Assholes will get big dogs, abuse ignore and isolate them, then act surprised when they act unpredictably.
Breed specific legislation isn’t the answer. The answer is for mandatory training courses predating dog ownership. All dog ownership too. Little dogs can be assholes too.
it’s higher because people use pitbulls for dog fights, etc… if you abuse an animal it’s more likely to attack someone.
if you look at stats, getting killed by a rotweiler or a german Shepard isn’t that far off.
which would be the next two “tough dude” cool pets…
not to mention, pitbulls aren’t even a breed, really… there’s plenty of pit cousins that would be the new pitbulls… plus half breeds and whatnot…
my solution is to just require all small children carry revolvers… super simple, and those dogs will think twice before attacking them.
We should just breed our toddlers to be vicious dog-killers machines, problem solved. I want my kid to be able to tear everything to shreds on the playground by the time he hits 6.
This is correct. My argument isn’t just that they top the lists… it’s ALSO that the damage they do is much higher than any other breed as well. These concepts are inextricably linked.
When a pomeranian bites you, it’s whatever… bleeds a little bit, you put a bandaid on it later, but punt the fucker now. If a pitbull bites you… You might be missing part of your fucking leg. Try punting a pitbull…
We have more known attacks that are pitbulls simply because the damage they do is so fucking much more that it can’t just be handled in private. It’s actually probably 100% probably that pitbulls on average strictly bite at the same rates as other dogs… But the sheer amount of damage done by pitbulls means those bites = more deaths and hospitalizations. I’ve never once claimed that pitbulls bite more or less than any other breed, simply that they cause more casualties (and often specify deaths).
This is correct. My argument isn’t just that they top the lists… it’s ALSO that the damage they do is much higher than any other breed as well. These concepts are inextricably linked.
This is called gameness and the trait is not inextricable for pit bull breeds. It was bred into them through selection, not too dissimilar to how those stubby faced breeds were bred to be that way (e.g. pugs).
If pit bull breeds were selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait it would change things. It’s almost like the root problem isn’t the dogs but the people and breeding practices.
Pits already are selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait. The only person who wants a pit suited for fighting is the exact person who should never own a dog anyways. Since there’s literally NO benefit to the trait, obviously breeders jump through a lot of hoops to not sell aggressive murder dogs.
People who casually imply that every pitbull is a fucking monster are so woefully illinformed, and usually completely unwilling to consider they don’t know all the facts.
People who casually imply that every pitbull is a fucking monster are so woefully illinformed, and usually completely unwilling to consider they don’t know all the facts.
If this was directed at me I wasn’t implying every pit bull breed type is a monster.
Certified, professional breeders might be breeding out the gameness but the backyard breeders and the accidental breeders aren’t.
The number of pit and pit mixes in shelters aren’t coming from professional breeders or their dogs. Our second adopted dog is a mutt but dominant breeds are Border Collie and Am. Pit Bull Terrier. We’ve got her pretty well trained now, but if another dog comes snapping and biting at her I have to jump in to get a hold of her because she’s still got enough game in her that, if provoked, she goes hard in the paint.
I will always believe that pit type breeds are not for inexperienced or lazy dog owners. They need work, structure and training consistently.
This is key, it’s like they are bigger than they appear. We inherited one. Sweet nature, good with the cats, but weighs the same as the bigger dog in the household and strong as fuck.
No, I get that people type on mobile, and that autocorrect is a bitch. The thing that struck me more was that you hedged your bets like 4 times in the same sentence, against someone calling you out for not having any evidence of what you were claiming, but then you still end up using your claim to extrapolate an argument with what seems like a relatively large amount of certainty.
Also that the sentence was kind of repetitive, which struck me as funny. “probably 100% probable” is just saying the same thing twice, saying that something is “probably” the case is the same thing as saying it’s “100% probable”, and the “100%” part of that strikes me as completely superfluous. “on average strictly” is kind of contradictory, you usually wouldn’t claim something to be “on average” but then also say that it is “strictly” that way, because an average is, you know, an average, it’s an aggregate of numbers, including outliers. So it can’t really “strictly” conform to whatever you’re wanting it to conform to, unless it’s an exact match of the average, or unless you don’t actually mean “strictly” in the strictest sense. I dunno, I give it a C-.
The argument also strikes me as wrong, I would think pitbulls probably do just attack people more ,and with more aggressiveness, than other dog breeds. Maybe not that much more, relative to, say, german shepards, but say, compared to irish wolfhounds, I would think so, yeah. I think if an irish wolfhoud was attacking someone at the same rates, with the same aggression, as pitbulls, we would see them kill a lot more people than pitbulls do. Pitbulls aren’t actually that big, relative to other dogs.
Yes, owner surveys over tens of thousands of individuals regardless of breed meaning no implicit bias. The survey finds the same result across all breeds, the survey isn’t specific to pits.
You really thought you did something there didn’t you? Please learn to trust science over inflammatory media
Like if everyone claimed they had a perfect puppy, your critique would hold water, but flaws were reported across all breeds…
Why then pick pits?
I get emergency calls about dog attacks all the time. It’s always pits.
Assholes want asshole dogs. People use them to fight because they’re monsters and will fight till the death.
I picked my pit because that’s what the shelter had and she’s incredibly sweet. Even with kids, they can pull her face meats and it doesn’t even bother her.
if an asshole dog fighting abusive owner can’t get a pit, they’ll get a rottweiler… which will also attack people if raised like that.
or german shepards…
see also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_warfare
You’re just being disingenuous, his point was obvious. You could make the identical argument (and many morons have) that minority X dominates violent crime statistics, therefore minority X is inherently more violent and we should legislate minority X.
This is wrong. Pit bull breeds were bred for gameness, the unrelenting will to “win” at all costs once engaged.
I think it’s also important to highlight the specifically bred part of your comment. Pit bull breeds didn’t become this way naturally, people made them this way. It’s less of a dog problem than it is a people problem.
Gameness could be bred out of these breeds the same way, but the change starts with people first.
