American Staffordshire Terriers

Hi: My family (myself, my wife, and 3 children aged 9, 7 and 4) is considering adopting a dog from one of our local shelters or rescue centers and as we have started looking we saw there are a large number of Am Staff or Am Staff mixes available. In terms of size, needed amount of exercise, requiring grooming, and general temperament and intelligence the Am Staff seems like a good fit for what we are looking for, but I have read on several web sites that they need a firm hand in training and that it must be made clear that the whole family is "alpha" to the dog. (Think this is an issue with all dogs to some degree, but info I've seen emphasizes this for Am Staffs). While I had dogs growing up and feel fairly confident on this score, my wife, who would be the primary caretaker as she is a stay-at-home mom, hasn't trained a dog before. My kids are comfortable with dogs as many of their friends have them, but as noted are fairly young. Any thoughts on whether this is the right dog for us much appreciated. Thanks.

The reason it is emphasized with AmStaffs etc is because they will take the leadership roll if it is not clear that they are not allowed too, where many other breeds will not, like Labs and such.

IMO if you dont think she can do it leave tham at the shelter for someone who can.

Honestly if you are considering an Am staff and have children you should get a pup, unfortuantley so many dogs especially am staff are in shelters are there because of behavior problems or poor breeding, for example someone breed a litter sold pups cheap just to get rid of them then person who bought pup had little or no idea on proper training and dog eventually goes to pound. While I TOTALLY support getting dogs from the pound most people who work their are volunteer and uneducated on dog behavior and training. If you are set on one from the pound find a GOOD trainer who can help you CHOOSE a dog and do temprament testing on the dogs you are interested in. This goes for all breeds, Which honestly I think if everyone did this there would actually be LESS dogs in the pound, because so many dogs adopted actually end up homeless again because people did not do their home work. Also PROPERLY bred and raised Am staffs are WONDERFUL companions and Great with kids! Am staffs are SO popular more so than people know and they are very over bred. Feel free to contact me if you need anymore help:)