Article by Bella Wexler | Illustration by Mallika Sunder

It is often joked that pet owners resemble their pets, whether it’s a tall, slender-faced man a sleek greyhound through the park or a posh, curly-haired woman shouldering a purse with poodle in tow. Yet, the tendency to associate pet with person isn’t always rooted in humor. Often, harmful misconceptions surrounding certain dog breeds’ appearances can be traced back to stereotypes about the humans presumed to be holding the leash. \

Breed-specific legislation refers to United States laws established to restrict the types of dog breeds that residents in certain communities are permitted to own, purportedly in the name of promoting public health and safety. After all, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported millions of dog bites per year. The danger posed by dog bites in this country are unquestionable; it’s a matter of what course of action will actually be effective in promoting safety.

The idea behind breed-specific legislation is to deduce individual dogs’ behavior from their breed alone, keeping neighborhoods safe by keeping the naturally ‘bad dogs’ out. But this logic rests on the notion that certain types of dogs are biologically predisposed to violence. When we examine why over 1,000 American communities (often with white majority residents) pin their fears on pit bull terriers, we must examine why this phenomenon sounds so familiar. Sure enough, research shows that people of color are widely believed to be the most likely owners of pit bulls (Linder 2018).

In order to unpack the correlation between breed discrimination and racial discrimination, we must dismantle misconceptions that allow breed discrimination to persist. What makes a dog bite? What kind of dog bites? These questions beg an examination of biology and breeding.

Major arguments against pit bulls site their physicality resulting from canine ancestors’ time baiting bulls and their ensuing breeding by humans for dog fights. Their strong jaws and bulky builds were bred with the agility of terriers, making them ideal for exploitation by gamblers in fighting rings. But they’re not the only dogs once bred to fight; Akitas, Shar Peis, Mastiffs, and many other beloved breeds are also products of this. Moreover, dogs bred for fighting were also bred to prevent aggression against humans so they could be handled and trained. In fact, they were even bred to be family companions and working dogs (Enos 2014). During both World Wars, America prided itself on pit bulls, featuring them in The Little Rascals and Buster Brown ads and naming them “America’s Dog” (Lauerman 2016).

That said, dogs are also subject to generations of random breeding, meaning that it is unlikely that any single dog’s disposition bares heavy influence from that for which its distant ancestors were bred. So while we must acknowledge that genetic predispositions do exist, they cannot be considered without taking into account the predominant influences of each individual dog’s environment. “Many diverse and sometimes subtle factors influence the development of behavior, including, but not limited to, early nutrition, stress levels experienced by the mother during pregnancy, and even temperature in the womb.” This list doesn’t even begin to recognize influences from trauma after a dog’s early childhood. Nurture trumps nature when it comes to a dog’s behavior. Yet, understandably, these factors can be hard to track and therefore hard to trust in the way that shocking statistics are. Most statistical reports do attribute the majority of dog bite incidents to pit bull terriers. However, before accepting a statistic as fact, we must assess its method of derivation. It must be noted that the common misidentification of a vast variety of dogs (including brindle-colored greyhounds, boxers, dogo argentinos, french bulldogs, and presa canarios) as pit bulls likely contributes to these numbers (Enos 2014). Canine DNA studies have found that the majority of dogs identified from appearance as pit bulls actually possess no pit bull-type DNA (Gunter et. al., 2018). So, far from just pit bulls are being called pitbulls, but just pit bulls are getting the bad rap. Not to mention, it certainly sells more papers and buys more site clicks to sensationalize ‘vicious pit bulls’ in dog bite headlines.

Evidently, the suggestion that pit bulls are responsible for the majority of dog bites due to their inherent violent natures is sourced from wildly skewed, misrepresentations of fact. The invariable truth is that any and all dogs may bite. Whether they do or not depends on a multitude of factors that far exceed biology and historical breeding.

In short, pit bulls as a breed are not bad. So, in this country that prides itself on all individuals being innocent until proven guilty, why are pit bulls and dogs that look like pit bulls preemptively condemned by Breed-Specific Legislation? The reason for breedism has always been racism.

