Is it a good idea to have a small child and a pit bull living in the same house?

~Get rid of the kid and keep the pit bull.

@RedDeerGuy1 Lol!

The discussion was on a subreddit called Childfree, which is a group for people who don’t want and don’t have kids. I’m sure everyone there would agree with you.

Any dog that bites a child needs to be removed from that home.

@janbb right??!!!

Apparently, however, believing this makes me an asshole.

@trolltoll Some people are fanatics when it comes to animals.

People do get very worked up around this question. I don’t know if there are other Pit Bull owners on Fluther, but I’m one, and I’ll try to give a fair answer.

As for the main question, it depends. It depends on the particular dog’s temperament. It depends on the particular kid. It depends on the level and nature of the dog’s training. It depends on the home environment.

I know that’s a whole lot of “depends”, but that’s where owners of Pitties get defensive, because they know that the designation “Pit Bull” doesn’t really tell you anything about a dog or how it will behave, but the general assumption is that it does tell you quite a bit. By the same token, pit bull owners who frequent dog communities often see the very same “pit bull” behaviors in other breeds (because they’re really just dog behaviors), but people respond to them with far less alarm and disapproval.

It’s impossible for pit bull owners not to make a connection with human racism. The same kinds of generalizations, assumptions, misinformation, skewed reporting and mistrust are at work. Demonizing certain dog breeds isn’t new; in times past, it was Bloodhounds and German Shepherds, but the reputations of those breeds have been thoroughly rehabilitated. Because the dogs are different now? Nope.

So these days, it’s the pit bulls who are the killing machines. People think they “snap”, have “locking jaws” and that their bite is extraordinarily powerful. All part of the myth.

OK, enough preaching. Like @janbb said, if a dog—any dog—has already bitten a kid, that’s all the information you need. But “Pit Bull” is basically no information at all.

Pit Bulls have a reputation for random and often fatal attacks.
The difference with a lot of Pit Bull attacks is the difference between biting vs. horrible mauling and death, something that Pits are notorious for, not just biting, full out maul to the death.
That said, my daughter is now 28 years old and when she was between 2— 7 we had a big 96 lb. hound dog ( known to be even tempered, maybe a little boneheaded, but not aggressive ) and he became more and more aggressive towards others as he got older.

He bit my ex BIL and then me, and we opted to euthanize him. he was a bad seed inspite of tons of professional training. He was never mistreated, lived indoors, was supposed to be a family dog, but he was just “off.” As sad as it was there was no way I was going to keep a large, unpredictable dog around my child, or anyone elses that visited my home. It was heartbreaking as he was a beautiful dog but he had to go and I couldn’t re-home in good conscience since he was a known biter.

I have known several really nice Pits but I would not choose one as a family pet if I had young kids. My friends have a very sweet Pit/Sharpie mix that has never shown aggression towards anyone but…not long ago, out of the blue, she flat out attacked a small dog that approached her. He was okay but we saw what she was capable of and it was scary.

Just this weekend in a town near me, a little 5 year old girl was playing at her friends home and got mauled by a pit bull. It’s not clear from the news accounts if the dog belonged to the friends, but the little girls face was horribly mangled and will require many surgeries. She also has a broken arm and wrist. I bet she will have a fear of dogs after this.
Because of the many stories concerning pit bulls and their bad reputation, I don’t want one near a child.

I don’t think it has as much to do with the breed of dog as it does with people not keeping a proactive watch over children and pets in the home. Kids should not be left unattended with family pets. I don’t care how snuggly and loyal Fluffywuffykins has been every day for the 8 years you have had her in your home, children and pets should be monitored together at all times. I was bit by a dog as a child (on the hand) and my young cousin was bit on the face, requiring reconstructive surgery. Both of those dogs were German shepherds, if memory serves me right. I am an animal lover and pet owner, but the reality is that many adults fail to grasp how to properly respect an animal, we can’t expect that kind of responsibility from children.

The breed (Pit bull) has nothing to do with it. Most dogs bite when “backed in the a corner”, it is not the dog’s fault or the kid’s. It is the adult that can’t or wont control the situation ( dog or kid).
I have two large dogs their combined weight is over 190 pounds. We have the grand-kids visit an the dogs and the kids know the boundaries; the kids – no climbing on dogs or pushing, dogs – no stealing food or jumping up on kids. Kids are allowed to feed small treats and dogs are allowed sit with their chins on the little ones to watch TV shows.

