Are you or Aren't you a pit bull?

In some towns, you don't want your pit bull to look like a pit bull for fear that the law will take him away from you. So you might convince yourself that he's a boxer mix. You know who you are (and we don't blame you one bit). In other places, you might convince yourself that your lab-mix is really a pit bull, because he's much too cool to be a lab - and who wants a lab when you can have a pit bull? (Yeah, we know who you are too)

In Oakland, we want our dogs to look like pit bulls. I'm trying to decide if this dog is pit bully enough to qualify for the seal of pit bull approval. In other words, could someone who adopted this dog brag about having a pit bull, or would they be forever defending their right to own a rottie-mix?

This one is tough. He's the perfect example why breed ID is a big joke....

...American Bulldogs can look like pit bulls can look like boxer mixes can look like chessies can look like mixed-breed anybody's-guess dogs.

I liked this orphaned boy so much that I tried to convince myself that he's a misrepresented tri pit bull so he could come home with me.

We live, sleep, eat and breathe pit bulls and we still scratch our heads over half the dogs we meet - like this one. He could be a full breed tri-color pit bull ... or 50/50 rottie/pit mix ... or he might not have one speck of pit bull in him at all. Who's to say?

I was doing a pretty good job of it until an animal control officer at the shelter guffawed and said, "What are you doing with that dog?"

Um...well...He could be a pit bull you know! Maybe.

At the end of the day, all we have to fall back on is personality. Is it a solid dog with a penchant for staring you deep in the eye and declaring you the one and only most important human being on the planet?

Well then, that would make him a pit bull. Maybe.

Please tell me what you think. Yay pit bull? or No way Jose?

EDIT: Thankfully, this boy was adopted from the shelter so we never had to come up with a label for him - although we might've done his DNA just for yuks. Here's a blog post about another tri-color dog that did come through our program. With tri-s being a new sought after coat color - Read: FAD - dogs that look just like this are turning up fairly regularly in shelters now. Unfortunately nothing seems to change: No matter the look, fad coat colors still tend to attract buyers who lose interest as soon as something different comes into fashion. And so it goes... Tri-fad Boy

Can't decide? You're not alone. This poster from the National Canine Research Council might explain why people (including the media and shelters, too) have never been able to identify dog breeds based on their appearance. POSTER