Call me Naive BUT....

Hey call me Naive but ya know i knew getting hold of an APBT was hard here in the UK but i havent even thought about AMStaffs...!! does anyone think there's anyone breeding them in the UK? if so where? i'd like to expand alittle and since i've only ever owned APBT i figured an AMStaff might be good one to have also to take it back upto two dogs in the house again..
Though obviously im thinking if i cant locate an AMStaff i'd go for a native Staff, as they are amazing dogs..
hey i found a couple of sites that had some truly fine and handsome examples of the more typical shaped pitbull at these...

and also at

some of these dogs are 85 lbs animals..like the rock on powerlinekennels.
I took a look at a site selling AMStaffs but he was obviously US so..but he had some gorgeous examples there,
also though i love the Sataffie's we get here..hey what kind of weights do they reach on average,? im not obsessed with size and so on as MAx is an athletic phase Pitbull but i always see this guy walking his staffs near me and they are some size, i honestly didint know staffs could attain that height and bulk...damn fine looking dogs i have to say...
my mate Donny has said on several occasions he wouldnt trade his Saffs for the world, as he put it "once you've had one you'll never look back and never regret it they are loyal beyond compare"...says alot for the breed i think

I think you will find that really big Staffords 20in or over and 60lbs or more are not really Staffords, even pit bulls of over 60lbs are rarely true representitives of the original breed.

Well you and me both, I must be naive too as I thought no more Pit Bulls could be bred in this country as they were banned as part of the Dangerous Dog Act? (that is if the abbreviation means American Pit Bull Terrier, as I am assuming it to mean!)

Don't know of any American Staffs I'm afraid, sorry can't help.

The real problem is defining a pitbull if you breed a dog that looks like one it doesnt mean it is one, so how do you tell? DNA is no good we can't even tell the difference between a Pug and a Irish Wolfhound with that, they come up as just dogs, even saying you have a purebred is no good, I got a dog off my daughter its a King Charles Spaniel, its as big as a Springer. ???? I have papers to prove its a King Charles??? its not,and a piece of paper means very little.

Dervel

I think you will find most ad's you see for so called "AmStaffs" if you investigate the lineage you will find the dogs are infact not AmStaffs at all. As far as I know there were only ever 2 AKC reg AmStaffs brought into the country & they were subsequentley neutered & micro-chipped, registered etc as it was around the time of the DDA......most people couldnt even name a line of true AmStaffs just seems the "in" thing to call the APBT at the moment, most ad's you see for them they are down from lines like Mayfield etc which are well known APBT lines.

Unless somebody can show you paperwork to verify it, or registration papers I very much doubt what you see for sale over here is a genuine American Stafford.

Think also at the moment looking at various websites selling these dogs the trend seems to be the "bigger is better" at the moment & you see some monsters around.

Purely out of interest but in the States do they have American staffs and regular English type Staffs too? After reading about all the different "types" I just wondered if they bred the original type in America

Yes I know a few people in the States & Canada with Staffords (the original ones). There's quite a few large, well known kennels too....I think they are gaining popularity out there though not as popular as the APBT.

there might have only been 2 registered dogs that you heard about but you can bet for the 2 registered ones that the owners followed the rules, there will have been 20 that were kept hush-hush and the owners bred from them. the kind of people who keep these sort of dogs usually keep quiet about it anmd dont publicise what they are doing because its illegal so if you see sites selling amstaffs or pitbulls, they are guaranteed to be very silly people indeed who have no scruples and the dogs are most likely to be low grade pitbulls, oversized staffies, so called "irish" staffies and crosses. they are marketed as pitbulls because a lot of people thinks is "tough" to have a banned breed or a big monster of a dog on the end of a lead
sad but true.
the amstaff and the american pitbull are essentially 2 branches of the same breed anyway! they can be dual registereed and if you look at the american sites, a lot of breeders refer to there dogs as pitbulls and amstaffs in the same sentence. the amstaff is a show version of the pitbull that is all, a man who lives in my street has 3 pitbulls and its obvious what they are, but to his credit he does keep them very well under control at all times, they are always walked by him and his son and never cause any problems to other people or dogs, and he plays it down and doesnt brag about them being pitbulls like some silly people do. Its a shame that pitbulls are banned in the Uk because they are a great dog in the right hands, with the right training and proper handling. Sadly as long as there are useless single brain celled organisms out there who think its "cool" to fight dogs or to encourage the breeding of poor specimens of the breed with bad temperaments, the pitbull will always carry a bad name wherever he goes

Erm I have one of those so called "Irish Staffords" you mention.