Читать книгу Pit Bulls For Dummies - D. Caroline Coile - Страница 30

IN THIS CHAPTER

Visualizing the ideal Pit Bull

Sizing up your dog — ADBA-, UKC-, and AKC-style

You wouldn’t hire a Sumo wrestler to moonlight as a trapeze artist, and you wouldn’t ask a ballet dancer to do double duty as a weightlifter. Different body types excel at different athletic endeavors. It’s no accident that Pit Bulls look like Pit Bulls. They look like they do because they are built a certain way to do a certain job.

But looks aren’t everything. The best-looking Pit Bull would, historically at least, be a dead Pit Bull if he lacked the intelligence, agility, and gameness required to make it through a match. Although, fortunately, most Pit Bulls today will never see a fighting pit, they carry with them a heritage of physical and mental characteristics that were once essential for their ancestors’ survival.

Now that most Pit Bulls are no longer subject to such an unforgiving means of selecting breeding stock as pit fighting or bull-baiting, how do we ensure that the very essence of this noble breed is not lost for posterity? We do the best we can by breeding them according to a standard of perfection that — as nearly as possible — aspires to the ideal vision of a successful fighting Pit Bull.