Excellent factual and scientific information from the National Canine Research Council. Please pass it on. “Pit bull” is not a breed. It is a social construct, the perception of an individual or group, an idea that is invented and ‘constructed’ through cultural or social practice. “Pit bull” exists because people agree to behave as if it does, even though they can’t tell you exactly what they mean by the term. In past litigation in Ohio, the county dog warden summed it up nicely when he admitted that there really was no way to tell whether or not a dog was a “pit bull,” and that the determination was a matter of subjective opinion. Differences of definition, lack of agreement between visual identifications and DNA breed signatures, disagreement among observers looking at the same dog, and poor understanding of the meaning of breed and genetic relatedness, mean that an individual’s belief as to whether or not a dog is a “pit bull” may have no scientific significance whatsoever, but severe consequences with respect to the welfare of an individual dog.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 16:38:49 +0000
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