Vent - Fuck pit bulls who have shitty owners

This. This is my fear. I had a pit bull mix a long time ago and had it put down because it attacked a neighbors dog. They have a very strong prey drive and some can’t be trusted.

I’m sorry and I hope your golden is okay.

I did a lot of research before getting a pitbull. Most attacks are by unneutered males.

I have a spayed female. She is nearly 10 years old. We did a lot of obedience training with her as a pup. When we adopted her, we had two cats. And she lives now with two cats and a chihuahua. I have never seen her be aggressive. In fact when she sniffs my one cat, the cat will swipe her nose with its claws. And she does not fight back.

Over the years we have heard a lot of negative feedback about our dog. We keep our dog away from others not in our household for two reasons 1) people's bias against her and 2) if there was a dog fight she would be blamed for it.

I feel a lot of dog fights occur because people aren't properly training their dogs. And a lot of dogs can't be socialized. This applies to a lot of breeds. They need to be an only dog. Some can't get along with children either.

My daughter brought that chihuahua into our house and he was only 2 pounds. Now is still only 5. When he came, I supervised the interactions for over 3 months before I would allow the two anywhere close to one another without me in the room. Because if something had gone wrong, the chihuahua would have been killed. When I leave the house I still separate them for safety reasons.

I think part of being a responsible dog owner is training, respecting the size and power of a big dog, and exposing your dog to other dogs and maybe cats to socialize them from a young age.

I hate that pitbulls get a bad rap. Mine is docile and laid back and well behaved. I've had a lot of dogs over the years and she's right at the top as far as one of the best. I don't know if my dog is a unicorn or what. And it's possible as she ages she might get a bit grumpy. But for now, she's a good dog. And the chihuahua is her best friend. And he's can be a total asshole. Training has been lost on him.

My dog used to be friendly. But now at 14 he barks at everyone and his voice has gotten gravel-ly with age so the change in pitch from ‘hi there look at me’ to ‘get the F off *my* grass’ to ‘ you want a piece of me’ isn’t always easily discernible especially with other noises.

A new dog moved in across the hall, friendly as heck golden, seems to be training to be something ( vest ) not sure what. But she has a LONG way to go on training because she’s convinced my old guy wants to play with her and she won’t stay out of his business. I am pretty sure he doesn’t want to play ( which is weird he usually likes female dogs ) Problem is the golden is never on a leash and like I said that training has a long way to go. In addition my dogs eyesight & hearing are less than they were. I can’t be sure he hears or sees what I think he does, like commands, or perhaps he just likes to selectively hear me. I don’t know. I keep mine on his leash and away from other dogs because I just can’t read him anymore and I need to protect him from himself and others.

ANY dog with a crappy owner can be a problem. And while I don’t think the girl across the hall is a bad person I do think she is naive about what could happen to her dog off leash. We also live be a super busy road. So getting into a scuffle with my old man isn’t the biggest danger to her. Freaks me out when that dog is loose.

I've had several bad encounters with pitbulls.
My cousin had one that attacked the neighbors cat and brought it in and was eating it on her couch. She hit it with a taser and it didn't even phase the dog.

My parents dog was killed by one that took him off their front porch. It happened as I was getting my one year old ready to go out on the porch. Animal control came out and was refusing to take the dog even though it's owner agreed to it. My dad had to call her supervisor before she took it in.

A few years later, the same people got another pitbull. It grabbed the neighbors three year old off his bike by his foot and was trying to drag him into the woods. Luckily the dog owner saw and was able to help get his dog off. He took it out back and shot it before animal control even arrived that time.

As a pittbull owner, I agree with jeremysgirl
It is all on the owner knowing their dog.  
Yes, mine is a big baby.  He is the sweetest dog, to his family.  But I know that he is sketchy with some people and dogs.  People ask if they can pet him, I say no.  He has gotten "weird" with people so it is best to just leave him be.  I know his body language, I can read him.  I know when to walk away from a situation with him.

Our little 15lb dig is a dink. He loves people to the point of being annoying. When we have people over we ask them their comfort level. I have a few friends that are dog people and love that he is all over them. Other friends not so much, so we put him in our room. This past weekend we had a couple new people over and their little one was nervous at first because our dog is so too much when others arrive. We slowly introduced them and by the end of the night they were playing together.

Our neighbor has a pit bull and she is supper sweet, but I would never risk our little dink of a dog being next to her because ours would initiate a fight.

Exactly this. My in-laws had a stark raving lunatic of a Dalmatian-Border Collie mix who on a good day would be nipping at your heels trying to herd you and on her worst day attacked a neighbor’s little dog requiring about $1000 in vet bills to save its life. The in-laws opted to have her put down after that because she couldn’t be trusted.

Sorry that happened to you and your little pup. I have two dogs one who is a 7 pound little pup, I would be scared too.

Agree with others who have said it's on the owner, not the pit bull though. DD15 and I encountered a lost female pitbull one time, she was the sweetest thing ever.

This is my old lady 12-year-old dog. She's a black lab/border collie mix so she's very smart and friendly most of the time. But NOT to dogs who are running toward her or who are too energetic. When she was younger she loved nothing more than to play with high-energy dogs, but not anymore. Yet some people will let their dog bounce up to mine (on a leash but still...) even as they can see mine backing up to get away.   I usually pull her back and sometimes stand between the dogs if the owner is clueless so their dog can greet me instead of harassing my dog. New neighbors moved in on our block a few months ago and they have two senior dogs. My dog is already good friends with one of them (the other one is just a grouch, hahaha...sweet dog though to people) because when they first met that dog approached slowly to greet mine, not leaping up like some deranged rabbit. hahaha 

signed - (moderately well-behaved) Chiweenie family member

Really?

The only dog that ever bit me aggressively in my life (as a child) was my neighbors well trained black lab. Any dog has a latent prey instinct. Never say never with dogs.

I’m sorry OP, that must’ve been so scary. Not that it likely would helped in this instance, but I sort of wish dog parks were able to split the sizes up more. There’s a huge difference between even a 45lb dog, and 75lb one.

My big 70lb dog *loves* every person and every dog, and can be overwhelming in her exuberance. We’re still working on training her that not everyone or every dog loves her back. She’s getting better (she’s just 3) she’s stopped jumping on people (yay!), but she’s still learning that.