Читать книгу American Pit Bull Terrier Handbook - Joe Stahlkuppe - Страница 35

The bulldogs of the bull- and bear-baiting days were nothing like the snuffling, short-faced Bulldogs seen at the dog shows today. Bulldogs can be excellent pets, but their grotesque heads, bodies, and breathing apparatus prevent the kind of exertion required to tangle with an angry bear or bull or even an angry dog. The bulldogs of those early years about two-and-a-half centuries ago were quite different. In fact, the paintings of bulldogs of that time show them to closely resemble the APBTs and Amstaffs of our time.

Just as lighter, quicker, more agile dogs, such as Brabanter and the early bulldog, replaced the mastiffs in bull- and bearbaiting, so would a more nimble dog replace the bulldog as the primary fighting dog. This dog would need the bravery of the bulldog and the key ingredient, gameness, to become the preeminent pit dog.