You don’t really understand how statistics work do you? Per capita can still get artificially skewed in favor of one breed or another. For an example, let’s say we have red Legos and blue Legos and statistics say that murderers are more likely to pick red Legos. As a result, more people pick blue Legos because they don’t want to be perceived as murderers, leaving the red Legos for murderers and people who are skeptical or ignorant of the statistics. The result will be that there’s a much higher number of murderers per-captia with red Legos than with blue Legos.
The same can be applied to pitbulls. Create the story that pitbulls are man-killers, and the stats will get skewed as people looking for man-killers buy more pitbulls and people looking for companions intentionally avoid them. The result will be that there are more man-killer pitbulls per capita because that’s what they’re being trained for. It’s called a self-fullfilling prophecy. Maybe pitbulls truly do have a disposition for being man-killers, however their reputation means that the stats will be skewed in favor of the man-killers trait, as more people will buy them to make them man-killers.
Maybe pitbulls truly do have a disposition for being man-killers
Loved your comment, just wanted to chime in that what you’re referring to in the quoted portion above is commonly called gameness. Generally speaking it’s not that pit bulls are more prone to attack by default but their attacks are more unrelenting.
Rottweilers ALSO have this “man killer” representation… yet doesn’t have this same problem per capita. As a matter of fact, many other dog breeds have equal or WORSE reputations DO NOT have this problem.
So you can about some statistical story of legos… but that isn’t the reality we’re living in here. If anything you’ve provided more evidence that they should be destroyed (and I’m not in favor of actual destruction, but mandatory spay/nueter and make it illegal to breed them is more in line with my idea of an answer).
You’re missing the fact that I’m specifically addressing your decision to present “per captia” as being definitive proof of pitbulls being man-killers. I even stated that it’s entirely possible that they could, in fact, truly be man-killers, however the stats could be skewed so “per captia” can’t be the definitive proof.
If you want a real-world example of “per captia” being falsely skewed, look up stats on crime or IQ per race. You’ll find they’re heavily skewed against black people. However, if you continue to dig, you’ll find there are plenty of reasons to question the validity of those stats.
If you want a real-world example of “per captia” being falsely skewed, look up stats on crime or IQ per race. You’ll find they’re heavily skewed against black people. However, if you continue to dig, you’ll find there are plenty of reasons to question the validity of those stats.
Yes this would imply that there’s only one body conducting these sorts of stats under just one metric. Except this is universal. Which is why I, in other comments, have pointed out crowdsourced lists as well… Showing that it’s not just the stats from the USA coming to this conclusion.
The reason measuring IQ by race is an issue is because IQ isn’t even a good metric to measure intelligence anyway. Thus people who say that black people are less intelligent by measurement of IQ are morons from the get-go. And I never made “per capita” as my only proof. You’re just focused on that and have read other threads.
Crowdsourcing info from people that aren’t experts and can’t tell the difference between a Pitbull and an American bulldog or a boxer, truly we’ve reached the peak of the scientific method!
For this I actually like real crowdsourcing rather than just wikipedia.
https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/ was a subreddit I really appreciate as they do global tracking and covered more than just fatalities. It proves that the behavior is way more than just “Bad american’s with shitty training”. It’s everywhere… globally. This specific breed is a problem.
Here’s December’s (yes this month…) list for instance.
I won’t disagree that bad people make bad dogs… My cousin just lost a sheep and a bunch of chickens last night to what looks like (it was caught on property cameras) husky/shepard mix. The sheriff went over this morning and found all sorts of problems that they’ve cited them for now. But pit bulls in general have a universal problem and it’s clear when we aggregate the data and even normalize per capita. While the amount of deaths per year from dogs are low, pit bulls are statistically significantly higher(usual cited number is 6x) than any other breed.
Quoted text from my cousin this morning:
The sheriff came out and charged them with 4 misdemeanors and in the process found other issues and is investigating for animal cruelty.
Do you really think these people go for Pomeranians instead? Not an American bulldog or a rottweiler or a doberman… No… They can’t buy a Pitbull so they get a Chihuahua instead!
If a higher percentage of pitbull owners are morons then no shit there will be more attacks per capita, it doesn’t mean that the breed is the issue!
Also the problem with these stats is that they’re based on victim reports, victims that very often don’t know dogs and will call any big dog with short hair a Pitbull. The stats are extremely unreliable and in most places there’s just no actual tracking of the breeds that committed the attack. In places where there is, as I previously mentioned, attacks don’t go down it’s just other breeds that are reported and the attacks cause just as much damage because the dogs aren’t any smaller.
The CDC and humane society disagree with you, you know, based on expert opinion. You’re not an expert, so I’ll ignore your comment.
Edit: I’ll also add the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the Animal Behavior Society, the National Animal Care and Control Association, etc. also oppose breed specific legislation.
So, yeah I’ll take their opinion over some silly comment on the internet.
I’m not appealing to an irrelevant authority. I’m appealing to experts on the matter. I personally don’t have the time nor interest to do all the research myself, so trusting their expert opinion is what I’ll have to do. I hope you’ll do the same, as you do in other areas of your life.
I think as normal ass individuals without all the time in the world to do our own research on every topic, it’s okay to trust an authority that is at least trying to follow the scientific method.
I don’t know why on the subject of dog breeds everyone thinks their own anecdotes and personal opinions should some how win out…. And I know people will try to wave around some studies with stats pulled from newspaper articles, but the fact is the CDC, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, American Veterinary Medical Association, and Humane society have access to those studies too and came to a different conclusion: they oppose BSL.
I don’t follow… basically you’re making an argument never to trust experts, which is absurd and dangerous. If we learned anything from Covid and the Trump years, it’s that “doing your own research,” misinformation and distrust of experts are real issues that can cause serious damage to a society. I hope you’re not fanning the flames here.
Point of order: That’s not an appeal to authority. The other user was pointing out organizations that have actual expertise in the field. “Appeal to authority” is if they said “Bill Gates said pitbulls are fine”
He’s an authority figure, but not expertise in the matter.
