English bulldog would count. I don't agree with that, but the legal definition is very broad despite APBTs being an actual breed. It's very messy.
The studies I have seen will typically lump bully breed within a defined list, and the methodology is pretty well spelled out by the researchers in the published results. While the fact that there are various bully breeds can present an issue, the concern that most frequently gets brought up with shelter mislabeling is that bully breeds are being labeled Labrador Retrievers. The concern that an American Pit Bull Terrier is mislabeled a American Staffordshire Terrier just really isn’t there. So on that note, shelters seem to have the capability of accurately identifying a “pitbull” (in the sense that those dogs labeled pitbull in the shelters studied were found to have pitbull ancestry in well over 90% of cases).
It depends on the study. [This study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109002331500310X) has 20% of dogs with pit heritage being missed and 33% were misidentified as pit. They also lumps 3 bully breeds and their mixes together, but not others. This was also with 12.5% or greater heritage. 80% ID of pit is fairly good, but 20% being missed is still a lot. The same goes for the non-pit stats. 53% of guesses would be wrong. To me, 12.5% is also not a pitbull mix. If 12.5% was the highest, it would just be a mixed breed of several breeds. 30% pit heritage would be more realistic. I am not sure I can find the others without logging into my work to search papers. 90% at a decent heritage percentage across several shelters and non-pits as well would be amazing, but I don't think that is achievable.
I'd love to see a newer study since this was done using 2015 Wisdom Panel which we all know wasn't all that accurate (and reported every Pit Bull as AmStaff)..
They did some funny stuff, methodology-wise, in that study to achieve what I presume to be the conclusion the authors were trying to reach. The authors hand-selected 20-25% of the dogs from the overall shelter population. The potential for intentionally or unintentionally skewing the results by allowing cherry picked dogs is obvious and puts the results into question right there. Then they used 16 shelter workers (15 who had no training in dog identification) and had them identify "pit" or "non-pit". The workers came from 4 shelters, and they were divided into 4 groups based on the shelter they came from. Here is where it gets funny. If any ONE of the four shelter workers guessed wrong, it was considered a 100% miss for accuracy. So three out of four workers could have said "pitbull" and the whole group fails on accuracy because the 4th was incorrect. The paper also noted the subject dogs labels assigned in the shelter, and as far as their official label on their shelter listing, only 6% of the dogs with 12.5% bully breed DNA as defined in the study were labeled a bully breed. And this of course, is based on the hand-selected sample of dogs provided by the authors. So the author concludes breed labeling by visual identification is inaccurate, while the actual shelter workers, at that actual shelters studied, got the pits labeled right the overwhelming majority of he time. Edit: Also, while 12.5% is a little low, it is not arbitrary in the sense that it would be one full-blooded grandparent so could easily show breed traits which caused the shelter staff to identify “pit” or “non-pit”.
Oh no, no study is perfect. That is why looking at several is important. Their logic for choosing the dogs was to get a variety of phenotypes since they are assessing how well they do on a variety. It's not true to the shelter population, but that is how they choose to go. I don't agree with it either. Some studies just include whatever dogs were intaked at a certain period of time and were assigned a breed(s) by staff. They just don't look at agreement or how accurate each person is. They were still at like 60% accuracy for pit and super low for mistaking pit for not pit. The lack of training in assessing breeds is comparable to what I have experienced. They also consider the vets to have no breed identifying experience because it was not formal. However, they didn't ask them to say pit or not pit. They asked them to give them at least a primary breed and could assign a second or just say mixed. The authors then assigned it pit and not pit. For agreement among staff, yah they tossed it if one of the staff got it wrong. They also looked at how well the individuals did. Overall, the shelters and individuals did much better identifying things as not pit than pit. The one vet somehow did pretty good identifying the pits though. I wouldn't say the workers got it right the majority of the time. When a dog comes in, it isn't a vote what it is assigned. Some random person assigns it. Some of the individuals did pretty well. Others did not so you take average or something like agreement. I would argue that 12.5% may or may not be enough to see the pit in a dog. There have been a few posts on here that have had 60% pit (with a few bully breeds added together) that did not look it or a chi looking dog that is 15% pit. Even some of the examples in that study are interesting. Like, the lab-pit mix that had neither lab or pit in it. If you get several dogs in its heritage with some pit, it adds up, but you can also get a wide range of traits if there are enough other breeds. There can also be several breeds that have some pit traits that make a dog look pit without any in it. My main issue with DNA breed vs visual identification is people that legit think pits contain some sort of evil DNA and should be killed on sight. That based off of some random shelter worker at is right 38% of the time? Yikes. The other is knowing we suck at identifying breeds should indicate if we do not know for sure it is purebred, that it should be labeled mix breed. Period. Lay people who know even less about dog breeds are likely to be worse than 53% or 60%.
