my opinion with pictoral evidence...
We have, in ths debate, both written evidence (historical record) as well as contextual artist depictions of what the original bull dog/bull and terriers looked like. I think that it is ridiculous to assert that the APBT has had not terrier influence in my research, BUT there is evidence that some lines develop with little or no terrier influence. The first thing that we have to consider is the fact that dogs were first called by their jobs as opposed to their breed characteristics. So...a mix of this and that that participated in X activity would be called X type of dog. If, for example we did this today, a maltese that was a herding dog it would be called a shepherd dog. If a rottweiler was used for therapy work it would be called simply a therapy dog. Now I beleive that the word bull dog was first used to describe a bold dog. Bold dog because of its bull running (first function working with butchers) dangers. These dogs were not lumped together as a breed, but by functionality and would have been cross bred amongst each other in order to continually make better bull running dogs. Some hunted, some guarded, some faught, and later we get into bull baiting, etc and the debate at hand.
Now for the issue at hand, and the development of the American Pit Bull terrier. I will first deal with the issue of importing Irish dogs. Dogs came with immigrants. For this example I am going to use some early Colby dogs. Prior to the turn of the century (1896) I believe Colby's Pincher was whelped. We all know that his chain weight was in the 70's. I believe that dogs like Pincher (and his littermate sister Mage) were (with imported parents) dogs that were down from purer bull dog strains. This is not to say that no bull terrier mix took place, but...characteristics there are bull dogs IMO...
Colby's Pincher
Colby's Mage
Also consider Colby's Galtie. Some 10ish after Pincher (and Im taking these dates from Lou Colby's website) looking like this...
IMO More terrier influence. This is because noone knows the % of bull and terrier mix creating the bull and terrier dogs.
Now consider this...
This is from a 16th century (pre dating Cockney Lloyd's imported dogs of course) depicting of a bull dog on a hunt. He also looks very similiar to the modern APBT. I will juxtapose a photo of well bred modern dog to compare characteristics.
Caines Fargo a son of Turtlebuster
http://www.apbt.online-pedigrees.com/modules.php?name=Public&file=printPedigree&dog_id=5273
nearly identical IMO.
also...
look at the following artwork done in Germany.
Those are moden looking bull dogs complete with cropped ears that will look very similiar to many red red nosed dogs you will see today. My point is...they existed, and also existed well before the dogs that were forged at staffordshire.
Click to expand...