The "Pit Bull" Myth

[NajaNivea]

Responding in the appropriate forum, so as to avoid continuing a MPSIMS thread hijack (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540636):


I'm very interested to know what you imagine makes a dog "prone to attack".Selective breeding for dogs with tendencies for aggression toward other animals certainly qualifies as making said dog more prone to attack other dogs. Do you dispute that some (more than a few) pit lines have been bred to select for aggression toward other dogs? (Please remeMber: the tendencies of any other breed to be violent toward other animals or people is irrelevant to this question).

Okay, lovely. First, some follow-up questions:
-What do you define as "tendencies for aggression toward other animals"?
-What breeds carry these tendencies? A handful of examples, or a general type is fine, I'm not necessarily asking for an encyclopedic listing, though the more specific you are the more helpful that will be in understanding your thoughts on the topic.

When I posed the question it was in response to an insinuation that a pit dog's propensity for violence extends to any living thing, cat, dog, human, ponies, whatever. You said "if a dog is both large and prone to attack" but it seems you're not quite willing to tell us exactly what that means. Is a 30lb pit dog "large"? Do the traits which make a dog prone to attack another dog have any connection to the traits which make a dog prone to attack a wolf, a fox, a hog, a rabbit, a rat, or a human being? What does "prone to attack" mean?
Do you know anything about the traits that make a dog prone to attack another dog? There are several of them, and they all function a little differently. Do you know what causes most of these traits?
Hint: it's not genetics.

To answer your question, of course I don't dispute that pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression, and for pit fighting. That's... what "pit dog" means. To elaborate on what I assume you're getting at: this of course means that dog-aggression is a significant concern in the care and handling of pit-type dogs, and that such traits must be addressed with specific and extensive socialization and continuous "proof-training" throughout the dog's life, starting at birth. Does that answer your question?


-Why is a dog with a breeding history for pit fighting more potentially dangerous to human beings?

Does it matter, if the complained behavoir is violence toward other dogs? Remember, that's what I came in here about. My cite to the incidence of pit violence toward humans was simply offered in response to someone's statement that twenty incidence of pit misidentification had been reported, where was the eviende of pit violence toward humans. I am fine with my opinion of pits being supported only by their breed's violent tendency toward other animals.
Yes, it does very much matter. This is the whole basis for the urban legend, the mythology which drives breed-specific legislation efforts, and to which some not-insignificant percentage of the hundreds of thousands of dog bites perpetrated by non-bull-type breeds are in many ways directly attributable.

Dog aggression may be what you "came in [to that thread] about", but you're certainly happy to continue conflating dog-aggressive traits with human-aggressive traits. Would you now have us believe that you're changing your tone, and that you no longer wish to assert that pit dogs are more potentially dangerous to human beings than any other breed?

Along the same lines, in the other thread you mention two other breeds which you refuse to board your dogs in the company of: Rottweilers and German Shepherd Dogs. What leads you to believe these two breeds are more particularly dangerous to your pets than any other breed? Above you (rightfully) assert that a pit dog's fighting background raises concerns. Neither of these two breeds are dogs with pit-fighting histories. What makes them more inherently dangerous in a boarding situation where your expressed concern is dog-aggression?

As a small aside, how do you feel about Dobies? They're the only one of the "four dogs of the apocalypse" which you missed. That you lump these three breeds together as "aggressive" without distinction suggests to me that you fall into the category of folks who "just know these dogs are dangerous... everyone says so, duh" without much further thought than that.
This is the idea I'm trying like hell to get you to explore: what makes you think a GSD is a bigger threat to your pet than, say, a Shar-Pei? Or a mutt of indeterminate phenotype? It's the flip side of the pit/human aggression question.

-Why does a breeding history for pit fighting make a dog more potentially dangerous than a breeding history for human-targeted aggression?
It doesn't. This is the "there are other (more) dangerous dogs too" argument. It is a very weak (that's charitable) argument. The greater danger posed by one dog does not lessen the dange rposed by another.

Did you actually miss the multiple times I asserted (and linked to AVMA and CDC reports justifying) that no breed of dog is more potentially dangerous than any other? And that the only consistent factor in severe dog attacks is not breed or type, but mishandling?
If not, if you read and comprehended those posts, then... where did you get the idea I was arguing that one breed is more dangerous than another, and that these other "more dangerous" breeds lessened the potential risks with dogs of pit-blood background?

The question I posed comes in response to the repeated assertion (not just by you, but several other folks in the thread) that pits are "OMG SRSLY the most dangerous dogs EVAR". That "there has never been a dog like a pit", and so on.

If pit bulls are alleged to be the OMG WORST DOGS EVER, then I'd really, really love to know: what do people suppose makes them so? A game-type pit dog, with a serious, concentrated lineal history for pit fighting is a 35-45lb dog bred to fight other dogs... what makes this animal so absolutely demonic, way over and above a host of other breeds? Why do some people point to pit dogs as murder-minded hellspawn, savagely bent on destruction and willing to rend their owners limb-from-limb with no warning and no provocation whatsoever?
The reason I bring up various guardian breeds is not to suggest that these dogs are more dangerous [thus you shouldn't worry about pit dogs], it's to highlight the ill-logic of drawing a parallel between pit-fighting dogs and people-biting dogs.

As it appears you're now backing out of this characterization, I'm posing the question as a general one, to any poster who wants to seriously contend that pit bulls truly are inherently human-aggressive dogs. You appear to be hinting toward that in the other thread, but I understand now that you're backing down from that characterization.

This question is moot, but just so you don't carry on about me not answering your questions, I'll tell you why. It is the breeding history. The breed's history of violence toward other animals (a product of its dog-fighting past) at the very least makes it dangerous to other dogs. As stated above, that's enough.
That's not actually enough. Your posts waffle all over the place, though I see upon further review that you're very careful to never quite come out and say it. You refer to pit dogs as responsible for "carnage" and as having a "terrible rep [for attacking humans]", you refer to those of us citing reliable research showing no breed to be inherently more dangerous than any other as "apologists", and you conflate dog-aggression with human-aggression by casually "mentioning" such things side-by-side. You don't quite get so far as to come right out and say that pit dogs are more likely to harm a human than another breed of dog. You sure as hell tippity-toe all around it, though.

So, direct answer time: do you believe pit dogs to be inherently more dangerous to human beings, or not? Do you conflate a history of breeding for dog-aggression with an increased potential for violence toward other species of animals, including human beings?

