Weight and performance.

Question about the old days. Why would the smaller pits be dominant? Atleast it seems that way. Even over the larger game dogs? I mean if people have a contest and weight class is no issue usually the bigger guy has the advantage. Why does that not seem to be the case in dogs? Most of the best dogs were around 40lbs atleast from what i've read, am I misinformed?

 

IMO,,the smaller ones have a faster advantage to gain control,,those big ones aren't as quick

 

I can help you with this topic. The natural APBT has an optimum bone and muscle structure. It is the same reason a short stocky man can out bench a tall long armed fellow even though the body mass is obviously to the larger fellows advanage. the tendons and muscles are used like cantalievers over the bone fasa. Also it requires less energy to do the same movement. You pich the nose guard that can hit the lowest. Why? because that person has more leverage than the taller biger ones.. Same in all combatant beings. Wolverine is stronger and tougher that a Black bear by far At 80# the woverine will kill most any other predator in the the fight God help you if your fist shot isn't a kill shot. Same in the smaller compact APBT to standard. The larger more clumbersome ones tire faster move slower and just don't have the advantage in leverage. They have mere weight to push and that can hinder the poor thing. It is all about energy used and leverage. I can do better putting some one down by going for a gut shot or kidney shot than hitting the chest or face. At 5'5" I bence 450# every other day. My brother at 6'2" can bench 200 # three times and that is it on any day. I am 230# and he is 340 # but he has a dest job and doesn't do physical work I retired a year ago and still lift weights. I am 7 year older. So it is leverage and stama that helps me put him down because by size he should be able to take me down but he cannot. Dogs are no different. You have one grab dog on a team and it takes down a 250# hog. Obviously the hog should win that battle. But it normally does not. It may get a slash on the dog but in general the dog wins out. once again leverag and conditioning

 

Well, you kind of answered your own question. We all know fights are dictated down to a fraction of a pound. Its rare anyone agrees(d) to a sort of "run whatcha brung" match with dogs, its just not fair. Since you go by weight classes, what traits your looking for kind of dictate what kind of dog you are breeding and its weight. Most prefer smaller dogs because they are quicker, dont tire as easily, and its really not feasbile to feed a yard of 100 150 lb. dogs. A yard of 100 30 lb. dogs isnt quite so bad on the pocketbook, which was important back in the days our breed was fought and refined.

 

tell me u don't whip the sh!t out your little brother!

 

Little! heck I am 9 inches shorter than he and over a hundred pounds less than he. You sould feel sorry for me I am old and disabled. lol. We have not faught in at least 5 years. He finally admitted why he didn't like me. He was jelious that I got free from the mother and he didn't have a dad to go to and I did. I never knew what his deal was. I just knew that he would start a fight with me every time we were near each other many times he would get drunk first. old stuff water under the bridge now. Thank God.

 

i still think that a bigger pit with the exact same build and stamina as a smaller pit would dominate. i think it's just the handlers preference like rock said and the genetic stock is not evolved to be bigger and consistently better yet.

 

David,

You ever notice how body builder's can't run very fast for very far. It takes them many more calories to do the same activity as a smaller person. There fore they burn out faster. When you have little or now stored energy as a performance dog is use of that energy has to be used for a longer durations. If your mass out runs it's energy source what does it have left. It gets hotter, more tired and has less endurance. Think of endurance runners. The Whippit or wolf. they are tall in stature but very slim with deep lung capacity. Another thing that the big bulky dog lacks is the lung capacity to supply enough oxygen to the whole body in the event of a long match or any other physical trial. My old Mastiff wolf mix was very fast for a short time and very distructive in his attack on what ever tresspassed on my land but if he had to runn too far at 238 pounds he tired and ran out of breath. He was not fat He had the face of a wolf and the lenght of the wolf and fur of one but the massive body of the mastiff. He could kill several coyotes at a time. However My pure blood wolf was lighter faster and could run 30mph for 60 miles Rocky could run 20 mph for about one mile. The wolf was also a more efficiant killer and faster in its attacks. Rock could walk and trot for a very long time but to flat out run he didn't have the capacity to fufill that in energy and wind. They both passed last year after many years of companionship. But If your going to breed for a larger dog your going to have to breed with the dogs with a deeper lung capacity too. To support that larger dog with the needed oxygen to indure.

 

There is an optimum weight for canine fighters, just like for humans.

Look at professional boxers as an analogy. A heavyweight fighter is not 6'7" and 350 pounds.* This is not an accident. A huge guy could try and train to be a fighter, but he'd get cut down quick by a smaller, quicker, more agile man with better endurance.

To carry the analogy even further, the lo-rider hippo dogs are to game-bred pits what professional wrestling is to boxing.

* Yeah, I know, there's "Butterbean", but he is a joke.

 

I think by reducing their size, while maintaining their strength and increasing their speed and agility, is what lead to an overall "better performance" dog.


"Lighter on their" feet, if you will, leading to a higher, longer endurance.

 

I agree my husband is a Marine, and when ppl. see him they are like no way!
He's about 5'6" and wieghs maybe 130 I've seen dogs bigger than him, but that's not what matters. He can whip almostany ones a$$. I'm not bragging just trying to prove the point in question. Because he is smaller he is quicker than the bigger Marines and he can run for longer faster than them. He can also do way more pull ups. He is able to be better than them because he is smaller uses less energy to do the same things as the bigger Marines, so he doesn't tire as quickly in fact I don't think he's ever tired Personally.....he's just like the dogs oh, he just got his second wind! any how you get it..

