Yeah those little rat dogs got it in for everyone
In a hypothetical situation where every dog breed is banned except for Chihuahuas, would the amount of deadly dog attacks be:
- More
- Less
- Equal
If dog breeds weren’t a factor, the correct answer could only be “equal”. But nobody in their right mind would make that claim.
Thus breed is a factor.
Ah yes, those pesky chihuahuas and their bite force of 235 PSI and 60% fatal attack rate 🙃
Aggression and danger are often inversely correlated.
I have nothing but hate for people that breed problem dogs. Not just talking aggression. But a lot of races have very known medical problems.
Small short dogs very often get back problems. E.g. Corgis, yes they look cute. But very soon they will live in a world of chronic pain. That’s not cool.
Don’t even get me started on pugs or Chihuahuas…
It’s also really stupid to buy dog breeds with known medical problems. Surgery for your dog is not cheap. Your loved pet will suffer. Buy another breed without known problems
Generally agreeing, but as a Corgi owner just a small correction: They are short in height but have a long body. It’s not a problem if the breed is small, the proportions have to be right.
Corgis, although at the border to a problematic ratio, the breed lines I’m accustomed with are still fine(Europe). Corgis tend to have back problems when not properly prevented their whole life - avoiding downward stairs, restricting jumping or anything in the direction of dog sports made for Aussies, etc. But due to their stockier build they are pretty robust against the typical problems you see in Dachshunds for example. It also helps that they’re not hopelessly mis-bred yet
“The dogs are fine as long as they don’t do stuff that dogs typically do”.
Great stuff.
Or Frenchies. I briefly wanted one until I considered having to watch it struggle and suffer across its life.
My neighbours had a small hunting terrier when i was a kid, forgot the name of the breed. Fucking asshole dog tried to bite me every time she saw me although i went in and out there every day. Also she killed everything that moved, cats, birds, hedgehogs, …
Neighbour was a hunter and those fuckers were bred to follow badgers into their sett and kill them. Badgers can be quite nasty themselves so most animals stay away, but not this breed. Only chance the badger has is to kill the dog, even if half of its nose is bitten off, it doesn’t give a shit.
So I’m a bit sceptical about the whole “aggression is not bred” theory.
Bred for the size, trained for the aggression. I’ve seen typically passive breeds be overly aggressive in exactly the way that the breed is known for not being.
They’re animals.
If you’re suggesting my neighbours trained her to be aggressive - they didn’t - it was their family dog, they did the standard obedience training (sit, stay…) but no protection training. All their other dogs (german shepherds) were friendly.
Have you ever seen a puppy of a working dog? Pointers will point. The training they receive is what to point, not how. Retrievers will retrieve, herders will herd, trackers will track. But when someone suggests that a dog that has been specifically bred to fight and kill, oh, they were just trained that way. No, they have been specifically selected for aggression and prey drive. It is at best naive and at worst deadly to think that a working dog comes as a blank slate and will only perform actions it has been trained on.
Have you ever seen a puppy of a working dog? Pointers will point. The training they receive is what to point, not how. Retrievers will retrieve, herders will herd, trackers will track.
That’s not how genetics works my guy. None of those things are heritable traits. Being smart, being trainable, those are traits that puppies can inherit. Being a good tracker isn’t. That’s learned behavior. If you’ve seen puppies pointing, retrieving, herding, or tracking, it’s because they learned it from some other dog, animal, or human.
This is EXACTLY how genetics works. Research the Belyaev’s domestic fox program. It took about 4 generations of choosing the calmest and friendliest to make a domestic fix on par with our domestic dog breeds.
This is what dog breeding is. Breeding to get a specific dog behaviour was literally 90% of dog breeding … before the weird cosmetic trend started.
So the owners of retrievers what, subconsciously all train them to retrieve because they knew the breed?
? You don’t think animals naturally know how to do things?
That’s not what I said dude
A bird can naturally know how to build a nest but a dog can’t naturally know how to follow an animal?
Still not comparable to what I said.
Even if this were true, it’s not just the aggression. It’s also the biting power. At the end of the day, I could stomp a Chihuahua, but I get scared when my own 90lb German Shepherd comes running towards me because he is terrible at slowing down.
