The following is extracted from the Australian branch of the American Pit Bull Association:- Link to it is:
http://www.pitbull.org.au/history.htm
Oh, and my slant on this? ANYONE who sees fit to do this to these poor animals should, as was said earlier, be put into a ring themselves and left to the mercy of the very dogs they train to do this sort of thing. DON'T jail them, that means we have to pay for their keep through our taxes, show them the comapssion they show the animals in their "care".
For those ill-informed souls, it may be worth looking this up before further comment:-
Whether or not fanciers of the breed want to acknowledge it, besides long history as a working dog, the American Pit Bull Terrierās heritage is deeply rooted in the sport of dog fighting. As objectionable and barbaric as this history may be, to reject this historical truth is to fail to understand the source of many of the qualities that have helped the breed to flourish. To understand the modern dog one must understand the negative aspects of its history that led to development of those traits.
Early Origins
During the time of Minos in Crete the sport of bull baiting was quite a popular form of entertainment. This sport was developed as a part of the worship practice in honor of the warrior god "Mithras".
During this time, most dogs were wild and ferocious by nature. As the Roman tribes of the time conquered and moved across the land, they also took the sport with them. Due to the selective breeding of the best dogs, a distinctive breed began to emerge.
The Bulldog
The bulldog part of the APBT was not the bulldog of today. The bulldog of several centuries ago was an agile, muscular dog of medium size, quite capable of participating in the bull-baiting and bear-baiting events of the time. Bulldogs were admired for their tenacity, gameness and their tolerance of pain - all good attributes for dogs battling foes many times their size.
Whether or not fanciers of the breed want to acknowledge it, besides long history as a working dog, the American Pit Bull Terrierās heritage is deeply rooted in the sport of dog fighting. As objectionable and barbaric as this history may be, to reject this historical truth is to fail to understand the source of many of the qualities that have helped the breed to flourish. To understand the modern dog one must understand the negative aspects of its history that led to development of those traits.