06/02/2025
We have a modest proposal for backyard dog breeders: If you're so danged set on making a buck by grinding out a steady stream of puppies, how about you do everyone a favor and breed fluffy little dogs instead of an endless number of pit bulls? At least the fluffy small ones are apt to quickly find new homes when they later get dumped at shelters.
We're being satirical, of course....sort of. But we've been thinking a lot lately about one of the mysteries of homeless dogs: the supply and demand for pit bulls. Back yard breeders wouldn’t keep pumping out more pit bull puppies unless there was a demand for them. Yet SO many of these "pit bull type mixes," as Anne Arundel County Animal Care & Control calls them, soon end up languishing in shelters throughout the United States, many of them only a few months old. Meanwhile, more continue to be bred to meet the apparently insatiable demand for puppies even as many of their older brethren are being discarded at shelters.
As one result of this greedy breeding madness, “Why do you have so many pit bulls?" is a question we get not just daily, but several times daily, from visitors to the shelter. It's often paired with another question we hear repeatedly: "Do you have any little dogs?"
They're fair questions. Of the 50 dogs who were on the shelter's slideshow of adoptable dogs Saturday, 40 were identified as pit bulls mixes. Only one qualified as a fluffy little dog: 10-pound Mushroom Pizza, a 12-year-old in a foster home.
AACACC actually does get a lot of smaller dogs, but usually their feet barely touch the kennel floor before they're snatched up by eager potential adopters, regardless of their temperament or medical issues. Meanwhile, incredibly friendly, healthy pit bulls languish in cages for weeks, if not months. Over time, as dogs of other breeds come and go more quickly, pit bulls "stack up" until they account for a large majority of the dogs that visitors see at the shelter.
Most of the dogs in shelter foster homes are pitties, too. Take Gurl (and oh, how we wish you would!): This well-mannered, cute young lady, shown below, is one of the lucky ones living in a foster home. She spent Saturday in the shelter lobby greeting hundreds of visitors, her tail wagging for each one as she accepted pet after pet from strangers of all ages, many of whom were looking for a dog to adopt. But despite her charms, Gurl didn't get adopted. In fact, only one dog found a new home Saturday, which usually is the best adoption day of the week. Meanwhile, more dogs kept arriving, including seven after the shelter had closed for the day. Yeah, some were pit bulls.
So back to our original line of thought: There seems to be an endless supply of clueless people who impulse buy cute pit bull puppies churned out by backyard breeders, only to get rid of them when they inconveniently turn into fairly big dogs who expect attention, vet care, food, love and training. How can this cycle be broken? Anti-pit bull legislation is both cruel and futile; you don't have to look any further than our neighboring county to see that. Offering free spays/neuters doesn't interest people who view their dogs as moneymaking machines. Trying to crack down legally on backyard breeding is a Sisyphean task that to our knowledge hasn't succeeded anywhere in substantially reducing under-the-radar breeding.
We have loved so many of the dogs we have met who are called pit bull-type mixes -- including especially the one who curls up next to us at home. It pains us deeply to see well-behaved ones linger so very long at AACACC as well as at just about every other open-access shelter. We wish we had The Answer. In the meantime: Shame on you, greedy backyard breeders and clueless puppy buyers, for the heartache and suffering you cause.
