If I'd found this board first, I would never have allowed my dog-friendly APBT to be around other dogs, thereby making what I feared come true--through lack of socialization versus genetics.
That is NOT to say, however, that you shouldn't be prepared for DA at all.
Interesting that you say that. I started coming here just a few weeks before I got Argos, and read a lot of stuff about being wary during socialization, and that APBT's are all dog agressive, etc. So when I brought him around initially, I think I was TOO worried about it.
He's a little over a year old now, and since we've come to understand one another better, and I don't feel as on edge as I did initially, and I have only seen him act aggressive one time.
I was walking him one night downtown, and this bum is walking towards us. He was about 50 ft down the street, and Argos starts to loose a low growl followed by guttural barking (very uncommon for him). I quickly took him to the other side of the street and he was fine. He just didn't want us to walk by that guy for whatever reason...I didn't ask.
But anyway, back to the OP, Argos does the SAME THING that you're talking about, especially at the vet!
Last time we went, we were in the waiting room and this lady had a tiny, tiny puppy in her arms. You could swear that I was hurting Argos, he was crying and whining so bad to go sniff that puppy!!!!
He absolutely loses his mind around other dogs (my neighbor's dogs, too), he pulls, he whines and cries like a BIG BABY!!!
And when we do let them play a little (under very close supervision), it's the other dogs that start to bark at HIM, because he is just -so excited-. I think he starts to annoy the other dogs after a while...
And it's only other dogs that he gets excited about...He lives with a cat, and almost completely ignores my neighbor's cats. If he pays them any attention at all, it seems like he's trying to show off his latest feat of airborne tennis ball catching.
Now, please don't misconstrue what I'm saying as having completely given up the watch for DA in my dog. Not at all. I still keep an eye on him, and a close one. But I AM convinced that this particular dog is on the lower end of the DA scale.