Yankeestaff

Staffordshire Bull Terrier

Breed Type

Breed Type is determined by the job or purpose each breed has been designated to fulfill. Then Form follows Function!

For instance, you will not find a coursing dog that is heavy and shorter legged because it's function precludes this. So it is of a type to perform with great speed and distance covering ability.

Coursing dogs are lean, tall, long legged. Another example --- dogs that pull a sled in Arctic conditions will not be smooth coated and barrel-ribbed. He would freeze to death and run out of steam.

Therefore we see dogs densely coated, undercoated and more slab-sided pulling sleds!

The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was bred to be the ultimate fighting machine, an animal of quickness, agility, intelligence, great wrestling ability, tremendous endurance and gameness.

How do we translate this type when his rough hewn, violent beginnings are no longer the proving ground for his type? We study the American Pit Bull Terrier of which the SBT is the progenitor. The APBT has more recently developed as the athlete superior in the U.S.A.

Mike Homans' book, "The Staffordshire Bull Terrier in History and Sport" is a tremendous work about our breeds beginnings and the harshness of the times when he was used as the ultimate destruction vehicle.

Is there a correlation between our SBT of today and his ancestor in the pit. There certainly ought to be; or perhaps we don't have the hard, strong, sound, athlete of old --- who coincidentally developed as the ultimate people temperament dog!

We would never find a picture of a winning dog that is low stationed, big-boned, with an ultra short fore-face and massive skulled. Coincidentally we wouldn't find a 'people-eater' in a winner.

The dog bred for endurance, agility, easy breathing and heat dissipation has leg length, medium bone, superbly angled hind quarters, powerful bite, and medium rib spring. He will also be the most dependable people dog you will find because he has had to be of such stable nature as to not inflict punishment on his master in the heat of battle as he was being handled from round to round.

How did this translate for me into a SBT. He is medium sized, square, medium boned, tremendously angulated with great turning ability, endurance and the most supremely stable people temperament I could find.

Dog aggression is a by product that I would never eliminate, only channel; because the game dog temperament is what makes him so wonderful with people! Remember he's tough, pain desensitized, courageous, bold and ready to go!