Well, every animal has a different personality. My dogs, for instance, are not allowed to play with the neighbors cats b/c the cat bites my dogs noses and give them scars... have my dogs EVER retaliated? NO. They run away b/c they know that violence is not permitted. The schnauser (sp?) next door also pwns my dogs every time. Before we knew that the schnauser was a little terror we left them alone together on a 2 day trip we took... neighbor calls us first day in and is like... uhh.. my schnauser is beating up on abbey... i'm like, are you worried abbey is going to bite him>? Shhe goes, "no no no... but abbey won't come out from under the bed, she's too scared and she keeps crawling in my arms as soon as I pull her out" Plus my (as do most) dogs love kids... having OBgyn's in our family, there have always been visiting mothers in our house growing up ... as a result of prolonged exposure to young children, our dog has learned that it needs to be more patient and gentle with kids. it would never play "tug" with a kid or anything of the like. All I'm getting at here, is that I have trained my dog for all plausible scenarios. Some people skip this step, and it is the reason their dogs act "unpredictably" in situations like the recent little girl. I fully support the decision to put that dog to sleep, don't get me wrong. Human life is valuable in most cases. But if, after an investigation, they found that the parents neglected the animal in any way, I support full criminal charges against the parents. I am confident enough in my animals that I would risk my freedom by taking jail time if they ever did anything... I am that sure of their demeanor. EVERYONE should be.
to conclude, fasttwitch, I think you need to meet a nice pit, so if anyone in your area on the board has one, I think you should swing by and pay a visit. it would work wonders on your p.o.v. GL