Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Pit bulls: A 21st century depiction of the American Pit Bull Terrier

To further the laudable goal of education, I wanted to call attention to an interesting piece by Gary Wilkes, which was published last year, about the history of the APBT (American Pit Bull Terrier) in the USA.



As Colleen Lynn wrote, "It has been over 20 years since a U.S. journalist has presented the pit bull issue in such a compelling and candid way as Wilkes has here. The last was EM Swift who created the 1987 Sports Illustrated cover article, "The Pit Bull: Friend and Killer."  The 2010 Wilkes piece depicts the first accurate U.S. version of pit bulls in the 21st century. Much of its power lies in the author's explanation of the genetic underpinnings of the breed, which cannot be disputed or "trained out" of the breed."

Wilkes, an acclaimed behaviorist, trainer and author with over 30 years experience with dogs, begins the piece by describing the unprovoked pit bull attack on little Charlotte Blevins. This 2008 attack sent shock waves through the heartland of America and three months later, moved the City of Omaha to adopt a breed-specific law. The Wilkes article is 6-pages and covers many areas, including breed-specific laws.

Continue reading the introduction to the Wilkes article here
You can download the article in PDF format here.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent article. Thanks for calling attention to it again.

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  2. This is a great article and it is important to keep bringing back up.

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  3. nutters should keep a copy of this on their beside table and read it every night, and hope and perhaps pray their mutant doesn't cause a family grief and heart ache...

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  4. i agree, this should be resurrected every now and then. thanks jake.

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