Great topic. The common denominator in all lines is getting the job done. At some point it has always been crossing to and creating what works.

I had Filas for a long stretch in the 90's and late 2000's. This is a breed that once had a beautiful working dog back ground doing farm work all through South America. From herding to guarding to protecting to tracking. It was an all around worker. Two things happened that crippled this breed of dogs is the industrialization of the world and the creation of a breed standard. First, as the world industrialized a lot of these farm dogs became unemployed. Then the dogs were bred on phenotype to match a written standard. When breeding for phenotype the working ability slides on a slippery slope.

Then factor in that in America every working breed dog turned show dog has been creamed with 'bigger is better'. The Rott, the German Shephard, the Doberman, all the forms of bulldog, they all have 'size sells' lined in their lineage.

Every breed has families that show traits of 'something else in the recipe'. If the working and winning APBT were "PURE" there would be little variation in shape and size. Crossing lines within a breed can swing the size, shape and weight of a dog but the faster means is to cross breeds to do the same.

Based on the title American Pit Bull TERRIER I would say yes, there is a terrier mix way back when. Crossing dogs and lining up traits to perform a task was the purpose of breeding dogs since he became man's best friend. Breeding dogs with phenotype first is a slippery slope, breeding for genotype is a much more difficult task. Genotype breeding allows ugly dogs to do good work too.

Nailing down the when, why's and who's would be the hard part in writing down the pit bull recipe.

EWO