Some of the rumors
you may have heard about the pit bull and its mouth are that they have locking
jaws, they have the highest bite pressure per square inch, and that they are
more likely to bite or attack than any other dog breed. All of these myth’s you
hear about the pit bull are false.
The pit bull’s jaw
is just like the jaw of any other dog. This breed has the same structure of
their skull, jaws, and teeth, in proportion to their size as any other dog
does, meaning that a pit bull has the same power of its bite that is
proportional to the size of its jaws and the jaw muscles that a pug would.
There is no evidence the pit bull having a locking jaw capability, let alone
any other dog breed. The pit bull does however, like any other terrier or
hunting breed, have a strategic way of biting which may lead people to believe
the dog’s jaw “locks”. The method that many dog breeds are capable of using is
a bite, hold, and shake behavior.
The pit bull has
also been accused of having the highest bite pressure per square inch of any
other dog. These bite pressure myths ranged anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000
pounds of pressure per square inch. One test was done and showed that domestic
dogs average at about 320 pounds of pressure per square inch with their bite.
Dr. Brady Barr of National Geographic conducted a test with three dog breeds to
compare their bite pressure per square inch. The dogs Dr. Barr used were a pit
bull, a Rottweiler, and a German Shepherd. The Rottweiler scored the highest on
this test with 328, the German Shepherd with 238, and the pit bull with the
lowest score of 235 pounds of bite pressure per square inch. There are no other
test that have been done that proves that the pit bull has a higher bite
pressure than the test that Dr. Barr conducted.
It is assumed that
pit bulls attack or bite more than any other breed of dog. These statistics are
hard to obtain clearly because not every single dog bit that occurs is reported
to authorities. Also, because a pit bull isn’t just one breed, it is a term to
group together different breeds of dog and that there are over 20 breeds of dog
that look like a pit bull. These simple mistakes in identifying what a pit bull
is and what the 20+ breeds of dog that look like a pit bull are other ways that
make these stats inaccurate.
The rumors that
are made about the pit bull having locking jaw capabilities, the highest bite
pressure per square inch, and that they bite or attack the most out of any
other dog breed are false. These studies prove to be more reliable than the
stereotypes that you may hear about the pit bull.
Works Cited
"Pit
Bull Myths." Pit Bull Myths. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.realpitbull.com/myths.html>.
"Pit
Bull Rescue Central." Pit Bull Rescue Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 05
Nov. 2015. <http://www.pbrc.net/mediacenter/mediaqa.html>.
"Pit Bull." Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_bull>.
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