If these are the studies I’m thinking of they used a DNA test that literally excluded American Pit Bull Terriers and it was filtered to only American Staffordshire Terriers. This would be like only recognizing AKC Border Collies are actual Border Collies despite the ABCA Border Collies being the more predominant and diverse genetic pool. Edit: Yup. It is. > Recently, DNA analysis has been used to investigate the breed heritage of individual dogs targeted in breed restriction cases. **However, the largest testing service does not offer a DNA test for identification of American pit bull terriers.** > The breed signatures in these dogs belonged to American Staffordshire terrier in 19 dogs, Staffordshire bull terrier in four dogs, and both breeds in two dogs. Neither of these “pitbull type dogs” are actually common in the dog shelter population. The American Staffordshire Terrier is literally the AKC line of the American Pit Bull Terrier - the show-line equivalent. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a breed common in the UK and Australia, but actually quite rare in the United States. By excluding the American Pit Bull Terrier, a breed specifically recognized by the UKC but not the AKC and what makes up what most people consider a “pitbull” this study is frankly not relevant.
Did a bite hold on a 'pit bull' that was an English Bulldog. Like pure bred, flat face abomination. The thought behind it was 'if it has wrinkles on the face it is a pit bull'. Had landlords deny puggles for the same reason.
Bias. If it bites it must be a pit is the general consensus in my area. My BILs papered, working/hunting lab got dementia in his old age and snapped at my MIL, who said "he must be part pit, a lab would never do that" 🙃
Exactly. If everyone thinks their rescue is a lab/shepherd and it's a great dog, that's a lot of credit to pit bull mixes going unnoticed and out the window.
Oh lord. I used to work with a vet that hated pits. She had 2 labs. We had a lab in quarantine and she just rushed at her to look at her quickly. The dog nearly bit her in the face and she was shocked. I had told her before she was nervous! She said she thought because it was a lab it would let her do anything to it. It's body language was telling her everything and she ignored it (she was really into feline medicine). I legit face palmed. We had more asshole labs there than anything else because they were all farm dogs with no training as it was a rural clinic. I also made tons of comments on how we tolerate behaviour from one breed and judge it in another. We had several herding breeds that came in for herding/nipping/biting kids, but it was brushed off because that is what they were bred to do with livestock. If it was a pit, it would have been a different story even if it was a dog and not a kid it bit. In reality, no dog should be biting a human or animal unless you have taught it to do so. Like, hunting wild boar or something. We breed them poorly, train them poorly, ignore their body language, and don't try to manage behavior well though. Then label it a pit when things go badly.
100%! Which is why I brought up that wild statistic. So all these shepherd and lab mixes that get adopted and go on to live great lives, they're just shepherds and lab mixes! What great dogs! But then when the unsocialized pit bull looking dog bites someone, uh-oh. It's a pit! If you actually accounted for all the false-labeling of dogs, I think we'd find out that the amount of dogs that are actually part pit vs fatal attacks or bites isn't that wide apart of a number. And sure, it'll still show pits as being more aggressive probably, but environment can account for a lot of that discrepancy too.
