I would like to also illustrate this for you with a real-life example. Have you any idea how calm, reliable, and gentle a dog has to be in order to be accepted for training as a service dog, much less to graduate from that training and actually go to work? My dog is that patient and placid; he can walk unruffled through a noisy, crowded grocery store, not even sniff at the air in the meat or cheese departments; he can lie at my feet in a restaurant and not flinch if a scrap of food drops onto the floor next to him; he is quiet enough to go unnoticed in a public library, and he steps calmly on and off an escalator. He has much better manners than many children I notice in public, and even many adults, for that matter. This is not even taking into consideration the multitude of disability-related tasks this dog has been trained to perform. This is not “instinctual” behavior, but trained.

“Instinctual habits,” as you call them, do not include human aggression. What is “instinctual” for a pitbull is loyalty and an intense desire to please his owner. These dogs will do whatever you want them to do, which is quite likely one of the reasons they have often been exploited by the criminal element in our society. Nevertheless, any habit can be broken, and proper training and genuine affection can overcome any negative conditioning. Handlers of service dogs (and owners of these dogs in general) consider them to be and treat them as member of their family; they have a relationship, a bond with them. This bond is stronger than any long-diluted “instinct” to fight that is 9 times out of 10 not even present in the bloodline of most of these dogs. The Michael Vick dogs were trained and tortured into fighting; they did not choose to do it, nor were they born to do it. Once taken from that felon’s possession, they are now family pets, therapy dogs, and ambassadors for the breed.

Again, I urge you to become informed before contributing to the stigmatizing and incorrect stereotyping of these dogs as “vicious.” Thank you for listening.