It might not seem so on the surface, but the end result of the vilification of a particular breed of dog is that people forget to be cautious about all others. Somehow, people like you imagine that a fluffy, blue-eyed, 50lb husky couldn't possibly be dangerous. And their own family pet, a cocker spaniel? An adorable, squishy little thing that could never hurt anyone. Hundreds of thousands of kids are physically and emotionally scarred, and a handful die every year because parents think their kids are safe with any dog that's not a demonic bull breed, that avoiding blocky-headed dogs is the ultimate dog-bite panacea. This is silly.
You'll need to help me out here. Why is it silly?


And lastly, though I've said this... many times, many ways...

...the main factor in dog attacks (whether it's violence against another dog, a cat, a human, a pony, or any other living thing) is not genetic, but owner-error.

[NajaNivea]

Oh, and for sake of completion, a link to the other, most recent surfacing of the same urban legend (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=530560), and discussion thereof.

[NajaNivea]

I can see how it could be read that way. I do not doubt misidentification exists on some level. I doubt that it exists in the extreme that some claim, but this is only a doubt - the sort of healthy skepticism most here posess when faced with oft repeated rarely substantiated claims. Maybe the misdeintifcation is worse. Maybe there are people report a King Charles Spaniel (snappy little fucks) bite as a pit attack.

It is worse. That's... what we've all been trying to show you, with little effect. For the sake of expediency, I'm copying this text directly out of the last discussion (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11684131&postcount=225) (with a corrected typo and a better photo link):


The concept of random-source mixed-breed dogs being generally unidentifiable doesn't mean you can never tell two breeds of dogs apart, or that a pit bull mixed with a boxer is suddenly, magically, going to turn out puppies that look like poodles.

Mixed-breed dogs are rarely the accidental and random product of two known and excellent examples of intentionally-produced pedigreed dogs. They're often many generations into random breeding when they show up at the shelter. The generic form that's come to be known as "pit bull type" is kinda the distillation that happens when you have a random population of random-type dogs breeding randomly, with a healthy push in the direction of "bulldog type" caused by a population boom in pit-type dogs after the early HSUS/media frenzy.

Without the "bulldog" influence, what you get looks something (http://www.greatdogsite.com/watermark/Carolina%20Dog-8%20months-Brown-1187153031.jpg) like this (http://www.californiacarolinadogs.com/update09-30-02/6large.jpg).

It's not hard to see what happens if you toss a glut of bulldog-type blood into the mix a few generations back, and how we've come to label just about every generic pound puppy a "pit bull type".

In any case, the product of two different purebreds doesn't always look anything like either parent, either. An F1 generation cross between a lab and a poodle does not give you a consistent "labradoodle". Complicating the issue is that the general public can't identify more than a dozen or couple dozen common breeds at most. Even in the professional dog world where presumably people have a better eye, people get away with all kinds of stupid things... like falsifying pedigrees and passing off one breed as another, or a mix as a purebred. Even a very practiced eye would likely have difficulty differentiating these two (http://www.whiteknightabs.com/images/Chaos-jj-Missy_american_bulldog_old_southern_white_white_english_bulldog.jpg) dogs (http://www.rawdogleather.com/simon.jpg) as separate breeds. Neither one is a pit bull, by the way.

One reason "pit bulls" show up so often in the roster of severe dog attacks is because the "pit bull type" is pretty much our default generic dog phenotype. Everything looks vaguely like a pit bull, a couple generations down the road, and everyone thinks they know what a pit bull looks like.

[Whack-a-Mole]

As been repeatedly noted in such threads as this any dog can be "mean" and Pit Bull type dogs are not especially mean and in fact rank better temperament-wise than many other breeds not considered to be especially dangerous.

As with many things it is the owner that makes most of the difference. A well trained, well socialized AmStaff (for example) is a very pleasant dog and a good family dog.

Problem is the sorts of people who want to look "tough" and want a badass dog are not likely to socialize their dog well and perhaps encourage its more aggressive instincts. More, especially if they want a dog for dog fights, the Pit Bull types of dog are a favorite because they excel at the task better than most other breeds. Also, if a Pit Bull type dog attacks they as a breed tend to be more tenacious. Thus stopping the attack can be more problematic.

These add up to giving those breeds a bad rap which is unfortunate.

[whole bean]

I'll bite . . . First, some follow-up questions:
-What do you define as "tendencies for aggression toward other animals"?
-What breeds carry these tendencies? A handful of examples, or a general type is fine, I'm not necessarily asking for an encyclopedic listing, though the more specific you are the more helpful that will be in understanding your thoughts on the topic.

Not sure why it matters, in the context of this debate, that I define tendencies toward aggression or list breeds with such tendencies when you concede
of course I don't dispute that pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression
Are you just trying to test me? I am aware that many non-genetic factors go into a dogs propensity for aggression, but for the purposes of this debate I was referring to the bred-for quality of dog aggression that you concede. Fighting pit dogs have these tendencies.

I am not here to argue whether pits are more dangerous to humans than Cane Corsos. Again, my chief complaint with pits is their tendency toward dog aggression. My cites to pit-human attacks in the other thread were in response to Munch.
Did you actually miss the multiple times I asserted (and linked to AVMA and CDC reports justifying) that no breed of dog is more potentially dangerous than any other? And that the only consistent factor in severe dog attacks is not breed or type, but mishandling?

What a misrepresentation of your sources! That is not what your cites say at all. The AVMA paper concluded that based on dog bite reports it was impossible to make a breed by breed conclusion. It did not make the unqualified statement that "no breed of dog is more potentially dangerous than any other" as that is patently absurd. Likewise, the CDC paper (that you appeared to be referencing) stated that "There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill." Again, this is not the same as "no breed of dog is more potentially dangerous than any other."

Finally, I have never said (in txt-speak or otherwise) that pits are the most dangerous. I said I am glad that they aren't in my local shelters to be adopted by any old chump with a hankering for a mean looking dog.

That's not actually enough. Your posts waffle all over the place, though I see upon further review that you're very careful to never quite come out and say it. You refer to pit dogs as responsible for "carnage" and as having a "terrible rep [for attacking humans]", you refer to those of us citing reliable research showing no breed to be inherently more dangerous than any other as "apologists", and you conflate dog-aggression with human-aggression by casually "mentioning" such things side-by-side. You don't quite get so far as to come right out and say that pit dogs are more likely to harm a human than another breed of dog. You sure as hell tippity-toe all around it, though.