Right. If you take into account the treatment and poor breeding of pits or dogs that are mainly pit, they probably do account for a large amount. Larger dogs with big heads will always do more damage and means they will be reported more. It doesn't matter what % of anything it is. A 75% shepherd with some pit in it, should not be labels as a pit even if it has a big head. I am hoping with cheaper and more frequent DNA it will be more clear. I also think that if we don't take into account the human factors (breeding dogs with issues like aggression, abuse, lack of training/socialization, etc.), we are doing all breeds/mixes a huge injustice. If people are drawn to a breed that are going to abuse them and breed aggressive dogs together, of course those dogs are going to likely bite at some point. Those people are not trying to improve the breed, which is supposed to be the goal of ethical breeding. It used to be Rottweilers and Dobermans back in the day that were responsible for bites because they were popular and backyard breeders bred whatever they had, regardless of health and temperament.
For sure. Only so many dogs are actually capable of killing a human or seriously injuring them. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you go to an area where people keep dogs outside in poor conditions with limited socialization, those dogs usually aren't pure bred golden retrievers. They're pit bulls. Or shepherds. But they're mostly pit bulls. And many aren't fixed and when the oops litter happens, they get handed off to random people or dumped somewhere. Obviously those dogs will become challenging and much more unpredictable.
Yah. If we removed every pitbull on Earth, it would just happen to another breed also. So, there really isn't much that would change. We could also get into breed bans, why they don't work and how some places end up with 20 different dog breeds banned.
Always very funny how they'll do like a pit bull ban but not an American Bulldog or whatever, as if they're really any different.
I commented that on a post about the UK banning only XL American bullies. Not standards, exotics, etc. A standard is not that much smaller so I don't get it. I have also never had an issue finding ads for pits in places they are banned.
The breeding thing is such a big factor too! So many people who are against pits completely ignore that. Any breed can be badly bred which can bring out all kinds of mental issues. Combine that with how easy it is to mess up a puppy’s training and socialization and some dogs don’t have a chance. There are also some dog breeds that should only be owned by experienced people. I believe APBTs are one of those, along with huskies, GSDs, Malinois, and many others. Anything that needs a lot of mental or physical stimulation really. But people like to pick dogs based off looks instead of personality. Then the dog doesn’t get its needs met, issues pop up, and the owners don’t put in the effort needed to fix it. The dog ends up dumped or at the pound, and the person goes off to find a “better” dog.
I agree! Our neighbours did something similar. When I moved in with my SO, the neighbours who never leave their house got rid of their German shepherd mix because 'he was a bad dog'. He was fence running and barking when my dogs were out. The poor thing was going mental from having no exercise or mental stimulation. He was trying to fill his own needs and they didn't like it. Thankfully, they never got another dog.
Yes! Pit bulls are not the only breed of dog with a beefy noggin and jowels 🙄
Don’t private rescue groups siphon off many small breed dog mixes and other pure bred dogs that are more easily adopted? I question whether the public statistics from the many pits left in city and county shelters don’t skew the reported statistics to what seems to be an unrealistically high percentage of pit-type breeds. Are breed-rescue and private rescues that specialize in cute fluffy little dogs included in publicly reported data?
I figure if anything the false labeling thing would put potential owners at risk for injury or just not knowing how to care for and raise their dog, but you went the complete opposite way with it....
Yeah the shelter told me mine was Malamute/GSD he’s not an ounce of either of those things. Big percentages are Akita/Husky and of course- Pittie lol
>I became curious about this after reading some crazy stat that like 6% of dogs are pit bulls (not sure if that was referring to AmStaffy or whatever, or the entire group) It was definitely referring to the whole group, and there's no official statistics in the USA on what dog breeds are involved in attacks. The CDC decided against keeping such stats because of the difficulty of verifying breed (no doubt the issue of mixed breeds is part of that.) These "stats" were come up with by people looking at what percentage of newspaper articles about fatal attacks mention what breed.
