49 Fun Facts About Pit Bulls

Which term do breeders use for the terrier trait of fighting on when losing, prized in the pit bull's ancestors?

Gameness came from the terrier side of the early crosses and strength from the bulldog, and immigrants carried the resulting bull-and-terrier across the Atlantic, where farmers and ranchers put it to work.

Which NFL quarterback pleaded guilty in 2007 to running the Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting ring?

Michael Vick's kennel had a second act: 22 of its most traumatized pit bulls went to a Utah sanctuary, where many earned good-citizen certificates and found homes as family pets.

Which registry, founded in 1898, was the first to recognize the pit bull as a breed?

The United Kennel Club was founded by Chauncey Bennett, who gave registration number 1 to his own pit bull, a dog named Bennett's Ring.

Under what name did the AKC first recognize pit bulls in the 1930s?

Staffordshire Terrier was a fresh name for dogs an older registry already listed as pit bulls, and some dogs still carry both: an AmStaff to one club, a pit bull to the other.

What is the term for surgically trimming a dog's ear flaps, long common on pit bulls?

Cropping is optional in the pit bull's main breed standard, which accepts natural ears too and says no dog may be marked down for them, because some countries now forbid the surgery.

Which coat colour or pattern do both main registries refuse to accept in the APBT?

Merle is barred by both registries: one links the pattern to health defects and suspects that breeders chasing a designer colour crossed in other breeds to get it.

In 1996 a big-city SPCA tried to rebrand its pit bulls under what name?

St. Francis Terriers was the San Francisco SPCA's idea, sold with a drawing of a pit bull dressed as St. Francis of Assisi, and it was suspended after several of the roughly 60 dogs placed killed cats.

In 2004 NYC's animal care centre briefly relabelled its pit bulls as what?

New Yorkies lasted less than three days: the shelter director hoped a cuddlier name would get more pit bulls adopted, then scrapped it when New Yorkers made plain they hated the idea.

Which Star Trek actor fostered a pit bull named Ginger in 2017 and became a champion of the breed?

Patrick Stewart shared videos of his weeks with Ginger online, and in 2021 the ASPCA gave him its Pit Bull Advocate & Protector Award for his work to change how people see the dogs.

Which craft brewery's dog logo was inspired by Petey of Our Gang?

Lagunitas founder Tony Magee chose the dog because he thought Petey was the star of the whole gang, and pit bull owners liked the label so much that many sent in photos of their own pets.

In 2005 two members of which profession were reprimanded for a TV ad with a pit bull logo?

Lawyers John Pape and Marc Chandler advertised with a pit bull in a spiked collar and the number 1-800-PIT-BULL; Florida's Supreme Court ordered a public reprimand and sent both to an advertising workshop.

The Old Family Red Nose strain of pit bulls originated in which country?

Ireland's 'Old Family' dogs were bred in Cork and Kerry within so closed a circle that recessive red took over the strain, and emigrants later sent home for them.

Which actor's stuntman character owns Brandy the pit bull in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?

Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth shares a trailer with Brandy, who helps him fight off the Manson intruders, and the dog won the Palm Dog at Cannes, which Quentin Tarantino collected in person.

At which dog sport does the pit bull famously excel?

Weight pulling has a harnessed dog haul a loaded cart or sled a short distance, the feat Buck performs to win a wager in Jack London's The Call of the Wild.

APBTs are used as hunting dogs mainly to restrain which animal?

Feral hogs are work for a catch dog, built to hold and wrestle the animal in place; farmers and ranchers first gave the breed the same job with semi-wild cattle.

Which Canadian province has banned pit bulls since 2005?

Ontario passed its ban after a run of attacks, and ten years on Toronto had almost no pit bulls left, yet its reported dog bites had climbed to their highest level this century.

Which UK law makes owners prove their dog is not a prohibited fighting type?

The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 judges a dog by its looks, not its pedigree: if the prosecution says it is a banned type, the court presumes so unless the owner can show otherwise.

Besides the pit bull, which Japanese fighting breed is banned in Britain?

The Tosa sits on Britain's banned list with the pit bull terrier, the Dogo Argentino and the Fila Brasileiro: none may be sold, given away, abandoned or bred from.

In her 2008 convention speech, Sarah Palin joked that only what separates a hockey mom from a pit bull?

Lipstick was the punchline: Palin, who called herself an average hockey mom, used the dog to say such mothers are tough, and she kept the joke in her stump speeches.

Each Staffy to serve as mascot of the Staffordshire Regiment has carried which name?

Watchman has been the name of every mascot in turn; The Kennel Club accepted the breed only in 1935, having held back for years because of its past as a fighting dog.

Besides Staffordshire, the Staffy originated in the northern parts of which city?

Birmingham's northern districts and the neighbouring Black Country bred it as a pit dog, yet the breed standard now singles out its affinity with children.

Tia Torres moved her rescue centre, the setting of Pit Bulls & Parolees, to which Southern city?

New Orleans drew her because of the stray and abandoned dogs Hurricane Katrina left behind, and she later admitted the need was far worse than she had expected.

Which is the smallest American Bully size that the breed's registries recognise?

Pocket is the smallest recognised size, for males of 14 to 17 inches at the shoulder; the still smaller dogs sold as 'Micro' bullies fall outside every official standard.

Which type of dog did the UK government ban at the end of 2023 after fatal attacks?

The XL Bully became illegal to breed or sell on 31 December 2023, and from February 2024 illegal to own unless the dog is registered as exempt, neutered and kept muzzled on a lead in public.

The American Bully was developed from pit bull stock first and foremost for which role?