Yeah, we can breed dogs however we want to, so why not breed dogs that are less dangerous? Not to mention less prone to health issues just because we think they’re cute when they have a nose so small that they can barely breathe. Dogs breeds aren’t sacred, most of them are a very recent phenomenon. Breed for positive traits, both for them and us.
There already are my dude. Plenty of dog breeds that are just what I like in a dog; goofy, lovely, loyal but not territorial/protective and nothing that could seriously hurt anyone. The other characteristics comes down to subjective preferred traits and, for example, whether you’re a first time owner or experienced with raising and socialising dogs.
But you can’t ignore instinct. And some have instinct that’s just not compatible with your personal live. Ie. don’t get a shepherd if you live in an apartment in a city.
And some have instinct that is not compatible to keep as pets.
Fun fact about dog bite studies. People go to the hospital and just say “a pitbull bite me”. The doctors write that down and can’t really do anything else to verify. Then those medical reports are used in studies about dog bites and dog attacks. Meaning we have ne reliable data on dog breeds and attacks.
Cough. Bullshit. Cough.
Burden of proof is on you homie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7F4OfDSvPU&t=1s
here is some in a convenient video
You think doctors and nurses are out running around neighborhoods tracking down dogs? Or do you think people bring the dog with them, like venomous snakes in a movie?
If there’s a designated agency that reliably tracks dog bite statistics with breed data, link it. Send it to the AVMA too because they also say there are no reliable breed based bite statistics.
They provide no sources to back up the following which is contrary to the statistics provided by pretty much every other journalistic source.
It is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds because the data reported is often unreliable. This is because:
The breed of a biting dog is often not known or is reported inaccurately. The actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they don't result in serious injury. The number of dogs of a particular breed or combination of breeds in a community is not known because it is rare for all dogs in a community to be licensed. Statistics often do not consider multiple incidents caused by a single animal. Breed popularity changes over time, making comparison of breed-specific bite rates unreliable. However a review of the research that attempts to quantify the relation between breed and bite risk finds the connection to be weak or absent, while responsible ownership variables such as socialization, neutering and proper containment of dogs are much more strongly indicated as important risk factors.The part you quoted literally contains a link to a review which examines the evidence available for the relationship between breed and bite risk, you absolute spoon.
It’s very relaxing to pet a Chihuahua.
The oxytocin release lol
This is true but it’s part of what makes chihuahuas awesome. My ex had a chihuahua that we raised from a puppy. We were totally nice and he was still psycho. He would attack me if I woke him up too early in the morning. I had to pick him up in a huge pillow as defense. He would go bananas trying to attack strangers but it’s only because he was “defending” himself and our pack. The worst part of breaking up is missing that dude. Awesome dog.
Also lots of chihuahuas are totally chill.
im pretty sure aggression is bred in for some dogs for thier purpose of being a gaurd dog, or something as bull baiting. also cats can be unpredictabally aggressive.
It’s a little of column A, a little of column B
Yes, it’s true that some dog breeds have been bred to be more aggressive- but aggressive can mean many things.
I was roommates with a guy who had a Pit bull. Awesome dog, great with the kids. Never seen her so much as growl at a person. Animals though she did not fuck around with. And that makes sense, they were bred to fight other animals. So while they are aggressive, they aren’t (naturally) aggressive towards humans, though obviously you can train them to be.
I had a different roommate who had a Chihuahua, Chihuahua’s were bred for two things, to be fearless rat hunters and to be burglar alarms. They also have a personality quirk where they typically only bond with very few people, and even then it can take a little while for them to gain your trust. For about the first month after he brought her home she would bark at me every time I entered the room she was in. After she got used to me, she was the sweetest little pup you could imagine. If anyone else came by she just couldn’t handle it. If I picked her up and held her while talking the other person she would eventually calm down some, but she still didn’t like it. You usually just had to put her in a different room. She didn’t nip at them or anything, but if they had tried to pick her up it probably would have been a different story.
Not all Chihuahua’s behave like that, but it’s typical.
I’ve lived with a Doberman who was a total coward (and neurotic the poor thing), and a Rottweiler who was perfectly fine with me, until her owner was out of sight, and then she acted like she had no idea who I was. As a kid we had a German Sheppard who was a total sweetie (the kitten thing was an accident), and I used to own a Chow/Lab mix who literally loved everyone and everything.