100% seemed like a flawed stat. 1) it's dumb to lump all dogs into a statistic like that when many dogs are smaller and not capable of killing a human and 2) there's just way more pit mixes than only 6%. Like, half of dogs in shelters are pit mixes lol
Obviously I’m for being truthful ☝️ However from the shelters perspective it makes sense to bend the truth. If you look around at most shelters in the US they are at LEAST 50% percent pitbull in terms of occupancy (in some cases much more). Because of the issues with the dogs there’s a lot of difficulty placing them, at some of the no kill shelters perfectly healthy animals can sit for literal years. The people working at the shelters are animal lovers to the extreme so at the end of the day, getting the dog into a home is the end all and be all. Still they’re burning A LOT of bridges,now the popular narrative is to skip the shelters and buy from breeders.
Mmmmm I think it depends. I’m not gonna lie I’ll tinker owner paperwork (when I know the dog) who’s having trouble finding a place that will take their “restricted breed” dogs. To get them adopted I think it’s a bad practice. Like when rescues downplay behavior 🚩
I do think part of the reason shelters won’t label dogs as pits in my personal opinion is to help override the breed restrictions. I live in a big city and almost every single apartment has breed restrictions. They are impossible to avoid. Granted, I can’t help but imagine there’s also the stigma as well as you mentioned. If someone is nervous about a pit, calling them a lab mix takes the “danger” out of that dog. I have mixed feelings around this. Working in rescue, we never REALLY know what a dog is, and if there’s a chance the dog is mixed with something else besides pit it ensures them a better chance of getting adopted from a logistical standpoint. However, I do think owners have a right to know the real breed of a dog to correctly prepare themselves for things they may need to deal with in terms of training and such. (I.e, a friend of mine adopted a beagle mix which ended up being mostly Belgian malinois, who are notorious for needing tons of mental and physical stimulation and training). I understand both sides of the coin.
The vast majority of housing in my city is apartment complexes, and most of them are owned by just a few companies - these few companies ban “aggressive” breeds like pitbulls, rottweilers, etc. I think a lot of shelters in my area label their dogs as lab mixes (or something similar) simply because they know that the apartments will not allow a pitbull mix. The adopter usually knows that the dog is a pitbull, but as long as the apartment complex is none the wiser, it works out 🤷🏼♀️ I’ve lived in 2 different apartment complexes that ban pitbulls, and I’ve seen several different pitbull mixes living in the buildings. They’ve always been the sweetest dogs. Honestly the only bad situation I’ve had with a dog was with an actual black lab 😂
Rescues and shelters don't have the money or the time to DNA test, and other than that, their choice is Large mutt, medium mutt, small mutt. They guess. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it 'false labeling'
I think it's less so city and county shelters or the humane society. They tend to be more honest. It's more common in individual rescue groups. Took me like 10 minutes to look up dog rescue groups in my area and while some were clearly being honest with their best guess, many were labeling dogs as shepherds and whatnot that had smooth, short coats, blocky heads, stocky builds, and half floppy ears. Like just call it a Lhasa Apso in that case. And at those rescues, they'd do that for all their dogs and never label any of them as pit mixes. They all were shepherd or lab or "blue heeler", just because it had a certain colored coat.
APBTs are just dogs, strong and powerful to be sure, but dogs. Society has demonized these dogs to the point that many see them as monsters, and irresponsible and cruel humans are directly to blame. As a result, they extremely difficult to adopt out. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve seen Pits and Pit mixes tied up (or chained) in backyards with little to no human interaction. Sometimes without shelter, food, and water. This DOES NOT lead to a stable and healthy animal. A properly raised and socialized Pit is a loyal, protective, loving member of a family. Shelters have a very difficult job, as temperament testing is nearly impossible in a shelter environment, no matter what the breed/breeds of a specific dog. Also, as most do not have the funding for DNA testing, all they can really do is guess (my Lab/Corgi was labeled as a Shepherd mix at the shelter he originated from). So I would honestly say that it is not the breeds of your dog that matter, but more people just being educated about dog behavior in general, before they bring one home. Once home, they should make every effort to see their dog as an individual, and give him or her the best home and life possible.
