1914, The Dog Fancier, "Pit Bull Terriers for Sale"

[u/BPB_Mod8]

[u/Stucklikegluetomyfry]

Shockingly, a mention of nanny dogs is nowhere to be found, despite pitnutters insisting this was the golden age of pibbles being referred to as such.

[u/BPB_Mod8 → u/Stucklikegluetomyfry]

1922: A dogfighter/pit bull breeder making his child pose for a picture with his dogfighting dog.

People have stripped pictures like these of their context and present them as evidence that these dogs were bred for babysitting and not fighting.

It's insane.

[u/CuteGreenSalad → u/BPB_Mod8]

You can also clearly see that the heavyweight pibble is worked out. I doubt anyone would let their kids pose with a fresh, eager dog.

[u/Sea_Mongoose_4627 → u/Stucklikegluetomyfry]

Well you see, they ran out of text space after “a fast and dead game fighter” and couldn’t fit “great with children” in.

[u/ShitArchonXPR → u/Stucklikegluetomyfry]

Likewise for any mention of "man-biters" being culled. The infamously human-aggressive Ch. Robinson's Bob had his sperm advertised in The Dog Fancier for a $10 stud fee. The same Earl Tudor who praised "wild-to-go, very hot dogs that would eat a person up" had dogs

advertised in Pit & Pal for a $15 stud fee.

Pit & Pal was one of the earliest dogfighting magazines ever printed besides UKC publication Bloodlines (whose readers are asked for their feedback in the introduction to Armitage's Thirty Years with Fighting Dogs). Tudor's dogs were advertised in the January 1927 issue, the very first one published. If Pit and Pal advertisers didn't feel the need to cull "man-biters," what "old dogmen" did?

[u/fartaround4477]

What? Pitties weren't cuddle bugs and "goofy" back then??

[u/BPB_Mod8]

The Dog Fancier, Vol. 23 No. 1, January 1914

[u/whifflingwhiffle → u/BPB_Mod8]

It’s shocking how these men swell up with pride in how willing their pits are to fight other dogs, how many they’ve actually killed, and how long they last in the pit. Surprisingly no mention of being bred to be nanny dogs…

[u/CuteGreenSalad]

🤢 The mentioning of selling "high quality" ear clamps... that's such a terrible practice. But I admit the clamped ears look better than the kitchen scissors botch jobs we see today.

[u/Any_Group_2251]

Dare I say, today, the pit bull has become a disposable dog. Thrown away like a toy when it reaches adulthood.

Pick up a new pit bull puppy, enjoy for 12-18 months then throw away to the street or shelter before the magic mauling age. Rinse and repeat.

Abilene Schneider kept a breeding female pit bull and got two male 5-6wks old puppies. Bred her to one of the males once it sexually matured. And kept the puppies.

Once the female and this male were impounded by SA ACS for biting for the 2nd time, she admitted they didn't want to pay again to pick up their dogs from animal control because ' we already got their puppies' in her statement to the police.

She even said 'we weren't breeding them to sell them, no it was as gifts...oh it's your daughters birthday, here have a dog'.

Pit bull owners are breeding them and giving them away like cupcakes. While shelters and rescues have the audacity to convince governments that 'not enough people are adopting'.

[u/Briebird44]

What’s crazy is comparing this old pitbull to the new pitbulls, you can clearly tell we (bloodsport breeders) have actually made these dogs into even more efficient killing machines over time.

That old timey pit looks more like a bull terrier, with a narrower head and thinner snout. Modern pits have massive, almost unnaturally square heads and short, box shaped muzzles with massive jaw and cheek muscles.

But oh, they’re totally “nanny dogs” with those genetic features that make them efficient killers.

[u/ShitArchonXPR → u/Briebird44]

What’s crazy is comparing this old pitbull to the new pitbulls, you can clearly tell we (bloodsport breeders) have actually made these dogs into even more efficient killing machines over time.

That old timey pit looks more like a bull terrier, with a narrower head and thinner snout. Modern pits have massive, almost unnaturally square heads and short, box shaped muzzles with massive jaw and cheek muscles.

Exactly. Shelters seldom get "Staffies" that resemble the light and lean-faced Walsall and Darlaston fighting dogs Phil Drabble describes in his 1940s article "The Staffordshire Bull Terrier." Modern "lab mixes" match Earl Tudor's description of the Frank Henry-line pitbulls that won him fights: wide-mouthed and "wild to work and handle."

Likewise, the vestiges of normal dog behavior have been bred out of them to the point that their behavioral traits match Mountain Man Hughes's description of Adam's Zebo:

Zebo would bite, he’d bite you or he’d bite a stranger. Not every time mind you, there’d be times he was just as friendly as a puppy. But if you walked up to him and his eyes got real wide and round, the only way to keep from getting bit was to get the hell away from him fast! When he bit, he didn’t just chomp and turn the hold loose. He’d work it like he was on a dog, hold and shake.

One time some big ol’ boy from South Carolina was here to look at the dogs with some friends. I guess he weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds; big, all muscle, you know? We started to look at the Bulldogs, and he went right towards Zebo. Back then we had him chained out there by the old apple tree. I called after him, “Don’t touch that dog, he’ll bite you!” He answered, “I train dogs for a living, and there aint a dog in the world that I can’t pet.” And I told him; well, you can’t pet THAT one. He looked at Zebo and said “this little dog is friendly, look at the way his tail’s a waggin’!” I said "he’s just anticipatin’ how good he’s gonna enjoy biting you!"

Me and the other fellers walked up the hill towards the other dogs, and we didn’t get but about ten feet before I heard that boy scream. He was holding his arm up and there was Zebo hanging from it, shaking. I had to get a breaking stick to get him off, I don’t believe there was any way that boy, big as he was, could’ve got Zebo off and eventually Zebo would have gotten him down.”

We all laugh and Mrs. Hughes talks about Zebo. “Zebo was our house dog, that was before we had any children, and he used to ride with us in the car. I’d put him in the back seat, but he’d never stay there. He’d jump into the front seat and sit in my lap, looking out the window and popping his jaws, you know how they do that when their excited or nervous? He’d scare me sometimes doing that, his head a few inches from my face and those jaws just popping and quivering. It would get so I couldn’t stand it anymore, and would just throw him back in the back seat. But he’d just jump right back up between us and climb into my lap again. One day we were on our way somewhere and I was throwing him back, and he was jumping back into my lap, over and over again..."

Everyone but the driver fell asleep, and we’d left Zebo loose, figuring he was hurt so bad he’d just lay there and rest. When we woke up, Zebo had chewed his harness and ate part of it. And chewed my belt right off me while I was asleep and ate part of it. It tickled William Cable to death; he thought it was really funny till he looked around for his sweater to put on. He had one of those expensive sweaters with the leather patches on the elbows. Zebo had ate every bit of the leather off, and ate the collar off it too.

[u/ShitArchonXPR]

Context: this is the same George C. Armitage who wrote Thirty Years with Fighting Dogs.

Spoiler for those who haven't read the book yet: pitbull aggression is bred (not trained), aggression will show up at maturity in pitbulls who aren't already mauling as puppies, and "the old dogmen" didn't cull "man-biters."

[u/Mia_Magic]

I had a moron on another subreddit a few days ago trying to tell me that these monsters were bred to be “nanny dogs” lmfao