So, direct answer time: do you believe pit dogs to be inherently more dangerous to human beings, or not? Do you conflate a history of breeding for dog-aggression with an increased potential for violence toward other species of animals, including human beings?

The misrepresentations continue. I don’t waffle and maybe you should have conducted your "further review" before making that claim. In my first post in that thread and repeatedly thereafter, I noted that my issue with pits relates to their dog-aggression. I only entered the pit-human attack fray to: 1. question the extreme "everything from polar bear to wildcat attacks get blamed on pits" claim; and 2,. to respond to Munch's request for a cite to a pit-human attack.

Quite honestly, I have no opinion as to whether a pit is more likely to attack a human. I do think they are more likely, as a breed, to harbor dog-aggression. That makes me not like them. That has been my consistent position.

I'm taking this out of order to save it for the end
Along the same lines, in the other thread you mention two other breeds which you refuse to board your dogs in the company of: Rottweilers and German Shepherd Dogs. What leads you to believe these two breeds are more particularly dangerous to your pets than any other breed? Above you (rightfully) assert that a pit dog's fighting background raises concerns. Neither of these two breeds are dogs with pit-fighting histories. What makes them more inherently dangerous in a boarding situation where your expressed concern is dog-aggression?

As a small aside, how do you feel about Dobies? They're the only one of the "four dogs of the apocalypse" which you missed. That you lump these three breeds together as "aggressive" without distinction suggests to me that you fall into the category of folks who "just know these dogs are dangerous... everyone says so, duh" without much further thought than that.
This is the idea I'm trying like hell to get you to explore: what makes you think a GSD is a bigger threat to your pet than, say, a Shar-Pei? Or a mutt of indeterminate phenotype? It's the flip side of the pit/human aggression question.

I've saved this for last because it's a good question and an example of just a bias (score one for you). I've been bitten by a Rott (not her fault, but it was a pretty severe bite) and charged by a German Shepherd dog. OTOH I've been full on attacked, along with my dogs, by a pit-mix - sire was pure bred AmStaff. My bias does nothing to make pits less dog-aggressive.

[whole bean]

Something I missed. The whole reason I waded into that last thread was because I felt someone was minimizing dog aggression. Now, Naja Nivea, I don't know if your intent is to do so with your accusation that I've conflated dog-dog attacks to dog-human attacks by mentioning them side-by-side, but if it is, let me be clear. I get overwhelmingly angry when I consider that many who dismiss dog aggression are those with dog aggressive dogs. I consider those people less than human. I look down on them in every way possible and am certain of their emotional and intellectual inferiority.

[NajaNivea]

I'll bite . . .
Not sure why it matters, in the context of this debate, that I define tendencies toward aggression or list breeds with such tendencies when you concede
It matters because throughout the three pages of that thread you continually post vague assertions that aggression of one type is linked to or tied-in with aggression of other types.
I am "conceding" nothing--if by using that word you're deliberately attempting to suggest that I at any point ever suggested dog aggression was not a concern with dogs of pit-fighting ancestry. I have never said or suggested otherwise. My quibble is with the suggestion that such traits lead toward greater propensity for violence in any other context.

The AVMA paper concluded that based on dog bite reports it was impossible to make a breed by breed conclusion. I...
Did you... um... miss the entire crux of the thing... which is that the single, overwhelmingly present factor in all cases is mishandling on the part of the owner?

I said I am glad that they aren't in my local shelters to be adopted by any old chump with a hankering for a mean looking dog.
Uh huh. So you're happy to see them banned from shelters and summarily euthanized, even knowing that DNA evidence indicates that mixed-breed dogs are largely unidentifiable by phenotype? How do you propose the shelters enforce this rule for maximum safety? Should they just kill all medium-sized dogs with short coats and broad skulls, to be safe, like, say, [PDF]these dogs (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/find-a-bull1.pdf)? What about all the mixed breed dogs with some amount between one drop and 49% of pit blood, which you assert are just as potentially lethal, how are we to identify and kill those dogs when they may look nothing at all like the breed standard? What about all those dogs which don't look like pit bulls, but which carry predominantly pit-history blood? Can you find the "pit bull" in this roster (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/do-you-know-a-lab-mix.pdf)? [PDF]
It's grossly illogical to use phenotype to decide which dogs get to live and be adopted and loved and which ones end up in a pile of corpses. On the "merely sad" side, countless perfectly wonderful dogs are killed annually because they happen to have the wrong shape of ears or too-broad a snout. On the "stupid, and potentially lethal" side, such a policy means a shelter is likely adopting out potentially much more dangerous dogs, because they think a cute, fluffy, prick-eared "shepherd type" is de facto "safe". If they're relying on phenotype to determine a dog's relative safety, they're focusing on the absolute least important cause for concern in the prevention of dog bite incidents.

The misrepresentations continue. I don’t waffle and maybe you should have conducted your "further review" before making that claim. In my first post in that thread and repeatedly thereafter, I noted that my issue with pits relates to their dog-aggression. I only entered the pit-human attack fray to
Whatever backpedaling you're doing now, you did enter the fray, and throughout you used the sideways comments I quoted above to indicate very strongly your distaste for dogs you perceive as "pit-type", and to use your words carefully at every opportunity to hint around about how carnage follows in their wake. You were careful not to make any directly refutable statements, but you very definitely did choose your insinuations... or else you're mighty naive.

I've saved this for last because it's a good question and an example of just a bias (score one for you). I've been bitten by a Rott (not her fault, but it was a pretty severe bite) and charged by a German Shepherd dog. OTOH I've been full on attacked, along with my dogs, by a pit-mix - sire was pure bred AmStaff. My bias does nothing to make pits less dog-aggressive.
Sure, but it ought to illustrate to you how your biases affect your views of dogs which fit the "canine racial profile", and why those of us who lack such breed biases might just have a modicum of logic on our side.

[NajaNivea]

Something I missed. The whole reason I waded into that last thread was because I felt someone was minimizing dog aggression. Now, Naja Nivea, I don't know if your intent is to do so with your accusation that I've conflated dog-dog attacks to dog-human attacks by mentioning them side-by-side, but if it is, let me be clear. I get overwhelmingly angry when I consider that many who dismiss dog aggression are those with dog aggressive dogs. I consider those people less than human. I look down on them in every way possible and am certain of their emotional and intellectual inferiority.
Emphasis mine.
:rolleyes:
I can certainly see why you might have gotten that idea, seeing as how I've repeatedly said that dog aggression is a serious issue which needs to be addressed early and often, and that dog owners who by virtue of neglect or ignorance allow their dog to develop inappropriate aggression issues against any living thing are directly and personally culpable for their dogs' actions... and in fact that dog owners themselves are entirely to blame in nearly all cases of inappropriate aggression, no matter what the target species. Yeah, I can definitely see why you'd get that impression, and why you'd feel the need to spew the above in my general direction.

