Training Secrets for Bully Breeds

None of us saw it coming. Not me, who’d acquired Nell, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, as an 8-week-old puppy; not my husband, Larry; and apparently not Red, our 100-pound, rescued pit bull mix. Nevertheless, Nell, all 28 pounds of her, had walked slowly into the kitchen that late Sunday night and seemingly for no reason, tore into Red. In the snarling melee that ensued, Larry remembers seeing Red scramble madly to get away. I recall summoning my best basso profundo to command, “Knock it off!” as I stood up to intervene if necessary.

It wasn’t necessary. The battle lasted only seconds. Nell stood panting lightly, while Red milled around and barked, trying to figure out who to apologize to first. I checked Nell for damage and found a 2-inch gash over one eye that was just beginning to seep a little blood.

In the car on the way to the Queens Emergency Clinic, my husband and I talked about what had happened. We agreed that Red had injured Nell accidentally with his claw while trying to retreat. Red had been lying on the floor between our chairs, literally backed into a corner, when Nell wandered in and tried to assume her usual place at my side. No doubt she’d given him “the look,” but with his back against the wall, he couldn’t vacate the spot. Maybe he had the nerve to stare back (after all, he is part bully breed). That’s all it took.

At the emergency hospital, the doctor on duty agreed that Nell needed sutures. I told him to go ahead and I’d hold her, but she couldn’t have anesthesia because of a serious heart condition. The vet stared at me in disbelief.

“Really,” I assured him, “just go ahead. She’ll be fine.”

Twenty minutes later we were out of there. It was Red and Nell’s one and only scrap.

The Nature of the Beast
Ledy Van Kavage’s first and best friend was an American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) named Boody, a stray puppy her family adopted when Ledy was 4. Boody was a partner in all of Van Kavage’s childhood exploits. She recalls hiding out with Boody in his dog house when she didn’t want to come indoors. But that was decades ago, “before the time of responsible ownership,” says Van Kavage of Maryville, Illinois, who is now the Midwest regional legislative liaison for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Not only was Boody allowed to roam, he was never neutered, and he often fought with other dogs. Intact adult male dogs of all breeds are well-known to be more likely to fight than neutered males or females. Adding a biological imperative to a bully breed’s genetic programming is like pulling the pin on a hand granade. “I remember jumping into the middle of a dog fight when I was 6 and pulling Boody off another dog because someone had called the police,” Van Kavage recalls. “I didn’t want the cops to shoot my dog.”

Tragically, Boody’s propensity to fight and his unneutered status were his undoing. “He got in a fight,” Van Kavage remembers. “He was able to drag himself to our street, where he met me every day on my walk home from school. I found him on my way home. We took him to the vet, but he died of his fighting wounds. To this day I grieve for him.”

Twenty-five-year-old Aaron Lichter of Staten Island, New York, is the owner of Tundra, a 95-pound American Bulldog (not to be confused with the squatter and much more familiar Bulldog, sometimes called the English Bulldog). Tundra was an 8-week-old puppy when Lichter acquired him from the litter of a family friend. “He’s a big mushball,” says Lichter of the imposing 41⁄2-year-old dog.

Tundra is neutered, though, and Lichter acknowledges that knowing how to read his dog has sometimes kept his pal out of trouble. “If his tail is wagging at another dog, I’ll let them play. But if he’s standing in a firm point with his tail up, I’ll take him away.” Only once did Tundra get into a rumble with another dog — a female American Bulldog. Hostilities erupted when the owners turned the two dogs loose together with only one toy.

I was the editor of the American Kennel Club (AKC) Gazette in the mid-1980s, a time when a number of towns and cities around the United States were beginning to pass breed-specific legislation in hasty reaction to some very unfortunate, highly publicized attacks on people by so-called pit bulls. Most of these laws either outright banned owning pit bull breeds within the town or city limits, or required owners of these breeds to register their dogs with the town or city; keep them muzzled in public; and carry high levels of liability insurance.

Lawmakers couldn’t define exactly what a “pit bull” was, so they decided to simply restrict or prohibit people from owning any of the bull-and-terrier breeds (American Staffordshire Terrier, APBT, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Miniature and Standard Bull Terriers, and the American Bulldog) on the grounds that all such dogs are inherently vicious.

In response to the misinformed and negative publicity about three AKC breeds, I put together a special issue of the Gazette called “Fighting for Dogs” (Vol. 105, No. 6, June 1988). I asked long-time, well-respected breeders of American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers and Bull Terriers (the Miniature Bull Terrier wasn’t yet recognized by the AKC) to write frankly about the pluses and minuses of the dogs they had bred, raised, trained, shown and lived with for many years.

Each of the three breed specialists wrote the same basic things: This is a lot of dog. This is not the dog for everyone. In firm, kind, responsible hands, this dog is a wonderful companion and completely trustworthy. In the wrong hands, or if treated cruelly, this dog can be dangerous. And special care is necessary around other dogs.