The book received a mostly positive reception from critics.[4][5]
The Wall Street Journal said that "Ms. Dickey has earned her reputation as a first-rate reporter.”[6] The New York Times stated that "Dickey not only writes about the ebb and flow of public fear and loathing, she takes the reader on a thoroughly comprehensible tour of genetics and behavioral science to explain why breeding never guarantees an individual dog's personality, and shouldn't be used to condemn it."[7]
The Christian Science Monitor called it “brilliant" and "a powerful and disturbing book that shows how the rise of the killer-pit bull narrative reflects many broader American anxieties and pathologies surrounding race, class, and poverty."[8]
Anti-pit bull advocates accused Dickey of downplaying the potential danger of pit bull dogs.[9] She also received death threats at book signings.[10][11]