Maybe I should have started this in the pit.

[dropzone]

Does the SDMB need to set up a forum specifically for pit bull discussions? I'm to the point of wanting all the damned mutts be put down, along with their owners.

[NajaNivea]

Yeah, imagine how sick of it those of us on the side of logic and reason are, having to fight the continual tide of ignorance spewed on this stupid topic. You'd think this would be the one place were urban legends go to die.

[whole bean]

It matters because throughout the three pages of that thread you continually post vague assertions that aggression of one type is linked to or tied-in with aggression of other types.
I am "conceding" nothing--if by using that word you're deliberately attempting to suggest that I at any point ever suggested dog aggression was not a concern with dogs of pit-fighting ancestry. I have never said or suggested otherwise. My quibble is with the suggestion that such traits lead toward greater propensity for violence in any other context.
This is incomprehensible. You concede "that pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression." It's at the top of the damn page, man. That's the only point that concerns me. You conceded it (by the very definition of the word concede - you might want to look it up right after you look up apologist).

Uh huh. So you're happy to see them banned from shelters and summarily euthanized, even knowing that DNA evidence indicates that mixed-breed dogs are largely unidentifiable by phenotype? How do you propose the shelters enforce this rule for maximum safety? Should they just kill all medium-sized dogs with short coats and broad skulls, to be safe, like, say, [PDF]these dogs (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/find-a-bull1.pdf)? What about all the mixed breed dogs with some amount between one drop and 49% of pit blood, which you assert are just as potentially lethal, how are we to identify and kill those dogs when they may look nothing at all like the breed standard? What about all those dogs which don't look like pit bulls, but which carry predominantly pit-history blood? Can you find the "pit bull" in this roster (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/do-you-know-a-lab-mix.pdf)? [PDF]
It's grossly illogical to use phenotype to decide which dogs get to live and be adopted and loved and which ones end up in a pile of corpses. On the "merely sad" side, countless perfectly wonderful dogs are killed annually because they happen to have the wrong shape of ears or too-broad a snout. On the "stupid, and potentially lethal" side, such a policy means a shelter is likely adopting out potentially much more dangerous dogs, because they think a cute, fluffy, prick-eared "shepherd type" is de facto "safe". If they're relying on phenotype to determine a dog's relative safety, they're focusing on the absolute least important cause for concern in the prevention of dog bite incidents.
There is no reason why culling the pit-mix population would necessitate ignoring the dangers posed by other breeds or poor socialization. None. As to pit euthanizations, let's be honest. Most of the shelter dogs are getting the gas anyway. If you want to rehabilitate the breed, do it through responsible breeders, not the pound.

Whatever backpedaling you're doing now, you did enter the fray, and throughout you used the sideways comments I quoted above to indicate very strongly your distaste for dogs you perceive as "pit-type", and to use your words carefully at every opportunity to hint around about how carnage follows in their wake. You were careful not to make any directly refutable statements, but you very definitely did choose your insinuations... or else you're mighty naive.
In other words, you didn't say it but you were thinking it. Listen, cite me as saying pits are “more” dangerous to humans or move on. I'm not interested in an argument you want to have with a statement I didn't make. No backpedalling necessary.

Sure, but it ought to illustrate to you how your biases affect your views of dogs which fit the "canine racial profile", and why those of us who lack such breed biases might just have a modicum of logic on our side.
True or False: pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression and as a result dog-aggression is a significant concern in the care and handling of pit-type dogs

[whole bean]

Yeah, imagine how sick of it those of us on the side of logic and reason are, having to fight the continual tide of ignorance spewed on this stupid topic. You'd think this would be the one place were urban legends go to die.

True or False: pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression and as a result dog-aggression is a significant concern in the care and handling of pit-type dogs

[NajaNivea]

This is incomprehensible. You concede "that pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression." It's at the top of the damn page, man. That's the only point that concerns me. You conceded it (by the very definition of the word concede - you might want to look it up right after you look up apologist).
Are you serious? You are the most bizarre semantics-lover I have ever encountered.
Okay fine, I concede the point with the definition "to accept as true"--a point which I have never wavered on. My quibble with your use of the term is the implication that I'm somehow yielding a point to you, which would have required me to have denied pit dogs' breeding history in the first place. Your weird semantics games aside...


There is no reason why culling the pit-mix population would necessitate ignoring the dangers posed by other breeds or poor socialization. None.
Of course it does. "Pit mixes" cannot be identified reliably by phenotype, so anyone killing shelter dogs on the basis of the shape of their ears or muzzle is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of what causes a dog to be dangerous... and by granting life to a fluffy, prick-eared cutie pie because it looks safer, they are absolutely ignoring the indisputable fact that phenotype cannot be used to judge a dog's relative safety. A fluffy, prick-eared cutie pie is no less potentially dangerous to a child than a semi-prick-eared dog with a brindle coat, simply because it's cute... just like a Fox Terrier is no less potentially dangerous to a child because it's never been hoisted up on the "dangerous dogs" pike. A shelter killing dogs they perceive as "pit type" on the argument that they're creating a safer environment is demonstrating just as deep and profound an ignorance as a hypothetical town that enacts laws keeping people of certain skin colors out for the same reason. Neither act of profiling addresses the issue of public safety in any remotely useful manner.

As to pit euthanizations, let's be honest. Most of the shelter dogs are getting the gas anyway. If you want to rehabilitate the breed, do it through responsible breeders, not the pound.
So... by this logic, why don't we kill all shelter dogs of all phenotype across the board? Why is genocide of one "canine racial profile" a logical choice?

I'm not interested in an argument you want to have with a statement I didn't make. No backpedalling necessary.
Right, 'cause clearly I'm the only one who read dripping insinuation with your every comment. You flat refused to answer any specific requests for clarification until cornered, and now you're trying to play some game where you think you're gotcha-ya'ing me over dog-aggression? Funny. Find some instance of me downplaying concerns of dog-aggression, or move on. I'm not interested in an argument you want to have with a statement I didn't make. No concession necessary.

