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What Makes Dogs Fight?
For kids in crisis, the cause of violence can be so slight
"What makes dogs fight, miss?"
The young man asking me this question was a much greater authority on dog behavior than I'll ever be. Sure, I have three shih tzus and have had three other adorable little dogs over my lifetime. But this teenager, let's call him Samuel, told us he grew up on a property that took in stray dogs and bred pitbulls and Rottweilers. How many pets had he had?
"Oh, about 34," he estimated.
Samuel had just arrived at the youth crisis shelter and was still figuring out the schedule ("When this group is over, how much time before we go to bed?" he asked), but whatever brought him here wasn't going to get resolved any time soon ("I'll be here a good long time," he answered when we asked if he would return to our workshop the following week). He was motivated enough to see what we had to offer to abandon a braiding session mid-way through. What looked to be the beginning of plaits poked through a wild riot of hair that framed his cafe-au-lait face and sleepy eyes.
"The worst thing about a pitbull fight," he told us, "is that it's like sharks fighting. Their jaws lock and they're not going to let go until one of them is dead."
Did his family breed the dogs to fight? Did they arrange dog fights on the premises? What did he think about Michael Vick?
"Oh, no," he assured us. "We never made them fight. They just fought among themselves."
He seemed disturbed enough, as he recounted the bloodshed, for us to believe him.
He was not the only teen to grow up with fighting dogs sitting around the table. Almost every kid had a story of a pet pitbull or Rottweiler, and all but one had a story of dogs run over by cars.
The young man asking me this question was a much greater authority on dog behavior than I'll ever be. Sure, I have three shih tzus and have had three other adorable little dogs over my lifetime. But this teenager, let's call him Samuel, told us he grew up on a property that took in stray dogs and bred pitbulls and Rottweilers. How many pets had he had?
"Oh, about 34," he estimated.
Samuel had just arrived at the youth crisis shelter and was still figuring out the schedule ("When this group is over, how much time before we go to bed?" he asked), but whatever brought him here wasn't going to get resolved any time soon ("I'll be here a good long time," he answered when we asked if he would return to our workshop the following week). He was motivated enough to see what we had to offer to abandon a braiding session mid-way through. What looked to be the beginning of plaits poked through a wild riot of hair that framed his cafe-au-lait face and sleepy eyes.
"The worst thing about a pitbull fight," he told us, "is that it's like sharks fighting. Their jaws lock and they're not going to let go until one of them is dead."
Did his family breed the dogs to fight? Did they arrange dog fights on the premises? What did he think about Michael Vick?
"Oh, no," he assured us. "We never made them fight. They just fought among themselves."
He seemed disturbed enough, as he recounted the bloodshed, for us to believe him.
He was not the only teen to grow up with fighting dogs sitting around the table. Almost every kid had a story of a pet pitbull or Rottweiler, and all but one had a story of dogs run over by cars.
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