I am sick to the back teeth of people discriminating against Staffordshire Bull Terriers and their owners. After reading this article in the Shropshire Star newspaper last week I decided to write my own article in retaliation which has now been published. I would love to know what you all think?

If you agree with the article please share it amongst your friends, thank you

I never blame the breed although just before christmas when my leg was in a staffies mouth I was tempted (it hurt). The problem as I see it here is they are strong dogs and many who own them cannot control them. I have a yorkie he would bite if he had a chance but due to his size I can control him at all times, but when a woman is being dragged along the ground with a staffie heading towards you it becomes obvious the dog is in charge and you are in danger.

This applies to all strong/large breeds of course but the ones we meet are staffies we rarely see any other strong breeds around here.

I have always said if our little terror was bigger he would have to be PTS as we couldn't trust ourselves to walk him safely.

Great article! I myself have been wary of staffies in the past due to what ive heard in the media. Around here the only people ive seen walking them are stereotypical owners. When i visited a local dog rehoming centre almost all of the dogs were staffies or staffy cross. My immediate thought was well they must bebad if so many are given away, but what i actually learnt is a lot are abandoned because theyre not nasty. I suppose there are people who buy one to look hard then find out the dogs a bit too soft for them.

My only worry would be what if i rehomed one then in a few years had children wouldnt they be dangerous? But then i suppose that could be said of any breed of dog.

I also believe that dogs behaviour is linked to their upbringing. For example i know of someone who has a well trained, playful loving staffie who is looked after well. I also know someone who got a staffie cross puppy, didnt bother training it. She left it alone all day while she was out and its out of control. She ended up giving it to her mother as she didnt want it anymore and now its out of control and their method of discipline is to grab it by its collar and hit it with a fly swat until it stops doing whatever it is thats wrong.

Now given the choice of the above two dogs i know which i would rather spend time with.

There are people who say all staffies are bad but if they were made illegal then the media would just pick another breed to discriminate against and eventually the world would be dog free.

I think that the sale of bully breed dogs should possibly be regulated, to owners who can prove that they are capable of training them properly, etc. (Actually I think this of all dogs come to think of it) I wouldn't trust myself to train one properly and I would never get one no matter how soft it was. Knowledge and care for the animal is key to raising a good dog, and people are buying dogs without knowing the breed.

Nice article OP. My sister staffie cross is lovley. Every staffie that I have seen with a resposible owner has been a great people dog. It is a shame that the breed does attract bad press when the problem is the owners,

While I agree that dangerous dogs are the fault of the owner, rather than the breed, I think your article is rather simplistic.

Some breeds will always have greater potential to become dangerous than others.

Any dog, trained well, will be good, well behaved and unlikely to cause problems. I'm sure your staffie falls into this category and I've met a fair few myself.

However, not everyone will train their dogs well - and this is when the breed begins to matter. Most dogs that haven't been trained will become unpredictable and some become aggressive. The level of agression is almost predisposed by breed. Now once you have an agressive, unpredictable dog, the next factor that will define how dangerous the dog is would be their size and strength.

Terriers, by their very nature were bred for killing pests or fighting. This means that their instincts are quite different to some of the other common breed families and makes them more susceptible to aggression if they haven't been well trained. In your smaller terriers: jack russells, yorkshires, etc. as noted above, the owner is easily able to restrain them when they're aggressive. For larger breeds, such as staffordshires, pitbull, bull, etc. the dogs are considerable stronger and are capable of terrible injuries.

This is why staffordshires get the bad rep and at the risk of winding a few people up, it is justified, though no fault of the dog itself.

Offer me the choice between rehoming a poorly treated labrador and a poorly treated staffie and I know which one I would consider the safest bet.

That's a brilliant article you've written there. Thanks a lot.

As a former Staffie and Dobermann and now Rottie owner all of which and are well trained, I have to agree that it's not the breed that's the problem but the irresponsible owners.