[whole bean]

Are you serious? You are the most bizarre semantics-lover I have ever encountered.
Okay fine, I concede the point with the definition "to accept as true"--a point which I have never wavered on. My quibble with your use of the term is the implication that I'm somehow yielding a point to you, which would have required me to have denied pit dogs' breeding history in the first place. Your weird semantics games aside...
Semantics? You're killing me. To suggest that concede=admit is a semantics game is too much. You didn't really know what the word meant, that's cool.



Of course it does. "Pit mixes" cannot be identified reliably by phenotype, so anyone killing shelter dogs on the basis of the shape of their ears or muzzle is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of what causes a dog to be dangerous... and by granting life to a fluffy, prick-eared cutie pie because it looks safer, they are absolutely ignoring the indisputable fact that phenotype cannot be used to judge a dog's relative safety. A fluffy, prick-eared cutie pie is no less potentially dangerous to a child than a semi-prick-eared dog with a brindle coat, simply because it's cute... just like a Fox Terrier is no less potentially dangerous to a child because it's never been hoisted up on the "dangerous dogs" pike. A shelter killing dogs they perceive as "pit type" on the argument that they're creating a safer environment is demonstrating just as deep and profound an ignorance as a hypothetical town that enacts laws keeping people of certain skin colors out for the same reason. Neither act of profiling addresses the issue of public safety in any remotely useful manner.
You've played very fast and loose with your cites. In the previous thread, I pointed to my issues with the paper on phenotype identification. Namely that we're not told how often a breed assigned by an adoption agency was present but not "predominant" - assuming only one breed can be predominant. That can leave out a lot of dogs with a breed present, even at a high percentage of a DNA breed make-up, but not "predominant." And so what if 87% of dogs had at least 12.5 % of some breed makeup thrown in that was not included in their mixed breed description? That's pretty meaningless without more qualification. After all an 87.5% lab might not look like much else. I received no substantive response, only some nonsense about a "one drop" rule. I have no propblem targetting for euthanization in the shelter context a breed that has historically, and in some cases is currently, bred for dog-aggression. I see only upside.

Right, 'cause clearly I'm the only one who read dripping insinuation with your every comment. You flat refused to answer any specific requests for clarification until cornered,
It might surprise you to find this out, but I go for days at a time without looking at this website. I assumed you would be able to glean the answer to your questions from my subsequent responses. When it became clear to me you could not, I answered your questions. Sheesh, attention starved?

and now you're trying to play some game where you think you're gotcha-ya'ing me over dog-aggression? Funny. Find some instance of me downplaying concerns of dog-aggression, or move on. I'm not interested in an argument you want to have with a statement I didn't make. No concession necessary

Seriously did you carefully read the very resposne that set you off?
I don't know if your intent is to do so with your accusation that I've conflated dog-dog attacks to dog-human attacks by mentioning them side-by-side, but if it is

[NajaNivea]

There is no connotation to be had until it is coupled with something. When that thing is loathesome (like Naziism or canibalism) , then the connotation is also, but only then and not until then. The word has a meaning and by itslef that meaning is value neutral.
Yet more weird semantics games. You spend the whole thread talking about how dangerous, aggressive, and generally loathsome pits are, then say "the connotation is not loathsome, unless it's paired with..." oh, wait.

Nice. Thanks for the clarification!

[whole bean]

Find some instance of me downplaying concerns of dog-aggression, or move on. I'm not interested in an argument you want to have with a statement I didn't make. No concession necessary.

I've never asked you to concede that you downplayed dog-aggression. So, even though it's cute that you gave this a try (rephrasing my post) it still failed for multiple reasons: 1. I didn't accuse you; 2. I didn't ask you to concede it. Man explaining a joke ruins it.

[whole bean]

Yet more weird semantics games. You spend the whole thread talking about how dangerous, aggressive, and generally loathsome pits are, then say "the connotation is not loathsome, unless it's paired with..." oh, wait.

Nice. Thanks for the clarification!


Are you conceding pits are loathesome? Like it or not, the very act of opening this thread by definition is an act of apologetics. What you term semantics games others call communication. I cannot help your misunderstanding that derive from ignorance.

[NajaNivea]

You've played very fast and loose with your cites. In the previous thread, I pointed to my issues with the paper on phenotype identification. Namely that we're not told how often a breed assigned by an adoption agency was present but not "predominant" - assuming only one breed can be predominant. That can leave out a lot of dogs with a breed present, even at a high percentage of a DNA breed make-up, but not "predominant." And so what if 87% of dogs had at least 12.5 % of some breed makeup thrown in that was not included in their mixed breed description? That's pretty meaningless without more qualification. After all an 87.5% lab might not look like much else. I received no substantive response, only some nonsense about a "one drop" rule.
You did receive a substantiative response, which you ignored save for the "one drop rule" phrase. You've received at least one other on the same topic in this thread, which I see below you're continuing to dodge.

I have no propblem targetting for euthanization in the shelter context a breed that has historically, and in some cases is currently, bred for dog-aggression. I see only upside.
Here's the dodge.

Maybe it's easier to keep your attention span in one place if I just copy/paste? It took one guy in last month's thread about eight repetitions to get him to acknowledge that he'd seen and comprehended a point. Maybe you're a sharper cheddar on the cheese rack and it'll only take two or three tries.
Uh huh. So you're happy to see them banned from shelters and summarily euthanized, even knowing that DNA evidence indicates that mixed-breed dogs are largely unidentifiable by phenotype? How do you propose the shelters enforce this rule for maximum safety? Should they just kill all medium-sized dogs with short coats and broad skulls, to be safe, like, say, [PDF]these dogs (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/find-a-bull1.pdf)? What about all the mixed breed dogs with some amount between one drop and 49% of pit blood, which you assert are just as potentially lethal, how are we to identify and kill those dogs when they may look nothing at all like the breed standard? What about all those dogs which don't look like pit bulls, but which carry predominantly pit-history blood? Can you find the "pit bull" in this roster (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/do-you-know-a-lab-mix.pdf)? [PDF]
It's grossly illogical to use phenotype to decide which dogs get to live and be adopted and loved and which ones end up in a pile of corpses. On the "merely sad" side, countless perfectly wonderful dogs are killed annually because they happen to have the wrong shape of ears or too-broad a snout. On the "stupid, and potentially lethal" side, such a policy means a shelter is likely adopting out potentially much more dangerous dogs, because they think a cute, fluffy, prick-eared "shepherd type" is de facto "safe". If they're relying on phenotype to determine a dog's relative safety, they're focusing on the absolute least important cause for concern in the prevention of dog bite incidents.