The breed plays a big role in their behavior, but so does training/ socialization. People who blame it solely on one thing or the other are just wrong imo. Some dogs will never be perfectly chill, but you can train them not to be assholes.
I’m 70 years old, have always had cats around, and have never come across an unpredictably aggressive cat. At least not towards people. Some cats don’t like other cats, but that’s very predictable for what are mostly solitary creatures. Cats are not dogs, and it’s a mistake to compare them.
I think some people are just bad at reading cats.
Shhh the entire concept of genetics is a big ol conspiracy that makes people who live in a fantasy where they control everything through behavior and education, since that is the only thing they control, really hurt. If you point out some things are destined (yes I know nature/nurture) they lose control because their fantasy collapses by conflicting world views.
This is probably what pebbles (who wouldn’t hurt a fly ™️ ) thinks anyway
I think for chihuahuas it’s largely a self-defense thing. They have to be aggressive to compensate for being so small.
It’s literally why they’re called bully breeds.
Ofcourse you can breed aggression, its so absurd to claim that you cant.
We have bite statistics. Every year, pit bull and pit mixes far outnumber every other breed for human bite attacks, consistently, and always make up far more than half (to the tune of ~70%) of all total bites, by breed. Every single year.
Yet people ignore statistics and are eager to jump on the pibble defense train. “My little angel would never bite anyone!”
Maybe. But numbers don’t lie. Just stop breeding them. It’s cruel to people, and it’s cruel to the dogs themselves, that the breed continues to be perpetuated. Breed-specific behaviors are visceral and strong, whether you have a retriever, a pointer, a herder, or a throat mangler. The breed behavior can be invoked at any time, relatively easily.
It’s not that pits are more likely to bite, it’s that their bite is way more damaging. If a retriever (bred for a “soft mouth”) bites me, I am way less likely to need medical attention than if a pit bites me. Even biting at lower rates than many other breeds, pits come out on top of medical reports because each bite is more damaging.
We do have bite statistics, and the people most qualified to interpret them disagree with you
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf
If you can breed aggression, you can breed against aggression. Which means you can breed pit bulls to be less aggressive.
Maybe. But numbers don’t lie
This is only said by people who’ve never actually taken a class about statistics.
Numbers may not lie, but they also don’t make assertions. People suck at interpreting data and that fact is constantly utilized to mislead people.
I’m not saying this to defend pitbulls, just that bite statistics don’t really tell us anything about innate aggression in dog breeds. Just like FBI statistics don’t tell us about innate criminality in ethnicity.
Those bite statistics don’t make any attempt to rule out misleading variables. It could be that pitt bull bites are reported more often because of the extent of harm they cause. It could be that people who gravitate towards breeds who are thought to be more aggressive are wanting and are training for aggression.
Statistics is hard, and can generally be used to shape opinions on just about anything.
We also don’t really have bite statistics. Almost every citation I see for the data that gets posted over and over again traces back to one of two sources. One was a paper done in the 90s which both asserts that its methodology is inadequate to infer breed related risk and inexplicably combines rottweilers and pitbulls into a single category, a point which never gets carried through into other discussions. The other is that dogsbite site which openly states it is an advocacy site seeking the elimination of pit bulls and frequently gets its “data” from facebook stalking victims of dog bites for pictures of dogs they spent time around recently and then attempting to guess the breed involved from said picture. This is some real clown level shit, especially if you’ve ever read reports about even veterinarians trying to guess the breeds of mixed dogs that are their patients.
This. It’s not neccessarily the breed itself. Look at who is likely to own the breed and what they are likely to do with it.
Yeah that’s the point, chihuahuas are assholes too with wrong owners but due its size its not gonna maul children.
I rather give an dumb toddler a spoon than a tec9
Lies, damn lies, and statistics
A friend of my wife and I got a pit bull a couple months ago. She was going on and on about how sweet he is and how he would never hurt anyone. Last week, it mauled her roommate. Nearly took his hand off while he was changing into his work clothes. His career is likely over and she’s still defending the dog.
I think that dog is legally required to be put down no?
I have no idea. I know the city animal control has it now. She is trying to get him released, though.
