Legislation

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Many municipalities, HOAs, and apartment complexes ban certain breeds and types of dogs due to their involvement in bite statistics over the years. These breeds often include breeds used for personal protection (German Shepherd Dogs, Dobermanns, Rottweilers, Cane Corsos, etc.) but the most common breed ban is against "pit bulls".

What are pit bulls?

A pit bull is not an actual breed of dog but commonly refers to the UKC's American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) and the AKC's American Staffordshire Terrier (AST). However, bite statistics and "pit bull" bans typically define a "pit bull" as any dog that looks vaguely like one of these breeds (regardless of whether it is registered or even purebred), so many mixed dogs get lumped into this category and counted as "pit bulls" in bite statistics. The vast majority of dogs in US shelters are BBMs (bully breed mixes), so even if they bite people proportionally less often than other breeds they would have more bites overall. APBTs and ASTs themselves are terriers, so they are expected to be tenacious dogs with high prey drive, but the BBMs in shelters are far removed from ethically bred (i.e., characteristic of the breed standard) pit bulls, and aggression is a whole other question.

Are pit bulls aggressive?

True purebred APBTs are expected to have some level of dog-directed aggression in their DNA—it is not bred for or called for in their standard, but it tends to be present—but they should never be human-aggressive. In fact, very few breeds are allowed or expected to be human-aggressive. The Fila Brasileiro (originally bred to track and return slaves to Brazilian plantations) and Bully Kutta (Pakistani fighting dog) are not faulted for human-directed aggression, but most breeds are. In order to be shown in the ring, dogs cannot be aggressive toward humans—aloofness is fine for many breeds, but aggression is not. Therefore, ethically bred dogs are not naturally/genetically aggressive toward humans.

Then why are pit bulls responsible for so many bites?

Pit bulls have a history of bull baiting and dog fighting, so they earned a reputation of being intimidating, and many people breed and sell them unethically for the purpose of being scary. Many of these people use a combination of abuse, neglect, force training, and other unethical practices to make these dogs unstable and aggressive, ultimately resulting in bites. But again, these dogs are not stable, consistent, ethically bred animals, nor are they true to the APBT (or AST) breed. They may have originated from bloodlines within the pit bull breed(s), but they are not representative of them.

Nature vs. Nurture (again)

As explained in the genetics section, a dog's genetic predispositions come from its immediate parents, not its entire lineage. These dogs who descended primarily from APBT (but whose parents are far removed from any titled purebreds) have the genes to be aggressive, but it has nothing to do with their breed—it comes from the parent dogs. These aggressive predispositions are then exacerbated by poor socialization and abusive training practices, resulting in very unstable dogs. And even though they aren't real APBTs or ASTs, they are labeled as pit bulls in bite statistics.

Why not ban them just to be safe?

Breed-Specific Laws, like pet limits, only punish responsible owners. Responsible owners of aggressive dogs have them muzzle trained and do not pose a threat to other dogs or humans. The people buying puppies from ethical APBT and AST breeders are responsible owners who know their dogs and would never allow a bite incident to occur, but these responsible owners are the only people who will actually obey the breed-specific laws. Unethical breeders and owners will hide from the law and own/breed these dogs anyway. What we need is more education, not legislation.