It might surprise you to find this out, but I go for days at a time without looking at this website. I assumed you would be able to glean the answer to your questions from my subsequent responses. When it became clear to me you could not, I answered your questions. Sheesh, attention starved?
...Except that one could not be expected to glean any answers, when you did not provide them, at any time, in any way, until directly pressed.
Seriously did you carefully read the very resposne that set you off?
Seriously, have you read anything I've said?
At no point did I ever say anything that would lead any reasonable person to such a conclusion. That you pull it out of your ass and then stick "I don't know if this is what you meant, but..." at the beginning before spewing a bunch of crap forth is again, either disingenuous in the extreme or very conveniently naive.

[NajaNivea]

Are you conceding pits are loathesome?
Are you conceding that you're working awfully hard to avoid the topic at hand?

[ExTank]

Breeds Most Likely To Kill (http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html#Thedogsmostlikelytobite)

Breeds of dogs involved in fatal human attacks
in the United States between 1979 and 1998 (http://www.dogbitelaw.com/breeds-causing-DBRFs.pdf)

Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada September 1982 to November 13, 2006 (http://www.dogbitelaw.com/Dog%20Attacks%201982%20to%202006%20Clifton.pdf)

While I understand the point that certain human social groups/subcultures may be more inclined to own certain types of dogs, and raise/train them to be aggressive for some perceived "coolness" factor, I find it difficult to ascribe these numbers solely to human activity.

[ExTank]

Scratch "solely" in my previous post; change it to "predominantly." Sorry for the slop.

[whole bean]

You did receive a substantiative response, which you ignored save for the "one drop rule" phrase. You've received at least one other on the same topic in this thread, which I see below you're continuing to dodge.
I've bothered to reproduce relevant posts here, please extend the same courtesy. If you're talking about those PDF's I don't know what they're supposed to prove. Those are gimmicks, not research.

I don't have a good answer for what the specifics of a policy should be. I think it should be a goal to eradicate the dog aggressive lines. I am open to some fairly harsh methods.

Seriously, have you read anything I've said?
At no point did I ever say anything that would lead any reasonable person to such a conclusion. That you pull it out of your ass and then stick "I don't know if this is what you meant, but..." at the beginning before spewing a bunch of crap forth is again, either disingenuous in the extreme or very conveniently naive.

Eh. My mistake then.

[NajaNivea]

ExTank, the site you are linking to is created and maintained by a shystery dog bite attorney outfit. This point has been repeatedly addressed, and the site debunked in every thread that comes along. It's pure ambulance chasing.

The Clifton report which he spends more or less all of his time referencing is, as was said in the other thread, nothing but a steaming pile of fly-ridden nonsense. The CDC and AVMA agree that there are serious and fundamental flaws in the method of any study which purports to count statistics on dog bites by breed. By far the overwhelmingly common factor is not breed or type, but mishandling. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbites.htm)
The AVMA on why the Clifton report isn't worth the bandwidth it occupies:
Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.
The AVMA's Community approach to dog bite prevention spells it out very clearly. By far the predominant factor in dog bite incidents is "human activity".

[whole bean]

Are you conceding that you're working awfully hard to avoid the topic at hand?

I'm doing my best to answer your questions.

[NajaNivea]

I've bothered to reproduce relevant posts here, please extend the same courtesy.
I did, in the very same post.
If you're talking about those PDF's I don't know what they're supposed to prove. Those are gimmicks, not research.
Seriously? Did you... look at them?
Did you notice that they're photos of dogs, paired with their DNA test results?

If you fail to see how these examples are germane to the discussion, I think we might be at a complete impasse.

[whole bean]

[By far the overwhelmingly common factor is not breed or type, but mishandling. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbites.htm)
Asking sincerely, where in this cite does it say what your purport it says?

[whole bean]

I did, in the very same post.

Seriously? Did you... look at them?
Did you notice that they're photos of dogs, paired with their DNA test results?

If you fail to see how these examples are germane to the discussion, I think we might be at a complete impasse.
These are pretty small sample sizes - so small that, alone, they are meaningless. How can we be sure they haven't been cherry-picked? These could be the most disparate breed to phenotype instances (though the retriever ones are not that surprising). Then again, they might be representational, but standing on their own, they give me a big meh. Do you honestly think of these two flyers as watertight evidence for your case?

[NajaNivea]

Asking sincerely, where in this cite does it say what your purport it says?

Here:
There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill.

Many practical alternatives to breed-specific policies exist and hold promise for preventing dog bites. For prevention ideas and model policies for control of dangerous dogs, please see the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Task Force on Canine Aggression and Human-Canine Interactions: A community approach to dog bite prevention.*

And here:
Gershman KA, Sacks JJ, Wright JC. Which dogs bite? A case-control study of risk factors. Pediatrics 1994;93:913-7.
Biting and non-biting dogs in Denver are compared. Biting dogs were more likely to be male, unneutered, and chained.
...for a start, though I'll certainly concede it takes a little reading to get to the punchlines.

[NajaNivea]

These are pretty small sample sizes - so small that, alone, they are meaningless. How can we be sure they haven't been cherry-picked? These could be the most disparate breed to phenotype instances (though the retriever ones are not that surprising). Then again, they might be representational, but standing on their own, they give me a big meh. Do you honestly think of these two flyers as watertight evidence for your case?

This is getting tiresome. Do you want to address the issues I raise, or just nitpick over numbers, like in the other thread? I don't think of them as "watertight", simply as illustrations to a point I keep trying to make, and which you keep dodging.

Any countless number of breeds and mixes may fit the "canine racial stereotype". At least one study demonstrates that mixed-breed dogs are misidentified with rates we'd call "gross incompetence" in any other context. What then makes you feel it's okay to slaughter them wholesale, on such spurious evidence as visual identification? There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to indicate a medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears is any more dangerous to man or beast than any other dog of comparable size, seeing as how such a description can fit a countless number of dogs with no pit-fighting blood in recent history. The PDFs in question are simply photos and DNA results to illustrate the point, lest you continue to claim that you or anyone else has an infallible ability to ID pit-dogs on sight.

Now, if your argument is just "kill 'em all and let Og sort 'em out" well, then we're at an impasse there, too. I'm open to fairly harsh methods for population control and public safety, too, but the method of using visual ID to determine which dogs live and die is jut... grossly misinformed.