Pit bulls may have symbolized American national pride in the first half of the 20th century, but the War on Drugs in the second half radically shifted this narrative. “By 1987, law enforcement announced that, ‘street dope dealers and street gangs have gone to pit bulls’” (Linder 2018). Meanwhile, pit bull imagery was highly popular in the hip-hop music scene, a “strongly racialized genre” (Tarver 281). The stereotypical association between rising crime rates and urban black youths soon encompassed pit bulls as a scapegoat as well. “The breed seemed likely to be saturated with connotations of ‘black crime’ and ‘black music’ in the minds of many Americans”(Linder 2018). German shepherds were perceived to be the most dangerous dogs prior to the War on Drugs bringing pit bulls to the forefront of public fears. Now, a survey comparing perceptions surrounding the two breeds found that “82% of participants considered a white person to be the most likely owner of a German shepherd while for pit bulls that number was just 34%” (Linder 2018). While other breeds studied showed substantial variation in racia connotation, the results for pit bulls showed a strong overall perception that they are predominantly owned by young black men. These results are consistent with the stereotypes targeting pit bulls and black youth in the War on Drugs. When black celebrity football player, Michael Vick was arrested and fined $1 million for running an underground dogfighting ring, he solidified the presumed connection between blackness and vicious pit bull fighting (Linder 2018). Vick’s neighbor said of him, “they move out of the ghetto, but the ghetto is still in them”(Tarver 278). Now, Breed-Specific Legislation aims to shield so-called ‘good’ communities from ‘ghetto’ dogs and their ‘ghetto’ owners preemptively labeled by stereotypical assumptions.

However, more and more studies are demonstrating the baselessness of Breed-Specific Legislation as well as its ineffectiveness. “Studies commissioned in Great Britain and Spain found that their pit bull bans had ‘no effect at all on stopping dog attacks’” (Linder 2018). In Spain, “the breeds most responsible for bites— both before and after the bans— were those not covered by it, primarily German shepherds” (Linder 2018). So, not only does fear of pit bulls carry with it deeply ingrained racial biases, but regulations established to keep pit bulls out has been shown to be entirely unsuccessful. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, “breed-specific bans are a simplistic answer to a far more complex social problem, and they have the potential to divert attention and resources from more effective approaches.” Discovering how best to ensure the safety of our communities is an important priority, but its solution will not be found in broad-stroke, discriminatory regulations with racist undertones. Condemning based on appearances has never been right among humans. It is never a sound basis on which to judge dogs, either.

Works Cited and Consulted:

American Veterinary Medical Association. “Why Breed-Specific Legislation Is Not the Answer.”

American Veterinary Medical Association, 2020,

www.avma.org/resources/pet-owners/why-breed-specific-legislation-not-answer.

Enos, Sara K. “The Problem with People, Not Pit Bulls.” Time, Time, 26 June 2014,

time.com/2927759/the-problem-with-people-not-pit-bulls/.

Gunter, Lisa M., et al. “A Canine Identity Crisis: Genetic Breed Heritage Testing of Shelter

Dogs.” PLOS ONE, vol. 13, no. 8, 23 Aug. 2018, p. e0202633, 10.1371/journal.pone.0202633.

Lauerman, Kerry. “It’s Time to Stop Demonizing Pit Bulls.” Washington Post, 20 May 2016,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/05/20/pit-bull-rescue-mission-restoring-a-bad

-dogs-good-name/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.

Linder, Ann. THE BLACK MAN’S DOG: THE SOCIAL CONTEXT of BREED SPECIFIC

LEGISLATION. 2018.

Nair, Yasmin. “Racism and the American Pit Bull | Current Affairs.” Currentaffairs.org, 2016,

www.currentaffairs.org/2016/09/racism-and-the-american-pit-bull.

Tarver, Erin. The Dangerous Individual(‘S) Dog: Race, Criminality and the “Pit Bull,” Culture.

2013, p. 281.