Pit Bulls Aggression; Nurtured or Innate?

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Pit Bull’s Aggression; Nurtured or Innate? Pit Bulls have a fearsome reputation as killers, attack dogs and receive a lot of negative reactions from the press and the general public. A lot of these connotations may be true in some cases but it is primarily the owner’s fault that their dogs behave as they do. The word "vicious" functions to vindicate the breed and cause a lot of negative reactions from the press and the general public. The phrase; “bred to kill” and “aggressive killer” are thrown around without hesitation from those that are not familiar with the breed. In the Pit Bull debate, the word "vicious" functions to vindicate the breed and cause a lot of negative reactions from the press and the general public, this aggression is nurtured and not innate. The fact that they are publicly ousted as a particularly fearsome breed doesn’t allow people to form their own opinions and forces them to feel afraid of them. Fear is a feeling of apprehension and a response that is both physiological and psychological, to the perception of danger or harm (Petersen 1996). When we hear of horror stories in the media our minds are made up for us without having an informed argument from both sides of the Pit Bull debate. Maligned and legislated against, these dogs need to reclaim their position of trusted symbol of American fidelity. Astonishingly, for most of our history, America’s nickname for Pit Bulls used to be “The Nanny Dog” (Lockport 2011). For many generations, if you had children and wanted to keep them safe you required a pit bull. The Pit Bull was thought of as the most reliable of any breed with children and adults. However, The Nanny Dog is now vilified by a media that seems to need a demon dog breed to frighten people and therefore sell papers, or maintain a viewing audience. Before pit bulls it was Rottweiler’s, before them it was Dobermans,

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