It is true that pit bulls make up a hugely disproportionate number of reported dog attacks, it’s also true that they are especially dangerous and have caused the most deaths by dog bite.
What many of these statistics fail to account for are environmental factors (pit bulls tend to be the most abused and most regularly abandoned dogs because of dog fighting and also because they are just a handful to properly train and care for.), it is also very difficult to gather accurate data on breed specific attacks/aggression because while pit bulls are the highest reported in most dog bite statistics, they are also not a breed as much as a group of breeds that includes:
The American Pit Bull Terrier
The American Staffordshire Terrier
The Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and
The American Bully
A study found that dogs classified as Pit Bulls only had 43.5% DNA from Pit Bull-type ancestry.
The study, carried out in two shelters in California and Arizona, also found that 62% of dogs labeled as Pit Bulls had less than a 50% DNA concentration from Pit Bull-type ancestry, Pit Bull facts and statistics show.
Identifying the right breed of dog in attacks and death is incredibly difficult. This is why the CDC stopped collecting breed-specific data in dog bite-related fatalities (DBRF) in 1998.
The fact that there’s no official data to go by makes it even harder to separate myths from facts regarding Pit Bull attacks in the US.
Okay cool, so pits might make headlines more because of their strength and ability to inflict fatal wounds easier than other breeds but that goes for most large dogs.
German Shepherds had a similar stigma back when Americans were still xenophobic toward German immigrants and there were similar attitudes around that breed in the mid twentieth century. Prior to WWII Pit Bulls were a working class icon and were as much or more known for their reputation as great working dogs and loyal and loving family dogs as fighting dogs or vicious guard dogs.
Pit Bulls were bred for a wide variety of reasons and selected for many different traits but like most dogs they were foremost bread for physical traits and secondly for their temperament toward humans.
So what happened?
Racism it’s always racism.
No new owner may settle in the area so long as they possess such a dog. Critics argue that these bans are not based on sound scientific or statistical evidence—that pit bulls pose no greater risk than any other breed of dog. Advocates of these laws urge that the bans are crucial to protect the public health and safety from dangerous dogs. Yet, perhaps these concerns have less to do with dogs and more to do with the individuals who own them. Breed-specific legislation may be being used as a new form of redlining to keep minorities out of majority-white neighborhoods.
“We don’t want those people here,” a city council member said of the bans. Strong cultural ties exist between pit bull dogs and the Black community. The same is true of the Latino community. Research undertaken here to investigate this claim suggests that people of color are perceived to be the most likely owner of this breed of dog. While at the present time, actual ownership data is not available, if true ownership resembles the perceived distribution measured here, such a finding may form the basis for a legal claim. Under new law, breed-specific legislation could be challenged under the Fair Housing Act if it can be shown that these laws are disproportionately excluding minority groups.
-The Black Man’s Dog: The Social Context of Breed Specific Legislation, by Ann Linder
https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/32171-25-1-third-articlepdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6107223/
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/javma_000915_fatalattacks.pdf
the racism could definitely be one of the reasons it happened in the us but there are pit bull bans in a lot of countries where the dogs don’t have strong cultural ties to minority groups.
is it not more likely that people assume they are dangerous because they were bred to fight? whether that is true or not it seems understandable.
As I already addressed they were bred for a variety of reasons and even the “fighting dog” trope is a misrepresentation of a behavioral trait - gameness - that isn’t actually inherently aggression. In fact, even fighting dogs that showed aggression toward their handlers were almost always put down.
Dogs aren’t bred to fight they’re abused and conditioned into being aggressive toward other specific animals.
Gameness plus powerful jaw equals bad times. The arguments pit owners make are the same as open carry people - it’s just the owner, it’s environmental, etc. They’re dangerous animals and should be regulated as such.
Most dogs greater than 40 lbs have the capacity to severely injure adults and children despite not having the jaw strength of Pitbulls.
I’ve seen a lot of housing providers put weight restrictions on dogs. That policy seems like a reasonable and less biased compromise.
100% do not trust any dog until they are proven to be friendly - regardless of breed. People will walk their aggressive dogs off leash and be like “no it’s ok they’re friendly” as they run you down in the park.
Great post, and while I totally get how there’s so much racist and classist propaganda in anti-pit bull legislation and rhetoric… I’ve personally experienced enough close calls with pit bulls that I’m still gonna keep my distance. However, one thing I’ve learned from the discourse here is if I wasn’t comfortable with my kid petting a pit bull before, I should also be just as cautious with most other dog breeds, too.
There’s no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners. Breed bans are dumb.
moralising dogs is silly. they have no higher order thinking
but the idea that any violence committed by an animal is necessarily a failure on their owners part is also silly
animals can and do commit acts of violence without any prior warning. they could be scared or traumatised or misunderstanding something as an act of aggression. or they could just be angry
the idea that you can reliably train the possibility for unwanted violence out of every animal is hubris
“they have no higher order of thinking.”
