Lots of stupid in this thread. Loads of advise from those who have never owned a pitty or pitty mix and base their opinions off of media hype. The funny thing is that many of those opposed to pit bulls ownership are OK with assault rifles and black guns in general.
On another bent, in many ways this thread reminds me of this thread...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/938264-anyone-know-much-about-metallurgy.html Every PPOT metallurgy expert chimed in with nonsense not really understanding that it wasn’t a metallurgy related failure because they never understood the operation of the part that failed...
My last dog was a pitty cross. She was also a husky cross and looked like she had some rotti too. This was the most affectionate, best behaved, most likeable dog I have ever known. She never destroyed anything (apart from her own toys), was wonderful with children (the Lick Bull term above applied to Coco). She never bit anybody. She was well socialized and was at the off leash park 1-2 times every week when we lived in town. When we moved out to our farm, she was always off leash. Sadly at 14 years old, we had to put her down and this was one of the worst days of my life. I miss that dog every day.
Our current dog is also a mutt. This is a cross between a Carolina dog and a Standard Poodle. This is hands down the stupidest mutt in the world. We have done obedience with her and she walks on a leash just fine, she does great with the kids mailing her. The bad traits with this dog are:
1. Still chases cows and calves. Every F—ing day.
2. Goes full retard when the school bus comes. Has to be tied up or she will scratch the crap out of the door and drywall if she is inside. The neighbors for 2 miles around know the bus is here by the barking.
3. Barks at cars 1 mile away on the road.
4. Sniffs crotchs - this drives me bonkers.
5. Bit an amazon courier at Christmas.
6. Chases one of our cats.
7. Has started digging through the garbage when we are not home.
8. Has no conscious. Our pitty cross knew when she did someth8ng bad and was ashamed and wouldn’t do it again. This idiot on the other hand seems untrainable in this regard.
All this being said, she is big and would protect us. She runs out and barks when someone pulls into our yard. She is loving and our kids and my wife love her. She keeps the coyotes out of the yard.
She is no Coco. Our pitty cross was a far better dog in every way. I wanted to get another but my wife chose this big dumb lummox. We walk her twice a day. Each walk is at least a mile (easy to do when you have 160 acres like we do).
The people who have replied who have actual experience with Pitbull dogs (have actually owned them) have all said yes. These are the people whose advise I would follow. They are great dogs. No shelter will adopt out a vicious dog. One of the tests is to take away the dogs food when it is eating and see how it responds. Your risk is very low on one of these dogs.