GAMEDAWGZ
This site is dedicated to the Gamebred American Pit Bull Terrier
This is my own personal theory about the origin of the Pitbull
Bulldog Origins
Okay, now I�m pretty sure everyone knows the two main theories of the pitbulls origin. First there is the conventional theory put forth for a hundred years or so that basically says that the modern pit bulldog is the result of the old time bulldog being crossed with more agile terriers when they proved to be too slow to fight one another after the outlawing of bullbaiting. We all probably agree that the story is hogwash. The other theory is the one put forward by Richard Stratton in his APBT books. He make a very strong case for the modern pit bull being the original bulldog essentially unchanged. I have always tended to favor Strattons Theory strongly, but one thing always bothered me, and that was the incredible size variation in the breed. Stratton never really addressed this to my satisfaction. He said that the breed was performance driven and size wasn�t selected for. Other performance breeds vary in size but usually only about fifty percent or so. The pit bull varies in size by four hundred percent or more! (from as small as twenty five pounds to over a hundred.) Stratton also points out that the pit bull, when outcrossed to non-game breeds loses its gameness, which is nearly impossible to recover. I agree completely with this. Now, consider that he also points out that when two unrelated, game pit bull strains are crossed, gameness can often be lost but can be regained by brother/sister inbreeding of the offspring. So, with this in mind consider the possibility that, three hundred years ago, there existed not one, but two breeds of game dogs, developed independently from one another over several centuries. One, called the bulldog, was bred for the sport of bullbaiting, and the other was bred for fighting in the pit, and would probably be referred to as a �pit dog� or �fighting dog�. How could such a thing come about, you may ask? Well, think about the nature of medieval European society for a moment. It was strictly divided between the nobles and the peasants for one thing. Bullbaiting would have been a sport of the nobles as it would have been rather expensive as the dogs must have been rather large, I should think. (This would have been a natural result of the sport, as the smaller dogs would have been killed more often during the battle with the bull). Also it was illegal for peasants to own a �sporting� (or hunting) dog, which a bulldog probably would have been seen as. Now, of course, peasants would have like their sports as much as the nobles and since they could not participate in the bullbaiting, they developed the sport of Ratting, which every one is probably familiar with. It would not be too much of a stretch then to suppose they also began to fight the dogs against each other, and thus the �pit dog � was developed. These two breeds would, out of necessity have developed a very similar appearance, both needed powerful jaws, and a strong, athletic, trim build to be successful. The only significant difference would have been their size. The pit dog being no more than about twenty-five pounds or so, while the bulldog probably would have been about sixty pounds minimum. Now, you may be thinking that the bulldog wouldn�t be �game� like the pit dog, but really the two are fighting very similar battles. Bulls are in their own right very game animals. If you don�t think so just watch a bullfight in Mexico. They can last several hours, and the bull never gives up. I should think the bulldog would be just as �beat up� after his match as the pit dog is after his. Lets look ahead a little to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and see how this theoretical situation might develop. The middle class is now growing and since they come from the ranks of the peasants they would have brought their pit dogs with them. In most taverns there would be a back room with a dog pit. The sport was regularly advertised in �gentlemen�s magazines� such as �Life In London�. The laws against �Sporting dogs� have been relaxed somewhat and the pit dog men are a little more well off so they can afford to breed them a little bigger, so now I imagine they might average around thirty pounds or so. Bullbaiting is on the decline and is outlawed in 1835. So now we have the bulldogs with no bulls to fight any more, what would the bulldog men do? I know what I would do, I would start fighting the bulldogs with each other in the pits right along side the pit dogs! Now of course the pit dog men would not put their relatively small dogs up against the big bulldogs right off, but I�m certain some would want to get a size advantage for themselves and therefore would likely use some of the bulldogs in their breeding, knowing of course that they would probably have to wait a few generations to get quality dogs, and of course there would be others who would not dream of ruining their dogs with bulldog blood. I would imagine there were hot debates in the taverns about whether or not the dogs should be crossed at all, or whether the pit dog would survive the invasion of the bulldog into his territory. I sure would like to have a time machine to go back and find out if this is how it happened or not. Anyway, that�s my theory, and I don�t have a scrap of evidence to back it up, but it seems logical to me. It would seem to explain a few things, like the size variability for one. If anyone has any comments, or thinks I�m just full of crap or whatever, agree , disagree, don�t care , don�t know, I�d sure like to hear what you all think!
E-Mail Me