One afternoon a man, Guy Clairoux, was picking his son, Jayden, up from school and on their way home a Pit bull came out of its yard and attacked the boy. Powerless and scared, the father of the child tried to get the dog away from his mauled son. Neighbors saw what happened and tried to help by going to them and attacking the dog too. When the mother of Jayden, JoAnn came out, Guy tossed his son to her and she tried to the best of her ability to protect him, but the dog ran and attacked her too. Once the attack was over the family was taken to the hospital with one of the helpful neighbors. The media soon found out and the story was everywhere, but the media missed some important information; the dog had no previous social interaction or medical attention and was spooked by the father of the attacked boy. A few minutes before the dog attacked, the little boy went up to the fence and was talking to it. Then the father ran up the fence and was yelling at the boy to stay away form the Pit Bull, the dog probably thought that Mr. Clairoux was going to harm him. Since he thought that he was going to be harmed, he tried to prevent it by hurting them first. It freaked the dog out when the father ran up to the fence and yelled at Jayden because it was not used to the way the man acted. Now what do you see in a Pit bull? Well I still see a cute little dog, a mistaken puppy that wants to play and have fun, but has a violent reputation. Other people might see a Pit bull and walk the other way because they are known for dog fighting and other violent actions. Imagine a dog, blood dripping from its torn face, ready to keep fight for their owner. I would think who would put this poor dog through that much pain, but the owners of the dog might be yelling at it to fight harder. They are naturally non-aggressive, but their owners wanting them to fight, made them evil, vicious dogs. These owners, malicious people, are usually smart people because money is on the line. These dogs are completely misunderstood; it is not their fault that they are violent. It is actually because of the owners, those cruel people; they make the dogs wear heavy chain to make them stronger and they put them in fights when they are a little older than a year. These dogs are forced by their owners to be aggressive and therefore they should not be blamed for their actions. On top of being treated horribly the media only tells the world half of the story of these dog attacks, they do not tell us what made them snap or how are they treated.
The media typically stereotypes Pit Bulls as a mean and aggressive dog, which they are not. Their body structure tells the people that they are hostile, their muscular body and cropped ears, a red flag. People may think that since they are incredibly muscular that they must be aggressive and violent, but they in fact are not it is just the way they were bred (Hollandworth). The breeders of these dogs try to get the most agile, strong, and smartest dogs to create the best breed, it is like selective breeding, they only want certain characteristics. The media also never tells the whole story of a pit bull attack, they leave out the part that they are either teased or treated inhumanely (“Pit Bull Panic”). Since the media only show the dreadful side of pit bulls, people in Virginia have to register their pets as vicious animals that are ready to kill; sadly, people in Colorado have to send their dogs away if there is even a small hint of the pit bull breed in it (Skloot). The government treats Pit Bulls as dangerous animals that can harm anyone, which is false. They are just lovely house pets that have been misunderstood. Most of these dogs are taught to be aggressive and the rest just want to please the owner, so they will fight just because the owner wants it to.

Pit Bulls are naturally not aggressive; a greater percent of Pit Bulls passed the Temperamental Test than Golden Retrievers. When they snap they are usually taunted and teased by people passing by them and when they bite, they will bite hard and never release. They are unsurprisingly like their owners, not by the way they look but how they act (Wrights). Since they may act like the owner, certain owners are aggressive which rubs off on their pets, but a large amount of people are not aggressive they may just want a strong dog to protect them and their family. When they did the testing they tested six hundred and sixty five Pit Bulls and five hundred and sixty seven passed; the test in composed of five sections 1) Behavior towards unfamiliar people 2) sound reaction 3) visual reaction 4) physical motivation and 5) aggression (“Description of the Temperamental Test”). When the trainers are testing these dogs, labeled to be evil, they use a neutral stranger and a friendly stranger; the neutral person walks up to the owner and completely ignores the dog and the friendly person comes up to the owner and plays with the dog. The trainers also use rocks in bucket for the hidden sounds test, while they are in the bucket the assistant will rattle the bucket to make noise or they would use a gun to see how the dog reacts to the gunshot. As for a visual test, the handlers would use an umbrella, flashing radiantly, to try to spook the dog; they would also walk to dog on a plastic strip of in an unfolded pen for the physical motivation. To examine the dogs aggression they would dress the assistant up in weird clothes and ask them to walk pass the dog; the first time the assistant will be harmless then become more harmful, they would do this three times to test their protective skills. These dogs typically fail when they show unnecessary anger, irregular avoidance, or if they panic and do not recover (“Description of the Temperamental Test”). They have passed 85.3 percent of the Temperamental Test, which beats the Border Collie, Boxer, Golden Retriever and many other dogs (“ATTS Breed Statistics”).