Whereas the CDC, the humane society, the American veterinary association etc etc are actually experts in at least some part of the argument.
But right… The CDC and humane society disagree with me!
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7236a6.htm Which doesn’t break out by breed. But the numbers line up with other sources that HAVE broken out the breed. Showing that it’s 71% during this time period pitbull.
And I couldn’t give a fuck what the humane society says. They’re not statisticians nor do they have they ever published any statistics on attacks. Feel free to put up though. I’ll wait patiently.
Meaning if you remove pitbulls and other “aggressive” dogs, people still end up in the hospital at the same rate from dog bites.
All this points to the simple fact that if you give an asshole a dog, that dog will be dangerous.
Also as an aside any claim to “per capita” with regards to dogs is baseless. There has not ever been a dog census nor would we reasonably be able to do one, so we can’t make any claims about “this breed has a higher percentage of biters” or anything to that effect.
Also as an aside any claim to “per capita” with regards to dogs is baseless. There has not ever been a dog census nor would we reasonably be able to do one, so we can’t make any claims about “this breed has a higher percentage of biters” or anything to that effect.
This is a persons representation of a study. Not the study. but it links to here (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639) So if breed has nothing to do with anything. How come there’s qualities organized by breed by the study? You can’t claim that behaviors aren’t affected by breed, then show me a study that shows a bunch of behaviors organized by breed. And you all keep telling me that I’m disingenuous.
Except this misses one big premise… Amount of cases can be exactly the same, but severity of each case can go down severely. Also amount of cases can be the same, but have less fatalities! Almost like your link and my link can co-exist.https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf and no offense, but I’m okay with a world where there’s less harm and death done.
Okay, because I saw you’re a fan of banpitbull subreddit.
I need to ask a very simple question. Do you care about actual safety, or do you just want pitbulls banned? Like what is your goal?
Because all science in the last 5 years states people, not pitbulls, are the problem. Globally. That’s the issue.
If you actually want “less harm and death done” then you need to listen to the scientific experts and stop pushing for BSL, and instead push for things that move towards the goal of less harm and death.
You don’t need to have a census to have a pretty damn good idea of how many there are. And you all keep telling me that I’m disingenuous.
You say that and then the link you provided did not give me a very good idea about per capita of the breeds… I have no idea how many of any breed there are.
This is a persons representation of a study. Not the study. but it links to here (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639) So if breed has nothing to do with anything. How come there’s qualities organized by breed by the study? You can’t claim that behaviors aren’t affected by breed, then show me a study that shows a bunch of behaviors organized by breed. And you all keep telling me that I’m disingenuous.
You are being disingenuous… Less than 9% difference across all breeds. A dog is a dog is a dog. Some howl, some don’t. Some are more active. A dog is a dog is a dog.
Except this misses one big premise… Amount of cases can be exactly the same, but severity of each case can go down severely. Also amount of cases can be the same, but have less fatalities!
Well it was counting hospitalizations… So it’s safe to say we’re only talking about severe ones…
I need to ask a very simple question. Do you care about actual safety, or do you just want pitbulls banned? Like what is your goal?
Oh I would be okay with all large breeds (let’s say over 50lbs. as being a start) being required licensing. But considering the specific damage caused by pitbulls I would love to see them go first if there’s got to be a first. And “banned” in my case would be force spay/neuter and legalize breeding of them. I’m not a monster that wants to see a witch hunt to murder all currently existing pit bulls. I just want to see a breed that was bred for causing as much damage as possible in a fight not… Other large dogs being kept in a city apartment should also be illegalized as well IMO… but other breeds don’t have the predilection to bite the way pit bulls do.
You say that and then the link you provided did not give me a very good idea about per capita of the breeds… I have no idea how many of any breed there are.
Because I was specifically addressing your “census” comment. I have no issue providing more information to a point if required. There’s a few ways to infer population stats… https://www.pitbullinfo.org/pit-bulls-population.html has some for instance (DNA sites or veterinary data). Or you can grab stats from any number of dog rescues/pounds/etc… These stats won’t ever be perfect singularly. But certainly good enough.
You are being disingenuous… Less than 9% difference across all breeds. A dog is a dog is a dog. Some howl, some don’t. Some are more active. A dog is a dog is a dog.
So in your mind… pitbulls are fine because there’s only a 9% difference in breeds even though they make up 71% of all dog related deaths since 2011? You realize this isn’t just a case of strictly bite numbers. You even pointed it out. Even if pitbulls are LESS likely to bite, but each instance of a bite causes significantly more damage that causes hospitalization/death… This is STILL A PROBLEM. I’d still like to point out that your own source STILL managed to organize the breeds even though it’s only “9%”…
Well it was counting hospitalizations… So it’s safe to say we’re only talking about severe ones…
So instead of addressing the article I posted you ignore it? Again?
I’m not going to get into it with you, but I would recommend reading a book called “Pitbull: Battle over an American Icon” by Brownen Dickey. She does have an entire section on dogsbite.org.
dogsbite.org is run by a Colleen Lynn. Colleen’s only real experience with the matter is that she successfully sued someone over a dog bite. She has no statistics or veterinary credentials, yet on her page, she tries to cite studies from the experts that do in order to appear more reputable… kind of like you’re doing. However, she draws very different conclusions than those experts indicating she’s cherry-picking the data to suit her own biases… kind of like you’re doing.
I’m sorry but when the CDC, American Veterinary Medical Association, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, etc, etc all draw different conclusions and oppose breed-specific legislation, it’s hard to give much weight to a site like dogsbite.org, who’s owner has a bias based on her personal experience and has financially benefited from the dog bite issue in the courts.
If you want more, go ahead and read the book, but that’s it from me. Have a nice day, you won’t hear from me again on the matter.
So out of all of these experts and studies… how many of these are wrong? Why do ALL of these studies continue to find the same information then if supposedly the sources you put trust in have proven otherwise? Also I’ve yet to see ANY data from any of your supposed sources here… from anyone… Nobody of the 3-4 of you saying that pit bulls are perfectly fine animals the CDC says so… has linked me anything showing that they say that.
