Tucker Loves His Daddy

tucker loves his daddy


and his daddy loves him back


doc loves his blankie. he also loves it when i leave him alone so he can sleep!

On breeding dog aggression out of the APBT

Argh, this is not exactly a post but a piece of info I posted recently on a message board in response to a thread about whether dog aggression is a trait inherent in pit bulls or something that can and should be bred out of the dogs to make them, I don't know, more marketable for dumbasses or something I guess.

I'm sure you can guess what side of the discussion I'm going to come from . . . but anyway, it is what it is, and I'm repeating it here. You know, in case anyone ever reads this thing.

Another poster wrote: How can a dog that is a pack animal not want to be around any sort of dog pack? It seems wrong.

My response: it sort of does, doesn't it? but at the same time, i do believe that's what makes them so incredibly attracted to and bonded with the human beings that own them. the dog aggressive dogs do crave companionship, but the ones that don't get on well with other dogs end up seeking it out from people because other dogs just create too much conflict for them. dogs are so incredibly adaptive, it's amazing.

one of my dogs actually enjoys being part of the household with the other dogs, but he can only be in the same room with my other two under extremely controlled circumstances (ie., when everyone is settled down with me and watching TV and i can bring doc into the room on leash and settle him in on the couch next to me). he enjoys that time. but if i let him play with my other dogs, his adrenaline starts to surge and in an instant he can go from having a blast to full-on fight mode. so he's got to make due with only being fully integrated with the dog "pack" when i have all the dogs in down-stays.

the dog aggression thing really varies so much from individual dog to individual dog. and there are so many variations on the theme of "dog aggression." some dogs are incredibly social and don't have an aggressive bone in their bodies; some are tolerant of dogs of the opposite sex; some dogs are only aggressive with strange dogs; some are only aggressive when their buttons are really pushed; some dogs can't even stand the sight of another dog without wanting to fight.

and there are so many pit bull dogs--even fighting dogs and gamedogs--that can and do live in harmony with other animals in the household. even some fighting dogs were sensible enough to be social with other dogs when it was to their benefit, and occasionally you hear about former fighting dogs living out their retirements as house dogs living with other dogs.

as for pet pit bulls . . . there are tons that are great with the dogs they live with and can indeed be integrated into a home "pack" but still be dog aggressive dogs. they may play with their housemates and snuggle with the resident chihuahua. they just don't see other dogs as anything but adversaries, which isn't really so weird when you consider that most wild carnivores do not tolerate others of their own kind outside of their family group or pack. lions, wolves, hyenas, etc. see strangers as adversaries. mostly, the idea of dogs meeting strange new dogs all the time is a construct of domesticity and that's about it.

to me, dog aggression in and of itself is not a big huge problem. the problem is that so many people who own these dogs refuse to be content with the fact that the dogs' history ought to just be respected and a few simple precautions taken to make sure their dogs can be happy, healthy canine citizens. people like to take their pit bulls and put them into situations where an otherwise fairly peaceable animal feels forced to do something that pushes them into fairly uncomfortable situations. they want their dogs to behave like labs and play and romp with other strange dogs, even though it's smarter just to not go there. for some reason the owners refuse to believe that their "cold" pit bull would ever fight and they bring them to a dog park or let them run the neighborhood or insist that they can and should socialize with strange dogs. then the dog does the thing that is in its genes, because it's been bred that way for generations--fight--and the owner is somehow shocked that the dog "snapped." it's nonsense, because the thing that dog did is no more unusual for this breed than for a border collie to start herding ducks.

unless you breed a dog that is not an American pit bull terrier, you will never eliminate it completely. because you simply can't eliminate the fact that all modern pit bull dogs are going to have fighters back in their pedigrees--even if it's way far back, it's still there and it won't go away unless you know of some secret stock of cold dogs that are still alive that are direct descendents of these bulldogs (not *American* pit bull terriers, but bull and terriers or whatever the American pit bull terrier was bred down from) that can be the foundation of a new strain of bulldog in which you breed completely away from the direction the breed was taken in this country. because in this country, the dogs were bred for fighting and those fighting dogs are indeed the foundation for all the American pit bull terriers found in rescues, shelters, and breeding yards today. you can probably modify your modern dogs to some degree but you can't erase the history of the animals and eliminate it completely. as someone else said, two brown-eyed people can and do have blue-eyed children. two cold dogs can and do produce hot dogs. and vice versa.

you can kill as many of the hot ones as you can and cull them from your breeding program, but then you are reducing your sound breeding pool down as well and more than likely breeding away from the other traits that make the dogs what they are--incredibly confident, tenacious, grippy, driven, feisty, willing, ready, eager, fearless animals that were bred to do battle with other animals. all traits that likely have some role in contributing a bit toward a dog that's quick to spark up at a challenge of any sort, whether from another dog or from another animal.

Doc hasn't been feeling well

Poor Pit Bull. Hasn't been feeling well the past few days. He went to the vet on Friday, and he's on the mend. But he's still a bit under the weather.

Bad at Blogging

Clearly I need to work much harder to keep this blog up to date. You'd think, being a writer/editor and all, I'd be able to come up with content for this thing more often.

But since the last post, here's what happened: BSL bill in Baltimore County was defeated, Tucker had his first Pets on Wheels/therapy dog visits at a local nursing home, Doc was entered in the Working Pit Bull Terrier Club of America's 2007 Championship events and got a third place novice weight pull ribbon and a blue ribbon for looking pretty in the neutered dog fun conformation event thing. Trying not to let it go to his head.

Held our first meeting for the Pit Bull Education Project thing that Michelle and I have been talking about, literally, for years. Went well. And coincidentally, the group came up with the name Bmore Dogs for the project. I swear, I had nothing to do with it. But it was my favorite name on the list of names we came up with!

And in other news . . . Tucker=Not Scared of Clowns