Pit bulls just get no respect.
But they’ve got a prominent new lobbyist – actor Jon Bernthal, who claims their reputation as vicious animals is “dog racism.”
Bernthal thinks they actually make killer pets, so to speak.
“My pitbulls are great,” Bernthal tells New York shock jock Howard Stern.
“So the myth of the pit bull,” an obedient Stern replies. “Pit bulls don’t attack?”
“No,” Bernthal replies, waving his arms. “It’s just racism, it’s just dog racism.”
“To be afraid of a breed of dog is completely ridiculous,” he adds. “It’s like being afraid of someone for their race or their sexual orientation – it’s completely ridiculous.
“If a pitbull bites you it’s going to suck but they’re no more likely to bite you than a Chihuahua or any other breed of dog.”
“It probably has more to do with who owns them and how they were trained,” Robin Quivers, Stern’s long-time radio sidekick, pipes in right on cue.
“Yeah,” Bernthal agrees. “I think a lot of knuckleheads unfortunately are attracted to that breed of dog and to me when I see some wanna-be gangster getting pulled down Venice Beach by his pitbull I’m like ‘you feed that f***er? And he’s pulling you?’ To me that’s not manly or strong. To me you’ve got to train your dog.”
Bernthal’s dog-racism claim is getting laughed off X.
“I don’t know who Jon Bernthal is but he qualifies for the Certified Retard award,” said X follower @MoralTreason.
Two other posters on X joked the reason Bernthal likes pit bulls is because he’s a Jew.
Pit bulls, which by all accounts are equal-opportunity biters, were originally bred from bulldogs and terriers for fighting.
Contrary to Bernthal’s logic, statistics show pit bulls are involved in far more fatal attacks than other dog groups.
Pit bulls have a controversial reputation as pets internationally, due to their history in dog fighting, the number of high-profile attacks documented in the media over decades and their proclivity to latch on while biting, according to Wiki.
While some studies have argued that pit bulls aren’t disproportionately dangerous, offering competing interpretations on dog bite statistics, hospital records show the dogs are responsible for more than half of dog bites among all breeds, despite comprising only 6 percent of pet dogs.
