A Defense of the Pit Bull

The essay’s a little over-wrought, especially at the end, but offers a needed defense of the much put-upon Pit Bull. Writing in Esquire, Tom Junod explains that Pit Bulls are not a breed, more a broad category, which is one reason they get blamed so often.

The pit bull is not a breed but a conglomeration of traits, and those traits are reshaping what we think of as the American dog, which is to say the American mutt. A few generations ago, the typical mutt was a rangy dog with a long snout and pricked ears—a shepherd mix. Now it looks like a pit bull. This is not simply because so many pit-bull owners oppose spaying and neutering their dogs and their dogs are bred so frequently and haphazardly; nor is it simply because so many of the traits associated with pit bulls have proven common. It’s because the very definition of a pit bull is so elastic and encompassing. . . . A German shepherd crossed with a pit bull is a pit bull. A cocker spaniel crossed with a pit bull is a pit bull.

When dogs fight, the Pit Bull is assumed to have been at fault. They are big strong dogs, but it’s not their fault if moronic cocker spaniels and chihuahuas take them on. Junod quotes  Kris Irizarry, a professor of comparative genomics from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Western University of Health Sciences.

“You look at a pit bull’s DNA,” he said, “and the only thing you can really tell is that it’s a dog. That’s why the tests don’t work. There’s no boundary between what genes may or may not be in the breed, and that’s why it’s not a breed. It’s just a general dog and there’s no way to predict its behavior from its appearance. I’m not saying it’s not biology that caused your dog to attack another dog. It’s biology.

“But it’s dog biology rather than pit-bull biology. And so I’m respectfully asking you: However your dog acts, keep it to your dog. Don’t extrapolate and think that all pit bulls do this. Or that all dogs from shelters do this. Or that all short-haired dogs do this. Look at your dog as an individual. That’s the challenge.”