This is still true. Many herding/stock guarding breeds will harm livestock unless their instincts are harnessed through training. Some individuals are more likely to just naturally guard than others, but all need formal training to ever be considered trustworthy.

You are right it did not surprise my hubby..he has owned pitbulls for 43 years since he was in diapers..he hasnt had one in 15 years..You are right he said she was an idiot.I Like to hear what other owners have to say regarding the breed,hubby owned pits that where mixed with bulldogs,boxers and even fighting pits that he was given as a rescue situation but hes never dealt with an amstaff so I came here.When people say pitbull to me I am thinking a bulldog mix type dog..a true pitbull would be AKC Amstaff or UKC American Pitbull Terrier..I was under the impression the amstaff had the gaming bred out and now more for show dogs therefore more of a different temperment then your "pits" ..dont get me wrong I know hes not a Pyr or a lab by any means but hoping I paid $ to get more of a family dog.I have read and read the temperment on Amstaffs spoken to numerous breeders and kennels in my search,I am knowledgable of the background of these dogs...so why the higher price on an amstaff $1000 and up then going and paying $100 bucks for a"pitbull"? I am trying to figure out this connection and diconnection of the two breeds?

Why do people not allow dogs to do dog things some think they act on logic and reason. How have we gotten so far from reality that we cannot remember that animals are JUST animals not people. Too many humans give animals human traits, then they blame the animal for acting on instinct and not thinking through their actions... pleasehttp://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.png

More of a family dog??? APBT and Am Staff are both excellent family dogs. Any human aggression should never be tolerated in either breed.

As far as animal aggression, it truly depends where you get your Am Staff. Some lines and some individuals are more prone to dog and small animal aggression than others.

Honestly, the price differences (assuming you aren't close to a breeder who would give you a pup for free or a reduced rate) is not that much at all if you are talking about going through a reputable breeder who is showing, working, health testing, temperament testing, etc. etc. When you see $100 for "pit bull" puppies you are likely looking at an ad from a shitty BYB.

MJ is correct. The Am Staff was just the AKC show or confirmation version of the original APBT. I all comes down to this. In order to breed race horses or fighting dogs you need to race the horses or fight the dogs in order to determine which are worthy of breeding and improving the breed. The minute you cease to breed winners to winners and breed for confirmation instead, you begin to diminish the attributes that make for winning. The Am Staff is just the descendent of the APBT or a version of the APBT that began to be bred to win beauty and temperament contests instead of winning pit contests. The gameness aspect is not tested and therefore diminished. Now that game testing is illegal essentially the APBT is being bred from fighting dog bloodlines, weight pull winners and confirmation winners. Although they are closer to the game bred originals because Am Staffs are just a lot more generations removed. They are still basically the same dogs and DA can show in varying degrees in both. It is possible to get a very aggressive Am Staff, although the chances are lower than with an APBT.

It all boils down to how far removed the dogs are from actual fight bred stock. Essentially they are both from the same origins. Many fighting breeds that were accepted by the AKC as show breeds, like Akita's are just a lot further removed from their origins as fighters. That means that occasionally the great fighting attributes, or the genetic predisposition for aggression is there and shows itself.

If you take a champion fighting dog and breed it to another champion fighting dog, there is a very high probability that you will get good fighters. But in true game tested breeding even among the pups from those two dogs, only a small percentage will be worthy of breeding to improve the performance. Without game testing them to find out which pups are best, even the APBT's abilities are being diluted because all dogs of good blood are not considered worthy of breeding without actually determining who is the best of the best.

The truth is that the only way to breed the APBT true to its original form is to fight them and breed winners to winners only. When breeders start breeding for big heads, color, size etc, the breed is lost forever and becomes something else. like weight pull dogs instead of fighting dogs or the famous rare blue nose pit.

Yeah athiest, even star as a mix breed, it didn't matter the size. Cows horses , llamas, and even moles were on his interest list. Don't know what a kick would do but Im with you on size of animal doesn't matter

Dogs kill other animals. Why??? Because they are dogs and can!

This is Pongo- http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...etty_Pongo.jpg

He was raised with my mothers pgymy goat. He broke into the goat pen one day and killed it. He only weighed 18lbs at the time. He has a high preydrive. He is mellow now at almost 15 yrs of age, but in his prime, he would take any animal no matter the size just b/c he could.

Pongo lived daily with our Quaker Parrot, Jade. For over 2 yrs they were best friends, but then one day Jade bite Pongo on the tongue. All heck broke loose and we ended up having to rehome the bird b/c Pongo was hell bent on killing her.

Unless it is a livestock guardian dog, no dog should be left loose and unsupervised around livestock. It is just plain good commonsense.

