Beware of the dog

About two years ago I was lucky to win a dog skull auction in Ebay. It was the skull of a pit bull – oh yeah! I still had a few skulls of canines in my collection, but there was no dog skull yet. So I wanted it so hard! When I finally got to hold it in my hands was so excited! But the skull was so dusty that my enthusiasm almost flew away immediately. While cleaning I explored some weird parts of the skull. Snoop more under the cut!

Breeding dogs is all well and good, but some dogs are totally overbred. In the past pit bulls were bred for hunting rats (bulldog x terrier) and later for dogfights. Most of the breeders didn’t look after the visual nature of the dogs, no, they just wanted the most aggressive dog as possible. That’s really sad. I’m happy that dogfights are forbidden now.

I’m not sure if “my” pit bull was overbred or if it just had some genetical issues. The front view of the skull shows you a displaced lower jaw. It looks like someone placed a punch on its chin. That explains why the (sadly broken) canine grew a hole into the upper jaw. And I suppose that’s also the reason why he lost one of the three smaller teeth right next to the canine.

But that’s not enough. It seems that this dog had a kind of cleft palate. I wondered how this dog looked alive. Maybe there was nothing to see about that cleft palate, who knows?

I love the grey patina on the skull, so the teeth shine snow white!

Because of the dogfights the pit bulls belongs to the fighting or attack dogs. In some parts of Switzerland you need a license if you want to keep a pit bull and in other cantons it’s even forbidden to have a dog like that! But pit bulls aren’t aggressive by nature, though. A few countries even use trained pit bulls as police or rescue dogs! It’s like a lot of things: If you take care and be responsible for your dog there’s nothing to worry about. I hope that “my” pit bull had a nice life in spite of those physical issues. Rest in peace.