Читать книгу Pit Bulls For Dummies - D. Caroline Coile - Страница 19

Dog breeds often wax and wane in popularity, and so it has been with the Pit Bull. After World War II, the Pit Bull gradually faded from the public eye and the family home. True devotees, however, remained as loyal to their dogs as their dogs were to them. Some of the breed remained as steadfast pets, others continued as game pit dogs — and many performed both roles admirably.

Dog fighting, although illegal, continued to be carried out with minimal interference from law enforcement until the 1970s, when the American Dog Owner’s Association (ADOA) formed to lobby against dogfights. The ADOA was successful in bringing public attention to the pit — helping to push dog fighting into the shadows and propelling pit dogs into an unflattering limelight.

As with many well-intentioned laws, some unforeseen problems accompanied the crackdown on dog fighting. Dog fighting continued; it just went underground. Its illegal nature attracted patrons whose major area of knowledge was in pay-offs and threats, not Pit Bulls. Knowledgeable dogmen (the term for serious breeders of fighting Pit Bulls) could no longer distribute information about training methods, leaving newcomers to dog fighting — who often believed scare tactic propaganda — to experiment using cruel practices. They trained the dogs using stolen puppies and dogs as “bait dogs” in an attempt to encourage them to kill, fed them gunpowder in an attempt to make them mean, and hired strangers to beat the dogs with clubs in an attempt to make them aggressive to strangers. Not surprisingly, their dogs seldom succeeded at matches, and they were often discarded. The harm done to these dogs made them difficult to place as pets, and the harm done to the breed’s reputation was immeasurable.

A certain segment of the population has always wanted to have the toughest dog on the block. Various breeds have filled these shoes throughout the years, and beginning in the early 1980s the Pit Bull was on its way to becoming the “tough guy” poster dog.