I was actually worried about people and aggressive with the horses,the DA doesnt bother me as much being like you mentioned we already deal with that on a smaller version with the Jack Russell..Cowboy..the Jack bristled up one day at growled at Bear the Pyr while we were mucking stalls,Bear jumped on top of him and it sounded like he was ripping him to shreds..once we got Bear off of him we realized the Jack Russell had not one scratch on him at all...Bear was warning him,immediatley after we got them apart our Jack Russell bristled up and growled at Bear once again,this time we grabbed him and put him in his kennel..to this day the two are not out together...next time Bear the 180 pound Pyr might not be so generous to the 18 pound Jack Russell.

Training is certainly something that is taking place,all of our dogs have awesome recall,leash manners,sit,stay,wait and off cues.

---------- Post added at 11:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 AM ----------

Thats what I am finding out! ha..ha..

...You do know that an Amstaff is just as likely to pull all the stuff an APBT does, right?

A bulldog attacking livestock? Whoda thunk it?

This is all very good learning information..I have been trying to really understand even after reading and re reading the relationship between American Pitbull and Amstaff.
Atheist,you explained that very well,I understand this better now.

---------- Post added at 08:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 AM ----------

Now the question of..How can I determine if my pups pedigree is distant from fightening stock? Like I mentioned before my hubby grew up with "pitbulls' Unregistered ..we are unfamiliar with the bloodlines of the Amstaff.

---------- Post added at 08:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 AM ----------

Well I have to say..on my search I have found kennels that did show and have Amstaffs loose on farm with horses and other dogs..after seeing alot of this I thought maybe this could happen.After the incident with my friends pitbull attacking her donkey sent my mind reeling again if we made the right decision regarding the breed.

I agree,my husband had enlightened me last night that he had heard our friend say once before how the dogs chased the donkey and play...no harm.I agree with it being totally 100% her fault! ecspecially when he attacked the first donkey and still allowed him access to the second.This same dog had attacked the neighbors cows.

---------- Post added at 12:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:14 PM ----------

She said they put him(DJ the pit) to sleep because he could no longer be trusted with the kids(she has 3 small boys) becasue he had turned on the donkey.

My husband grew up with pitbulls and fancys the breed,he wanted one again now that we have the room(acre wise)He wanted a pitbull and from everything I had read I was against it completley then I stumbled onto the Amstaff..I spoke to many breeders,did alot of reading(for 6 months) and for our situation with horses and other dogs that the Amstaff was the better choice for our family so I was sold..started puppy shopping.We do have adequate fencing and he will be kept separate from the horses when not supervised,hubby is home training horses daily and able to watch our new member(Dakota).When we leave we will put the horses in the dry lot away from the dog.As for our other dogs we have kennels for each one and we rotate there time out in the fenced yard..Our Jack Russell is extremely dog aggressive and cannot be out at the same time as the others so we are use to rotating the dogs.

I'm not over people actually think that. Human and animal aggression is completely different.

When my dogs have killed birds, people think they will turn on people because they tasted blood.. It's ridiculous. The SBT I owned for 3 years never turned on people, the Lab x I've had for 5 years, hasn't turned on me.

Well, what were/are you looking for in a dog? For human friendliness, you can't do better than a well bred and temperamentally sound APBT or Am Staff. If you are looking for a dog that will be safe to leave unsupervised around other animals, you're looking for a mythical creature.

Any dog of any breed can be other animal aggressive. That is related to prey drive and many breeds were bred for that drive. Within the "bully breeds" you have a higher chance of other dog aggression and small animal aggression because these dogs were bred for it.

Of course, individuals will vary.

If your dog turned out to be dog and/or small animal aggressive it would still be a great family dog. You would just have to manage the dog. IE, keep the dog leashed and never let it interact with other dogs or small animals. If you wanted a multiple dog household and your particular individual dog reached maturity and "turned on" to dog aggression you would have to crate and rotate or find another means of keeping the dogs separate from each other and safe.

Are you concerned that dog or small animal aggression translates to human aggression? That is a debunked myth. DA and HA are very separate things.

This^^^^. Dogs are dogs are dogs and in the end, they act just like a dog. A prey driven dog should not be let out where it can roam around where livestock is. If allowed, any Terrier is going to chase what it perceives as prey, even if in reality it's only a plastic bag. The thing is, the example LilianaLove gave you is spot on.... Lily THINKS it's a small animal on the run from her, so she does what all prey driven animals do, she chases it. And if she were to catch it, she would do what all prey drive animals (or for that matter, any dog really), she's going to pounce on it.

The owners of this dog failed it BIG TIME!!! There was absolutely NO reason why that dog should have been put down. It was behaving like a dog... like a terrier, just as nature has taught it to do for years and years and years. That would be like putting a cat to sleep for killing a mouse or a bird. Who would put their cat to sleep if it killed a mouse in their house??? No one, because the world understands that cats kill mice. No one would give it a second thought or think badly about their cat, let alone consider putting it to sleep.

