We are overrun with pitbulls and pitbull crosses

[Joanne]

If you go to any of the humane societies or animal services around here, the dogs are predominantly pitbulls. I read Craigslist regularly and the dog breed most often on there is pitbulls. We have a tremendous amount of backyard breeders here. Then I read this a few minutes ago and bang my head against the table… She is a pitbull.

“I have a female that needs stud services… i wanted to get her fixed right away but my family thinks i should let her be a mother one tjme before i take that away from her she is a little over a year old all shots and rabis and regular health checks. I would only want two of the puppies and stud owner could have the rest not wanting to breed to sell. Dont care about what bone or if they are gotti gatore or razor edge. Im not concerened over that. She is a family dog not a fighter. Im not paying for it either.”

Oh, I have seen an ad where they have been breeding a pitbull and a chihuahua and offered up their pitbull as a stud for chihuahuas.

I’m just venting since a lot of these dogs end up by being put to sleep.

[RedmondDressage]

UGH. People are so sucky. I learned quickly to stay away from the CL pet section. After having a really hard time finding a rescue that would adopt to us (because we live on a farm and don’t have a fully fenced property) I started perusing CL… Every day it made my blood boil with ads like this. People are just so $&@!*&$ stupid. I was so glad to ultimately find a rescue that looked at our unique situation and didn’t just write us off at the start… I loathed the thought of having to deal with and give money to any of those CL idiots.

Aaaaaand guess what breed our rescue ended up being? Pittie/Cattle Dog mix. One of those stories that is all too common - Momma - a pregnant pittie - got turned in to a high kill shelter. The rescue we went through sprung her and the puppies. Awesome, adorable, and SMART puppy we got though

[WinsomeTK]

To think that dog almost got spayed before getting pimped on CL for the joy of feeling like a beached whale and birthing unwanted puppies that will end up in a shelter or worse…

And a pit bull male and a chihuahua? I don’t see that going well. Or giving good results…

Oh, I need to stay off the menagerie forum too, even a repost of the initial CL post puts me in a bad mood… :no:

[SquishTheBunny]

The breed is banned here where I live. Its sad that so many have lost their lives. They can be wonderful dogs in the right hands. Just like any other breed out there, some will be good some bad.

I have a 14 year old pittie cross that was a dump. She has been my dog of a lifetime. Great with small dogs, large dogs, cats, rabbits etc. Never barks, has the best manners and when people come to the door she just quietly goes up and says hi. She is not timid, nor shy - but she is also not hyper. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect dog - however I did have her since a puppy.

I did get her after the ban - however the ones that were already alive they didn’t cull - rather by law state they had to be sterilized. I spayed her (was going to anyway). We don’t see too many pitties around here anymore. It hasn’t fixed the “dog attacks” though.

[vacation1]

There’s been a hugely successful reduction in shelter euthanizations for dogs over the past 30 years, but the reverse is true of pit bulls. Their numbers have increased relentlessly. I think that despite the CL ad claiming they don’t want fighting lines, the reason for this endless reproduction isn’t that pit owners don’t “get” speuter, it’s that unlike most dogs, the pit has an economic value. You can actually make some money selling them and fighting them. Yet pit bull activists reject mandatory spay/neuter for pit bulls. If 99% of the dogs in my shelter looked like my dog’s twin, I think I’d be begging lawmakers to make spay/neuter mandatory, not whining that it’s “unfair” to me to single out my breed of choice.

At the risk of becoming like those pit forum sickos who exult in stories of the good ol’ dogmen, that first CL ad was just odd. I was googling, and the Gotti and Razor Edge pit bulls are described as being the less athletic, more massive style - the ones that have started to be called American Bullys. It seems strange that the CL writer was aware of these names, yet uses them to imply that if he’s not seeking them, he’s not seeking a fighting dog. The serious fighting lines probably are not being selected for bloated heads and bodies, but for aggression. I almost wonder if that was a reverse ad - a subtle way of saying he is interested in a fighting line pit.

