CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Pull up the adoption website for the Cleveland Animal Protective League or the Cuyahoga County dog shelter, and you’ll see a large percentage of the dogs labelled with “pit bull/mix.”

These blocky-headed “bully breeds” aren’t ending up in shelters out of the dog-fighting ring or because they’re vicious, shelter officials say.

APL CEO Sharon Harvey said the shelter is usually at least one-third bully breeds, but it can be up to two-thirds at any given time.

At the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter, bully breeds made up 17 percent of their dog population in 2018. But shelter administrator Mindy Naticchioni echoed that the statistics are based on visual identification, so they’re not exact.

What’s known as a “pit bull” isn’t a specific breed of dog. It’s a common name for a grouping of breeds, including the American pit bull terrier. Other “bully breeds” are the American Staffordshire terrier and the Staffordshire bull terrier.

Trying to accurately figure out the ancestry of a shelter dog is a “moving target,” Harvey said, since most dogs are mixes and it’s impossible to tell visually.

A national non-scientific 2019 survey by the group Animals 24-7 estimates pit bulls and other bully breeds make up about 14.6 percent of dogs nationwide, and about half of shelter intake.

How popular are pit bulls?

It’s hard to accurately calculate how popular pit bulls are nationwide because of the problems identifying them and how you define a “pit bull." Owners also register their mixed-breed dogs based on visual characteristics, so it’s not entirely accurate.

A recent study compared volunteer identification of pit bull mixes compared to a DNA test. Shelter staff identified 55 out of the 120 dogs as pit bull breeds. A third of those were true pit bulls.

Harvey hesitates to say that the number of pit bulls in shelters is surging, and says the sheer number of bully breed dogs has been a challenge for a number of years now.

It’s very difficult to pinpoint the exact reason there are so many bully breed dogs without speculation, especially because popularity varies so greatly by region. But there are several factors that officials say could have contributed.

Pit bulls are more popular in urban communities, including Cleveland. Their appearance and the stigma surrounding it makes them good guard dogs. People breed dogs for some extra money, and pit bulls are the dogs they have.

“If you go into shelters in Southern Arizona or California, you see a lot of pit bulls, but you also see a lot of Chihuahuas,” Harvey said. “If you go into rural areas, you see a lot of hounds. I think the make up of animals in a shelter are very reflective of the community they’re in."

Another aspect is Ohio communities’ attitude toward pit bulls. Pit bull breeds were once banned in many Ohio communities through breed-specific legislation. The state once included pit bull breeds in its definition of “vicious dogs," but a 2012 state law redefined the term to mean behavior, not breed.

Naticchioni said bully breed owners didn’t have the same opportunities to get their dogs spayed or neutered due to breed-specific legislation.

“Inadvertently, in trying to ban them, we may have created more of them,” she said.

Bans are based on claims that bully breeds are more dangerous than other dogs. Supporters of breed-specific legislation often cite national dog bite statistics or headlines which highlight pit bull attacks. Pit bull advocates dispute these claims as inaccurate, and view pit bull breeds as unfairly stigmatized.

Now there are only two Cuyahoga County municipalities that have “pit bull bans:" Parma and Warrensville Heights. Parma voters narrowly decided in May to keep their ban.

How do shelters adopt out so many pit bulls?

Many shelter dogs are mixes, so officials look to get potential adopters to focus on the dog, not the breed.

“Often, what we’re able to do is somebody can come in saying 'I want small and fluffy, but fall in love with the personality of the 50-pound blocky-headed whatever," Harvey said.

The APL tries to keep a diverse group of dogs on the adoption floor.

Though some stigma does still exist, Naticchioni said the tide is turning on prejudices against pit bulls.

The Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter established a playgroup model in 2015, in which every dog gets to play in a pack every day. Shelter workers learn more about the individual dogs, which helps them match owners with animals.

“When (potential adopters) started watching them interact, they got adopted out at a much higher rate," Naticchioni said. “People started seeing them less as the picture of a big blocky head, but more as just a dog.”