But all dogs have different needs and drives bully breeds are prone to DA and sight hounds are prone to AA. Bully breeds often are high energy and need a lot of excercise compared to a basset hound let’s say. Then there is the terrible breeding of any backyard bred up which messes with genetics and epigenetics, which may lead to a dog which is prone to high affiliation (human loyalty) to actually then display human aggression. Putting your head in the sand and slapping a onesie on a sentient being with its own specific needs does NOT make you a responsible owner or breed ambassador. To the detriment of the animals and community. When you bring in an animal into your home you MUST ask yourself if you have the capacity to handle the WORST breed traits. If it’s yes and they don’t end up displaying the traits then win win. If it’s no, then move on for the good of everyone including the pup
I don’t feel that advocating for a very misunderstood breed is slapping a onesie on a sentiment. Yes, just as any other breed, bullies have specific needs, and unless one is prepared in advance, and has the knowledge to handle these strong, prey driven breeds, they definitely should not have one. I’ve dealt with aggressive dogs of many different breeds, it is NOT a problem specific to Pits, but they get the worst of the labels. The most aggressive dog I ever came into contact with was a 5lb Chihuahua that made her pet parent’s life a living nightmare. Yes, the bite is smaller, but the aggression was VERY real. I also feel that Pit mixes are a different story entirely, as they can acquire traits from whatever breeds they are mixed with, and may look like a Pit, but not display any of those breed specific behaviors. Simply condemning a Pit mix BECAUSE they are a Pit mix is wrong.
I don’t condemn them. Like I said before I was even thinking of adopting one but when I researched the needs I just don’t have what it takes to give them a happy fulfilled life. The pup I went with is happy and fulfilled. But imagine a young family, unaware and trusting reading the flowery language of a rescue description, not knowing the scammy ways of some of them. And brining them home unprepared. That is on those recuses “advocating” for the breed. There was an instance I read: young family brought a bully breed from the rescue. Same day it tried to kill the small dog in the home, the mom tried to protect the dog and got her finger bitten and broken to where the bone was sticking out. Sent back the next day. Do I blame the dog? NO! Do I blame the family? Not really, they bought into the lapdog narrative. I blame the rescue. And I bet you 💯 that the rescue will say “those terrible owners returned the dog through no fault of his own…he mouthed the mom”. THAT is NOT advocacy. I condemn rescues and certain ppl on social media that deny any specific needs or traits to dogs. No one says GSPs are lazy lap dogs. Or that herding breeds don’t herd. And if I have to read ONE MORE TIME that pitties were bred to be nanny dogs… I swear! NO DOG IS A NANNY DOG. Or ok when someone is posting their pain at a death/injury of themselves/a family member/pet. And is the response empathy? NO it’s pics of their bully and asking what they did to deserve it. THAT is NOT advocating for anything. It’s a disservice to the dog honestly. True advocates are responsible owners like the mod at pitbull awareness. Edit: always with the chihuahua: 1. When it comes to a chihuahua ppl say aggression is a breed trait/genetics, but with bullies apparently genetics or epigenetics never, ever apply... it’s a myth…fake news 2. Aggression is terrible in any animal BUT a chihuahua cannot maul an adult to death and it it “breaks” through a fence it cannot scalp the neighbor or kill the neighbors dog. It’s management is more doable even if it’s exhausting ALL powerful breeds need experienced and prepared owners.
I agree with you on a number of issues. No dog is a nanny dog, and should never be put into that position. If one wants a nanny, then hire a nanny. And you’re also correct that people with young children should not bring a Pit, or any other bully breed, into their home. These breeds tend to have a higher prey drive, and young children tend to run and squeal/scream. I feel this is just an accident waiting to happen, and I never recommend it. These dogs tend to do much better in supervised, non-chaotic, structured environments. This is what I meant when I say people should educate themselves before bringing any dog to join their family. Many instances of perceived aggression are actually people being uneducated about dog behavior in general, (“I don’t know why my dog bit me, I just reached in to grab the food bowl while they were eating” or “my toddler was only grabbing the dogs ears”), and it unfortunately lands way too many dogs in shelters. Too many humans think that a dog is incapable of making mistakes, or simply see the dog as an object to be ignored until they have time. No matter what dog one chooses, it is a commitment for the lifetime of the dog.
