American Pit Bull Terrier. F. Favorito
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THE AMERICAN PIT BULL IN THE 20TH CENTURY
While the distant past of the Pit Bull may remain a matter for some disagreement, the more recent history of the breed is indisputable. The breed began the 20th century in its American homeland as a newly officially registered breed. In 1898, a man by the name of Chauncy Bennett began a registry organization called the United Kennel Club (UKC) for the sole purpose of registering the Pit Bull. He did this because the breed had been ignored for registry by the more prestigious American Kennel Club, which was already in existence. The breed has undergone a number of name changes during its years with the United Kennel Club. At one time it was called the Pit Bull Terrier, and at another time the American (Pit) Bull Terrier, but to this day the United Kennel Club still exists and continues to register the breed as the American Pit Bull Terrier. The UKC has also undergone a number of changes during the course of the century and, although it continues to register the Pit Bull, it registers more breeds today than even the AKC.
The American Pit Bull Terrier has been a registered breed in the US since the creation of the United Kennel Club in 1898.
Pit Bull Terriers, because of their ability to work well with humans and their interesting look, have been used in films and television shows.
Another registry organization in America also began to register the Pit Bull during the very early part of the 20th century. This organization, known as the American Dog Breeders Association (ADBA), was begun by Guy McCord, a close friend of the well-known Pit Bull breeder John P. Colby. Like the UKC, the ADBA still registers the Pit Bull today.
During the 1930s, an American cinema series by the name of Our Gang (or The Lil’ Rascals) featured among its regular cast of characters a Pit Bull by the name of “Petey,” also known as “Pete the Pup.” The popularity of the series and its canine mascot brought such positive attention to the breed that by 1936, the prestigious American Kennel Club (AKC) began to register the Pit Bull. Unhappy with the name of the breed, however, those responsible for registry of the breed with the AKC decided to change the breed’s official name to Staffordshire Terrier and, ultimately, many years later, to American Staffordshire Terrier. During the late 1930s, then, those Pit Bulls being registered by the United Kennel Club, the American Dog Breeders Association and the American Kennel Club were all the same breed with exactly the same physical working form. Indeed breeders, such as John P. Colby, registered their dogs both as American Pit Bull Terriers with the UKC and as American Staffordshire Terriers with the AKC.
Pit Bulls were registered with the American Kennel Club as American Staffordshire Terriers by breeders who focused on conformation showing rather than working or fighting.
CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS
Contact these organizations for more information about the Pit Bull:
United Kennel Club
100 East Kilgore Road
Kalamazoo, MI 49002-5584
(616) 343-9020
American Dog Breeders Association
*exclusively for American Pit Bull Terrier breeders
Box 1771, Salt Lake City, UT 84110
members.aol.com/bstofshw/bst.html
Continental Kennel Club, Inc.
PO Box 908
Walker, LA 70785
(800) 952-3376
The popularity of the Pit Bull, with its various registries and with its many official breed names, waned during the 1940s and onward until roughly the mid-1970s. However, the breed was never threatened with extinction. It never reached a condition in which one could say there was no interest in these dogs at all, but other breeds became the focus of the average dog fancier’s attention. During this period, those Pit Bulls registered as Staffordshire Terriers or as American Staffordshire Terriers by the AKC fell out of favor with the fighting-dog fraternity. AKC breeders focused all of their attention on competition in the show ring and left the breeding of fighting dogs to those who registered their dogs with the UKC and the ADBA.
Dogs raised for fighting in America and elsewhere had their ears cropped to make them less vulnerable during combat.
It was during this period that a divergence in both physical type and temperament began to develop between AKC-registered dogs and the UKC- and ADBAREGISTERED dogs. While many owners of UKC- and ADBA-registered Pit Bulls continued to breed with working form and temperament in mind, AKC breeders devoted all of their energy to producing dogs that measured up to the adopted breed standard of perfection, and therefore were best equipped to compete in the show ring. As a result, the American Staffordshire Terrier (or AmStaff) began to take on its current more blocky type, while the dogs of working lines retained their more “terrier” type.
Also during this period, the breed in both its working form and its show form, and regardless of how it was registered, enjoyed a condition of relative obscurity. It lived in peace in America. No one thought it to be a dangerous dog. Many forgot what a Pit Bull even was. Those who remembered the breed remembered it fondly from the comedy series on television. The reputation for being dangerous was then reserved for such breeds as the Doberman Pinscher. The Pit Bull was left to its fanciers almost exclusively.
A BAD NAME
During the late 1970s, something unusual happened. The Pit Bull exploded in popularity, and, unfortunately, notoriety. One day, it seemed, few in America knew what a Pit Bull was, and the next day, the entire nation thought it to be the most dangerous dog in the world. Suddenly, the breed went from being a dog Americans remembered fondly to a dog everyone thought we would all be better off without. No one is quite sure why this happened. Nevertheless, the more negative talk there was about how dangerous Pit Bulls could be, in newspapers and on television reports, the more the mania spread. More and more irresponsible people wanted to own Pit Bulls; the more irresponsible owners there were, the more trouble the breed seemed to be creating.
At about the time that the reputation of the Pit Bull breed began to change for the worse in the United States (about 1980), Dutch dog fighters had developed an interest in these dogs. The first Pit Bulls to find their way to Holland were serious “match dogs” acquired from hard-core American “dog men.” It was not long before “underground” dog fighters in the United States began to take notice of the serious matches and breeding being conducted in Holland. From Holland, interest in the Pit Bull spread to Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, parts of Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world.
By the late 1980s or about 1990, the “dangerous Pit Bull” saga began to spread over the American borders to other, and even far off, countries. Following a lead established by law enforcement officials in the UK, countries began to pass laws against the ownership and importation