The "Nanny Dog"

Astoundingly, for most of our history America’s nickname for Pit Bulls was “The Nanny Dog”. For generations if you had children and wanted to keep them safe you wanted a pit bull, the dog that was the most reliable of any breed with children or adults. The Nanny Dog is now vilified by a media that always wants a demon dog breed to frighten people and LHASA-APSO BITES MAN just doesn’t sell papers. Before pit bulls it was Rottweilers, before Rottweilers it was Dobermans, and before them German Shepherds. Each breed in it’s order were deemed too vicious and unpredictable to be around people. Each time people wanted laws to ban them. It is breathtakingly ironic that the spotlight has turned on the breed once the symbol of our country and our national babysitter. In temperance tests (the equivalent of how many times your kid can poke your dog in the eye before it bites him) of all breeds the most tolerant was the Golden Retriever. The second most tolerant was the pit bull.

Pit Bull’s jaws do not lock, they do not have the most powerful bite among dogs (Rottweilers have that honor) they are not naturally human aggressive (in fact pit bull puppies prefer human company to their mother’s two weeks before all other dogs), and they feel as much pain as any other breed (accidentally step on one’s toe and you’ll see). The most tolerant, patient, gentle breed of dogs is now embarrassingly portrayed as the most dangerous. It would be funny if the new reputation did not mean 6,000 are put to death every day, by far the highest number of any other breed euthanized. That’s a lot of babysitters.

There are few things quite as obnoxious as rich parents. Be it a $3000 stroller or Louis Vuitton diaper bags the well off don’t want their little angels to be seen with anything an average middle class rugrat might have, let alone a child who might be, gasp, POOR! So is it now, so ever has it been in America. In America one dog breed historically became known as the dog for people who are afraid of dogs. One dog breed achieved such a rock solid reputation with children that for 150 years it was known as America’s “Nanny Dog”.

One dog breed became so trusted that despite the fact that no Kennel Club or Association recognized it, despite the fact that it could be found on the poorest farms and bleakest city neighborhoods with kids who didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, rich people acquired them in droves because they were simply the safest, most tolerant breed to have around their gilded progeny.

Rich, poor, and everything in between, until recently Americans agreed that there were only a CERTAIN TYPE of people who would own a Pit Bull… America’s Nanny Dog is the victim of a smear campaign that has turned common sense upside-down and robbed us of our historical memory. The dogs that we trusted with our children’s lives are now deemed too vicious to live among us. The dogs that in two World Wars were the symbol of the United States military itself are now ordered off its bases. The Pit Bulls haven’t changed at all. Only the owners have.