@StrongBow she was the best!

My chihuahua is like that. He's small, but can takedown the two labs from across the street when they get too rambunctious and pisses him off. He grabs their upper lip and actually takes them to the ground. He'll stand on their chest and bite their lip, while they squeal until I come rescue them.

@t1nick Tito would attack the neighbor's German shepherds if they got into the yard or came anywhere near me. I learned to hate him because Petunia complicated all our weekend trips by bringing him along with us.

We went off for a week to see my mother, 500 miles away. Had to bring Tito with us. Want to take a wild guess who had to walk the dog at rest stops and gasoline stations? Stop at a roadside attraction, we had to take turns staying with her wildly overpriced puppy dog.

We're on our fifth generation of cats. They've never gone anywhere with us. We never put a cat on a leash. Unlike Tito, we never bought a cat. Sometimes the local animal shelter gives them away with a shot record after they've neutered them. (That's for grown cats. Everybody wants to adopt a cute kitten). Neither us or our guests have stepped in cat shit in the yard. Show a cat a sand box, it knows what it's for. It gets housebroken instantly.

After several tries, Petunia could never housebreak a dog. We got rid of the dogs once I found out she had no intention of buying or replacing fresh litter for their kennel. Walking them daily wasn't on her agenda.

Pits are terrific animals. Like a lot of creatures, you do have to stay aware of their points of view. Back in the 70s I played on a city league baseball team in Tucson. One of our guys raised fighting dogs as a hobby. (I didn't and wouldn't know the guy very well.)

Some of his Pits were pets rather than fighters and he would bring them often to our practices. They were great dogs but they were very strong. One was chained to a small tree one time when a toy poodle walked across the field. The Pit nearly tore the tree out of the ground trying to go after the smaller dog.

We have a small (~20 lbs) Pit mix ourselves now that has never been aggressive. We even take her to the dog park and she always plays well with others. But we also have a German_Shepherd/Chow mix that never goes to the dog park. You have to take into account each animal's possible behaviors.