Can you elaborate?
i actually sort of disagree with myself being so black and white about that having read it back, cause i do think smart animals like dogs have some moral instincts
but while they have some abstractive ability to understand fairness or whatever it’s not on the same level as humans, and trying to imprint human morality on them is silly
e- please no-one try to engage me on the topic of free will, i don’t want to play
Back in the 90’s over here German shepards had a very bad reputation. My grandad had a couple and they were the most gentle, soppiest doggies you can imagine. I mean yeah they were big and strong but frankly the only way they were gonna hurt us as kids would be by pulling too hard on the lead and yoinking us off our feet.
I’ve always figured it’s basically the same deal with pit bulls, that it’s largely fucking nonsense and a dog’s temprament is gonna mostly be down to nuture so it’s good to see the sources here seem to back that up.
Anecdotes aren’t data, but my personal experience with pitties is that they’re super sweet with friendly humans, but super aggressive with other animals. One of my good friends had two pitties, both sweet dogs. They chased squirrels, but that was never a problem. But one of my other friends went out of town and left her goats with my friend to take care of. They were in a separately fenced area of her yard from the dogs. The dogs jumped the fence and killed both of the goats. I also had a neighbor’s pit bull get off leash, get into my yard, and chase my chickens, killing one of them before we could get him under control.
I’m sure the aggression towards other animals can be trained out of them, but I don’t think most owners do it. I agree with the effort post, though; I don’t think pitties are more dangerous than other large dogs on the whole, and that the moral panic over them is associated with racism. I also tend to think most dog owners (of all breeds) are pretty negligent, and that dog ownership is mostly not a great thing.
They were bred for gameness, which is the willingness to push past pain to continue the attack.
I’ve seen one be kicked by a horse multiple times, only for it to get back up and continue the attack before dying of it’s wounds after several minutes of this.
Normal dog breeds retreat when injured. That’s not normal behavior. People blaming that on racism are deluded.
. I also tend to think most dog owners (of all breeds) are pretty negligent, and that dog ownership is mostly not a great thing.
Not something you can say very loud these days (at least in places I’ve lived)… But kinda sorta yeah…
Dogs should not be kept as an accesoire, but that is what most people have them for. as a lifestyle “object”. People have owned Dog since we started walking on two feet, but I think the modern culture of owning dogs, is very different than it used to be even 15 years ago. at least where I live.
I grew up rural. Our successive family dogs always had lots of space to run around.
I can hardly understand having a dog in an urban area now. Even cats are sometimes a bit of a yikes.
I don’t think environment is the biggest issue, as long as the owner is willing to put in the work to train, socialize, and enrich their dog. Realistically though, it’s much more effort in urban areas than others, and very very few owners are up to the task
christ y’all, it’s amazing how as a forum for marxists we are so hard-headed on seeing past propaganda and manufactured percpetions to understand the underlying truths and material conditions, yet so many people are failing to apply those basic principles here. even the CDC study which found that bully breeds make up a higher percentage of bites didnt recommend breed-specific legislation because their data sources were heavily skewed by inaccurate breed reporting and the over-reliance on media reports for data. and simply because BSL doesn’t work to address the underlying problem!
"A 2014 peer-reviewed summary on dog bite risk and prevention by the American Veterinary Medical Association stated: “Given that breed is a poor sole predictor of aggressiveness and pit bull-type dogs are not implicated in controlled studies it is difficult to support the targeting of this breed as a basis for dog bite prevention.”[33]
In 2014, new statistical evidence emerged regarding the province-wide ban on “pit bulls”, more specifically the American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrier, in the Canadian province of Ontario. Since the ban had been implemented, dog bites involving pit bull types had dropped considerably as their populations decreased in the province’s largest city Toronto,[35] yet overall dog bites hit their highest levels this century in 2013 and 2014.[36] Statistical evidence published in Global News implicates several other dog breeds had contributed to the rise, stating that “Toronto’s reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014, reached their highest levels this century, even as pit bulls and similar dogs neared local extinction.”
Full disclosure: I am the owner of Pitbull mutt who I got from the pound in a poor and heavily black part of atlanta. My dog was fantastic around other dogs for about a year and a half, then one day attacked my friend’s dog out of nowhere. Her dog survived, I paid her bills, and now I have a good fence so my dog doesnt escape and she hasnt bit another dog for at least 6 years.
My dog is a puddle around humans and has never literally once harmed a human. she barks like hell at anyone passing by but as soon as she meets someone she licks them and demands pets. she is also fantastic on walks and never even barks at dogs passing by.
also. one person was trying to make the point that even a few dog bite attacks are worth banning breess because of the “small enjoyment” owners get. to which i say to you sir:
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i have severe depression and my dog makes me not to want to die most days. i would say that’s more than small.
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dogs also enjoy life and have a right to live in it! if a person commits a crime should they be exterminated? it’s absolute nonsense logic.
she barks like hell at anyone passing by but as soon as she meets someone she licks them and demands pets.
She’s just loudly demanding attention. Especially if she does the roo “bark” at them. That’s another thing I think people don’t realize, dogs have a language and their vocalizations can have a wide variety of motivators.
half of hexbear apparently be like:
news: “black people are prone to violence and theft”
fuck off I dont believe that shit
news: “and also their dogs are like that too”
:so-true:
I am the owner of Pitbull mutt who I got from the pound
:order-of-lenin:
People who rescue pits from the certain death of shelters (pits are the most euthanized dogs) are true heroes.
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