I recently started volunteering at a local animal shelter. Basically, my "job" a couple times a month is to give a dog a few hours outside the shelter to be outdoors, explore, walk, play, cuddle, snack, etc. It helps take the edge off the stress of the shelter environment, build up trust in humans, socialize the dogs, get information about the dogs' behavior that prospective adopters can go off of, and does a variety of other good things. I live in a large American city where most of the dogs in shelters are Pitbull mixes. The last dog I was assigned was a Pitbull mix and seemed very sweet. She radiated love, gentleness, and kindness. Afterward, I found myself thinking: Why do people have negative views of Pitbulls? In an effort to find an answer to this question, I went down a chilling online rabbit hole in which I saw video after video after video of Pitbulls violently attacking--attacking children, attacking elderly people, attacking other dogs, attacking cats, turning on their own owners, etc. Many of these incidents were fatal, and they appeared to be the tip of a very large iceberg. The supply of accounts online (videotaped or not) of terrifying Pitbull attacks is seemingly bottomless. I know plenty of people will say the problem stems from abusive and neglectful owners, not any innate characteristics of the dogs. Yet some of these attacks involved dogs without known histories of aggression (or so the owners said--it's hard or impossible to verify). It is a fact that Pitbulls were historically bred to be aggressive. Part of me doesn't feel safe going back to the shelter. In the long run, I would have considered adopting a Pitbull mix, but now I wonder: Could I trust it with my cats? Could I trust it with my niece?

I would really appreciate hearing the professional opinions of veterinarians on Pitbulls. I've heard enough from lay people, and I don't know what to believe. Are Pitbulls inherently a risk to public safety, or is it all just a matter of responsible ownership? Should I be concerned about my safety at the shelter? If I adopted a Pitbull, could I ever be sure that it wouldn't snap and do something awful?

Thank you for your guidance.