Why Did Pit Bulls Prevail?

Dog breeding was one of the triumphs of the 19th Century. What has gone wrong?

When I moved to Chicago in 1982, I noticed that the favorite dog of black people in the lakefront parks were German shepherds.

This struck me as a good choice for folks who tended to live in rough parts of town: German shepherds, a.k.a., police dogs, are big, intimidating to burglars, but also highly trainable and not overly homicidal. People back then who wanted terrifying dogs typically preferred Doberman pinschers or, more recently, Rottweilers. German shepherds were admired as a fine all-around choice for somebody who needed both a family pet and a guard dog.

By the early 21st Century, however, the favorite dog of the lower half or lower quarter or lower tenth of American society was the pit bull (and related breeds, such as bull terriers, American bullies, Staffordshire terriers, etc.)

What happened?

Note that when I was a kid, practically nobody was familiar with pit bullish breeds. For example, on Sunday, November 19, 1972 when I was 13, ABC broadcast the Oscar-winning movie Patton for the first time on TV. A large fraction of my 9th grade class at the then all-boys Notre Dame HS in the San Fernando Valley watched the film that night. The next morning, a major topic of conversation was George C. Scott’s alien-looking bull terrier dog:

Practically nobody in my class had ever seen a dog like that in real life.

So, what brought about the pit bull mania of the last several decades?

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