Letters to the Editor
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The puppy picture is just the first sentimental rhetoric
I get that people love their dogs. That's not a surprise to anyone. But at this point in the essay, Foster begins to show his lack of any evidence (beyond his anecdotal love for his dog) to justify his thesis:
"Self-appointed experts will tell you that fighting is in the blood. And dogfighters use this cliché to support their "sport." It would be cruel to keep them from fighting, they say. Yet if fighting were purely dictated by genetics, there would be no need to feed dogs gunpowder, insert glass shards beneath their skin, or to engage in any of the other cruel forms of "training" in the underworld of dogfighting. And if it were true that pit bulls, through their bad breeding, are prone to unexpectedly attack, the streets of New York City would be littered with victims of its estimated 300,000 pit bulls. It is easier to believe that the dogs are somehow to blame, rather than their human counterparts. It is easier to point to faults in the DNA."
That's just weak reasoning. To say that pit bulls are not a product of selective breeding which chose the most aggressive and dangerous physical and psychological elements of the breed, just doesn't make sense. This is why we don't breed wolves as housepets. And torturing the animals is just a way to make those aggressive predispositions fiercer, not necessarily to create them.
The reason 300,000 pit bulls have not gone on a rampage and killed thousands of NY citizens is probably because the vast majority of owners are responsible and recognize that for all its intelligence and personality, the truth is their loving pet could potentially be a very dangerous animal under the right set of circumstances.
All breeds of dogs have their particular traits which have been nurtured and enhanced. Greyhounds run. Jack Russels kill rodents. And pit bull terriers were bred to fight.