I guess it depends on where you live yeah…
Lets hope it doesnt get to hurt anyone again.
And even with this personal evidence, you get defenders downvoting the story - not because it doesn’t add to the discussion, buy because it doesn’t suit their narrative.
I hope the roommate is able to find a good surgeon and get the help he needs, that sounds terrible if it could call for a career change.
The word you’re looking for is anecdote
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf
And even with this personal evidence, you get defenders downvoting the story
I think you and I have different ideas about what the word “evidence” means. A story told by a random user about something that happened to their friend’s roommate is not really something I consider or weigh heavily when evaluating things. There could be relevant details omitted from the story, or it could be invented whole cloth, in any case, it isn’t statistically significant.
So you’ve never heard the term “anecdotal evidence” then. I said it adds to the discussion and doesn’t deserve downvoting by pitbull white knights, not that it needs to be booked into evidence for the supreme court case to decide the fate of all pit bulls.
So you’ve never heard the term “anecdotal evidence” then.
As I recall, it is generally brought up to point out how worthless it is in any particular debate.
But, go on…
Yeah Lemmy would be a great place if nobody ever discussed a personal story about how they were affected by a topic being discussed.
Your comment ignores all context of the thread, congrats.
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Yes, I have in fact heard that term, which is exactly why I know that anecdotal evidence is not valid.
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What does invalid evidence add to the discussion, exactly?
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There are people in this thread who are arguing for legislation restricting ownership of pitbulls. We are in the court of public opinion, which may be less formal than the supreme court, but still has the capacity to influence public policy. So it seems reasonable to apply a very basic standard of evidence, above that of stuff that random people claim happen to their friend’s roommate.
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even with this personal evidence, you get defenders downvoting the story - not because it doesn’t add to the discussion, buy because it doesn’t suit their narrative.
Not really commenting on the claims made in this argument, but this is anecdotal evidence. Meaning that someone who claims all pitbulls are sweet and docile because of their personal experience is just as valid of an argument as someone saying all pitbulls are bad because of their personal experience.
I don’t really care about pitbulls one way or the other, but I find it worrying that a lot of the times the debates against the breed follow similar argument structures to those utilized by racist pulling up FBI crime stats about black people.
This is not a thread of statisticians. This is a thread of people sharing experiences about dogs. Expect people stories aka “anecdotal”.
My contributions are not anecdotal
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf
Then also expect people to dismiss that anecdotal evidence as irrelevant
Personal evidence is anecdotal, I never said it wasn’t? There is nothing wrong with someone sharing a personal story to add to the discussion was my point… Which I thought I made clearly.
Ah yes, ‘being cautious about dog breds bred over a hundred years of more for violent traits is much the same argument as being cautious about black people’ false equivalence again.
Personal evidence is anecdotal, I never said it wasn’t? There is nothing wrong with someone sharing a personal story to add to the discussion was my point… Which I thought I made clearly.
Right, but you were dismaying people who refute your anecdotes “because it doesn’t fit their narrative”, which is a perfectly valid thing to do with anecdotal evidence, as it is itself an attempt to build a narrative.
being cautious about dog breds bred over a hundred years of more for violent traits is much the same argument as being cautious about black people*’ false equivalence again.
Racist would often say the similar things about black people in America. Slavery lasted well over a hundred years and slave owners would often have slaves who were brought up to be prize fighters.
No, I wasn’t. I was pointing out how pathetic it is that people downvote comments that they don’t like because it doesn’t fit their narrative - downvotes are for comments that don’t add to the discussion, and personal stories are absolutely valid.
Am I writing in a coded language that’s hard to decipher?
There’s always a tool that wants to be faux intelligent and inject a racist flavor into every discussion…
This massively differs per country. Pitbull bites are generally nastier than other bites so they’re overreported. It’s also partially the public image of pitbulls being nasty dogs that gets them reported more often.
Historically the “most dangerous breed” has changed quite a bit. For a while Great Danes were the worst, then it was Dogo Argentinis, Malinois, German Shepherd, Akitas, Labradors, Jack Russells, etc…
In France for example pitbulls only rank 12th for most bite incidents.