Even a little dog can bite you right in the throat, breaking your carotid artery so you to bleed to death. Don’t underestimate the strength of their bite just because they are smaller than a cat.
Even a little dog can bite you right in the throat
If a little dog can jump ~5.5 foot to reach my throat, then it deserves the kill. But this is very much not represented by the statistics at all. Little dogs simply don’t kill people. I looked at the stats a bunch of months ago before the reddit exodus… It’s like one “little dog breed” every 4-5 years (which is representative of a fraction of a fraction of a percent)… where 65+% of all dog related deaths are from a pit bull breed.
Hahahahahaha!
I have never had my life threatened by anything but a pit.
People i know who own them always end up covered in wounds.
And those who deal with family that has them know just how awful they are.
I knew someone who had a badly behaved dog, it attacked their partner so they put it down.
A few weeks later “I’m getting another one and I’m going to train it myself”
Meaning they just won’t train it, lost their shit when someone called them out as a dog killer. People don’t deserve animals, people suck.
I just really don’t know how the mandatory training sessions doesn’t solve the problem for everyone.
People who are ACTUALLY dedicated to raising these dogs will still get them. Those who would end up as shitty owners won’t bother with the hassle.
Dogs get a better owner; owners get a better dog. Win-win all around.
I grew up with Rottweilers, which were the “pitbulls” of the 90s. I have had 2 Dobermans, one sleeping next to me right now, and they were the “pitbulls” of the 80s.
I fail to see how extermination is the answer when we have other methods available.
It’s weird how people insist that a certain breeed needs to be forced to keep existing.
Many dog breeds no longer exist. In fact you can argue many breeds have died off and replaced with abominations.
Wiping out? Why keep breeding something humans created in the first place. It’s cruel to them and humans. Just like pugs and a bunch of other breeds that are cruel. Dogs are a human creation and humanity shoukd take responsibility and stop breeding them. Mutts are as close as natural and stable as you’re gonna get.
Yeah, for real. Pitbulls are the common target because they’re the “vicious dog”. It’s a self-fullfilling prophecy. Talk about how pitbulls are vicious man-killers, people who want vicious man-killers buy them and train them to be vicious man-killers, pitbulls become vicious man-killers. Meanwhile, the people who want a family dog don’t get pitbulls because, well, they’re “vicious man-killers”. The result is that statistics get skewed in favor of the “vicious man-killer” status, leading to people seeing the breed as nothing more than vicious man-killers.
That combined with the pseudoscience that was spewed by Merritt Clifton, that everyone still quotes today, and you’ve got yourself some statistical issues.
I agree from both an animal welfare and public safety perspective that we need far stricter laws and regulations on dog ownership in general. But also I also think that some breeds are inherently more dangerous than others. For the American Bully XL in particular, we are talking a new pitbull-adjacent breed which has been bred for both aggression, intimidation and maximum muscle mass, both to skirt past existing legislation that bans American Pit Bulls, but also because all these traits appeal to the kind of irresponsible owners that just want an attack dog that looks 'aard as fuck.
We’re also deluding ourselves when we claim that a dog bred to resemble the canine equivalent of Brock Lesnar is a nanny dog and wouldn’t harm a fly, when in actuality losing control of a 145 lb jacked beast has even led to grown adults being mauled to death.
Behavior is influenced by genetics as well as environment. Certain individual animals are more genetically predisposed towards violence than others. Certain breeds of particular species tend to have more of these individuals than others. So, it is possible to have a breed that is violent in that: if you take a random sample of that breed where the individuals are subjected to an identical rearing process more of those individuals will be more violent than average than the average breed has individuals who are more violent than average. (I realize that sentence is probably difficult to digest, but I’m not going to spend 20 more minutes working on this).
Given the data that we have on pit bulls, I think they’re a violent breed. Not all pit bulls are violent, but a pit bull is more likely to be violent than a golden retriever when the two are raised in the same environment.
But you can train a dog to not act on their instinctual prey drive. Pitbulls are way more likely to be abused than golden retrievers so I don’t see how your point is relevant. Why are pitbulls the problem instead of shitty dog owners?
Edit: you can be damn sure if a golden retriever or any dog grew up the way violent pitbulls grow up, they would be just as violent. Golden retrievers are easier to train though, I’ll give you that.
Using statistics without context is not right. Especially when talking about people or other living things that have unique personalities and life experiences.
Assholes will get big dogs, abuse ignore and isolate them, then act surprised when they act unpredictably.
Breed specific legislation isn’t the answer. The answer is for mandatory training courses predating dog ownership. All dog ownership too. Little dogs can be assholes too.
When 1 breed is per capita significantly higher represented… yes it is.
Little dogs can’t kill you.
If we breed a dog to be the size of a hippo… Is that still okay to have? Even if it’s only 6x as dangerous as the next breed?
it’s higher because people use pitbulls for dog fights, etc… if you abuse an animal it’s more likely to attack someone.
if you look at stats, getting killed by a rotweiler or a german Shepard isn’t that far off.
which would be the next two “tough dude” cool pets…
not to mention, pitbulls aren’t even a breed, really… there’s plenty of pit cousins that would be the new pitbulls… plus half breeds and whatnot…
my solution is to just require all small children carry revolvers… super simple, and those dogs will think twice before attacking them.
We should just breed our toddlers to be vicious dog-killers machines, problem solved. I want my kid to be able to tear everything to shreds on the playground by the time he hits 6.
fuck yeah
They didn’t just use pitbulls, they specifically bred pitbulls to fight and never give up. It’s deep in their brain.
This is correct. My argument isn’t just that they top the lists… it’s ALSO that the damage they do is much higher than any other breed as well. These concepts are inextricably linked.
When a pomeranian bites you, it’s whatever… bleeds a little bit, you put a bandaid on it later, but punt the fucker now. If a pitbull bites you… You might be missing part of your fucking leg. Try punting a pitbull…
We have more known attacks that are pitbulls simply because the damage they do is so fucking much more that it can’t just be handled in private. It’s actually probably 100% probably that pitbulls on average strictly bite at the same rates as other dogs… But the sheer amount of damage done by pitbulls means those bites = more deaths and hospitalizations. I’ve never once claimed that pitbulls bite more or less than any other breed, simply that they cause more casualties (and often specify deaths).
