Louisiana SPCA Response to Letters
re the Floyd Boudreaux Dogfighting Bust

The problem with Pits. Or is it people?

The March 9, 2005, arrest of legendary pit bull breeder and dogfighter Floyd Boudreaux and his son, Guy, has caused an international debate over the fate of the 59 dogs confiscated in the raid. Fifty-seven of the 59 dogs were humanely euthanized at the Louisiana SPCA shortly after their arrival.

The decision to euthanize the dogs was not made lightly. It brought no joy to those involved. The decision to euthanize was based on experience, knowledge of genetics, compassion for the dogs, and the safety of the communities these dogs would have eventually been apart of.

People can easily accept that a terrier is tenacious; a herding dog will nip at your heels; a scent hound will follow his nose. Yet many fail to see the potential danger of the people-loving pit bull that has been bred for fighting.

A pit bull rescue organization in San Francisco, BAD RAP (www.badrap.org) states, “Animal aggression in pit bulls is common and 100% manageable, and cannot be "trained out" with behavior modification. A trainer that tells you otherwise is an uninformed trainer. A pit bull that displays animal aggression is not "snapping" or acting "unpredictable," the dog is simply displaying the results of hundreds of years of selective breeding. Managing this trait is what separates the responsible owners from the irresponsible.”

The book, “The Complete Gamedog; A Guide to Breeding and Raising the American Pit Bull Terrier,” by Ed and Chris Faron, a convicted dogfighter, says, “A lot of serious dogmen feel that the dogs do not belong in the hands of “pet” people and are resentful of the people who keep the dogs as pets. Though we believe that a bulldog can be a very good companion dog under the right circumstances, the above opinion is not without some justification.”

“A game-bred pit bull is a fighting dog, bred down for many generations of fighting dogs; to even consider raising one of these dogs as a pet you must understand and accept it – even if you are totally opposed to dogfighting. No matter how you raise this dog he will still be a pit bull not a Golden Retriever! Time and time again we’ve seen people get a pit bull puppy with the attitude “if I raise him right, he won’t want to fight” and in nearly every case we’ve seen the situation eventually come down to a serious problem.”

Managing animal aggression in any dog can be challenging. Imagine the difficulty of managing this behavior in animals that have been specifically breed, generation after generation, to be “game,” which can be described as "an unwillingness to give up, even under the most difficult of circumstances and despite the threat of death."

Gareth of Staffordshire Moorlands, England, wrote via email, “in England the Staffordshire Bull Terrier [pit bull] is also known as the nanny dog because the working class families that owned them tended to have large families and the 'staffie' became the babysitter of the children, even animal behavior specialists have proved that in particular the staffie is among the best breed of dogs to have around children. One reason for this is that any dog that would have bitten families would have been destroyed straight away…”[sic]

The problem with pit bulls is not the dogs themselves. The problem is the people breeding these dogs for strength, animal aggression and their fighting ability.

It would be irresponsible as a humane organization to adopt out an animal that could very well be a danger to an unsuspecting community. Even in the hands of a responsible owner, if these dogs did react out of decades of selective breeding, the results would be devastating.

Yes, it is unfair. Floyd Boudreaux sealed their fate by his motivation in breeding them.

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