The American Pit Bull Terrier

10 Pages 2513 Words

t look back at their history. The actual time of origin for the Pit Bull is not truly known. The most common belief is that they came to be sometime in the early 1800’s (O’Neil, 1995, p.12). Dog fighting has been around from before the Pit Bull was created. Many times dog fighting was part of a long day of events such as bull baiting, where a dog or group of dogs were sent in to pin the nose of a chained up bull to the ground until the bull could no longer fight ( O’Neil, 1995, p.8). After the Humane Acts of 1835 were passed in England, dog fighting gain more popularity. This is because it was easier to hold an illegal dog fight in a small area, such as a cellar, compared to trying to find a safe area large enough to hold a bear baiting event (O’Neil, 1995, p.10). In order to try to make the dogs into better and faster fighters, people started to mix Bulldogs and Terriers. By mixing the two different types of dogs they hoped to get the strength of the bulldog and the speed and courageousness of the terriers (O’Neil, 1995, p.12). When these mixed breed dogs came to America these dogs began to take on a more uniform look. As settlers began to expand the borders of America westward people brought with them these dogs for protection from wild animals. In doing this they started to breed only the larger versions of these mixed bred dogs (O’Neil, 1995, p.17). Sometime in 1898, a man named Chauncy Z. Bennett founded the United Kennel Club and used the name American Pit Bull Terrier as the formal name for these mixed bred dogs (O’Neil, 1995, p.17). This is where documentation for the breed began.


Pit Bull p.3

After reading the above it may be hard to believe that these animals, which were created to fight each other and other animals, could be considered as an excellent choice for a family pet. To better understand this we need to look at on of the cruelest forms of sports (if one can call it a sport), dog fighting. Whe...