Pit bulls are often regarded as aggressive and even some countries have made owning them illegal. The breed itself is not inherently aggressive but random breeding, along with bad housing conditions and breeding can lead to aggressive behaviors. All of those factors would most likely lead any dog to possess aggressive tendencies, however pit bulls are overbred and neglected at a higher rate.
Gert Schooly is the founder of Pitty City Rescue, whose mission is to save the lives of as many dogs as she can. She began rescuing on her own when she saw a man in the park with a litter of puppies for sale. “So one of the things I used to do, and still do on occasion,” said Schooly. “Is that I will just buy puppies to make sure that they were never going to be bred, or fought, or end up back in the shelter system where the rate of euthanasia for pit bulls is the highest of any breed.”
Gert continued rescuing puppies and rehoming them until one of her clients offered to help with the legal work to become the official Pitty City Rescue. In her over twenty years of work, she has seen dogs in any condition you can think of, but she says most of these dogs come from the Fairmount and Kensington neighborhoods due to issues with backyard breeding.
Unfortunately, backyard breeders don’t even understand that it’s an animal. To them it’s just pure money and that’s why you see a lot of the mommas in such horrible condition. They are breeding machines, and they get the bare
minimum, if that.” Schooly said.
Frances Dwyer, an ACCT Philadelphia volunteer started volunteering at the shelter in 2024 and she too says “People will surrender them and you can just tell they were used for breeding.” She explained the shelters color coding system that designates which volunteers should be interacting with each animal. Animals that are designated to green are for the volunteers with the least amount of accumulated volunteer hours because they are easier to handle. Yellow is the middle level of difficulty with more experienced volunteers, for animals that might need a little more experienced handler. Animals that are on the blue list require a very experienced volunteer and owner so many of them are euthanized.
When Dwyer was asked which breed is most likely to be in the blue category she responded, “The pit bulls. It’s hard because a lot of the pit pulls or pit bull mixes are bigger dogs so that puts them in that category even if they have small behavior problems, like jumping, because they can be overpowering. A lot of the dogs on the euthanasia list are there for behavior like pulling on the leash or jumping too much.”
One of the issues associated with backyard breeding is improper socialization. Pit bull’s especially have a loyalty to their owner and can become aggressive with other dogs if they are not exposed to them safely and consistently at a young age. It isn’t always possible, but there are ways of rehabilitating many of these reactive dogs. But at the shelter, “the dogs aren’t allowed to play with each other at all,” said Dwyer. This doesn’t allow already reactive dogs or new puppies in the shelter the proper socialization they need to discourage certain behaviors that could land them on the euthanasia list.
Hale Womble, an owner of a rescued pit bull named Harper, walked into ACCT Philadelphia not thinking he would leave with a pet. After he met Harper, he said “Yep, you’re coming home and we’re going to have a great life together.”
Harper came into the shelter as a puppy after being found in a cardboard box. She was covered in marks and scratches and still has spots where hair won’t grow back.
“I was worried about her being a pit bull because of the information out there about them but she doesn’t even bark” Womble admitted.
Most of the stories written about pit bulls only show the aggression and don’t explain how the dog came to be in that situation. The more people take the chance to adopt pit bulls, the more others will be able to see that the reputation that they’ve been given isn’t what the breed is when cared for properly. When it comes to solutions for animal neglect and backyard breeding, Schooly said, “I think it would be a matter of changing politics in Philadelphia. Maybe they should take a walk-through ACCT Philadelphia or go into some of these neighborhoods to see how they’re living, maybe that would change the way of thinking or how these circumstances are handled. There are law enforcement officers for animal cruelty but they’re so overwhelmed that they can only do so much.”
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Source:
Pitbull attack statistics 2024 – myths, facts, and figures. WAF. (2024, November 13). https://worldanimalfoundation.org/dogs/pitbull-statistics/
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