For being the one of the nicest dogs out of all the breeds they sure are treated inhumanely and are trained cruelly. For the fights the owners of these dogs put them through so much. Most dogs lose body parts during these fights but there are a few cases where the dog loses its life fighting for their owner (“Abused No More”). Before they fight they are trained by being pulled behind a car, running on a treadmill and pulling heavy brick and chains; the chain are usually most than ten percent of the dog’s body weight (Lavender). They do this to make the dogs stronger, but they are just hurting the dog; on top of all of this abuse the dogs are inhumanely imprisoned, starved and left socially isolated (Huemer). Usually when people are socially secluded, they may not know how to act around others and this is the same for dogs. When these dogs are rescued they do not know how to act around people and are disappointingly wounded so the doctors have to put them down; which is sad for the dog because they only had one life to live but instead they were trapped fighting for their lives instead of being in a loving family (“Born Bad? Everybody Knows Pit Bulls Can be Dangerous. The Question is Can They be Safe?”). Rather than playing with a family these dogs were kept in cages without any human contact except of the owner, an evil, malicious person; they also were fed steroids, cocaine, and gunpowder to make them meaner (“Born Bad? Everybody Knows Pit Bulls Can be Dangerous. The Question is Can They be Safe?”). At the end of the day if the dog did well during the fight or the training, they are treated better by being let in the house to sleep in a comfortable bed, but the dogs that lose are killed by either electrocution or by getting shot (Hollandworth).
Scaring these dogs by death are one of the many different human behaviors that make abused Pit Bulls snap. For example, when any dog is eating you should not try to pet it because the dog might try to bite you (Gladwell). Their aggression could also be shown when people are mean to them for instance, if some one yells at them, tease them or freak them out they might try to harm you (Gladwell). The owners of these dogs may possibly not be feeding their pets, starving and hurt puppies, enough food or not giving them the correct medical attention; these harmless animals are only acting this way to protect themselves from the outside world (Gladwell). When they bite somebody, it is usually because the person has made them mad, but it is entirely against their nature to be aggressive and injure anyone (Huemer).
At the dog fights the dogs are placed in an arena to fight. Before the fights, the handlers of the dogs will wash the dog in milk, water, baking soda, and vinegar to make sure there is nothing to interest the opponent to bite the dog; washing the dog in a flea and tick bath also repels the opponent (Hollandworth). They do this also because when the dogs are in the ring, they will stay there until one of them wins, gives up or gets killed (Hollandworth). The handlers of the dogs usually do not kill their dogs because out of a litter of puppies they kill the weak ones and keep the strong one, but to make them stronger the handlers would put cocaine on the dogs gums and give it steroids (Hollandworth). They are there to make their owners proud and they know that, so they will fight until they win or else they might be killed when they get home. The dogs that lose or forfeits are generally killed by electrocution or being shot, but if they win, they would be treated like a king, sleeping on the owners bed instead of outside on the cold wet ground. The arenas that they make for these fights are wooden boxes, twelve by twelve feet with lights posts surrounding the box and a carpet covering the grass, the carpets would be covered with the blood and urine of the dog because of the fights (Wrights).
The owners of these dogs could at least be nice enough to clean the arena but they are usually involved in illegal activity. There are two types of owners, there are the gang members and there are the people who are in fact smart but dropped out of school. Brutally caring for the dogs, the owners that are gang members use the strong and muscular dogs as weapons, since they cannot carry around guns or knives (Glass). The people that are smart usually know the nutritional facts needed to make the Pit Bulls stronger and to help aid them while they are fighting. They need the dogs to be at the top of their game because of the money that they earn from the fight plus the bets that they win. In addition, because of the excellent pay there are poor people that need money betting on the dogs or entering their dogs to fight (“Pit Bull Panic”). These dogs needs loving families to love on them and care for them, but all they have is a violent family that puts the sad, helpless dog through plenty of torture (Wrights).
The owners of Pit Bulls are usually to blame because of how they treat the dogs. You can blame the breeder for breeding the dogs to be aggressive, but you can also blame the owner for encouraging the dogs to be violent. The owners also do not give their dogs enough exercise so the dog gets all their energy bundled up inside and finally when it cannot hold it in any longer they just let it out. They are forced to breed with the dog that the handler chooses to create the best possible dog; they are tied to a post to breed and sometimes they are not in reach of their food so they starve (“Cruel and Inhuman”). They are willing to go through this to make their owner happy even if they are getting hurt in the process (“Born Bad? Everybody Knows Pit Bulls Can be Dangerous. The Question is Can They be Safe?”). It is sad that the dog are willing to live in inhumane conditions and that the owner is doing nothing to help them. These evil owners encourage their dogs to attack and be mean to either others human or canine (Gladwell).
In conclusion, these dogs are forced by their owners to be aggressive and therefore they should not be blamed for their actions. They are given an awful name for the whole breed; for example, Pit Bulls are horrible, mean, vicious dogs that you do not want to own because of their behavior towards people and other dogs. So if you see a pit bull do not walk away from it, treat it with love, care for it. Play with it as if it was another friend, a faithful companion.