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4 thoughts on “Standing Firm on Pit Bull Ban: Lakewood Councilman Brian Powers Responds to Critics

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  1. And with my one vote for person of the week: Brian Powers

    There’s a legislative will that’s refreshingly cogent. I just got jealous of Lakewood!

  2. I would like to make an important point about the ATTS test, since it has become an urban legend promoted by the pro-pit lobby. Maybe this could go under “pit myths”, or on a sticky.

    The ATTS was NEVER designed to evaluate dogs to determine their suitability as family pets. It is designed to evaluate dogs for bitework…protection sports like French Ring and Shutzhund. It is commonly used to evaluate dogs that will be ultimately used as police canines. If you look at the number of dogs that take the test each year, GSDs outnumber any other breed listed by a huge margin; this is because they still are the most common breed used in police work.

    The ATTS test rewards boldness…they evaluate how the dog reacts to gunshots, a threatening stranger, etc. There is also a tracking portion of the test, where the dog is required to walk across a strange surface, like plastic and wire (think of a police canine chasing a suspect). Timid dogs do not do well on the test, naturally. Also, the test is subjective…aggression is checked against the breed standard; one can assume that a Golden Retriever would be held to a different standard than a Doberman. It is unclear how the ATTS evaluators are experts on the temperament standard for every breed.

    An important ommission in the ATTS test is dog/dog aggression; the test does not evaluate the dogs reaction to other dogs. A dog could pass the ATTS with flying colors, even if it was dangerously dog aggressive.

    The pro-pit lobby has deliberately confused the public into believing that the ATTS is equivalent to the CGC, which is often used to evaluate dogs for therapy work. The ATTS is an excellent tool to evaluate dogs for SAR, protection sports, Police canines, hunting trials, etc. But it in no way indicates which breed is “safer” to have as a family pet.

  3. Thank you! I’ve been telling pit bull advocates this for years – but it continues to fall on deaf ears. They like to think the temperment testing proves pit bulls are “better” than other dogs, but the test does nothing of the kind. It only shows how individual dogs reacted – dogs that have been trained and whose owners have paid for them to take the test. It does not tell us how the average dog of any breed will react, and it especially does not tell us how a poorly trained dog will act. Yet the claim about the test is posted on every pit bull site out there. Further proof that pit bull advocates are not interested in the truth and will deliberately deceive people to improve their dogs’ image.

  4. Here’s the disburbing comments of a proud Pit owner who recently passed an ATTS “test”:

    “Doja did great and passed with flying colors. I was so proud of her.
    She was the only dog tested there today that wanted to eat the threatening stranger – so she got high marks for that.

    It was funny – most of the other dogs (Belgians included) only looked at him, or ignored him, Even when he was hollering and bashing a stick on the ground. But Doja hit the end of the lead like the little freight train she is and was telling him that he had best stay far away from her Mommy NOW!! Some of the people watching (including some of the testers) actually applauded a bit when she did that.

    5 dogs from the NTBBC club attended the test and 4 of them passed with flying colors. 3 who passed were APBT (including Doja) and 1 was EBT.

    There were also APBT up from the San Antonio BBC and the Austin BBC.
    Dunno how all of them did.”

    Each area is graded on a scale of 1-10, and if the dog does not show aggression ..It fails!

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