Urban legends! Pit Bulls were never bred to be aggressive towards humans. Quite the contrary. As a rule, they are friendly, loyal, playful and loving towards people, including children. Their main challenge is in dealing with other animals. They have a fairly high prey drive and smaller animals are especially at risk with some (not all) Pit Bulls because a quick moving small animal instantly is seen as being prey. All Terriers can have this issue, because over all Terriers were bred to be varmint dogs. They were bred to go after rats, most commonly, because once upon a time, rats were more of an issue for invading human homes, barns and other places where food was stored. The most damaging part of a Pit Bull's character is that if you do have a dog that is more aggressive, and if the dog does bite, their jaws are so strong, the amount of damage they can do with hardly a thought is generally a lot more serious than even the average dog. They are said to have "locking jaws" simply because they have a huge amount of strength that defies being pried apart unless they release what is in their mouths. They are not a soft mouth breed, such as a retriever would be expected to be. Totally different use, creates a totally different adaptation. Because they can do so much damage, when such an event occurs, it becomes instant news. For the past 20 to 30 years, I've known of breeders who are specifically breeding with a strong desire to remove that higher prey drive and to try and create Pit Bulls that are more reliable in interacting with other animals. Some have had some success; but it is such a deep part of the breed, and too we still have those who are at the other end of the path still using them and breeding them to fight, that it can be a challenge for someone to know if they are getting a companion that is stable, or one more like the original type. As with any breed of dog, it is best to judge on an individual basis, and a Temperament Test is always a good idea to show a dog's true inclinations.

Same reason you only hear about the bad people in the news - a well behaved, trained dog is not a news story! Pit bulls are not the only dogs known to have killed or mauled people - it does tend to be the more muscular breeds but logic tells you that if a Pekinese tried to maul you it would be easy to kick the little rat into the middle of next week! Smaller dogs tend to be more snappy but because they don't do so much damage they don't hit the headlines! Unfortunately it's like all news stories - the more sensational they can make the headline sound the more newspapers they will sell!

Pit Bulls are physically strong, and if trained and treated in a certain way, can become very aggressive. For this reason, pit bulls are often purchased by unsavory sorts who purposely make the dog aggressive for guarding a property or for fighting. Then the dog may attack someone. Look at a different breed, a Pomeranian for example. They aren't physically strong and wouldn't be much use as a guard dog or a fighting dog, so the kinds of people that buy dogs to purposely raise them to be vicious wouldn't buy a Pomeranian. Put bulls just have had the bad luck of being a target of these kinds of people. When raised correctly, pit bulls are loving and sweet, and are great family pets.