[whole bean]

I don't think of them as "watertight", simply as illustrations to a point I keep trying to make, and which you keep dodging.

Any countless number of breeds and mixes may fit the "canine racial stereotype". At least one study demonstrates that mixed-breed dogs are misidentified with rates we'd call "gross incompetence" in any other context. What then makes you feel it's okay to slaughter them wholesale, on such spurious evidence as visual identification? There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to indicate a medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears is any more dangerous to man or beast than any other dog of comparable size, seeing as how such a description can fit a countless number of dogs with no pit-fighting blood in recent history. The PDFs in question are simply photos and DNA results to illustrate the point, lest you continue to claim that you or anyone else has an infallible ability to ID pit-dogs on sight.

They were offered as a substantive response (says you) to my criticism of the phenotype ID study. They are not a substantive response. As such, I have received no substantive response. I have already said, I have no good answer as to what should be done, but that is due in part to the fact that I have yet to see a defense to my crticism of the only research on phenotype identification thus far proffered.

What's your solution to reducing the dog-aggeresive lines?

[NajaNivea]

They were offered as a substantive response (says you) to my criticism of the phenotype ID study. They are not a substantive response. As such, I have received no substantive response.

Let's try this again. This makes three. Hope springs ever eternal.
Uh huh. So you're happy to see them banned from shelters and summarily euthanized, even knowing that DNA evidence indicates that mixed-breed dogs are largely unidentifiable by phenotype? How do you propose the shelters enforce this rule for maximum safety? Should they just kill all medium-sized dogs with short coats and broad skulls, to be safe, like, say, [PDF]these dogs? What about all the mixed breed dogs with some amount between one drop and 49% of pit blood, which you assert are just as potentially lethal, how are we to identify and kill those dogs when they may look nothing at all like the breed standard? What about all those dogs which don't look like pit bulls, but which carry predominantly pit-history blood? Can you find the "pit bull" in this roster (http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/do-you-know-a-lab-mix.pdf)? [PDF]
It's grossly illogical to use phenotype to decide which dogs get to live and be adopted and loved and which ones end up in a pile of corpses. On the "merely sad" side, countless perfectly wonderful dogs are killed annually because they happen to have the wrong shape of ears or too-broad a snout. On the "stupid, and potentially lethal" side, such a policy means a shelter is likely adopting out potentially much more dangerous dogs, because they think a cute, fluffy, prick-eared "shepherd type" is de facto "safe". If they're relying on phenotype to determine a dog's relative safety, they're focusing on the absolute least important cause for concern in the prevention of dog bite incidents.
Why don't you try addressing the points I raise, instead of dodging them with "I don't have a solution". You clearly have one solution, now why don't you give a go at defending it?


I have already said, I have no good answer as to what should be done, but that is due in part to the fact that I have yet to see a defense to my crticism of the only research on phenotype identification thus far proffered.
If you dismiss DNA evidence and peer-reviewed studies as insufficient evidence to support my contentions, then I think we're arguing from two different worlds. I keep asking you why it makes sense to slaughter dogs en masse and you just keep saying "because pits are dog aggressive". I keep saying "not all dogs that look like pits are pits" and you keep saying "pits are dog aggressive, kill 'em all". Where are we to go from here?

What's your solution to reducing the dog-aggeresive lines?

We have no idea which "lines" of dog are dog aggressive, and the vast majority of dog aggression issues don't stem from genetics, anyway. There is no such thing as a "breeding line" in the world of random-source dogs. The only logical route, and the most effective in terms of public safety, is to base the decision on effective temperament-testing conducted by knowledgeable and experienced dog handlers. Period. I have no problem whatsoever euthanizing aggressive dogs of any breed or type rather than offering them to the general public for adoption. I do have a problem with making this determination based solely on phenotype, as it is very simply no indication whatsoever of a dog's relative safety.

[whole bean]

Let's try this again. This makes three. Hope springs ever eternal.

Why don't you try addressing the points I raise, instead of dodging them with "I don't have a solution". You clearly have one solution, now why don't you give a go at defending it?
Ok. I am not trying to be contentious, but you must be skipping my posts. There is an implied "no" to your "proposals" when I say I don't have a solution in response to the question of whether I would adopt those proposals. I am still not convinced (for reasons set forth below) that phenotype ID is as bad as you make it out to be, but that could change.


If you dismiss DNA evidence and peer-reviewed studies as insufficient evidence to support my contentions, then I think we're arguing from two different worlds. I keep asking you why it makes sense to slaughter dogs en masse and you just keep saying "because pits are dog aggressive". I keep saying "not all dogs that look like pits are pits" and you keep saying "pits are dog aggressive, kill 'em all". Where are we to go from here?
You're making stuff up. No exchange like you represent has occured in this thread. Seriously, I'm not trying to be contentious, but here's what's happened as I see it.
1. Someone linked the phenotype ID study.
2. I provided a criticism of the methods as reported.
3. Your so-called substantive defense was to link to two flyers with mix breed dogs who'd been DNA tested.

Is this the DNA evidence and peer-reviewed studies you're referencing, or have I missed someting? I must have. If this is it, then I think you have utterly failed to do what you've claimed to do, i.e. prove anything about phenotype ID.

[NajaNivea]

Ok. I am not trying to be contentious, but you must be skipping my posts. There is an implied "no" to your "proposals" when I say I don't have a solution in response to the question of whether I would adopt those proposals.
But you are electing to "adopt" those proposals, by stating support for the policy of summarily euthanizing any dog that fits the "canine racial profile".

You're making stuff up. No exchange like you represent has occured in this thread. Seriously, I'm not trying to be contentious, but here's what's happened as I see it.
1. Someone linked the phenotype ID study.
2. I provided a criticism of the methods as reported.
3. Your so-called substantive defense was to link to two flyers with mix breed dogs who'd been DNA tested.

Is this the DNA evidence and peer-reviewed studies you're referencing, or have I missed someting? I must have. If this is it, then I think you have utterly failed to do what you've claimed to do, i.e. prove anything about phenotype ID.
I am absolutely not making stuff up. You said you approve of your local shelter's policy of summarily euthanizing pits, because they are inherently dog aggressive. I said "not all dogs look like pits. Here's a study showing that shelter workers can't identify mixed-breed dogs by phenotype. Here are some photographic illustrations of what various mixes may look like pits or labs, yet not be resultant of any such breeding history. Furthermore, here are at least a couple dozen dog breeds which fit the profile, as well as any permutation derived in crossing any number of other breeds."
Your "criticism" was summed up in the other thread with the following comment:
This study suggests to me that the genetically predominant breed might not be the most physicially manifest.
Which, oddly enough, is the exact point the authors were making, and the exact point I'm trying every way I know how to get you to understand.


