When I decided to give a dog a home, my first choice breed was a Bull Terrier, and the next a Staffy.  I now have my BT, and cannot help noticing that there are so few around when compared to Staffs, that seem to be all over the place.  I am probably happy with that, for I would rather have a rarer seen breed, but any owners wanna speculate as to WHY this is so.

Another thing.  In "my day" German Sheperds were called Alsatians, but that is not a term that I ever hear any more.  Who changed that..?

:)

Fashion?  When I was a child everyone had labradors or labrador crosses.  Staffs are not too big for a family home and most of those I have met have been very friendly, so they seem to have caught on generally.  They seem to fit in very well to town life, I rarely see Staffs at my park and never on my country walks.  This is just my observation and opinion though.

Fashions huh.  One dog breed I ain't seen in ages is an Afghan Hound, indeed the only two that I can really recall were about 25 years ago, couple of right vicoius things they were - :(

seen a beautiful afgan at the hartlepool open show at the beg of october and have seen a one doing agility quite regularly of the summer it was a sight to behold, in full coat jumping over the fences WOW
carol

I haven't seen Afghans since I was a teenager, but of the couple that I knew they seemed to be very scatty but were friendly enough

During the war the name was changed from German Shepherd to Alsatian for fairly obvious reasons ;) The necessity for this has altered and now they are called German Shepherd dogs , back to the original name

Wonder where the name Alsatian derived from then?  I see a lot of references on here to GSD's, I assume that means German Sheperd Dog..?  Why not just GS, I wonder..?  And does your theory not work somewhat in reverse with the 'Empire Bisciut', since that was called a German Biscuit, at one time ..  ;)

I've always been lead to believe it is derived from Alsatia(sp?)where the breed originates, and its GSD because a German Shepard would be a German who herds sheep, not necessarily a dog ;) Just my understanding!

It's a German shepherd Dog so GSD (ASD, australian shepherd dog and ACD, australian Cattle Dog)  That way it is known as a dog :)

From Alsace, the region of Northern France/Southern Germany where the breed supposedly originated.

GS would be german spitz!!!

The full breed name in the KC standard is "German Shepherd Dog (Alsatian)". :)  Some people use GSD to describe the German type of dog and Alsatian to describe the English type. I even remember an ad in the lcoal paper once saying "crossbred puppies, dad German Shepherd, mum Alsatian". LOL!!!

Cain, I think you're right - it's a mystery... where have all the English bulls gone? I remember only 5 to 10 years ago that they were quite common around here, but I haven't seen one out for a walk in ages. There has been a staffie poulation explosion.

From the ones I've known personally, I do think staffies are not half as stubborn and have a more easy going temperament than english bulls.

A friend of mine has three bull terriers. Two are six years old and the other is one. That's the only person I know of with Bull Terriers!

I think they all live in Wales with all the other Bull and Mastiff breeds ;) for some reason they seem to be really popular here, half the dogs are Staffies and half of the rest, is some kind of Bull or Mastiff breed, my Bedlingtons are considered really poncy   If only they knew :rolleyes:

OMG :D  I must be lucky....I have a EBT male (he's lovely) that lives around the corner and a black/tan afghan in the next street - she doesn't get out much......her owners are in the 3am club :(

Angela

What's the 3am club?  Is it a cult..  :)

....rotflmao.....no, it's the time that useless owners - who have no control - choose to walk their dogs, rather than taking the time to seek help in overcoming problem behaviours.

.........but, I much prefer you're idea Cain!!!..excellent...lol

Angela  :D

Firstly may I state they are NOT English Bulls, they are recognised with the Kennel Club as Bull Terriers, I recently called an insurance firm for a quote for our BT's and they told ME that they would NOT insure them as BT's are on the dangerous dogs act Bullsh.t !!!!   But they would insure them if they were English Bull Terriers , and that's so called a professional service they ought to find out the fact's first !!!  As for they're nature it's second to none.

Jamjar - the general public (including insurance companies apparently!) tend to think of a Staffie or even a Pitbull if you just say Bull Terrier... and it's infinitely nicer than 'Pigdog' which is what a lot of people call them! It's the same with Mastiffs. My friend used to get tired of correcting people who often refer to them as Old English Mastiffs.

Bull terriers are harder to handle because they do have a tendency to be aggressive to other dogs.  It is recommended by the BT people that you don't keep 2 males for this reason - they are not expected to get along.  The staffy people don't make the same recommendations and staffies generally have a much better temperament.

I wonder if anyone on this board HAS both a SBT and a BT?

Personally, I think the nature of most dogs is really down to how it has been socialised, and whether or not the owners have given 'him' his proper pecking order around the house.  Staffs, BT's, Rooty's, etc, they are all the same, if the owner is a prat!

Agreed..?

:)

You don't think it's both nature and nurture then?

From what I've observed, a dog's pesonality is about a 50/50 split of genes and upbringing. You can see distinct personalities developing in puppies of 3 weeks old. You'd be hard pressed to turn the average English Bull into a sheepdog no matter how much you trained it or a Siberian Husky into a guard dog as most of them would cheerily depart with the burglar! But yes, any plonker can ruin a perfectly good dog of any breed.

YES to a certain extent.

Yes a lot of a dogs behaviour is how it's brought up.But and this is a big but:the dogs breed plays a massive part on it's temperment.I have 2 Staffys and a Cane Corso male.These dogs are all brought up the same,yet there is a huge difference in temperment.They love each other,my male Staff is now 23mts.He will play with other people's dogs,but if the other dog trys to be donimant he's stuck to the butt of that dogs ear.But he love's people,and never shows aggression to humans.My Corso male on the other hand dose'nt like strangers,but love's every dog,he just wants to be pals with them all.My female Staff love's people and other dogs,and is trustable with both.All have been very socialized and brought up playing with other people's dogs.Untill recently I could 100% trust my male Staff not to retaliate when other dogs rare'd up,unless they were actually attacking him.Other wise he would ignore the dog,and continue on with wath ever he was doing.But now he he trustable if the other dog don't try be bossy or try to mount him.I just don't take the chance anymore,so don't let him play with other people's dogs.The reason the E.B.T. is not seen so much now adays is firstly there price,they usually sell for about £650.00/£700.00. Most people are'nt willing to pay that for one,while they can get a Staff for between £350.00/£500.00. The E.B.T. is not anything like a Staff temperment wise,I know this as I use to have one.Then to make things worse a few years back there was a spade of attacks by the E.B.T. some of which were on there own family.So that put made them out of the story for many family people.I myself think the attacks may have been from closely realated dogs as they all happened within a short space of each other.Maybe someone bred a very unstable litter,and once they reached a certain age the unstable nature started to show.After that you did'nt here much about E.B.T.'s attacking people.So I would think it was a litter of undstable dogs.I think this has played a lot to why people stoped keeping them,and now the price certainly ain't helping to get them back to the popularity they once had.

Very interesting what you said about EBT because my niece had one 5 years ago.  The dog was very well socialised and loved by both niece and her husband but out of the blue one day he bit my niece.  She was understandably wary of him then but the crunch came when my niece became pregnant and the dog would circle her growling.  They had no idea why the dog turned this way.