Thing is, Pits are hardwired to be very aggressive. It is not about the owners, it is about the breed characteristics most of the time. The same is true for other large, aggressive breeds, but sorry, Pits ARE the #1 breed for fatal attacks.

You know the answer.

@thorninmud I don’t think you’re actually advocating this point of view, but equating general mistrust of pit bulls with racism is just moronic.

In the UK pit bull terriers are banned by law. There is a good reason for this

Would it make any difference if she was somebody else’s child? No. She’ll be sued for that and the dog will eventually be put down. People want something to blame and dog lover (especially pitbull lovers) will find it easier to blame the owner as irresponsible, in order to defend the breed.

What fascinate me more is that why, despite pitbull’s notorious reputation, many people still want to keep this breed. I mean, there are still many gentle large breed out there… but why pitbull?

My dog is a pit mix.

I wouldn’t tolerate any dog that bit a human, pit bull or Chihuahua.

Fortunately I’m not an idiot, and teach my child not to put his hands and face near the mouth of a scared, distressed, animal who is in pain.

That was a failure of parenting, and it’s the dog and the child who end up the sacrifice.

No dog is “hardwired”. Stupid of the patents for not keeping the baby and sick dog separate. The breed is irrelevant. They need to find a new home for the dog. They are too irresponsible to have one.

@trolltoll My position isn’t that racism and mistrust of Pit Bulls are equivalent, it’s that they come from the same psychological and social dynamics. Applied toward humans, they lead to drawing general conclusions about a whole class based on anecdotes and individual instances.

These generalizations then get popularized and reinforced through sensationalized and selective reporting until the popularized image becomes accepted as the reality. Then confirmation bias takes over, dismissing any contrary evidence as atypical, while latching onto any confirming evidence as proof.

Then a perverse feedback loop gets established whereby the class in question gets treated differently because of the stigmatization, which actually fosters the anti-social behaviors that are now assumed to be “hardwired” or bred into the class. Now, suddenly, there’s plenty of statistics available to prove that the original assumptions were well-founded.

When we do this toward a class of humans based on physical characteristics, it’s racism. When we do it toward a dog breed, we create breed demonization. They’re not equivalent, but they have the same origins.

I’ve told this story before on here.

One of my best friends was living with a bunch of guys in a house. One of his roommates was also a friend of mine who happened to have a pitbull. She is an awesome dog. A lot of fun, super, sweet. One night, totally unprovoked she “snapped” and mauled my buddy’s face (he’s a “dog person” btw). Up until that point, any of us would have testified under penalty of perjury that this dog was incapable of anything like that.

IMO there is a fundamental problem with the breed that makes them untrustworthy. “Your” pitbull might be “fine” or maybe it just hasn’t randomly snapped yet. I think they’re a ticking time bomb and owning one is just rolling the dice.

It’s as good an idea as any other large dog breed. My dogs are Labradors, and they could definitely bite – or even kill – a child.

It is a very, very bad idea to allow a kid to get into any dog’s face. Children are not born with an instinctive understanding of a dog’s stress signals. They don’t recognize a lip lick, stress yawn or head turn as, “please leave me alone”. They don’t even recognize a threatening glare, a lip curl or a snarl as, “fucking leave me alone”. Letting a small child interact with a dog is like allowing that same child to go up to a heavily armed five-year-old. Because, as loving and sweet our dogs may are, they still have razor blades in their mouths, and most of them can control themselves about as well as the average pre-schooler.

Sadly, a whole load of parents systematically teach their dogs that the friendly alternatives to growls and bites do squat. Some dogs consistently try to move away from kids for years before they finally snap. Watch the first thirty seconds of this video for a prime example: The mum in the clip allows her toddler to lean on, push, and pinch the dog. The dog is incredibly polite, and uses dozens of calming signals (“stress signals”) to try and stop the kid. He’s asking for help, precisely because he doesn’t want to hurt the kid…but the mum is busy filming the “funny” scene of a toddler bossing around the family dog.

Unless there is an underlying medical cause, no dog bite comes, “out of the blue”. Yet, almost all of them are described as unprovoked, sudden, and completely unexpected. That’s because the majority of dog owners has no idea what their dog is trying to say, and it’s only changing at a very slow pace. As long as children are taught that a wagging tail is a sign of a friendly dog (it is not!), there will be bites.