[GraceLikeRain]

Ya…hmmmm…trying to find my inner happy place with this topic. I get so sad, angry, and frustrated. At the local shelter it is 80%+ pits and 99% of the ones euthed are pitties. Plenty are phenomenal dogs but there are a finite number of homes for any specific breed type in an area.

[volvo_240]

:no: :mad::disgust:

Going to hug my (spayed) pitty who I ‘rescued’(aka bought for $400 bucks to get her away) from some idiot who would have done the same thing.

Her mom is an unregistered, assumed to be pit bull from L.A. who some WT idiot bred at 5 years old to his sister’s ( unregistered, bad hipped) male to sell pups. She would have been traded to one of his equally charming friends in exchange for a 4 wheeler :rolleyes:

[make_x_it_x_so]

It’s really horrible. I always thought I didn’t like pitties/pit-types, not because I actually believed they were vicious but just because society has taught us to not like them.

Then I adopted this darling of a dog, and now I absolutely LOVE pitties/pit mixes. Based on her DNA test (real accurate, I know) she is predominately AmStaff.

The only downside I’ve found to adopting her is that getting renter’s insurance and finding places to live can be tough (I’m still a student, so I rent right now). But if I ever have the means, I’d love to have a whole farm of these guys because I just can’t get over their goofy ways.

[spotted_draft_x_fill]

The poor chihuahua! I have seen what happens when a larger dog breeds a small bitch. The pups were so huge, they ended up dying in utero, which ultimately killed her.

[Catersun]

i too am very frusterated with the crap pitt breeders, we are over run here too and it makes me so very very sad. I miss my pit girl, and have since had a very bad experince with a feral pup we rescued. I LOVE their personalities… but so many bad breedings have made it a crap shoot to try and get a good mentally stable dog.

[LauraKY]

I think it’s time to start charging huge fees for intact animals. Want to breed? Fine, pay the bill.

That in conjunction with low cost spay and neuter everywhere would make quite a dent in the unwanted animal population.

By the way, if you see backyard breeders advertising on craigslist, report them to your state tax division. Odds are they’re not reporting that income. You just need name, address and phone number to report.

[Emilia]

I think, animal breeding is a matter of education and self-control.

I would not mandate people to pay to keep animals intact.

I am from an European country and most of our animals are intact. For some reason, it is just not the fashion to spay/neuter.

Especially, with female dogs, it is considered a big surgery and people just don’t want to risk it, I guess.

Most people just control their dogs and manage the females in heat, which only comes twice a year usually with only about 5 critical days (about 21 altogether). Girls do wear their panties with diapers at home.

People are educated and know, how to treat intact animals.

We don’t have the kind of problems with overpopulation as it exists in the US. We do not have kill shelters either (we do have shelters).

I won’t pretend, I know, why the situation is better there than here. We are not nicer people.

As for pit-bulls and Amstaffs, well, they are quite controversial breeds even in Europe. I believe, they have been banned in some states, mostly because of the kind of damage they do, when they decide to be aggressive. Their jaws are truly powerful and they won’t give up, like any good terrier.

I do not like the breeds but I am prejudiced. My friend had two dogs and his Amstaff decided one day “out of blue” to kill his aging Airedale terrier. He managed to kill him and it was ugly.

I see, many people can get along with them very well.

In our county, the shelter dogs are mostly hounds and pit-bulls.

[Countrywood]

Charge anyone who intends to breed a high tax and discourage the darn thing already.

[CVPeg]

Agree. It’s too soon for me to get another dog. But I’ll still scan the shelter/rescue sites. The shelters in upstate NY are LOADED with pitbulls. Some shelters it’s probably 90% of what they have. I’m sure there are some great dogs, but I wouldn’t even want the chance of the insurance company inquiries, or concerns for who would watch him/her while I’m away. I used to associate them more with the city shelters, but they are even out in the boonies to a great extent now as well. :no:

[Beckham03]

This breaks my heart, Pits really get the crap end of the deal. My newly adopted Pit Bull is laying in my lap. He was picked up weighing 23 lbs (he is around 45 now), wrapped in barbed wire, and HW positive. He is the best dog, loves to cuddle and play, loves other animals…it breaks my heart to think that just because he is a Pit, he could’ve been put down and not given a chance.