Anybody who watches or has watched on TV the show "The Dog Whisperer" can see that abused, aggressive dominant dogs come in all shapes and sizes. Cesar Millan has proved over and over again that the dogs are not the problem but the humans who own them as it is through their conscious or unconscious actions that they have perpetrated the problem. When the owners have "weak" energy the dog assumes the dominant role because it's not been taught it's place in the pack.

All dogs irrespective of breed need discipline - he calls it rules, boundaries and limitations. They also need owners capable of displaying calm, assertive, energy as dogs pick up on people's body language and frame of mind NOT the words they use.

Whether you agree with his techniques or think they are a load of bunkum what you must admit is that his techniques work as there are over 100 episodes of his show that prove it.

My Staffie was typical of his breed, he was a loyal, trusted friend who loved giving and receiving affection from people. Yes he could be boisterous in his play but if he got too much I would step in and put him back in a calm, submissive state. It's really not that difficult to train any dog with a few simple techniques - I wish the same could be said about some owners.

Unfortunately at least partly because of this, many owners of such dogs, don't bother to train them.

This means that while not (in our eyes) physically capable of causing serious damage, they still give off all the visual clues to another dog, that they are being aggressive / confrontational (which is often reinforced by uneducated owners who pick them up - thus reinforcing the smaller dogs dominance).

Aggression in an untrained dog is very often due to it assuming an unwanted pack leader role, that it is not capable of performing, which caused stress and nervousness. This nervousness tends to manifest itself as aggression.

Consequently smaller dogs can be more of a danger to children (family / friends / visitors around the dogs house) than their larger, well balanced cousins.

Many a time I chuckle to myself when a barking mad, leash stretching Jack Russell, (that clearly thinks it is pack leader) snarls at my well behaved, indifferent staffie from across the street, hoping that it doesn't escape from it's owner, for fear of it having an abrupt reality check!

EDIT - Sorry Knarf44 I was writing my comments for some time and was interrupted, so it may seem I am following on from your comments. Not intended.

Well done Soapoholic, my hat is well and truly off - I couldn't have put it any better myself


Just for clarification which one would it be? The physically 'smaller' Staffie or the much larger, highly prey-driven Labrador?

well i would be taking the staff cos its the smart choice

op it is a lovely article for what it is and good on you for taking the time to write it, i would however tell anyone who believes in deed no breed to actively help DDA watch and Allie Green and support them in the work they do going to court for dogs and owners affected by the DDA, you can joing their cause on facebook and get updates

There are three staffies who live near us and they are all aggressive. Their owners are not the tabloid version of a staffie owner but are a nurse, an animal technician at our local vets and a postman. All of these dogs have been to training courses and are micro chipped and neutered. All three are apparently lovely at home but they all have attacked and injured other dogs.

This sounds to me a classic case of one of the dogs is exerting dominance because the owners aren't and the other two dogs are the followers so their behaviour is dictated by the dominant one.

This can be remedied but needs the owners to take a very proactive hands-on role in reclaiming their position as pack leader through lots of exercise, discipline and finally affection but most of all by always being in a calm, assertive state and NOT being emotional which is seen as weak energy in the animal world.

http://www.cesarsway.com/tips/proble...ing-aggression

Labradors? Prey driven?!?!

There is no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner. But all those in favour of staffies are being a little hypocritical, pointing out breeds you have seen misbehave ie JRs, labs etc. You're asking others not to blame the breed - then stop doing it yourself. For the record, I love staffies.

I thought from owning them labs and retrievers were simply driven to retrieve as ours will bring anything back but faced with a live "prey" lift it so gently they never do any harm to them. We have had several rabbits we simply removed from Mollies jaws and they scampered off into the undergrowth slightly damp with saliva but none the worse for their experience.

My MIL always had labs and only had one that would bite it had when it was investigated a brain tumour so had to be PTS and we all doubt it would have bitten if it hadn't been in pain.