 

what you're talking about is because of my reference to genetic code. i've studied boxing for many years and i can honestly say that a fighter like oscar de la hoya will never beat tyson (in his prime at 18 or 19). another example is referring to roger mayweather jr. fighting lennox lewis. that would be a massacre. what you don't realize when you say this is that you are comparing the better smaller dogs with the majority of the lower mediocre bigger dogs. given one dog that has 35 lb. mass and another that has 65 lb mass with same build,wind, same drive, same percentage muscle and fat the 65 lb dog will handle the 35 lb dog without problems. i will give you that the bigger dog may tire sooner but if he wins before he does, it would be a massacre. felix trinidad, one of the best boxers of late, dominated every fight except when he went 15 lbs higher and got his ass handed to him by an old buck hopkins (who in his own right is p4p one of the best boxers of the last 20 years.)

i say compare the best to the best, not the best with the bigger rest.

by the way, BLUFFS shouldn't EVEN be brought into this argument as they are DEFINITELY NOT game dogs and should never be mentioned in the same context or conversation LOL.

peace!

 

So the best big vs the best small majority go with small? Does anyone know the weight classes on the dogs? Links for more info?

 

Dam do I have to come on here and school all you young newbies all over again lol....now days I try to keep to myself and not post anything unless I feel I really need to but when I see other newbies telling false info to another newbie seeking true answers about the history of the breed makes me furious. In the APBT size or to be more specific weight does matter very much when dealing with another APBT. Now when a APBT is dealing with another non APBT breed then the size or weight factor is less irrelevant and doesnt matter that much hence the saying its not the size of the dog in the fight its the size of the fight in the dog, this term is used to distinguish the ABPT from other breeds but not its own because SIZE OR WEIGHT DOES MATTER.

 

thank you. my point exactly.

 

Their is a common misconception that larger specimens from game lines cannot perform as well. Before I explain why this is a myth first let me tell the story of how using smaller dogs came to be. In the early days of the sport their were specimens of many different ranges from 30#'s to 110#'s being the largest i have ever heard of.

After the sport became illegal authorities really started to enforce the law so that the government could collect money on fines that were issued to the men who were caught illegally fighting. Now in those days dog fighting was very popular and it wasn't uncommon for events to be held frequently and with large crowds unlike today where it isn't as wide span and harder to get caught. Because fighting was so popular and many people knew about events it made it alot easier for the authorities to come and shut down these events and fine the men who were participating.

Because of the new legislation dogmen started favoring the smaller specimens based on ease of use not performance. Breaking two small dogs apart and then grabbing them for a fast escape was much easier with a smaller dog as opposed to the larger ones. Over the years very few large dogs from game lines were in existence and because of this certain people unknowingly perpetuated the myth that it was because they couldn't perform with the smaller specimens when infact that was not the case at all.

As far as some of the bigger dogs being low and overly stocky they are not from game lines and should not be considered a true game line apbt. As long as a large apbt is physiologically correct they will be able to perform on par with the smaller specimens and actually have a few advantages due to size. Basically the dogs performance will have to do with it's body compisition. Victor from southernkennels has old newspaper articles from before the prohibition that actually listed matches of gamedogs and told the weight of the dogs as well as listing the time. In one article the 110# dog he referred to fought for 2 hours and some odd minutes. That is longer than any other large fighting breed 100#'s and over has the ability to fight. And the probability that another game bred apbt of lesser weight could go that long with a large specimen is not impossible but highly unlikely, thus you have weightclasses.

 

While it is true, from what has been told to me that the smaller dogs are more popular because "have you ever tried to handle a large dog" there is also a bigger excitement level, I feel, when watching a smaller dog.

Boxing is a good comparison, you see more skills, agility, endurance, etc. when watching Alexis Arguello or Marco A. Barrerra, than you do when watching Lennox Lewis. Doesn't it seem that the same would be true of the giant dogs?

Certainly from what I have observed it is more exciting watching the smaller dogs and they seem to have more game ability. Then again there are more of them, at least in the game lines. I have no doubt there have been exceptions in the past, but just watching the different weights pull you can tell that a little dog is more energetic and quick than the big monsters you see pulling 10,000 pounds.

 

As the saying goes..."Move like a butterfly, sting like a bee"

 

Why is it that the smaller try to compete with the bigger, and tries to prove to be more superior? There's this small guy with strong built in out neighborhood that tries to be tough be bullying. He ended most of the time being beaten up.

Like this:
This is a mixed show. Males at Catch Weight. This was done in Afganistan. The top Caucasion in the country, who had won 8 shows was matched vs a purchased 3x winner pit from Russia via some Boyles blood. The Caucasion came in at an est 180 lbs. The pit at 65. This one was not close. The Caucasion mauled the pit as the size was too much, in just under 20 min.

Also what if BJ Penn will fight Chuck Lidell, who do you think has the advantage?

 

which would follow my lennox lewis vs. manny pacquiao or mike tyson vs. oscar de la hoya theory for game dogs.