@longgone I know we’ve discussed this topic before, but, in the case of my old dog years ago, he was, just flat out unpredictable without warning.
On the one occasion, when he bit my ex BIL, I knew he was stressed from having to be confined away from company in the house over a holiday visit, but only because he WAS prone to moodiness.
However, on the other occasions when he got weird with people and when he bit me on the hand, requiring 10 stitches, a crushed knuckle and a painful puncture to the top of my hand, there were no stress signals whatsoever. I simply reached down to pat him on the head on the way to bed as I did every night and he attacked my hand.

No turning away, no averted look, no growling, ( he was a growler, ) While I do think what you say is true in many instances, I also think that, just like people, some dogs are mentally unbalanced and suffer from mental/emotional problems. I believe that was the case with my old dog as he was always treated well, had professional training, was properly socialized, or so we thought.
I truly think he was mentally off and he was a bad seed. Nature vs. nurture no doubt.

There simply are bad dogs just like there are bad people and plenty of psychopaths were raised in great families, like my dog. I said that for years, that I felt like the mother of a serial killer. I did everything right and they still turned out to be evil. haha

@Coloma Well, as I said, “unless there is an underlying medical cause”. Also, the polite signals are non-existent in many older dogs – because humans systematically teach them that friendly signals are pointless. Let’s take your dog. Did you ever hold him when he didn’t feel like being held – during a medical procedure, for example? Did you ever push him away, pull him along by the collar, or get angry at his growling? If you’re like most dog owners, you probably did all that lots of times, without even noticing. Even dog trainers do it at times (myself included), and we really should know better.

It has nothing to do with being raised in a great family. Can’t blame people for what they are not aware of. Every week, lovely people join our puppy classes. They do plenty of stuff wrong, but I would still say that they are great owners. They care about their dogs, and they try to do everything right.

I don’t believe in the existence of bad people.

@longgone Do you believe in mental disorders that cause people and animals to be dangerous and unpredictable? I do.

@Coloma Yep, I definitely do!

@longgone Do you believe it’s possible that certain breeds are genetically predisposed to having a significantly higher chance of having those mental disorders?

@gorillapaws My interjection to your question.
I think it is a combo plate of the breed and poor breeding practices.
Breed a mean dog to a stupid dog get mean and stupid offspring. Temperament is thrown every bit as much as physical characteristics.

I do not believe that being a good owner makes a difference with certain dogs any more than being a good parent assures your kids will not ever get into trouble. It helps, sure, but there are no guarantees. Nature is stronger than nurture most of the time IMO.

@gorillapaws Of course. However, I haven’t seen any even remotely trustworthy sources claiming this is the case with pit bulls. I do agree that mental health, and stable temperament in general, should be a major concern when choosing a new family dog. Frankly, considering the non-regulated breeding practiced in most of the world, it is amazing that we have so few fatal bites. Last I heard, the number of children annually killed by dogs in the U.S. was 12. The number of children killed by their parents, as a point of reference, is closer to 1000, with about 450 intentionally murdered.

That said, even if credible sources proved that pit bulls in general are more likely to bite, that argument is faulty. We have to remember that pit bulls have a certain image, and they are likely to be paired up with owners who agree with that sort of image. That’s important, and it needs to be taken into account.

@Coloma, @longgone You both raise interesting points.

I Read Once – which means I do not have the source at hand and do not remember what it was, so take it with a giant salt lick – that pit bulls who are inbred have been shown to favor a genetic trait that leads to deterioration of the control centers of the brain over time. So, a perfectly docile family pet may go Cujo at seven or eight years old as a result of a kind of canine dementia. The source suggested that this trait was recessive and thus was considerably less prevalent in mixed breeds.

Another reason to rescue a mutt instead of getting a dog at the puppy mill.

What is so sad is that 90% of dogs in rescues and local pounds are pit bulls, yet people just breed them and breed them (for money). If you go on FB and type in the search term “bullies” you’ll see FB pages of pit bulls for sale. It seems they mix them with bull dogs because they’re very stocky with short legs. They look like they’d have trouble breathing

@Seek “Another reason to rescue a mutt instead of getting a dog at the puppy mill.”

Puppy mills should be burned down (sans puppies). The real solution is regulated breeding, though…mutts can be a great choice, or a bad one. If there were laws against just producing puppies without basic knowledge of genetics and cynology, we’d have way more healthy dogs in a decade or two. German Shepherds are another prime example. Due to inbreeding, any German Shepherd who is not from a reputable breeder now comes with a high risk of extreme nearsightedness. This, of course, sets them up to become aggressive. Many are.