[bparker]

I did some research a while back in college about Pitbulls and here is what I found.

The "American" version of a pit bull is a mix:

They bread a "Staffordshire Bull Terrier" - that origionated from Staffordshire England

With a Boxer and a Dalmation to get the "American" Pit Bull

The "American" Pit Bull and the "Staffordshire Bull Terrier" were so closely related and in appearance the AKC split the breed by defining two different breeds to be recognized.

We now have the smaller Stafford Shire Bull Terrier (not popular in the USA because they are small.

And we have the "American Staffordshire Bull Terrier" AKA Pit Bull Terrier.

Other factoid:

The "hyper-agressive" highly sought after for game dogs "fighting gene" came from the Dalmation breed - since dalmations are so heavily "inbread/linebread" there are many "physcho" pups which are hyper-agressive - this gene was passed along to the "American Pit" and with this gene an "American Pit" is dam near unstoppable.



I have been around "pits" all of my life and I have only seen two dogs with the hyper agressive gene and they are not anything to be messed with. One I knew had attacked 4 people and killed 1 other dog before the age of 1yr old. She had to be put down. Her last chance was when she scaled a fence to attack a child despite being in a fenced yard chained to a tire filled with cement. She was still able to pull the tire to the fence and then get over it to bite a child that was taunting her.

From the same litter, her sister pup was totally mellow and loved people (hated cats) and is still living today (quite old) and is a lap dog for a firend of mine that is a lobbist and lives in Dallas.

The biggest pit bull i have ever seen was owned by Nate Newton (former Dallas Cowboy) and his "prize" dog was named "Barney" and was just over 180lbs!! He loved for us to throw footballs and play keep away as he would eventually catch it in mid air and pop them in his mouth and begin to shread them.