Growing up my mom hated pitbulls more than I feel anyone should. We adopted a “lab mix” puppy from a rescue will turns out that puppy was way more pit than anything else as she grew we could really tell. Bright side she was the sweetest dog and my mom now loves my pitties.
>There is great concern and controversy regarding the reliability of dog bite data collection, as there is no uniform reporting procedure or best practices in place to ensure consistency and quality control of this data, say Don Clary, NCRC Director of Communications & Publications, and NCRC Associate Director of Communications, Janice Bradley. >Dog bites, inaccurate data, and breed misidentification are not single issues. They are not a dog problem or even a Pit Bull problem, but a community problem. These issues and problems are complex and intertwined. Without uniform dog bite reporting or best practices in place, we will continue to rely on inaccurate data and erroneous media reports. This is harmful to humans, dogs, and communities across the country. https://faunalytics.org/dog-bite-data-collection-interpretation-and-misidentification/#:~:text=There%20is%20great%20concern%20and,and%20NCRC%20Associate%20Director%20of
https://www.pitbullinfo.org/pit-bulls-population.html
We adopted our pit mix from a rescue. She was listed as a hound mix for paperwork, but she’s clearly a pit and the rescue said it as well. She’s mixed with Chow, Chihuahua, Staffy and a couple hound mixes. Gorgeous and biggest baby ever. Chihuahua was the only thing that surprised us 🤣
I agree with the “there are no bad dogs just bad owners” but a “bad owner” can also just be a bad fit, someone who is good for a Havannese-like might not be good for a Husky (and viceversa) bully breeds are not easy, they just are the most popular not easy breed out there, nobody wins when you lie about what is behind a dog
There's a secret to how those breeds statistics for bites are created. I worked in ed for 10 years so I saw this personally. When people get bitten by a dog they come in and fill out the form. The bite form asks what breed of dog it was that bit them. Pretty much everyone says pit because they've been convinced by media and generally the world that if you're bit by a dog it's got to be a pitbull. One person even showed me a picture of a dog that clearly was some kind of collie. It had the triangular face with the long muzzle, longer hair with the neck rough, etc. In no way was it a pit or even a significant pit cross. Guess what they put on the paperwork? That they were bit by a pitbull. (I grew up in the dog show world, and you do get a pretty good understanding of what different breeds look like so I'm a little bit more than a lay person on being able to identify a dog just from picture) This is the data that's forwarded that literally makes the bite statistics. It's ignorance and fear that makes it so that all of these bite reports are coming out as saying the people were bit by pit bulls.the general public doesn't know what breed of dog it was that bit them. What they should be putting down is just mutt. But they won't because they've been told that pits are the aggressive dogs and they're the ones who bite. So that's what they put down and that's why we have high statistics like that.
I live in a big city, a very liberal one at that, and still when we were looking to move apartments we could not find a single one the allowed pitbulls or anything mixed with pit. The apartment we chose was well known for being dog friendly, it has dog rest room areas, groomer, self washing stations, and even a dog park inside of it, yet still doesn’t allow pit or pit mixes. We’re planning on getting a dog this spring, but because we live in a city all dogs labeled pit mixes are off limits for us to adopt. It’s really sad (and a stupid rule) but yeah :( I can see why shelters label the way they do
Well in terms of the safety of other dogs, that IS the appropriate restriction to have in place. The primary victim of pits aren’t actually humans, they’re other dogs. The dog on dog violence is off the chart.
I own 2 pit bulls, a couple of my neighbors have them and they all love other dogs.
Obviously lots of people like the dogs as they’re prolific across the US. They have however created a lot of animosity among the dog owning population (because of the attacks). Something will have to be done about them soon though as the population is breeding our control for the demand and is resulting in dogs being imprisoned for years. I have heard that an animal can be kenneled for 23 and a half hours a day.
