Busting The Myth That “Pit Bull” Is A Breed
Our first Myth-Busting Monday — our new social media series where we break down myths and stereotypes about the fascinating, misunderstood creatures that are pit bull-type dogs — makes a point so important, we want it to permanently live on our blog.
The myth is that “pit bull” is a breed. 👎🏼
It’s actually a catchall term that refers to several breeds with similar features (most commonly American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers, and American bullies) and their mixes. Really, it’s a label given based on looks — square heads, muscular bodies, those folded tortilla chip ears, etc. Research shows shelter workers mislabel dogs as pits up to 50% of the time. You can see on the second slide that when you mix very different dogs together, it’s not unlikely you’ll end up with some of those features! I always say it’s like how when you mix enough colors together, you get brown — when you mix enough breeds together, you get a dog that looks like a pit! 🤎
Scroll through the above post to see the DNA test results of some of our friends’ pups. As you can see, these “pit bulls” range from major mutts with surprising ancestors like Chow Chows, to what would be considered “purebred” dogs that look basically the same and were rescued from the local shelter. There’s even Mike, who looks nothing like a typical pit, but is largely Amstaff! 🐾
At The Hansel Foundation, we don’t care what’s in their DNA — if they are dogs who could be judged/labeled pits because of how they look, we want to give them a boost. Labels don’t help; in fact, dogs labeled pit bulls spend up to 3X longer in shelters. In adoption settings, we believe it’s best to call them what they usually are — mixed breeds! 👏
