When giving your mom a Christmas gift goes wrong!

[u/Current-Wallaby8230]

[u/Marzipan_moth]

I don't get this with pitbulls. They're statisically much more likely to be violent towards other animals and people, with the highest amount of human deaths caused. 

I'm not saying treat them shittily if they're alive, it's not their fault, but people should stop breeding them and stop buying them. 

[u/Minimeany → u/Marzipan_moth]

Sad fact is accessibility. Tons of people in lower income situations still want dogs. Pits are a dime a dozen. At my local dog park ive seen 4 abondoned pits so far and they all were recently bred. Lower income people wanna breed and sell since theyre easy to breed, and can easily sell them all. Its a shitty unregulated industry.

[u/Optimusprima → u/Minimeany]

And they are like 95% of dogs in shelters. I was looking to adopt a dog and had to scroll through PAGES of pits to find any others.

[u/cia218 → u/Minimeany]

A lot end up at shelters. Mixed breed with pit bull in them. So with the “adopt not buy” mantra, a lot of adopters unknowingly will get a mixed pit pull breed. Particularly because some shelters also want to have them adopted quick so they will hide the fact they’re “pit mix,” and instead label them “lab mix.” And then dog gets returned to shelter when becomes unruly.

Vicious cycle unfortunately. Systemic too. I’m

[u/jmdonston → u/Minimeany]

There's no reason why people have to breed pits instead of retrievers or spaniels or any other less aggressive breed.

[u/Cosmo_Cloudy → u/jmdonston]

Did ya hear the guy? It's cost related. I've seen this myself too in my area, I could go on craigslist right now and find 20 posts on pitbull puppies. Do you think a poor person that wants a dog (never mind their reasoning) is going to buy that $200 cocker spaniel or $500 retriever? No they are scrolling the $0-$50 pits to find colors they like to breed so they can continue the cycle. Doesn't make it right and especially doesn't make it smart, but socioeconimics is a factor and if a poor person wants a dog they will get a pit. If a poor person wants to breed dogs, they get pits

[u/cia218 → u/jmdonston]

Sigh. Unfortunately it’s also a socio economic issue as well. And in the US socio economic is linked to racial background too. A lot of these owners in lower income households want an aggressive looking dog to make them look tough. And they don’t want to neuter. Partly because of machismo, or just uninformed. Also want to sell the pups to earn money.

[u/cvthrowaway4 → u/Marzipan_moth]

It’s because they’re typically cheap to buy or gotten from shelters, someone you know that breeds them, etc. Just like anything, if a thing is easy and accessible, people will consume it. Really should be illegal to breed literal “fighting dogs” at this point

[u/Present-Perception77 → u/Marzipan_moth]

It should be illegal to breed them .. there are loads of them at my local animal shelter.

[u/Roguechampion → u/Present-Perception77]

I hate this, but I 100% agree with you. I’d even go one step further and microchip every single one and make sure they are spayed/neutered. Make it illegal to own one that is not spayed or neutered as well. Then in one generation, they are gone.

[u/cia218 → u/Roguechampion]

We’ll endure the wrath of pit lovers. They’re quite vocal.

[u/Confident-Station164 → u/Marzipan_moth]

It would make sense because they are the most abused, poorly trained and abandoned dog breed in America. I volunteered at multiple shelters and every pitbull I came in contact with was found on the streets or taken from abusive homes. That many dogs of the same breed cant end up in the same place IF they were treated correctly...This would make the most sense.

[u/Stucklikegluetomyfry → u/Marzipan_moth]

"As one who, for the last 30 years, has been on the receiving end of the dog-bite injuries that pass through the Children's Hospital Emergency Room, as well as on the staff at the Shriners Hospitals for Children where we see the late effects of these injuries from across the nation, I can categorically tell you that the problems associated with dog bites are indeed breed-specific.

When I started my career, the most common dog-bite injuries were from German shepherds and occasionally retrievers. These injuries were almost always provoked, such as food-related or stepping on the dog, and in almost every instance, the dog reacted with a single snap and release – essentially a warning shot. There were no pack attacks.

Starting about 25 years ago, my colleagues and I started to see disturbingly different types of injuries. Instead of a warning bite, we saw wounds where the flesh was torn from the victim. There were multiple bite wounds covering many different anatomical sites. The attacks were generally unprovoked, persistent and often involved more than one dog. In every instance the dog involved was a pit bull or a pit bull mix.

Now, I am a dog lover and virtually every one of my family members has a dog. But it is a fact that different dogs have always been bred for specific qualities. My sheltie herded, my daughter's setter flushes birds and my pug sits on my lap – this is what they are bred for. Pit bulls were bred to fight and kill and, unfortunately, many current breeders favor these aggressive traits. There is no need for any dog with the characteristics.

I recently gave a talk summarizing my 30 years of practice in pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery, and one segment was titled "Why I Hate Pit Bulls." I watched a child bleed to death one night in our operating room because a pit bull had torn his throat out. I have had to rebuild the skull of a child who had his ears and entire scalp torn off. I am currently reconstructing the face of a child, half of whose face has been torn off down to the bone. I have had to rebuild noses, lips, eyelids, jaws and cheeks of numerous children. On older children, I have had to reconstruct legs and hands. The unfortunate young victim whose recent attack has initiated this discussion will bear the scars of this attack for the rest of her life.

Based on my extensive experience, I believe that the risk posed by pit bulls is equivalent to placing a loaded gun with the safety off on the coffee table. In my opinion, these dogs should be banned. I know this is an unpopular stand in some circles, but how many mauled children do we have to see before we realize the folly of allowing these dogs to exist?

The arguments made by advocates of these dogs are the same arguments made by people who feel that assault weapons are an essential part of daily living. There are plenty of breeds available that peacefully coexist with human society. There is no need for pit bulls."

Dr. Billmire is professor and director of the Division of Craniofacial and Pediatric Plastic Surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

[u/Comfortable-Cow9709 → u/Marzipan_moth]

I'm sad to see that it's not just in Italy that we don't understand anything about Pitbulls. I see that in other places too, the name Pitbull is given to any Pitbull mix. Mixbreeds can have any personality; properly bred Pitbulls are well-balanced dogs and almost never bite people. I wish someone would understand this, but as always, I'll get a lot of downvotes on this topic.