This is called gameness and the trait is not inextricable for pit bull breeds. It was bred into them through selection, not too dissimilar to how those stubby faced breeds were bred to be that way (e.g. pugs).
If pit bull breeds were selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait it would change things. It’s almost like the root problem isn’t the dogs but the people and breeding practices.
Pits already are selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait. The only person who wants a pit suited for fighting is the exact person who should never own a dog anyways. Since there’s literally NO benefit to the trait, obviously breeders jump through a lot of hoops to not sell aggressive murder dogs.
People who casually imply that every pitbull is a fucking monster are so woefully illinformed, and usually completely unwilling to consider they don’t know all the facts.
If this was directed at me I wasn’t implying every pit bull breed type is a monster.
Certified, professional breeders might be breeding out the gameness but the backyard breeders and the accidental breeders aren’t.
The number of pit and pit mixes in shelters aren’t coming from professional breeders or their dogs. Our second adopted dog is a mutt but dominant breeds are Border Collie and Am. Pit Bull Terrier. We’ve got her pretty well trained now, but if another dog comes snapping and biting at her I have to jump in to get a hold of her because she’s still got enough game in her that, if provoked, she goes hard in the paint.
I will always believe that pit type breeds are not for inexperienced or lazy dog owners. They need work, structure and training consistently.
This is key, it’s like they are bigger than they appear. We inherited one. Sweet nature, good with the cats, but weighs the same as the bigger dog in the household and strong as fuck.
I’m sorry, but this is a probably 100% probably on average strictly convincing sentence you’ve got, there.
Oh man… I said “probably” rather than “probable”! I better go get the noose and hang myself cause @daltotron can’t understand what a typo is!
No, I get that people type on mobile, and that autocorrect is a bitch. The thing that struck me more was that you hedged your bets like 4 times in the same sentence, against someone calling you out for not having any evidence of what you were claiming, but then you still end up using your claim to extrapolate an argument with what seems like a relatively large amount of certainty.
Also that the sentence was kind of repetitive, which struck me as funny. “probably 100% probable” is just saying the same thing twice, saying that something is “probably” the case is the same thing as saying it’s “100% probable”, and the “100%” part of that strikes me as completely superfluous. “on average strictly” is kind of contradictory, you usually wouldn’t claim something to be “on average” but then also say that it is “strictly” that way, because an average is, you know, an average, it’s an aggregate of numbers, including outliers. So it can’t really “strictly” conform to whatever you’re wanting it to conform to, unless it’s an exact match of the average, or unless you don’t actually mean “strictly” in the strictest sense. I dunno, I give it a C-.
The argument also strikes me as wrong, I would think pitbulls probably do just attack people more ,and with more aggressiveness, than other dog breeds. Maybe not that much more, relative to, say, german shepards, but say, compared to irish wolfhounds, I would think so, yeah. I think if an irish wolfhoud was attacking someone at the same rates, with the same aggression, as pitbulls, we would see them kill a lot more people than pitbulls do. Pitbulls aren’t actually that big, relative to other dogs.
“Deep in their brain” is that a science term. I kid. I would like to know the science behind it, though.
It’s absolutely not “deep in their brain” breed doesn’t really impact behavior
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D84642491739088231094049347991384876828|MCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg|TS%3D1651162390&_ga=2.218466969.1066386900.1651162373-689641651.1609118629
How you raise a dog does. If you see an aggressive dog, blame the owner.
Yes, owner surveys over tens of thousands of individuals regardless of breed meaning no implicit bias. The survey finds the same result across all breeds, the survey isn’t specific to pits.
You really thought you did something there didn’t you? Please learn to trust science over inflammatory media
Like if everyone claimed they had a perfect puppy, your critique would hold water, but flaws were reported across all breeds…
Why then pick pits? I get emergency calls about dog attacks all the time. It’s always pits. Assholes want asshole dogs. People use them to fight because they’re monsters and will fight till the death.
I picked my pit because that’s what the shelter had and she’s incredibly sweet. Even with kids, they can pull her face meats and it doesn’t even bother her.
if an asshole dog fighting abusive owner can’t get a pit, they’ll get a rottweiler… which will also attack people if raised like that.
or german shepards…
see also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_warfare
You could use the same logic to desperage American minorities. I think we can all do a little better here, don’t you?
No. I don’t compare humans to animals that were specifically bred for aggression. But you do you.
You’re just being disingenuous, his point was obvious. You could make the identical argument (and many morons have) that minority X dominates violent crime statistics, therefore minority X is inherently more violent and we should legislate minority X.
It’s a dumb ass argument regardless of species.
So now you’re equating animals that were specifically bred to be aggressive with minorities… And I’m being disingenuous?
Sigh, I regret engaging.
You regret losing the argument.
You can’t have an argument with someone that’s being intellectually dishonest. Feel free to familiarize yourself with selection bias here
This is wrong. Pit bull breeds were bred for gameness, the unrelenting will to “win” at all costs once engaged.
I think it’s also important to highlight the specifically bred part of your comment. Pit bull breeds didn’t become this way naturally, people made them this way. It’s less of a dog problem than it is a people problem.
Gameness could be bred out of these breeds the same way, but the change starts with people first.
It’s more represented because morons buy that breed more than others. When they get banned it’s other breeds that start attacking people.
You don’t understand what “per capita” means do you?
Cool… I’ll take being attacked by a pomeranian any day. I can at least punt those little fuckers over a fence.
You don’t really understand how statistics work do you? Per capita can still get artificially skewed in favor of one breed or another. For an example, let’s say we have red Legos and blue Legos and statistics say that murderers are more likely to pick red Legos. As a result, more people pick blue Legos because they don’t want to be perceived as murderers, leaving the red Legos for murderers and people who are skeptical or ignorant of the statistics. The result will be that there’s a much higher number of murderers per-captia with red Legos than with blue Legos.
