Please ignore the title of this book. Read only the subtitle, for that is the true subject of Bronwen Dickey’s seven-year investigation into the history, hype, and true meaning of what it means to have, hate, or even think about pit bulls. When I first heard about Pit Bull from KC Dog Blogger, Brent Toellner, I was interested, but a little intimidated. With 34 pages of notes and bibliography (in very small print) I expected a densely-written tome dragged down by the weight of facts, quotes and references. What I found was a marvelously written reflection lifted up by facts, quotes and references.
Inspired by her own “dangerous dog,” Dickey set out to “contribute to a much larger dialogue about human-animal relationships in America.” And in doing so she’s opened the doors to even larger dialogues about human-human relationships in America.
Of course, Dickey begins at the beginning. Bulldogs and terriers were once revered and belonged to such notables as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, and were a great draw at the box office. Remember Pete the Pup from Our Gang? She also dissects the definition and evolution of the “pit bull,” explaining that the term actually refers to an entire category of dog, not a specific breed.
Upon Dickey’s closer examination, the statistics commonly associated with pit bulls are both greatly exaggerated and false. She highlights the ridiculous reversals of major publications like Sports Illustrated: the July 1987 cover feature “which had played a central role in the panic of 1987” showed a snarling dog with the headline “Beware of this Dog,” yet after Michael Vick’s arrest for dogfighting “ran a moving feature . . . that included one of Vick’s decidedly unfrightening pit bulls on the magazine’s cover.” With no official organization tracking dog bites, statistics have historically been culled from news articles with no verification of breed, or consideration of circumstance.
Most profoundly, Dickey makes a solid case that breed bans allow targeted racial and demographic-based discrimination. “The sociologist Arnold Arluke has noted that dogs, specifically pit bulls, can provide a convenient scrim behind which people can voice negative comments about other humans.” Historically, other breeds such as German Shepherds and Rottweilers have suffered similar campaigns against them, but they have typically been owned by a different demographic. “The wealthy owned the papers (pedigree), and the wealthy made the rules.” Additionally, the pit bull scare came at a time when the Internet allows for large-scale dissemination of misinformation. Suddenly, “people with fringe beliefs now have access to much larger information platforms.”
Pit Bull is a fascinating historical and contemporary look at American society, and I’ll probably read it again, as well as Dickey’s other works.