Pit bulls get an undeserved bad rap. On a fairly regular basis you can turn on the television or scroll through Facebook to see news stories about either breed specific legislation or overblown dog bite stories. That’s not to say that no pit bull has ever harmed anyone - they are dogs and if you don’t treat them accordingly any dog can become dangerous. But pit bulls don’t deserve their reputation as hardened killers, which was thrust upon them through many different layers of misinformation.
First and foremost, no one can really visually identify a pit bull, not even the experts. There are multiple different breeds of dogs that are classified as pit bull relatives, but you just never know whether the dog you are looking at is one of them. In fact, 5922 dog experts were asked to visually identify the predominant breed of 20 shelter dogs and they were only right about 27% of the time.
Even when the dogs are correctly identified they often end up getting bad press for it. In one instance two dog attacks that happened a few days apart in 2007 received drastically different coverage. One attack, perpetrated by a labrador mix, received one story in the local paper, while another just days later perpetrated by two pit bulls received 236 pieces of coverage worldwide. The injuries were similar and both required hospitalization, but only one was sensationalized.
Ask yourself why the next time you flinch at the sight of a pit bull. Learn more about why pit bulls don’t deserve their bad reputations from this infographic!
Infographic Courtesy of Online Masters In Public Health https://www.onlinemastersinpublichealth.com/features/pit-bulls-public-health-threat/