Much is being said about training too, and training fear out of a dog we have found is impossible, Duncan was a rescue and fearful from his previous treatment so we tried trainers and behaviorists who all in the end could not help him at all.

I'm not sure if this is the situation with all of them but I see what you mean. My real point was that if you are in my situation where all you have experienced from a breed is aggression then not surprisingly you are nervous of the whole breed. On the other hand I often walk my friends Rottweiler and I know she is as soft as putty but it's not uncommon for people to cross the road to avoid her even though she is on the lead. We used a form of Cesars training with our Golden Retriever. We don't believe in physical intervention but more the unspoken things like not allowing him on the furniture, eating before he does, making him wait so we can go into a room before him etc. I don't know if its just a coincidence but he is the most relaxed dog I've ever known.

Our Mollie is a laid back girlie but eats before or with us, we move over or sit on the floor if she is on the sofa, she sleeps with us we sort of fit around her. We all amble through doors together or she goes first (depends if the room is dark as she likes us to put the light on for her before she enters). So I think a lot of it is the dogs character rather than doing it his way.

people throw around the word agression where dogs are concerned without separating out the facts, a lot of staffies are very dog agressive however i have never seen one that is people agressive i am sure there are a few bad ones out there but the two agressions are entirely different and need to be treated as such.

staffies do need extensive dog socialisation and even then just one bad experience can ruin it if not treated corrcetly you can go from a dog friendly dog to a distinctly non dog friendly dog - this is the case with all dogs and socialisation however the staffie terrier personality means they dont tend to give up and are tenacious about their dislike of other dogs and want to register it to everyone

All of which is fine, for a dog that has accepted its role as a (low rank) pack member.

You / your family, clearly display all the qualities of a fine leader!

I am lucky, as I have two trusty feline lieutenants to keep our staffie in line.

OK I'm on the defensive now (as I mentioned JR's).

My ref to JR's was simply as an example of a small breed of dog that in many cases, gets little or no training, because the owner thinks it is so small, it doesn't need any.

I could just as easily have said Westies (another dog, that thinks it is a lion) as adorable as they are.

All dogs need basic training, (or as I prefer to call it, status appreciation) for their well being, as well as ours.

We are a family not a pack, a lot of this talk of packs has been discredited over the years by behaviourists and trainers.

Pack culture is about wild animals and status within the pack not about our domesticated animals who would no more be at home in a wild pack than we would.

The bolded is a little bit of a generalisation. Staffies certainly can be dog aggressive but that doesn't mean most are.

From my own personal experience I have come across a lot of Staffies and only 1 had shown any signs of dog aggression. In fact all of the ones I met had been very friendly with my dog and actually mostly gentle. And even that one staffie that appeared dog aggressive was more territorial then anti dog as I saw the owner had some older puppies in the garden with it at some point later and the dog was the height of patience.

Are these the same behaviourists and trainers who help sentence hundreds if not thousands of untrainable aggressive dogs to death each year?

Dogs domesticated or not are instinctive animals and in the wild and if stray in urban environments live in packs with one always being the dominant leader. Being able to understand their psychology is the key to living with a well balanced animal.

As I stated earlier whether you believe in Cesar Millan's methods or not doesn't matter but there is no denying that he has saved many highly aggressive dogs (including many Pitbulls) from death row simply by restoring balance to their lives by understanding and remedying the root of their aggression. In many cases this simply involved in teaching the people involved that they must be seen by the dog(s) as the dominant pack leader. In other cases it involved addressing the dog's issues through exposure to his own collection of well balanced dogs.

Obviously, if some people still prefer to treat their animals as people or not give rules, boundaries and limitations that's up to them. I know what I prefer and have always had happy well balanced dogs as a result.

i defo disagree i know loads that are, having worked in rescue and dealt with a lot of people and dogs in bullbreed rescue that does not mean that they are not fantastic dogs, my parents have one i rescued years ago extremely pyshcotic where other dogs are concerned and needs micro managing but he is a superb family dog