Hello ,
I have a new 6 month old female Pit Bull, that I have just acquired from a family that had problems with her and wanted put her to sleep . She is a great dog, with incredible drives, that are so incredible that I think it is too much for her. Her history is that she bit her owner that tried to restrain her without a leash , while she was trying to fight another of their family’s dog. He suffered several punctures because of a full bite, not a pinch. She literally hung on his arm. After that she has bitten two other person that tried to restrain her with a leash while she was trying to attack another dog. I evaluated her as a great dog, she showed no signs of fear or stress at all, was playful and loved to play tug of war with me and even when I restrained her not to get the tug ,she was ok, even though she would not stop trying to get it. Their previous owner did not have a clue on how to raise a nice dog, because now she chases car, bikes ,animals and literally everything that moves, even if it is your leg. Besides not putting limits to her, with subtle gestures and own behaviors ,they encouraged her with these bad habits.

The main point is, she will bite you and go nuts if restrained ,so my questions are:

How would you evaluate this dog?
Why she bites when restrained?
What kind of displacement behavior is this?
What type of aggression is it?
Is there any point that I am missing here?
Is it a learned behavior?

I really need your help because I wont give up on her without trying hard.

Thanks
Rafa

If you wanted a dog that would not be dog aggressive, you should have got something other than an APBT.
I don't know about anyone else here, but I've been raising Bulldogs for a long time, and one like yours, which seems to be people aggressive, should be put down. We are not talking about an 8wk old here.
What lines is she from?? A well bred APBT is rarely this way. There are exceptions, of course.
If you are a responsible owner, you should know that if this dog bites a person, it will be in the papers, on the news, etc. It will be completely different than if a GSD bit someone.
I'm sure you will not enjoy reading this, and probably will not even consider what I have said, but in a way you have a respnsibility to everyone who owns these dogs. Every bite just gives the breed-banners more ammo.
It is hard enough convincing people that my dogs are not man-eating killers.
I truly hope that someone here can give the advice you need.
You should have an expert eval. the dog in person, this is not a problem that can be resolved any other way.
Good Luck-

I've done some research on this breed in the past, and what I understand is that a Pit with a sound temperament will *never* bite its master, even when being restrained. As a matter of fact, Pits are known for their sweet disposition toward people. They can have problems with dog-aggression, but not to the extreme degree that it sounds like this one has.

Just a little history on the breed, the APBT, or American Pit Bull Terrier, was the most popular breed in America, as a family pet, not a fighting dog as most people think (though they were used for pit fighting long ago, before it was outlawed), up until about WW2 (anyone remember the Little Rascals? That dog, Petey, was a Pit). I don't know what caused the decline of their popularity, but it did decline, up until about the 1980s when they became popular again, but mainly with the kind of people that wanted "tough" dogs, or fighters. This resulted in a lot of poor breeding, nearly ruining the breed, and resulting in the current public sentiment toward the Pit.

One reason that the APBT was known for their sweetness toward people was that in the "old" days, if a Pit showed *any* aggresion toward people at all, it was shot right there on the spot.

To answer your questions:

1. I would evaluate this dog as a dangerous animal.
2. She bites when restrained because she is redirecting her aggression to whatever is closest. If a small child happened to stumble into the middle of this, she would bite the child.
3. It's not displacement really, it's "redirected aggression".
4. Her aggression toward other dogs is most likely a result of poor breeding. Like I mentioned, APBTs can have dog aggression issues, but this sounds really extreme.
5. Yes, there is a point that you are missing here. This dog is too dangerous for someone with no experience to try and "rehab". You're setting yourself up for a huge liability. The previous owners were correct to have her put down.
6. Irrelevant. Sometimes dog-aggression is learned, like when a young pup is attacked by another dog, the experience can imprint itself into the dog's mind for the rest of its life. From then on, the dog will feel as if it has to attack or be attacked whenever it sees another dog. However, sometimes the dog is just like that, for no reason other than its genes.

I agree with Ted. I don't think you understand what you're getting yourself into. I've seen people try to rehab dogs like this more times than you know. At some point, say after the dog seriously injures their other dog, or bites the child, they finally realize that they aren't able to change the dog.

Rafael,

A little different spin on this.

If the dehavior was trained in then it can be trained out with time and patience. It will take the help of a good trainer with experience with type of dog. Go and read some of Lou's posts on low stim e-collars. It is one method to do this quickly according to Lou. Another method is through a systematic desentisitzation. In effect the dog needs to re-learn the rules of the world.

By the "numbers":

1- Evaling any dog based on an e-mail or telephone conversation is almost impossible. Get someone that knows protection dogs or pits to do an eval to see if your eval is correct. It may be, I tend to be optomistic and defer to someone that has seen the dog rather than guessing based on an e-mail.

