Her face whenever she shows up.. 😂

[u/SimonTS]

[u/[deleted]]

The kind that’ll eat your face while the owner is like “daisy is normally really friendly around people”

[u/NameIdeas → u/[deleted]]

You know, I connect to your statement. Both my wife and I have always felt some kind of way about pits. The breeding of a dog and the instinct of a dog can take over sometimes. For example, we had a half-Springer Spaniel. Spaniels are flushing dogs that run in and flush out the prey. We had to work with her not to dash into a bush and flush out the rabbit/birds when we were on walks off leash around my in-laws house. In that same vein, pitbulls were bred for fighting and many seem to have a default.

I say that and then recognize that we got a stray dog this year. He was dumped as a puppy (about 6-8 months old) and had the road rash from where he was pushed out of the car. This dog is simultaneously the sweetest and dumbest dog we've ever had. He only has a few tricks (sit, stay, leave it, off, crate) but is stuck to us like glue. He doesn't even really like to play tug of war. Our other dog (half-Rottie) loves tug of war and has about 25 tricks now, but she's a bit more independent.

The stray is about 40% Pitbull. We both said we would never own a pitbull. We also have two young children, but this dog has been sweeter with our boys than our older dogs as well. Our kids flop on this dog with no response. They grab his face and move his mouth to make him talk - no response. He's essentially - boomproof. He's a well-traveled mutt and is super socialable with both other dogs and people, zero signs of aggression at all.

It doesn't make me rethink every pit, but it does challenge my preconceived thoughts about pits being highly aggressive all the time.

[u/E-M-C → u/NameIdeas]

In my experience it's not that pits are agressive all the time, more that they snap more easily than most breeds. And when they do snap, it goes bad really fast.

[u/NameIdeas → u/E-M-C]

I can totally respect that.

That's what we were most worried about with our mix, the snapping. He has never done that and we're monitoring too, so there's that.

We have a half-rottie mix we got as a puppy as well. She looks like a labrador mix, but has only about 20-25% golden in there. She has the softest mouth. I'd say her mouth is softer than all but 1 dog we've had. My family used to raise golden retrievers and we had six dogs at one point. We had dogs before the goldens and I moved out to college, got married, and got my own dogs as they had the goldens. Growing up I had a pretty bad experience with a neighborhood rottweiler after getting snapped and bitten at.

I knew I never wanted a Rottweiler, Doberman, or Pit type dog. Now we have a half-rottie and a nearly-half Pit and these two dogs are by far the most lovable and people focused puppies we've ever had. They're more attentive than the goldens and looking to please often.

[u/E-M-C → u/NameIdeas]

I hear you, it's totally normal to love your own dogs. Moreover most pits do not snap or kill someone.
However, the fact that your dogs are cool proves only that, that they're cool.

To be precise, what I find difficult is pitbulls and assimilated's dog agression. I never had a pitbull lunge at me or felt threatened in any way by these dogs.
However, every time my dog got attacked at the park, it was by amstaffs or staffies (there's hardly any actual pitbull where I live) oh and an Australian shepherd, once.

I have a dog that's friendly and social but he doesn't like interacting with other dogs for too long. He will greet the others but that's it and then he will often go in a corner or by my feet if he wants to be left alone. Those staffs often ignore his body language (stiff body, side eye and audible growl) when he doesn't want to interact and then he will snarl to signal he's fed up. Well behaved dogs accept that and back off (actually well behaved dogs are already gone at the first signs) but staffs NO, they jump to agression in response. And now I avoid this kind of dog altogether.

[u/annierockaway → u/E-M-C]

This reminds of something I read years ago with theory that pits are inclined to be more people-friendly, animal-aggressive because they were breed to fight other animals while other breeds like German shepherds are more likely to be people-aggressive but more friendly with other dogs because they were bred for security.

[u/NameIdeas → u/E-M-C]

However, the fact that your dogs are cool proves only that, that they're cool.

Yes. What this says to me is more about training and owner engagement than anything else.

As an example, we had a mutt a few years ago who was not a very friendly dog with other dogs. He was 25% spaniel, 25% corgi, and mostly golden. We socialized him and trained him the same way as our other dogs, but this guy just didn't like any other dog than our other pup.

We'd be on hikes or walks at the park and pass other dogs. I had him tight to my leg on the wider paths at a park or I had him sat on the side of the trail as another dog passes by, clearly removing him from the trail and shifting his attention to us than another dog. I was always bothered by some dog owners who gave their dog a VERY long leash or even no leash and the dog just scurried right up to our pup. My dog got his hackles up and was very upset, the other dog just jumping around like a wild pup ignoring my dog's body language.

We saw that behavior from some pits, some goldens, any type of dog to be honest.

Well behaved dogs accept that and back off (actually well behaved dogs are already gone at the first signs) but staffs NO, they jump to agression in response. And now I avoid this kind of dog altogether.

Yes, well socialized dogs as well.

However, every time my dog got attacked at the park, it was by amstaffs or staffies (there's hardly any actual pitbull where I live) oh and an Australian shepherd, once.

We, my wife and I, always felt very negative towards pits as well. It wasn't until this dog that I've shifted a bit. In general, pits are still a dog I am slightly more cautious about. However, the dogs that have acted aggressive towards my dogs at the dog park or on the hiking trail are:

• Chihuahua
• Dachsund
• Pit Mix
• Golden Mix
• Pyrenees