Nature and nurture: How the dog is raised will determine its adult behavior

The pit bull terrier struggles with misleading accusations. Pit bulls are seen as, by many, as dangerous dogs who will eventually attack at any given moment. Even when you type “pit bull” into Google your results usually end in “are dangerous” or “attack.” These heartwarming pups seem to be hated by a lot of people but in reality they are one of the friendliest breeds.

Many articles talk about how dog shelters are full of pit bulls. The BarkPost shares that each year there are 1.2 million dogs that are euthanized, killed in a humane way, and about 40 percent are pit bulls.

Eshan Mirsa works at the Amanda Foundation and shared his experience and views on the pit bull terrier. He confirmed that bigger dogs, like the pit bull terrier, are less likely to be adopted because of all the false accusations of being violent and dangerous.

Mirsa grew up surrounded by big dogs and gave information about these violent outbreaks that are said to be in the dogs’ nature. He said dogs have violent outbreaks because of the way they are raised and not by their breed.

Mirsa was great help and added that these great dogs were affected by their environment and not by their breed.

The interview with Mirsa reminded me of what my friend Leydely told about the nature and nurture effect. She told me that the nature and nurture affect was a topic she had just finished learning in her psychology class. The nature and nurture effect is about how your personality is affected by nurture and not nature, the way you are nurtured or raised is what makes up your personality and the way you look is nature, just pure genetics.

To help me understand better, she gave me an example of a child. If a child is abused, then that child will grow up full of anger and hate that will eventually lead to violent outbreaks. The nature and nurture affect works the same way on dogs. If a pit bull grows up in an abusive home, it will grow up traumatized and eventually have aggressive outbreaks.

Many dogs have been mistreated so much without any explanation. These dogs have been so traumatized that it’s no wonder people are scared that they may have violent outbreaks. People should understand that any dog, not just the pit bull terrier, will be mentally hurt if they are mistreated. Dogs are sensitive and should be treated with care and responsibility.