What is a "Pit Bull"?
The American Pit Bull Terrier
The term “pit bull” does NOT describe a specific dog breed. A pit bull is a type of dog, just as retrievers, shepherds, and spaniels describe types of dogs. The term “pit bull” has no single, solid, scientific definition. Your idea of a “pit bull” is a personal and individual idea; no one else’s idea of a pit bull will be exactly the same.
The term encompasses a much larger and more variable group of dogs today. Many if not most of today’s pit bulls are nothing more than mixed-breed dogs with a certain “look” and with unknown and untraceable parentage.
Simply put, a pit bull is whatever any person says it is.Breed mixes that easily produce "pit bull- like" offspring, Only a small proportion of dogs are purebred; most dogs are mixed breed dogs. They can have anywhere from two to dozens of different breeds in their genetic makeup.
In the case of mixed-breed dogs, appearance and characteristics are basically unpredictable and inconsistent. Two puppies with the same parents may each look and behave strikingly differently as they inherit different characteristics.
Some (but certainly not all) of the breeds that can easily produce offspring (e.g. in a first cross) that resemble “pit bulls” are listed below. These breeds are in addition to the breeds already mentioned in sections above.
- Black Mouth Cur
- Catahoula Leopard Dog
- Anatolian Shepherd Dog
- Basenji
- Boston Terrier
- Redbone Coonhound
- Dalmatian
- German Shorthaired Pointer
- Great Dane
- Greyhound
- Labrador Retriever
- (English) Mastiff
- Neapolitan Mastiff
- Plott Hound
- (English) Pointer
- Rhodesian Ridgeback
- Smooth Fox Terrier
- Tosa Inu
- Vizsla
- Weimaraner
- Whippet
Animal shelters handle a large population of homeless dogs—usually stray dogs with unknown genetic make-up and history—and they must assign a breed label to each dog they take in. Shelters use breed labels for tracking and identification purposes; their clients, who are people seeking their lost dog or looking for a new one, use the breed labels to predict certain traits and thereby narrow their choices. It is not possible to add a dog to a shelter system without marking the dog with at least one “predominant breed.”
Because most dogs do not bring their pedigree (a written family tree) with them when they enter the shelter or animal control system, animal shelter workers assign breed labels upon intake by looking at the dog and guessing its breed or predominant breed. The process of breed labeling is entirely appearance-based and has nothing to do with a dog’s temperament, behavior, or actual DNA.
Furthermore, the individuals who perform the breed labeling often do so without any real education or knowledge about the appearance of the 400+ dog breeds that exist. Shelter workers and animal control officers keep mental “trait templates” of about 30 of the most popular and distinguishable dog breeds (up to maybe 50 breeds if they have more experience). Upon intake, dogs are mentally compared against these trait templates and assigned the closest probable breed. Because the breed labeling process is highly subjective, different shelter workers inevitably notice different prominent traits.
A study done by Dr. Victoria Voith, DVM, et. al. (“Comparison of Adoption Agency Identification and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, July 2009), compared DNA-based breed identification test results against shelter workers’ visual breed labels. The DNA-based tests did not agree with shelter workers’ opinions 87.5% of the time. Visual assessment has proven to be an unreliable method of breed identification. Nevertheless, shelters routinely assign breed labels based on individuals’ personal opinions.
In the shelter system, “pit bull” and “pit bull mix” are used as generic categories into which dogs are placed if they 1) have reasonably short fur and a somewhat wide head; and 2) do not possess any traits which might assign them to a more distinct breed. The “pit bull mix” category is a default category into which many generic-looking dogs are placed, regardless of their actual DNA make-up or history.