Children Need Pit Bulls: A Picture Book

[DirkGently]

65. Eck. Cheap shot. And it's simply the truth regarding pit bulls, like it or not.

Do you not understand that even the term "pit bull" refers to at least three breeds? Which "pit bull" do you propose everyone is talking about, American Staffordshire Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, or Bull Terriers? All three are freely called "pit bulls" in the much-ballyhooed bite statistics.

Then there are mixes. I know a theoretically half-Lab, half-Pit Bull that looks like an American Pit from the shoulders up; Lab from the shoulders back. Guess what it would be called if it bit someone? Do you contend mixes like that are reported in cases of attack by a careful parsing of the dog's genetic history?

Do you think such a "mixed breed" is a time-bomb waiting to go off because it has a large head, or a "regular dog" because of its sleek hindquarters and waggly tail?

Do you imagine the majority of ill-kept, ill-bred, child-biting dogs are registered purebreds with meticulous breeding histories?

Then there is the sourcing. What a neighbor said the dog was. What the owner of a street-bred dog claims it is. What a local news reporter without any information at all decides from a photograph.

What an internet poster believes based a poorly written blog entry.

Please explain the clear and objective meaning of "Pit bull," Professor. Or is your argument that only AKC-registered, pure-bred show dogs are responsible for everything pinned on "Pit Bulls?"

There IS one valid analogy regarding the "assault weapon" question, which is that every asshole who wants to hurt people with a gun goes looking for an "assault weapon" and every asshole who deliberately keeps a vicious dog calls it a "pit bull."

That doesn't mean either that neither of those exist, or that the assholes all have what they claim.

But by all means, please feel free to give your objective, consistent and irrefutable definition of the term "pit bull."