2- There could be several reasons she bites when restrained. The most plausable based on your e-mail is that it was trained in by the former owners. They were afraid of the dog so the dog snapped at them and they backed off. After a while they decided not to back off so the dog increased the behavior to a point that it was biting to get them to back off. Sound dogs that have been taught to do this wil stop if it doesn't work anymore. But you amy take a bite or too to convince the dog that it isn't going to work. It will depend on how quick you are and if you can get him hung with out getting bit. If the dog is smart one or two good hangings will cure this problems. If it is a genetic issue you may be able to control it but never "cure" it.

3- It doen't matter. The issue is the behavior, you either can control it or not. If you can control it fine, if mot the dog will have to be put down. These types of behaviors can be so well trained in that they can never be resolved. I had a GSD that was never socialized that was such a fear bitter that I had to have her put down. It wasn't genetics, it was the way the dog was raised.

4- It is hard to tell with out resolving some of the above issues. I would guess it is defensive at some level as it was trained in to avoid being in a situation that it didn't want to be in, I guess you could also think of it being more of a learned escape behavior.

5-Probably not, but if you are unsure get a second opinion from someone with less involvement and attachment to the dog. It is easy to make up your mind and then make the facts fit the situation.

6- It could easily be a learned behavior, that doesn't make it any easier to fix. If it is learned the sooner you get started fixing it the more likly you will be able to repair the damage.

Your desire to rehab this dog is admirable, just make sure it isn't misplaced.

I don't care how much drive she has she is very dangerous. You have a dog that can't seem to pull out of prey drive and that is
displacing all over the place and that is a recipe for disaster. Her first family was right whether or not they where experienced they were trying to do the responsible thing. She may have all the drive in the world but if she is not stable she shouldn't be working. 1. having bitten 3 people before 6 months of age is your first tip off she is still a pup and this isn't exceptable behavior and 2.If you care at all about the preservation of the breed you will have her euthanized. This is a headline Pit Bull and the breed doesn't need another Pit Bull making them all look bad.

In my haste I neglected to ansewer the question.

1. it is predatory aggression
2. it is genetic
3. she bites because she is diplacing the aggression to the first available outlet.
4. euthanize her it can't be fix

Normally I would say that a 6 month old dog is too young to give up on. At 6 months of age, the dog would not seem to have the ability to seriously challenge the owner(fight). However, with this breed and after reading the original post I am not so sure. Some of the more knowlegable people on this board please correct me if I am wrong. At 6 months of age, is it not too late to seriously obedience train this dog and maybe put the fear of God into her anytime she gets aggressive? I certainly understand the reputation of the breed and the front page potential this dog has. Would like to read more opinions on this young dog.

That is the reason that I asked what lines this dog is from.
Some lines "turn-on" very early.
I would not keep an APBT that was indiscriminately people aggressive.
As far as training one not to fight...
Rule #1- NEVER trust a Pit-Bull not to fight.
Rule #2- Refer to rule #1.
My advice to you:
Put this animal down and get another better-bred one.
The dog you have can never be trusted with people.
Sorry, but please do the right thing.

Ted,

I understand what you are saying. However, in both instances, the bites were related to the handler trying to restrain this dog from fighting with another dog. If there is one thing that people agree on it is that Pit bulls are extremely "dog agressive". If kept away from other dogs, could this dog be obedience trained and possibly saved? I don't want to sound naive about this. The dog is only 6 months old. I pose these questions only to make sure that every dog is given every reasonable chance. I certainly understand that no person should be placed in danger of being mauled by this dog. If this is likely to occur than by all means the dog must be destroyed. I've never worked with Pitts so I ask questions rather than give inexperienced advice.

Chuck makes a good point, or at least suggests it. I have often seen dogs older than 6 months be turned around on this type of behavior.

One of the things I have found interesting in every single post for behavior problems is "put the dog down". I know a lot of dogs have severe geneticly based behavior problems. In most cases these dogs will need to be put down, but I am not so sure that it should be the first option. Dogs are remakably malleable. Poor training gets more animals into the pound than anything else. As I have said before, getting someone to actually look at a dog is going to provide the best evaluation of a dog. Descriptions of behavior are poor at best. There are so many things that can be left out of the description even if they are noticed at the time. Even experienced trainers can miss something in a quick glance at a dog, and that is compounded if the person is not very experienced with dogs.

In this case the thing that bothers me is that the origional owners encouraged this behavior, and then could not handle it. Rafael said "she showed no signs of fear or stress at all, was playful and loved to play tug of war with me and even when I restrained her not to get the tug ,she was ok, even though she would not stop trying to get it. Their previous owner did not have a clue on how to raise a nice dog, because now she chases car, bikes ,animals and literally everything that moves, even if it is your leg. Besides not putting limits to her, with subtle gestures and own behaviors ,they encouraged her with these bad habits." This does not sound like a dog with poor out of control genetics, it sounds more like a dog with bad training since the behavior sounds so different with a new handler. I wouldn't just turn her loose with animals and small children, but I would work with her with a trainer experienced with this type of problem.