The Pit Bull's Bite

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>.

About Me

My name is Zoë Petersen and I am currently a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I am a big lover of all animals but have a soft spot for dogs. I feel that dogs are amazing animals because of all the things they’re capable of. They can help people with disabilities, they help police officers and other services with certain duties that humans aren’t capable of, and the best of all they are full of love, loyalty, and forgiveness.

I am writing this blog to bring awareness to the stereotypes of certain dogs and how it affects how people treat them. I’ll be focusing mainly on pit bulls in this blog because I have a closer connection to pit bulls than I do any other dog breeds that get rejected from false accusations. I have been bitten by a pit bull once before. I was about 14 years old and walking home from the bus stop. I always had to walk by my neighbor’s driveway to get to my house. One day, my neighbors had their daughter and her dogs over. She had two pit bulls. As I was walking past their driveway, one of the pit bulls ran down the driveway and started to jump around me and bark at me. I was very nervous and kept walking. The dog ended up jumping at my arm and bit me through my hoodie. It broke skin. That incident has always left me slightly nervous around strangers dogs and made me feel a certain way about pit bulls. I almost gave in to the stereotypes that they are aggressive until I owned one. My dog, Minnie, is an American pit bull terrier and she is one of the sweetest dogs I have ever known. All the stereotypes I had started to give in to, were thrown out the window. Minnie loves to snuggle, play, and shower you with kisses until your skin goes numb. She is why I am writing this blog.

Even though Minnie is 6 months and is getting bigger by the day, her favorite spot is your lap.

And she loves to snuggle up by your head.