http://www.dogsbite.org/dangerous-dog…
Pit bull owners strategy: pit bull can’t be identified
Studies show that pit bull owners employ strategies to disguise the true nature of the breed by engaging in distortions, denial and overcompensation and by projecting blame after attacks.
Not normal dog owners
To understand the experience of owning a negatively perceived dog, Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy did a case study on pit bull owners that was published in 2000. Researchers found that with “outlaw” breeds, such as pit bulls, the human-dog relationship is sociologically more complex than previously known. Owners of pit bulls, they discovered, directly feel the stigma targeted at their breed and resort to various tactics to mitigate it. These strategies included: “passing their dogs as breeds other than pit bulls, denying that their behavior is biologically determined, debunking adverse media coverage, using humor, emphasizing counter-stereotypical behavior, avoiding stereotypical equipment or accessories, taking preventive measures, or becoming breed ambassadors.”1
The study is sympathetic to pit bull owners and makes unsourced claims, but does show the basis of pro-pit bull propaganda. Strategies identified by the researchers are the same strategies employed by pro-pit bull groups to stop a municipality from enacting a pit bull law. For instance, pit bull advocates will claim that a pit bull cannot be identified, that there is a media conspiracy against pit bulls and that pit bulls are “really nice dogs” that only want to “lick you to death.”
As with many of the older working breeds the breed name is also a job description. Pointer, retriever, setter, hovawart and shepherd are examples. The Pit Bull Terrier or American (Pit) Bull Terrier was bred solely to do combat in a dogpit. They were never nurse’s aids, nanny dogs, soldiers’ rescue dogs, herding dogs, astronauts, physicists or anything other than combat dogs. I am always suspicious of those who claim to love this breed while simultaneously in such denial of what the breed is in reality. If you love something you love it for what it truly is and not for something it has never been and can never become.