Research on it has been mixed, with studies focusing on nature finding that the breed matters surprisingly little when it comes to aggression. It seems more likely that there’s a certain group of owners that handle their dogs irresponsibly, which tend to popularize specific breeds. This seems more likely because places that banned ‘dangerous’ breeds don’t see a decrease in bite attacks; the owners of the dangerous breeds mostly get new dogs, which then just bite people again.
This is because pitbulls are a restricted breed and France. So either people don’t have them, or they get the vet to say it’s some other breed (more often than not)
Point being that different dog breeds are listed at the top of being most dangerous in France.
You’re still allowed to own a pitbull in France, but you do require a training and need to muzzle them in public (but not at home).
Yes, when pitbull ownership is restricted, pitbulls fall from the number one spot for most dangerous
Obviously. Point being that these owners take different dogs which then rise in the ranking to take the pitbulls place.
Yes, and to the original point you used french rankings to attempt to make, the ranking of pitbulls is not because they are treated better or just culturally aren’t regarded as dangerous, it is because they are restricted legally.
How many American Pitbulls are there in France?
Very few of course. Other dog breeds are known to bite a lot in France. You can still own a pitbull but you require training and you need to muzzle them in public.
Still, there are approximately 35k pitbulls in France. Few compared to the total of course.
In France, German Shepherds cause 18% of dog bite attacks, 16% for Labradors. Generally bigger dogs -> more reported bite attacks, with some exceptions here and there where popular breeds end up higher.
Still, most studies don’t find a direct connection between a dogs nature and their inclination to attack, or a weak one at best. There is of course a link between the breed and the severity of the attack however.
I understand the bite statistics but you have to keep in mind how those are reported too.
No one is reporting their neighbor’s chihuahua taking a bite at their boot. Bites from smaller breeds mostly go unreported.
It does give a point as to why pit bulls and other large breeds are dangerous though. Whether they are more common or not, they certainly are far, far more serious when it happens.
Responsible ownership has always been an issue with pitbulls, as irresponsible people tend to adopt and breed them.
Removed by mod
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Black people aren’t bred for crime.
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All domestic dog breeds enjoy the same material conditions as other breeds. Pit bulls aren’t living with poverty, scarcity, lack of opportunity, and systemic injustice compared to other dogs.
I don’t think MotoAsh was ever comparing people to dog breeds.
As I understood, they were using that comment as an example of how statistics can provid a skewed view about a certain topic.
To your comment though, pit bulls do tend to see different living conditions to some other breeds. Irresponsible ownership is a real problem for pit bulls.
They are strong and hard to train. I don’t think they should all be put down, but I do agree that not just anyone should raise one.
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People aren’t dogs you cabbage
With humans, there is literally no genetical study that could suggest this. Also, black people have existed for millenniums, and have by nature developed something called empathy
However, dogs are just not as genetically advanced. Them not being totally hostile is something that developed a couple thousand years ago when humans started domesticating them (and that’s something you can look up from non Eugenics based papers.)
So the same way we can make people into monsters, we can also make dogs into those, but way easier. And with Pitbulls, you can do those super easily since they just haven’t evolved because breeders bred them that way
They literally did the opposite with foxes. Some guy kept breeding the nicest ones until he got a “breed” that wouldn’t want to murder you on sight. I’m pretty sure levels of aggression absolutely are something innate in some animals.
“Some guy”
Come on now, let’s not buzzfeed our facts here!
Dmitry Belyayev is the guy, though work continued long after his death
The program has been quite successful, although you still have a high-energy animal with a strong odor. I’d still like to have one, tho.
Thanks for adding the credit where it’s due!
I had just gotten to work and was browsing Lemmy before I had to actually get started so I didn’t spend the time to look up who actually did it lol
So, indeed, “some guy.”
A specific guy whose name is not a mystery
“His name is Robert Paulson.”
Also he did it both ways. On population selected for nice behavior became dog like. One population selected for aggression. The second population goes insane when someone enters the room trying to attack through the cage door.
Russian silver fox im pretty sure
Exactly. I mean, dogs are wolves that were bred to be less aggressive and more suitable to be companions to human. Of course it can go the other way.
Science and the American Veterinary Medical Association would love to have a word with you. But I guess you do love the literal pitbull hate community so who cares what you think on the matter.
Science
Do you have a source for that? Because everything I’ve read says completely the opposite. The ‘science’ I’m aware of says that genetic tendency to aggression is very much a thing, even in humans.
