I am PRESUMING Tom means the dogs had to be man friendly in the pit or they would lose the purse ?
although other people friendly dogs were not bred to be friendly by fighting them

I thought Tom originally came here for info on staffys and irish staffys but seems to know quite a lot now- is this all from heated debates

Well each of my brothers has one (I have 3 brothers), my uncle used to have two pits that died a few years ago. I have gone to several of the Ed reid shows, and I know that two of my brothers dogs compete in weight pull (I can ask them the specifics if you want)

And yeah I can back that statement up, read up about the history of the dogs on any of the hundreds of websites about them. Human agressive dogs were culled because pit men could not risk being bitten by them if they had to pull them from the pit. Because of years and years of this culling, the dogs developed a very human friendly attitude. So, fighting is the only reason that the Staffy's are (most of the time) so human friendly.

the only reason Tom ?

I am already aware of the comments you make but can I ask everyone how their breeds became people friendly???

Oh and about the dogs dying, Im it was Jayne who said she saw a few Staffords die in the show ring (correct me if Im wrong) so I will take her word for it.

If the show breeders ****** up the bulldog so much, why don't you think it will can to the SBT? You can at least admit that show champions of today vary rarely look anything like the dog on which the standard was drawn up on.

Fair enough, maybe not the sole reason, but a large part of it.

tom if they were so human freindly when fighting then why did they use a break stick ?

Tom
you are surmising that ALL Staffys in the show ring and all lines they are bred from look the same- they do not

Because you may have seen only bully ones dont assume the athletic show staff does not exist

Er what does that have to do with it? Bulldogs bite and hold on, so the break stick is used as an easy way to make them let go.

so it wasnt used to stop the owners getting hurt or bit breaking dogs?

It may exist, but it is not exactly common.