Irish Staffie?? So confused! Please Help! Questions

Well with the new dog bill that they are looking to replace the current dda will hopefully ;-) end bsl and put the ownus on the owner not the breed

Hi all
Thanks for all your replies, we have decided against getting a puppy now. I had my sister in law measure Tia and she was 18 inches at the shoulder. My doubts were too great and the fact she was might have been taken off me for being of type was too worrying.
We have decided to get another Labrador to go with our other puppy Charlie, who is a sweetheart! Thanks again
http://s1001.photobucket.com/albums.../charlie99/?action=view&current=charlie99.jpg

18 inch is the original staffordshire bull standard and should of never been approved to make these dogs smaller

Actually it was 15-18 inches,it was dropped and now the disired height is 14-16 inches for both dogs and bitches.
I believe the standard was changed in 1948 regarding the height,13 years after the first original standard.

Standards and the changes can be fund on this link http://www.staffordmall.com/standardhistory.htm

The puppy looks lovely - and if that is your daughter in the picture you are probably going to have problems pulling out of the deal lol

Couple of things - some people (and I am not accusing your friend of this) call their dogs Irish Staffords - or even Pit Bulls - because they haven't got papers and they believe they sell better than if they are just called a Staffie cross. This may have been the case when your friend bought the mother of the pup - not that she wanted a PB but that the breeder chose to term them 'Irish'. Irish Stafford is - as has been said - a euphemism/alternative name for a PB. But there are also Staffords bred in Ireland of course lol

The reason that it has been mentioned that there is no blood test is because the DDA refers to Pit Bull type. I had a full pedigree Stafford - came from a line which was easily checked - who was nineteen and half inches tall. Not unusual in Staffords - especially away from the show ring - but in theory, he could have been picked up as a 'Pit Bull type' simply because of his height. We could have blood tested him and proved his parentage with no problem, but that would not have stopped him being 'type'.

In practice most police (although there are notable exceptions, sadly) and courts appear to look at other things besides height - one of them being behaviour (of you and your dog). We have pit bulls and dogs which could be termed pit bull types where I live - nicely behaved dogs, friendly towards people (although often not towards other dogs) who are left to get on with their life. They are not 'status dogs' or used as guards or weapons - they are family pets who are well looked after. Of course, if they bit someone or get into a fight and are reported then things can change. Fortunately, this is unusual because the owners are not looking for problems.

Wouldn't that be great? IMO the DDA is badly flawed. Police officers cannot be expected to be dog experts and many dogs in this country have languished on death row guilty of no crime other than being 'Pit Bull type'. As i said in my previous post there are many places who will look at behaviour rather than size, but sadly that is not always the case.

Only a couple of years ago a well publicised 'amensty' was orginised when many people turned their dogs into the police. The good people at 'Deed not Breed' managed to get some of these dogs home to their families but others were pts because the owners did not want to get prosecuted, and didn't fully understand what was going on. For some of these dogs their only resemblance to pit bull types was their height!

I disapprove strongly of 'status dogs' - dogs who are often used as weapons - but people who would use a dog in this way are not bothered by what type they are. Breed specific legislation will never get rid of these types of dogs - when there is a clamp down on one breed these owners will dump that dog and get another breed. I fear that wolf hybrids will be popular amongst these sort of people soon - nothing like a PB type