Fuck yeah, someone else who can read!
It is a thing, but most controlled studies haven’t found pitbulls to be inherently more aggressive than other breeds, just more dangerous if they happen to attack. Any dog that is poorly socialized will probably attack someone sooner or later, they just weren’t bred to latch on and shred things with their jaws like pitbulls were. So maybe there is a discussion to be had about “dangerous” breeds, but it’s not a genetics one.
I think another factor is the owner. Usually people who want agressive murder dog with the same name as the whitest rapper get it for a reason and don’t train the dog.
Its often low income people wearing tracksuits and man purses.
It is a thing, but most controlled studies haven’t found pitbulls to be inherently more aggressive than other breeds, just more dangerous if they happen to attack.
Isn’t that the issue? From what I’ve heard, the big issue isn’t just that they attack, but they lock on and it’s hard to get them to release their target. Like, a small dog can absolutely bite you, but will it kill you? Is it going to rip a limb off? If you give it a good hit, is it still going to be holding on for dear life? You say other dogs just “weren’t bred to latch on and shred things with their jaws like pit bills were.” That sounds an awful lot like a dog that was bred to be aggressive or, at the very least, cause maximum damage when triggered. That’s something that needs to be considered when adopting or breeding a pet that’s supposed to not just be around people, but in the home.
Can you cite any sources?
It’s both. It’s insane to me someone can watch animals instinctively display insanely complex behaviors untaught (e.g. herding by australian shepards) and the scientific research to reduce aggression in a related species before coming to the conclusion that there is no way whatsoever that nature is a significant component. Oh, and just completely ignore breeds bred for traits and behaviors seemed desirable for every domesticated animal.
Nature has no place at all it’s only nurture. Sure.
Its true. Just pitpulls don’t caunt cause my nieces husbands best friends uncles relatives dog hasn’t mauled anyone yet.
Herding dogs do not carry out complex herding maneuvers instinctively, they have to go through a significant amount of training
Really? “Science”? Hahaha
The “nature/nurture” debate is a question of how much influence each has - it’s not a binary question, but a continuum.
And if the AMVA is saying aggression is solely taught, then they lack any credibility whatsoever - that’s an utterly unscientific perspective.
I say this having worked with vets, competed in obedience trials, and trained numerous dogs (with the assistance of very successful trainers). Each dog is different, but there are very clear traits in breeds, achieved by… breeding for those traits.
Learn to read
Seeing this shit is honestly infuriating.
Technically it’s correct, any breed of dog can maul a child to death, and every dog has some trigger which will cause them to bite. But you really can’t argue with the epidemiology here. Pitbulls definitely kill an inordinate amount of children and pets.
I don’t know about “any breed” and we’re not just talking a bite, we’re talking killing two kids and nearly an adult human.
Pitbulls and other “bully breeds” are some of the most often abused dogs too, wonder if that could be related 🤔
Jesuschrist
“It can happen to ANY family by ANY breed of dog! 1”
They make it sound like bull dogs of all varieties - and other fighting dogs bred for many generations for aggressive traits - are just really unlucky, that they keep showing up at the top of the stats for child murder and mauling.
Only unlucky ones are the kids who have parents dumb enough to risk their lives with killer breeds in the house. I truly feel for them.
Fighting dogs are generally animal aggressive, not human aggressive. In the old days of dog fighting, biting humans was a dog-destroying offense. Don’t want that trait if you have to be hands-on with the dog for hours at a time training.
Also, the media has fixated on pit bulls (American Staffordshire Terrier) as the de facto bad guy so, no matter the breed involved, it will most likely be reported as a pit bull.
