From: (elegy)

you can't take a border collie into the show ring and title it as a bc
and as an aussie, though. you can take a dog into the ring and
conformation title it as an akc amstaff and a ukc apbt, though. and
people do.

Not in AKC, unless they're hanging papers. Just because UKC chooses to
register AKC ASTs as pit bulls doesn't mean they're the same breed, {And
indeed, if their policys were as strict as AKC's, they wouldn't be
registering AST's} it may only mean they're close enough that they want
the $ from those registrations and entry fees. I don't know much about
ADBA, except for their reputation for out of control dogs {I've walked
through one 'show', and that was enough for me, what a spectacle},
glorifying 'dogmen', and hung papers.

If you truly believe that AKC AmStaffs and ADBA pit bulls are the same
breed, then please explain how a group of people can breed for different
purposes for almost *70* years, and end up with the same dogs. {Yes, I
know the stud books were opened for a brief time in the '70's allowing
some 'new' blood in, still, even that was 30 years ago.} The Border
Collie people, just as knowlegeable as dog fanciers, believe that if you
quit selecting for herding ability, you've created a different dog
within a couple of generations. Who's right? If APBT's and ASTs are
the same, why do ahem 'dogmen' refer to staffs as 'curs', and wouldn't
feed one? Why do many UKC people keep their 'pitterstaff' and red nosed
lines completely separate, never crossing them? They'll outcross to
other pitterstaffs, or other red nosed dogs, why not cross the two if
they're truly the same?

If the defining quality of a pit bull is it's 'gameness', and 'dogmen'
wouldn't feed a staff, or breed to one, because they're 'curs', bragging
on their pedigrees being free of AST blood, how are they not a separate
breed? If they look different, and act different, and have different
drives, how can they be the same breed? Because they're muscular and
have short stiff hair? Because umpteen generations ago they started
from the same genepool?

Yanno, I used to read a lot of pit boards, and read the arguments over,
and over, and over, and the arguments for the dogs being the same breed
just don't make any sense. If you change _that _many_ things about a
breed, I just don't believe you end up with the same dog in the end, but
something different.

I've met lovely pit bulls, and many lovely ASTs, and I believe they're
different dogs.

Debbie