What some people cannot comprehend is that dogs, (of any breed) in general chase (and sometimes kill) cats. All Terriers have prey drive, some have higher prey drive instincts than others, but they will all chase down cats, rabbits, squirrels, rodents, snakes, and I guess sometimes, donkeys. There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with that dog that it should have been put down. The owner should have learned her lesson the first time and known better than to turn the dogs out loose to roam unsecured, and unsupervised, out where the livestock are. The donkeys being injured and one killed, was completely 1,000,000% the owners fault, and putting that dog to sleep over it was completely ignorant on the owners behalf. She failed her livestock, and in the end, she failed her dog and put the blame and punishment on the dog, when she should have put the blame and punishment on herself. An innocent dog died because she wouldn't take responsibility for what happened as HER fault.

This really disgusts me to no end. I have 5 dogs, 3 are "pit bull type" dogs. I also have 2 cats. My dogs are all house dogs, and the cats are inside as well. All the dogs are crate/rotated when I am home, and when I am not, they are all crated except Mollie, who has full run of the house, as do the cats. I trust her, but in the end, if she were to kill one of my cats during the day, I would have no one to blame but myself. I feel confident enough that I am comfortable to leave her loose in the house with the cats. However, if I go home today to two dead cats, I cannot blame Mollie. I can, and will, only blame myself. I take FULL responsibility for everything my dogs do, and if one of them gets to the cats, it's MY fault, not theirs!

Sorry, I usually am not this harsh, but this person putting this dog down over it acting just like any normal dog would, just chaps my hide!

It's perfectly manageable provided that you're responsible. I have a couple of friends that keep an APBT or two for the purposes of kicking the coyotes off (or killing them, killing works too) and keeping other large vermin off the property. The dogs don't bother the livestock because she doesn't give them the chance to. They're supervised by her 100% of the time with the animals. However, most breeds with decent drive and the size to drop a donkey is still one you're going to have to watch around your animals. After all, you wouldn't stick a rabbit in front of a greyhound then leave and expect good things out of it?

Addressing this I would say no they can't be trusted to attack any animal even after years of getting along.
One of my APBT's who was game bred went nine years before it attacked a dog, my friends rottweiler. It wasn't prey kicking in during a chase it was a calculated attack. One she patiently waited for over a number a days. She acted so fast and from a dead silent sitting position.
She was around some other dogs during those nine years before this but it was this dog she chose for whatever reason to attack.
I was well aware of her abilities and I supervised her while she was around other dogs. She tolerated being around some dogs but she didn't play with them.
Around some dogs she would sit and tense up. Her lips would quiver and she would drool out of the side of her mouth. She never reacted beyond that as I would remove her when she displayed those signs. During her 13 years she was only around a handful of dogs.

My dog now is a pit bull I rescued so I call her a pit bull mix, she behaves while walking around other dogs but I never let her within reach of another dog because she is dog reactive to all dogs now.
No more being loose around the horses because she charged one of the horses who walked over to where we were sitting.
I am very careful with this dog. No dogs are allowed over to my house. I have a fenced back yard and when she goes back there I am with her.
She only leaves the house with me. I take her safety very seriously and watch her like a hawk.
Just put the above out there to make aware that a pit bull mix, Amstaff, etc can be reactive/aggressive too.

Rosie has been with horses, but never unsupervised. She learned the hard way to watch out for their feet. She liked running with them and got run over. Nothing serious, just a few bruises & scrapes. But after that, she ran in front of them and gave them a wide berth.
Nick does not get let loose at the farm. He doesn't want to run with them, he wants to chase the horses.
Frankie has only seen them from a distance..and since I don't trust my sisters horses either, she won't be loose at the farm unless the horses aren't home.

Ok, so what made you unsure of a Pit Bull (meaning APBT), but ok with the Am Staff, which is so closely related? Were you concerned about the animals or the humans or both? For the humans, again..both are excellent dog breeds providing they are decently bred and mentally sound. For animals, again...both can be good with them and both can be bad. There really isn't that much of a difference.

Not trying to offend anyone here because you guys are for the most part the best Pit Bull people I have come across, but when I did my dog search and research I did come across a lot of AKC Am Staff breeders that were misinformed or totally ignorant of their own breeds origins and traits and those of the APBT. Between human bias and internet sites being full of revisionist history, total bullshit and outright lies, you really have to be careful what you believe. Not all sources, even if they appear reputable, are actually knowledgeable and reputable.

From what I have read of your posts, I think you will be just fine. As long as you understand dog and small animal aggression and are willing to separate the dogs if it comes to that and you are willing to work with and train your dog to at least behave in a civilized manner when it sees another animal, you'll do well. Some people have dogs that "turned on" and would see another animal and become so excited they scream and warble and bark. Even though you can't train out prey drive and the desire to enter into hunting or combat, you can train the dog to obey commands and focus on you instead of the other animal.

Jack Russell's are one of my very favorites among the terriers. They are similar to the APBT and Am Staff when it comes to prey drive, intensity, intelligence, and the willingness to have a go at another animal. Since you already have one and he/she is DA you have a very good idea of what you would be dealing with IF your Am Staff became DA. The difference is size and power which is why obedience training is so important.