The same can be applied to pitbulls. Create the story that pitbulls are man-killers, and the stats will get skewed as people looking for man-killers buy more pitbulls and people looking for companions intentionally avoid them. The result will be that there are more man-killer pitbulls per capita because that’s what they’re being trained for. It’s called a self-fullfilling prophecy. Maybe pitbulls truly do have a disposition for being man-killers, however their reputation means that the stats will be skewed in favor of the man-killers trait, as more people will buy them to make them man-killers.
Loved your comment, just wanted to chime in that what you’re referring to in the quoted portion above is commonly called gameness. Generally speaking it’s not that pit bulls are more prone to attack by default but their attacks are more unrelenting.
Nice story… except is misses a bunch of things…
So you can about some statistical story of legos… but that isn’t the reality we’re living in here. If anything you’ve provided more evidence that they should be destroyed (and I’m not in favor of actual destruction, but mandatory spay/nueter and make it illegal to breed them is more in line with my idea of an answer).
You’re missing the fact that I’m specifically addressing your decision to present “per captia” as being definitive proof of pitbulls being man-killers. I even stated that it’s entirely possible that they could, in fact, truly be man-killers, however the stats could be skewed so “per captia” can’t be the definitive proof.
If you want a real-world example of “per captia” being falsely skewed, look up stats on crime or IQ per race. You’ll find they’re heavily skewed against black people. However, if you continue to dig, you’ll find there are plenty of reasons to question the validity of those stats.
Yes this would imply that there’s only one body conducting these sorts of stats under just one metric. Except this is universal. Which is why I, in other comments, have pointed out crowdsourced lists as well… Showing that it’s not just the stats from the USA coming to this conclusion.
The reason measuring IQ by race is an issue is because IQ isn’t even a good metric to measure intelligence anyway. Thus people who say that black people are less intelligent by measurement of IQ are morons from the get-go. And I never made “per capita” as my only proof. You’re just focused on that and have read other threads.
Crowdsourcing info from people that aren’t experts and can’t tell the difference between a Pitbull and an American bulldog or a boxer, truly we’ve reached the peak of the scientific method!
Yeah the statistics on this are incredibly clear.
For the US this year it’s overwhelming staffy / Pitbulls causing human deaths.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
For this I actually like real crowdsourcing rather than just wikipedia.
https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/ was a subreddit I really appreciate as they do global tracking and covered more than just fatalities. It proves that the behavior is way more than just “Bad american’s with shitty training”. It’s everywhere… globally. This specific breed is a problem.
https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/18p94bq/december_2023_list_of_pit_bull_attacksfatalities/
Here’s December’s (yes this month…) list for instance.
I won’t disagree that bad people make bad dogs… My cousin just lost a sheep and a bunch of chickens last night to what looks like (it was caught on property cameras) husky/shepard mix. The sheriff went over this morning and found all sorts of problems that they’ve cited them for now. But pit bulls in general have a universal problem and it’s clear when we aggregate the data and even normalize per capita. While the amount of deaths per year from dogs are low, pit bulls are statistically significantly higher(usual cited number is 6x) than any other breed.
Quoted text from my cousin this morning:
Do you really think these people go for Pomeranians instead? Not an American bulldog or a rottweiler or a doberman… No… They can’t buy a Pitbull so they get a Chihuahua instead!
If a higher percentage of pitbull owners are morons then no shit there will be more attacks per capita, it doesn’t mean that the breed is the issue!
Also the problem with these stats is that they’re based on victim reports, victims that very often don’t know dogs and will call any big dog with short hair a Pitbull. The stats are extremely unreliable and in most places there’s just no actual tracking of the breeds that committed the attack. In places where there is, as I previously mentioned, attacks don’t go down it’s just other breeds that are reported and the attacks cause just as much damage because the dogs aren’t any smaller.
The CDC and humane society disagree with you, you know, based on expert opinion. You’re not an expert, so I’ll ignore your comment.
Edit: I’ll also add the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the Animal Behavior Society, the National Animal Care and Control Association, etc. also oppose breed specific legislation.
So, yeah I’ll take their opinion over some silly comment on the internet.
While I’m on the side of pitbulls, don’t go waving around an appeal to authority fallacy like that.
I’m not appealing to an irrelevant authority. I’m appealing to experts on the matter. I personally don’t have the time nor interest to do all the research myself, so trusting their expert opinion is what I’ll have to do. I hope you’ll do the same, as you do in other areas of your life.
I think as normal ass individuals without all the time in the world to do our own research on every topic, it’s okay to trust an authority that is at least trying to follow the scientific method.
I don’t know why on the subject of dog breeds everyone thinks their own anecdotes and personal opinions should some how win out…. And I know people will try to wave around some studies with stats pulled from newspaper articles, but the fact is the CDC, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, American Veterinary Medical Association, and Humane society have access to those studies too and came to a different conclusion: they oppose BSL.
And you know for sure they’re not serving their own interest?
Imagine a statistics agency said any particular human race was more dangerous.
I don’t follow… basically you’re making an argument never to trust experts, which is absurd and dangerous. If we learned anything from Covid and the Trump years, it’s that “doing your own research,” misinformation and distrust of experts are real issues that can cause serious damage to a society. I hope you’re not fanning the flames here.
Point of order: That’s not an appeal to authority. The other user was pointing out organizations that have actual expertise in the field. “Appeal to authority” is if they said “Bill Gates said pitbulls are fine”
He’s an authority figure, but not expertise in the matter.
Whereas the CDC, the humane society, the American veterinary association etc etc are actually experts in at least some part of the argument.
Oh? Feel free to drop a link proving me wrong then since they’ve weighed in on the matter. In the meantime…
https://www.dogsbite.org/
Feel free to peruse here… including medical studies like https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf as an example showing that pit bulls historically occur more often and cause SIGNIFICANTLY more damage.
But right… The CDC and humane society disagree with me!
