Not really. Even "old school" working catch dogs in this breed may require a break stick to get the dog to release game. In addition, the dogs are strong.
And that's really the crux of the problem.
Dogs will be dogs. They can be the nicest animal on the planet, but at some point a dog will bite you--maybe you did something stupid, maybe the dog accidentally got underfoot and got kicked, maybe the dog is just sick, maybe something agitated the dog, whatever. A bite will happen. The problem with pit bulls is that when they bite the damage is much more problematic than with other breeds.
And this is the real issue. Because of their strength, pit bulls (and a small number of other breeds) account for a disproportionate amount of deaths and hospitalizations relative to other breeds.
It also doesn't help that these types of dogs are disproportionately owned by jackasses.
My dog bit me accidentally while playing, a few times. Every time, he apologized. (That is: he stopped playing, made a characteristic sound, and licked me to make sure I was OK.)
I remember when I was a kid one of the cats we had - who at that point was very much not a kitten and blind to boot - had gotten into a tussle with some strange cat. I just reached in to the melee and grabbed our cat. He promptly bit my and - or rather he started to. Didn't even break the skin. Just immediately stopped and I swear to God if a cat could say, "Oh, I'm sorry I thought you were someone else" that's what he would have said.
Because getting people to be responsible has worked as a solution for anything ...
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Ah. Exactly ... Never.
This is a breed that should be allowed to die out. They were bred specifically for fighting, and there is no good reason for them to exist. There are plenty of other dog breeds with equivalent characteristics that aren't such a danger to people.
Almost all dogs were bread to fight or hunt. There is some exceptions of course, but it’s the majority. If we were to kill every single one of them, we’d be left with chihuahua.
There is a HUGE difference between being bred to hunt vs bred to fight. It is disingenuous of you to conflate the two categories.
Most dogs bred to hunt are bred to not excessively damage the animal being hunted. A hunted animal is of no use to a human if the animal is ripped up and has its intestines contaminating all the meat, for example. These dogs have been especially bred to tone down their aggressiveness.
If we step up to slightly bigger game like, say, bears, dogs being used in that case are not bred to latch and hold on as it will likely get them killed. The dogs are to distract and chase. It is not a good trade to swap a single dog for a single bear. Again, those dogs are being bred to to not have a too strong an aggressiveness.
Hunting dogs are meant for the human to deliver the fatal blows while the dogs mostly chase, distract and retrieve. This means breeding to prevent aggression from becoming too strong.
Dogs bred to fight are precisely the opposite. The are bred to have high aggression and high persistence even in the face of existential threats to themselves.
There is no reason to continue breeding pit bulls (or any other fighting dog). Period. There are far superior breeds of dogs for any characteristic you can choose.
Pit bulls are more likely to bite and when they do, they hold the bite much longer than basically any other dog breed and they often require outside intervention to stop the second bite.
Once the dog has demonstrated itself to be dangerous, there is not much you can do other than euthanasia. The worst thing you can do is bring it to a shelter and let an unsuspecting family take the dangerous dog in. A lot of trouble would be saved by choosing a similar looking dog breed that isn't as aggressive or dangerous.
You talking like a bite must happen. No it's not. Source: myself, we ve had a dozen of dogs. Among them : rotweiler, new foundlands, montagne de pyrénées, terrier, and dozens of chihuahua and spitzs
Not really. Even "old school" working catch dogs in this breed may require a break stick to get the dog to release game. In addition, the dogs are strong.
And that's really the crux of the problem.
Dogs will be dogs. They can be the nicest animal on the planet, but at some point a dog will bite you--maybe you did something stupid, maybe the dog accidentally got underfoot and got kicked, maybe the dog is just sick, maybe something agitated the dog, whatever. A bite will happen. The problem with pit bulls is that when they bite the damage is much more problematic than with other breeds.
And this is the real issue. Because of their strength, pit bulls (and a small number of other breeds) account for a disproportionate amount of deaths and hospitalizations relative to other breeds.
It also doesn't help that these types of dogs are disproportionately owned by jackasses.