Have a read and see if your opinion gets altered any: https://worldanimalfoundation.org/dogs/nanny-dog/
i give you points for not derailing the conversation with accusations that all anti-pitbull sentiments are based on racism, at least, but to be honest a source largely citing people like “the president of the staffordshire-terrier club” and calling pit bulls “nanny dogs” is not likely to persuade anyone with a brain, let alone people already decided on being anti-pitbull.
i would personally consider myself anti-pitbull but that’s because i live in a town fucking overrun with them and can see that they definitely don’t behave like normal dogs on the regular. obviously we can’t just kill every single pit bull out there tho, i don’t know what the solution is. we should be putting people illegally backyard breeding pit bulls with shitty aggression issues that will never be able to be house pets straight into jail instead of slapping them on the wrist and allowing this problem to continue.
others have already pointed this out, but, do you have an actual reasoning in response to the fact that pit bulls are massively overrepresented in dog attack and fatality statistics?
i understand you mean “the media has fixated on pit bulls…” as this response, and it’s a cute thesis, but it really doesnt hold up to scrutiny; without even going into the semantics of this argument - even if we accept this idea as true (it isn’t), the sheer amount that pit bulls are represented in dog attack & fatality statistics would… still handily prove anti-pit bull people’s point that these dogs are clearly more dangerous than other breeds. it’s literally just that staggeringly much higher than any other dog breed, there is no rational explanation other than that pit bulls are more aggressive and/or more capable of damage than other dogs.
using wikipedia as a source, as i know pro-pit bull people love to argue over the veracity of sources like the dog bite website, you can see that
Tracking by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) determined that pit bull type dogs were most likely to be involved in fatal attacks, accounting for 28% of fatalities from 1979 to 1998.[3] The AVMA documented 66 human fatalities caused by pit bull type dogs, 39 by Rottweilers, 17 by German shepherds, 15 by husky type dogs, 12 by Malamutes, 9 by Dobermann Pinschers, 8 by Chow Chows, 7 by Great Danes, and 7 by St. Bernarddogs.
keep in mind this is just from 1979 to 1998, so it doesnt include the 2000’s where pit bulls ownership in america really started to take off, making post-2000 statistics on this look even fucking worse for pit bulls, by a larger margin, as the promulgance of the breed and people like you who aren’t aware of the danger has starkly increased pitbull attacks from an already very high number. think about that. before pit bulls even had their most recent wave of popularity they accounted for about 1/3 more fatalities than the next most fatal breed, rottweilers. that’s fucking staggering and should in any reasonable world shut down further discussion or any sort of whataboutism like “wHy dOn’T wE BAn roTtWeiLeRs tOo???”
you know why nobody is advocating banning rottweilers in a serious political coalition too… at least, i sure hope you do. it’s real obvious to the rest of us.
response to the fact that pit bulls are massively overrepresented in dog attack and fatality statistics?
I do
Most dog attacks are report to hospital maybe police but any time the dog cant be found they can only take the word of the person. That’s a lot of dog bites that we have no way of verifying if it was a Pitbull or whatever breed they say. And yes people are really bad at identify dogs by bredds, lots of stray dogs are mixed breeds, and eyewitnesses are terrible in general.
Also pitbull ia not one breed There several breeds woth pitbull in the name.
66 fatalities in 20 years is actually super low. That’s just 3.3 per year when there are probably millions of dogs. How many people were killed by people in that time? This demonstrates how people make wild generalizations from a few anecdotes.
Rottweilers are also super minimal at just 1.6 per year.
These numbers are so low as to be statistically insignificant. Many more people are killed by refrigerators each year. They estimate 60 people. Mostly children!!! A person is 20x more likely to be killed by a fridge than a pit bull. Are y’all mad about that too? And the number of fridges keeps growing!!!
Cops murder about 1000 people every year. Are you mad about that? Are you posting paragraphs about abolishing the police? There are probably far less cops than pit bulls.
Perhaps most importantly millions of people are murdered by cars every year. It’s a leading murderer of kids (right next to guns). Stop crying about dogs. Fuck cars.
Cops murder about 1000 people every year. Are you mad about that? Are you posting paragraphs about abolishing the police?
I mean, not on here because I’d be preaching to the choir but elsewhere, yes. Lmfao I can be upset about multiple things. I can hate cops, industrialized society, and gigantic overly aggressive animals being encouraged as household pets, believe it or not. I can just as easily retort here and point out that while dog attacks generally aren’t typically fatal, there is a plethora of work available highlighting the severity of pit-bull attacks versus other dog breeds. Have you ever seen a pit bull mauling take place in real life? It’s not like a “normal” dog and I’m sick of pitbull mommies getting people hurt and killed by trying to lie to people about the danger these dogs present and the skill required to own them.