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7236a6.htm Which doesn’t break out by breed. But the numbers line up with other sources that HAVE broken out the breed. Showing that it’s 71% during this time period pitbull.
And I couldn’t give a fuck what the humane society says. They’re not statisticians nor do they have they ever published any statistics on attacks. Feel free to put up though. I’ll wait patiently.
So I’m not the other user but I’ll go ahead and help you out.
AVMA quick summary of all the problems with trying to blame a set of breeds: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/literature-reviews/dog-bite-risk-and-prevention-role-breed
Study that shows breed doesn’t impact behavior in any substantial way: https://www.aaas.org/news/dogs-breed-doesnt-determine-its-behavior#:~:text=According to the findings%2C breed,exclusive to any one breed. Basically a dog is a dog is a dog and the main indicator of how a dog is going to act is how it was raised.
Study shows that BSL doesn’t work: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208393
Meaning if you remove pitbulls and other “aggressive” dogs, people still end up in the hospital at the same rate from dog bites.
All this points to the simple fact that if you give an asshole a dog, that dog will be dangerous.
Also as an aside any claim to “per capita” with regards to dogs is baseless. There has not ever been a dog census nor would we reasonably be able to do one, so we can’t make any claims about “this breed has a higher percentage of biters” or anything to that effect.
Are you shitting me? https://financesonline.com/number-of-dogs-in-the-us/
You don’t need to have a census to have a pretty damn good idea of how many there are. And you all keep telling me that I’m disingenuous.
This is a persons representation of a study. Not the study. but it links to here (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639) So if breed has nothing to do with anything. How come there’s qualities organized by breed by the study? You can’t claim that behaviors aren’t affected by breed, then show me a study that shows a bunch of behaviors organized by breed. And you all keep telling me that I’m disingenuous.
Except this misses one big premise… Amount of cases can be exactly the same, but severity of each case can go down severely. Also amount of cases can be the same, but have less fatalities! Almost like your link and my link can co-exist.https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf and no offense, but I’m okay with a world where there’s less harm and death done.
Okay, because I saw you’re a fan of banpitbull subreddit.
I need to ask a very simple question. Do you care about actual safety, or do you just want pitbulls banned? Like what is your goal?
Because all science in the last 5 years states people, not pitbulls, are the problem. Globally. That’s the issue.
If you actually want “less harm and death done” then you need to listen to the scientific experts and stop pushing for BSL, and instead push for things that move towards the goal of less harm and death.
But okay let’s address the rest now
You say that and then the link you provided did not give me a very good idea about per capita of the breeds… I have no idea how many of any breed there are.
You are being disingenuous… Less than 9% difference across all breeds. A dog is a dog is a dog. Some howl, some don’t. Some are more active. A dog is a dog is a dog.
Well it was counting hospitalizations… So it’s safe to say we’re only talking about severe ones…
Oh I would be okay with all large breeds (let’s say over 50lbs. as being a start) being required licensing. But considering the specific damage caused by pitbulls I would love to see them go first if there’s got to be a first. And “banned” in my case would be force spay/neuter and legalize breeding of them. I’m not a monster that wants to see a witch hunt to murder all currently existing pit bulls. I just want to see a breed that was bred for causing as much damage as possible in a fight not… Other large dogs being kept in a city apartment should also be illegalized as well IMO… but other breeds don’t have the predilection to bite the way pit bulls do.
Because I was specifically addressing your “census” comment. I have no issue providing more information to a point if required. There’s a few ways to infer population stats… https://www.pitbullinfo.org/pit-bulls-population.html has some for instance (DNA sites or veterinary data). Or you can grab stats from any number of dog rescues/pounds/etc… These stats won’t ever be perfect singularly. But certainly good enough.
So in your mind… pitbulls are fine because there’s only a 9% difference in breeds even though they make up 71% of all dog related deaths since 2011? You realize this isn’t just a case of strictly bite numbers. You even pointed it out. Even if pitbulls are LESS likely to bite, but each instance of a bite causes significantly more damage that causes hospitalization/death… This is STILL A PROBLEM. I’d still like to point out that your own source STILL managed to organize the breeds even though it’s only “9%”…
So instead of addressing the article I posted you ignore it? Again?
Well your article isn’t a study, it’s a literary review from a very biased source of a Colleen Lynn
In fact if you want to read up on your source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogsbite.org
You can see that she complains about science and ignores expert opinions in the field because they disagree with her.
It’s very telling when her literary review comes to very different conclusions than actual scientists performing studies in the field.
Rarely have I seen a hole so deeply dug before
I’m not going to get into it with you, but I would recommend reading a book called “Pitbull: Battle over an American Icon” by Brownen Dickey. She does have an entire section on dogsbite.org.
dogsbite.org is run by a Colleen Lynn. Colleen’s only real experience with the matter is that she successfully sued someone over a dog bite. She has no statistics or veterinary credentials, yet on her page, she tries to cite studies from the experts that do in order to appear more reputable… kind of like you’re doing. However, she draws very different conclusions than those experts indicating she’s cherry-picking the data to suit her own biases… kind of like you’re doing.
I’m sorry but when the CDC, American Veterinary Medical Association, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, etc, etc all draw different conclusions and oppose breed-specific legislation, it’s hard to give much weight to a site like dogsbite.org, who’s owner has a bias based on her personal experience and has financially benefited from the dog bite issue in the courts.
If you want more, go ahead and read the book, but that’s it from me. Have a nice day, you won’t hear from me again on the matter.
Then show me one from any of these sources that prove that pitbulls are not per-capita the top of the list in any category.
Couldn’t care less… It was hosting the paper I was interested in showing. Have you read it? https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf
So out of all of these experts and studies… how many of these are wrong? Why do ALL of these studies continue to find the same information then if supposedly the sources you put trust in have proven otherwise? Also I’ve yet to see ANY data from any of your supposed sources here… from anyone… Nobody of the 3-4 of you saying that pit bulls are perfectly fine animals the CDC says so… has linked me anything showing that they say that.
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Even a little dog can bite you right in the throat, breaking your carotid artery so you to bleed to death. Don’t underestimate the strength of their bite just because they are smaller than a cat.