[Marshfield]

[QUOTE=Countrywood;7367189]
Charge anyone who intends to breed a high tax and discourage the darn thing already.[/QUOTE]

This just punishes the responsible breeders. The ones who take back any puppy they produce and do all the recommended health testing. The folks mass producing pitbulls and the like aren’t licensing their dogs and they’re never going to pay the suggested tax.

[bits619]

It is extremely frustrating and upsetting. We currently have three pit/pit mix types (2 look very pitty, the third has some other features too), and one is a recent return (adoptive owner turned out to be not so dedicated to her and dumped her at an adoption event) who took about 9 months to be adopted the first time around. The second (with the lesser pitty looks) I picked up lying in the middle of the road (not hurt just a …Kinda… dumb sunbathing spot) 11.5 months ago. Perfectly adoptable and sweet. The third was a horrible neglect case who we’ll probably have for another 6 months.
Altogether 6-9 non-pit dogs could have been fostered/adopted in this time frame. They just take longer in general to be adopted, in part because there already is a constant influx of pits at any given time at our nearby animal control. The market is saturated, and then some. Our group gets emails every few days asking for help with finding homes for pit mixes that people have found.
Pits are hard to rehome without becoming long term fosters (6 months, 1 year,…). We reserve a couple of spaces for them but we just don’t have the adoptive base (interested or knowledgeable/suitable for the breed) for more than that.

I really wish we had dog licensing and spay neuter laws around here. And better education, of course.

[Coyoteco]

The dynamic here as I understand it is that people will adopt a pit bull rather than another dog because they feel that the pit bull is more at risk. So, the collie gets euthanized because the person wants to save the pit bull and assumes the collie will get adopted by someone else.

I had heard “of” this phenomena, and recently heard people talking at a kill shelter saying exactly that “I want to adopt a pit bull because they need more help.” Yet, the chiuahua and the lab sit there unadopted and will probably be killed.

It’s a real problem when a municipality “outlaws” any breed - all those nasty “unintended consequences” showing up again.

[GraceLikeRain]

[QUOTE=LauraKY;7366751]
I think it’s time to start charging huge fees for intact animals. Want to breed? Fine, pay the bill.
.[/QUOTE]

Huge fees for intact dogs will push the small but responsible breeders out of business. It is hard to find people willing to pay $1k for a well bred puppy and even with that, breeders rarely break even. If a breeder is factoring in the additional annual costs they will either need to charge substantially more or they will elect to leave the market. Without responsible, ethical, and educated breeders, we will no longer have distinct breeds.

[bits619]

@Coyoteco;7368029

The dynamic here as I understand it is that people will adopt a pit bull rather than another dog because they feel that the pit bull is more at risk. So, the collie gets euthanized because the person wants to save the pit bull and assumes the collie will get adopted by someone else.

I had heard “of” this phenomena, and recently heard people talking at a kill shelter saying exactly that “I want to adopt a pit bull because they need more help.” Yet, the chiuahua and the lab sit there unadopted and will probably be killed.

I have heard “of” that happening as well, but from my perspective in rescue, I find it very hard to believe happening in real life. Trust me, if there are rescues and adopters in the area, the purebreds have eyes on them.
Here, in a very pit-friendly college area, if a desirable breed comes in (pretty much any purebred, especially smaller, or any mix that’s fluffy and scruffy), it’s a running joke about how many rescues have already made the call on the dog. They get tons of applications from the public, too. It’s true that the purebreds or fluffy scruffies take attention/prospective adopters away from the pits, but there isn’t really that backlash of everyone deciding to go for the underdog instead.