What sort of shitass whataboutism is this??? Like, seriously. What point are you trying to make that doesn’t involve drawing fallacious equivalencies and stuffing opinions in my mouth for me?
Have a read and see if your opinion gets altered any: https://worldanimalfoundation.org/dogs/nanny-dog/
Nah I’ve personally witnessed enough aggressive pitbull behavior to recognize an aggressive breed. Thanks for trying though. I think I managed to get out of that situation without PTSD but the kid that was injured probably didn’t.
Right, so you are, in-fact, saying that pit bulls being overwhelmingly at the top of the list for human injuries is not due to anything except bad luck.
All those yorkshire terriers out there killing kids… smh
Hey a 30 Yorkshire terries took down my sister. Swarmed her like piranha. All they left was her nuva ring
I mean that’s the issue with the breed. They put a bunch of terrier with its skull on too tight into 80lbs of muscle whose brain is tickled just right when it grabs and shakes the shit out of something.
Those little Yorkies would love to do that too but they would end up getting punted.
I have a pitbull (American pitbull terrier) that is a rescue. He loves people, but is so aggressive towards other animals that I can hardly believe it.
After having one for years now, I believe there should be some sort of training or licensing requirement before someone can own one. The combination of innate aggression and power is truly dangerous
I can never walk my dog off-leash, I can never hand my dog to someone inexperienced. I love my dog, but responsible ownership is much more burdensome than any other dog I’ve had.
Honestly all pets should have a liscence, that includes going through at least some certification for them since there isn’t a reason to own one.
I assume you would mean that there would be like tiers of license for more normal pets, and then a stricter license for Pitbulls or Mastiffs or whatever. What sort of competence do you want people to demonstrate before getting a pet like a Cat or Golden Retriever?
Yep, adopted a pit bull several years back and had to re-home it after it attacked my border collie twice and if I wasn’t nearby he would have killed her.
Got him as a puppy, raised him the exact same way we did the collie. He would just…snap randomly and go into attack mode. I also couldn’t believe it. He was great with people though. Other pets and animals was a totally different story.
Sadly the remaining 95% owners of pitbulls “love them so much” they’d start literal riots if that becomes law. Because you know they wouldn’t be able to pass the training, or even sit through it.
Pitbulls attract some of the worst owners. Some people purposely get these dogs BECAUSE they are aggressive.
I don’t think they would riot, they would probably just get pitbulls from breeders that didn’t check for licenses.
But I agree with the gist, there are a lot of bad dog parents, and people get pitbulls for bad reasons. I want there to be an avenue to punish owners & breeders who do not take proper precautions.
I can totally confirm with my own experience with our rescue pit as well. He’s a good dog in the house and with our family, but he’s triggered so easily when out in our fenced yard by any other dogs out for a walk. Years ago we made so many attempts to acclimate him to other dogs through training, etc. and nothing worked. We can’t even walk him on a leash because he pulls so hard and chokes himself no matter what we do. But he’s happy to be a house/yard dog and feel like we’ve given him a good life.
Two things are true at once
(1) Upbringing has an enormous impact on agression in dogs. To the point it actually can be a stronger variable in the prediction than breed.
(2) Some breeds still have stronger tendencies towards agression.
But I agree with this sign’s main point. Banning pitbulls won’t stop the agressive dogs problem. Because the kind of people who usually buy pitbulls raise dogs to be agressive.
The people buying them either raise them to be aggressive or don’t even bother doing any work with them and wonder why people don’t like pitbulls.
As someone who has raised and fostered dozens of dogs over the years, actual Pitbull breeds DO tend to have problems with aggression. I had one Pit rescue that absolutely loved people, dogs, and cats, and for a couple of years, it was one of the best dogs I had taken in. Until one day he wasn’t, he snapped and almost killed another foster we had.
I have had about a dozen or so mixed bully breeds and breeds like American Bulldogs, and not a single one ever gave me a moments hesitation. There absolutely is something in the full blood Pit breed that is an issue. I honestly believe we could breed aggression out of the breed, but it would more than likely just need to end up a bully mutt breed instead.
If you bred it out of them people wouldn’t want them anymore. A lot of people want a big scary dog to protect their kids and them and stuff. But it’s the same as a gun which statistically mostly kills the owners lol