If a little dog can jump ~5.5 foot to reach my throat, then it deserves the kill. But this is very much not represented by the statistics at all. Little dogs simply don’t kill people. I looked at the stats a bunch of months ago before the reddit exodus… It’s like one “little dog breed” every 4-5 years (which is representative of a fraction of a fraction of a percent)… where 65+% of all dog related deaths are from a pit bull breed.
Hahahahahaha! I have never had my life threatened by anything but a pit. People i know who own them always end up covered in wounds. And those who deal with family that has them know just how awful they are.
I knew someone who had a badly behaved dog, it attacked their partner so they put it down.
A few weeks later “I’m getting another one and I’m going to train it myself” Meaning they just won’t train it, lost their shit when someone called them out as a dog killer. People don’t deserve animals, people suck.
A minute of silence for all the people killed by asshole chihuahuas…
how can you get killed by a chihuahua? it nibbles away your toe and you get an infection?!
They think that they’re making a clever point. Of course larger dogs are inherently more dangerous than tiny dogs. No one is disputing that.
But to advocate for the complete wiping out of an entire breed versus mandatory training classes for owners is an insane answer.
Make “dangerous breeds” more difficult to get, sure. I agree with that. But I can NOT with the “wipe out all pitbull/rotties/dobermans/GSDs/etc”
A moment of silence for the victims of Labradors then.
Pit bull apologists refuse to just look at the numbers logically. We don’t keep pet tigers, we shouldn’t keep pet pit bulls.
I’d be suspicious that any lab that may have killed or severely injured someone isn’t a “lab mix” like the shelters push out.
I just really don’t know how the mandatory training sessions doesn’t solve the problem for everyone.
People who are ACTUALLY dedicated to raising these dogs will still get them. Those who would end up as shitty owners won’t bother with the hassle.
Dogs get a better owner; owners get a better dog. Win-win all around.
I grew up with Rottweilers, which were the “pitbulls” of the 90s. I have had 2 Dobermans, one sleeping next to me right now, and they were the “pitbulls” of the 80s.
I fail to see how extermination is the answer when we have other methods available.
It’s not extermination, just stop breeding them for retail sale. No one is advocating going door to door
It’s weird how people insist that a certain breeed needs to be forced to keep existing. Many dog breeds no longer exist. In fact you can argue many breeds have died off and replaced with abominations.
All of my dogs have only ever been rescue dogs anyway so mixed breeds for practically all of them. Purebred everything is garbage.
Wiping out? Why keep breeding something humans created in the first place. It’s cruel to them and humans. Just like pugs and a bunch of other breeds that are cruel. Dogs are a human creation and humanity shoukd take responsibility and stop breeding them. Mutts are as close as natural and stable as you’re gonna get.
omfg. basically the same argument as eugenics*.
* of course eugenics is worse but you see my point
Wiping out? Why not just forbid malicious breeding goals, like aggression, bite force and of course torture / unhealthy breeding?
Yeah, for real. Pitbulls are the common target because they’re the “vicious dog”. It’s a self-fullfilling prophecy. Talk about how pitbulls are vicious man-killers, people who want vicious man-killers buy them and train them to be vicious man-killers, pitbulls become vicious man-killers. Meanwhile, the people who want a family dog don’t get pitbulls because, well, they’re “vicious man-killers”. The result is that statistics get skewed in favor of the “vicious man-killer” status, leading to people seeing the breed as nothing more than vicious man-killers.
That combined with the pseudoscience that was spewed by Merritt Clifton, that everyone still quotes today, and you’ve got yourself some statistical issues.
In case people don’t know who Merritt is
People who get pit bulls as “family dogs” have the same issue.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/08/2-children-killed-mother-hospitalized-after-tennessee-dog-mauling/8219201001/
https://winknews.com/2023/07/06/north-port-6-year-old-dies-dog-bite/
I never thought about that
I agree from both an animal welfare and public safety perspective that we need far stricter laws and regulations on dog ownership in general. But also I also think that some breeds are inherently more dangerous than others. For the American Bully XL in particular, we are talking a new pitbull-adjacent breed which has been bred for both aggression, intimidation and maximum muscle mass, both to skirt past existing legislation that bans American Pit Bulls, but also because all these traits appeal to the kind of irresponsible owners that just want an attack dog that looks 'aard as fuck.
We’re also deluding ourselves when we claim that a dog bred to resemble the canine equivalent of Brock Lesnar is a nanny dog and wouldn’t harm a fly, when in actuality losing control of a 145 lb jacked beast has even led to grown adults being mauled to death.
Behavior is influenced by genetics as well as environment. Certain individual animals are more genetically predisposed towards violence than others. Certain breeds of particular species tend to have more of these individuals than others. So, it is possible to have a breed that is violent in that: if you take a random sample of that breed where the individuals are subjected to an identical rearing process more of those individuals will be more violent than average than the average breed has individuals who are more violent than average. (I realize that sentence is probably difficult to digest, but I’m not going to spend 20 more minutes working on this).
Given the data that we have on pit bulls, I think they’re a violent breed. Not all pit bulls are violent, but a pit bull is more likely to be violent than a golden retriever when the two are raised in the same environment.
But you can train a dog to not act on their instinctual prey drive. Pitbulls are way more likely to be abused than golden retrievers so I don’t see how your point is relevant. Why are pitbulls the problem instead of shitty dog owners?
Edit: you can be damn sure if a golden retriever or any dog grew up the way violent pitbulls grow up, they would be just as violent. Golden retrievers are easier to train though, I’ll give you that.
Using statistics without context is not right. Especially when talking about people or other living things that have unique personalities and life experiences.
The only dogs to ever bite me are chihuahuas, and I worked as a vet assistant for years.
Same
And a license to have a dog and a rebate for a year or more of medical care for them, for getting them spayed/neutered
When big dog acts out: “ahh that breed is aggressive! 😡”
When abused purse dogs act out (more frequently and more viciously): “oh isnt he just adorable 🥺”