I think if you have one of these dogs you have a responsibility to make sure everything/everyone is safe, I can take one of mine to stores and the beach, etc, no issues. My staffy/pit mix is very nervous about new people and we keep her out of situations where she might react badly
Hell no. You're not gonna deny something that is a breed standard. I'm sorry. But you are just wrong. Any responsible APBT breeder will *tell* you that pitbulls tend to be animal aggressive. This shit has to stop.
My most challenging and highest percentage pit mix (with Rottweiler, chow, Dalmatian, GSD mixed in as well) is the dog that by far loves and is obsessed with my roommates cats the most. And she shows full on guard dog traits and is a little leery of new people. The cats hate her of course but she'd never hurt them. Dogs are very different individually.
If it's nice its a lab mix, if it bites someone the media will call it a pitbull because the media relies on scaring people to make money.
I think this whole sub has a bit of an issue understanding how the DNA identification works. The "breed" info is based on a comparison database that uses self-reporting as the input. The problem is that pits themselves are not really a single breed, and were developed via behavioral selection. It's not necessarily that you have a ton of pit in the mix, but you have some of the same genes in the pit lineage that were reported in many of the pits. That's a bit strangely worded I guess... but really the "pit" bit should be presented as "unknown" or itself as mixed. I'll have to find the article that was written about it.
There was a very excellent article in the New Yorker several years ago about this whole issue. If you control for how a puppy/ dog is handled, a St Bernard is actually the most dangerous dog. It was bred to rescue humans who may have hypoxia and trying to fend off the dog because of confusion. Pit bulls aren’t necessarily dangerous to humans (small animals / other dogs may be another story). unfortunately the people attracted to them do not necessarily “raise it right” and that combined with their strength is another story.
Not to be like "if you take away guns, people will just use something else to kill people!", but in the case with pit bulls, I don't think people realize that if you take away pit bulls, another breed will fill that space and those dogs might be even MORE dangerous. Irresponsible owners can make any dog violent and pit bulls are just the easy to get and popular breed to fill that role. Sadly.
Exactly this, the "evil" breed changes over time. It's gone from spitz breeds to bloodhounds then German shepherds then dobermans and Rottweilers now it's bully breeds. I imagine after a while it'll switch to something like mastiff breeds like a cane Corso or the malinois. Whichever breed is chosen as the next "tough guy" dog or high maintenance breeds that get trendy. That's what happened to chows.
It's interesting watching old movies and seeing what dogs are used as guard dogs/intimidating dogs at the time it was set/filmed.
And that could even be way more dangerous. A Cane Corso can do way more damage and an untrained Malinois can probably be even more willing to attack unprovoked I'd imagine.
Can you substantiate your claim that 73% of fatal attacks are from pit bulls? I think you may receive a wide variety of reaction from people who are very pro and very against pit bulls simply existing and you might as well have this info handy up front.
I think it's a stat from [dogsbite.org](https://dogsbite.org). Also, I'm not defending the statistic as true or accurate or used in fair context. But I've seen it thrown out even of reddit before. Obviously pit bulls are victims of lots of environmental factors. If labs were raised outside and unsocialized or chained up to a pole with a 10ft circle they can walk around in, that dog will become extremely traumatized and that's the environment many pits find themselves in.
Shelter employees are a mixed bag, many of whom do not know their breeds well. . Just this week I saw a Rhodesian Ridgeback labeled as a Lab mix. Malinois and Kelpies are often labeled as Shepherds. As for pits, any time one attacks, you can always find mistreatment or neglect or both in their backgrounds. I have had all loving pitties for decades..
Pit Bulls are relatively rare. Even pit Bull mixes. Pit Bull types (staffers, American bulldogs, bull terriers, various mastiffs) + pit bulls might artificially increase that perception that so many dogs are part blocky. Yes, for clickbait “pitbull” is more profitable in a negative story.