Family companion was the aim: breeders mixed in heavier breeds for bulk while working to breed out the old urge to fight other dogs.

Which band was fronted by two pit bulls, Budgie and Basil, who barked the vocals?

Caninus, a New York grindcore band, put Budgie and Basil on lead vocals, shared a record with Hatebeak, a metal band fronted by a parrot, and broke up when Basil died.

In World War I propaganda posters of nations as dogs, which country was drawn as a pit bull?

America is the pit bull at the centre of a 1914 poster, flanked by an English bulldog, a German dachshund, a French bulldog and a Russian wolfhound, each in uniform, and declaring itself neutral but afraid of none.

When the first Pete's son took over the role in Our Gang, what changed about the famous eye ring?

It switched eyes: the father was born with most of a ring, which makeup finished off with dye, but the son had none, so the whole circle was painted on, round the other eye.

Which silent comedian's 1925 film The Freshman gave Our Gang's first Pete an early cameo?

Harold Lloyd's college comedy used the dog, Pal, when he was about six months old, and the part persuaded his owner to become his trainer and manager and build him a film career.

Before playing Pete in Our Gang, Pal the Wonder Dog played Tige in which film series?

Buster Brown began as a comic strip about a boy and his dog Tige, and the pair went on to front a shoe company whose logo carried both their faces.

Which producer's studio made the Our Gang comedies that starred Pete the Pup?

Hal Roach got the idea after auditioning an over-rehearsed child actress: outside his window real children were squabbling over sticks, and he decided to film kids simply being themselves.

Which breed, rather than a pit bull, played Pete in the 1994 film The Little Rascals?

An American Bulldog took over from the pit bull, just as one had replaced the Bull Terrier of The Incredible Journey in its 1993 remake, Homeward Bound.

Stubby, the stray who became a World War I mascot, first turned up at which university?

Yale's playing fields were the regiment's training ground, and when the men sailed for France a corporal wrapped the stray in his greatcoat, carried him up the gangway and hid him in a coal bunker.

After World War I, Stubby became the mascot of which college sports team?

The Georgetown Hoyas took him on when his owner enrolled at the law school, and his halftime trick of nosing a football around the field became a routine for the mascots who followed him.

Which general presented Stubby with a gold medal at a White House ceremony?

John J. Pershing, who had commanded the American army in France, did the honours, and the medal joined the others on a chamois blanket embroidered for Stubby by Frenchwomen.

Stubby's preserved body is on display in which Smithsonian museum?

The National Museum of American History shows him in its gallery on Americans at war; his owner gave the mounted body in 1956, after three decades on display at the Red Cross museum.

Stubby's wartime legend credits him with catching what in the trenches?

A German spy, in the story told at Stubby's death, tried to fool the dog as it kept watch at night, but Stubby seized him by the breeches and held on until help came.

Which newspaper marked Stubby's death in 1926 with a long obituary headed 'Stubby of A.E.F. Enters Valhalla'?

The New York Times began 'Stubby is dead', granted that he was only a dog and unpedigreed at that, then listed four offensives, a wound, a gassing and more medals than any other soldier dog.

Nipper, the dog of His Master's Voice and sometimes called a pit bull, became which American company's mascot?

RCA inherited Nipper through the Victor record company; Francis Barraud had painted the dog, a terrier mix, three years after it died, head cocked at the horn of a talking machine.

Sallie Ann Jarrett, a Civil War regiment's dog mascot, has a bronze statue on which battlefield?

Gettysburg is where she went missing in the retreat and was found days later keeping watch over the regiment's dead and wounded, and its veterans put her likeness at the foot of their monument.

Which pit bull, Cesar Millan's right-hand dog on Dog Whisperer, died in 2010 at the age of 16?

Daddy was so steady that Millan used him to settle troubled dogs and to help raise his own successor, a pit bull puppy named Junior.

In 2013 Farmers Insurance dropped cover for pit bull bites in which state?

California policyholders were told the insurer would stop covering bites by pit bulls and two other types of dog, which it said made up more than a quarter of its dog-bite claims.

Which US city's voters ended its long-standing pit bull ban in 2020 after the mayor vetoed a repeal?

Denver's council voted to lift the ban, the mayor vetoed the move, and voters then overruled him with about 65 per cent support, replacing the ban with a restricted licence.

A 2000 CDC review paired pit bull–type dogs with which breed in over half of fatal bites?

The Rottweiler and the pit bull type together figured in more than half of 238 deaths over twenty years, and in the study's last two years it was the Rottweiler that topped the list.

Which tool do pit bull experts advise multi-dog homes to keep in case of a fight?

A break stick levers the jaws apart, and it is needed because the dogs hold on by choice: the famous 'locking jaw' is a myth, and nothing in a pit bull's skull locks.

Which airline barred 'pit bull type dogs' as service or support animals in 2018?

Delta, the Atlanta-based carrier, acted after two of its employees were bitten by a pit bull flying as a support animal, and it also limited each passenger to one emotional support animal.

Besides bulls, which animals were chained and set upon by dogs in the baiting sport Britain outlawed in 1835?

Bears, like bulls, were chained to a stake for the dogs, and when baiting was outlawed its followers turned to matching dog against dog, a sport far easier to hide than one that needed an arena.

Which bone disorder is the pit bull notably prone to?

Hip dysplasia means the ball and socket of the hip fit badly and grind instead of gliding, which can leave an otherwise hardy, athletic dog lame with arthritis.

The pit bull's breed standard warns that the dogs are among the most capable canine what?

Climbers is the standard's word, which is why it calls good fencing a must, and owners are advised to build that fence tall, strong and proof against tunnelling as well.