Furthermore, did you bother to read post #3 in this thread? It's not "proof", but I feel very confident about the conclusions I've drawn there, and have yet to see you respond to the points made.

[NajaNivea]

If this is it, then I think you have utterly failed to do what you've claimed to do, i.e. prove anything about phenotype ID.
Let's try this from a different direction.

How about you try proving that all dogs everywhere which fit the general description of a "pit type dog" are, in fact, of pit-dog ancestry. I've already offered you several pieces of substantial evidence (and yes, a photo roster of greater than two dozen legitimate dog breeds which fit the profile is, in fact, substantial evidence to support my claim). Now, let's see you offer some support for your contention: namely that any dog which fits this profile and comes in to your local shelter deserves to be put to death by virtue of external appearance.

[whole bean]

But you are electing to "adopt" those proposals, by stating support for the policy of summarily euthanizing any dog that fits the "canine racial profile".


I am absolutely not making stuff up. You said you approve of your local shelter's policy of summarily euthanizing pits, because they are inherently dog aggressive. I said "not all dogs look like pits. Here's a study showing that shelter workers can't identify mixed-breed dogs by phenotype. Here are some photographic illustrations of what various mixes may look like pits or labs, yet not be resultant of any such breeding history. Furthermore, here are at least a couple dozen dog breeds which fit the profile, as well as any permutation derived in crossing any number of other breeds."
Your "criticism" was summed up in the other thread with the following comment:

Which, oddly enough, is the exact point the authors were making, and the exact point I'm trying every way I know how to get you to understand.


Furthermore, did you bother to read post #3 in this thread? It's not "proof", but I feel very confident about the conclusions I've drawn there, and have yet to see you respond to the points made.

Ok. Let me think about this. I am not walking away from this thread, but I will not be able to hammer out a response - I am not trying to win, I am trying to see what the best solution is. I see the inherrent problem in advocating a policy (the local shelter's no pit policy) when identification is an issue. I will need to read more about issues with phenotype misidentification. Notwithstanding, my opinion remains unchanged on the breed, as established, for the reason conceded by you above.

[whole bean]

Let's try this from a different direction.

How about you try proving that all dogs everywhere which fit the general description of a "pit type dog" are, in fact, of pit-dog ancestry. I've already offered you several pieces of substantial evidence (and yes, a photo roster of greater than two dozen legitimate dog breeds which fit the profile is, in fact, substantial evidence to support my claim). Now, let's see you offer some support for your contention: namely that any dog which fits this profile and comes in to your local shelter deserves to be put to death by virtue of external appearance.

To be honest, were I to adopt this proposal they all wouldn't need to; just a substantial portion would justify the policy. However, as I stated above, I am not advocating this until I further educate myslef on this issue.

[whole bean]

Just a note: this thread is a little ill-defined, as we've drifted from dog-aggression to shelter euthanization policy. To the extent that there is some purported "myth" regarding pit dog-aggression, the "myth" has been confirmed and entered the realm of acknowledged fact. What myth are we talking about now - that mutts that look like pits are in fact pits?

[NajaNivea]

Just a note: this thread is a little ill-defined, as we've drifted from dog-aggression to shelter euthanization policy. To the extent that there is some purported "myth" regarding pit dog-aggression, the "myth" has been confirmed and entered the realm of acknowledged fact.

No. This is a gross misrepresentation and a very clearly obvious moving of the goal posts.

Pit bulls' dog aggressive history was never under contention, never at any point. Never once (and I thought we'd already hammered this one out) did I suggest that dog aggression as relates to pit-dogs was a "myth". That you are still trying to characterize me as having made this claim causes me to wonder: are you doing it on purpose to be deliberately disingenuous, or am I to believe that you are continually naive? You are happy to strongly defend your own choice of words, so I find it hard to accept that these things are accidents on your part.

The myth referred to by the thread title is the concept that pit-type dogs are inherently more prone to attack a human being--a point which you conceded, or at the very least, backpedaled from.

To be honest, were I to adopt this proposal they all wouldn't need to; just a substantial portion would justify the policy.
You've been given a range of reasons as to why this is not so. I'll definitely be interested in your conclusions.

If you want to continue the discussion, then I'd certainly appreciate follow-up responses in this line:Ok. Let me think about this. I am not walking away from this thread, but I will not be able to hammer out a response - I am not trying to win, I am trying to see what the best solution is. I see the inherrent problem in advocating a policy (the local shelter's no pit policy) when identification is an issue. I will need to read more about issues with phenotype misidentification.

[whole bean]

No. This is a gross misrepresentation and a very clearly obvious moving of the goal posts.

Pits' dog aggressive history was never under contention, never at any point. Never once (and I thought we'd already hammered this one out) did I suggest that dog aggression as relates to pit-dogs was a "myth". That you are still trying to characterize me as having made this claim causes me to wonder: are you doing it on purpose to be deliberately disingenuous, or am I to believe that you are continually naive? You are happy to strongly defend your own choice of words, so I find it hard to accept that these things are accidents on your part.
Lighten up, it was a poorly broadcast joke.

The myth referred to by the thread title is the concept that pit-type dogs are inherently more prone to attack a human being--a point which you conceded, or at the very least, backpedaled from.
Sure, I'll concede it. I never argued otherwise so there's nothing to backpedal from, but we've been over that enough. Still, since we agree they have a history of dog-aggresson, I want to be clear that if there were an effective way to keep pits out of shelters without having a overhwelmingly negative impact on non-aggressive/non-pit mixes, I would advocate it. Why? Because I think responsible breeders and handlers are the best way to rehabilitate a breed.

If you want to continue the discussion, then I'd certainly appreciate follow-up responses in this line:
I'm not sure what this means.

[NajaNivea]

Lighten up, it was a poorly broadcast joke.
Sorry, I'm tired and that one wooshed right on by.

I'm not sure what this means.
Simply that I appreciate that you'd rather take some time to chew it over before responding, and that I'll look forward to your further thoughts on the issue.

[whole bean]

Sorry, I'm tired and that one wooshed right on by.
.
I never said it was a good joke.

[NajaNivea]

I never said it was a good joke.

;)

[gonzomax]

Responding in the appropriate forum, so as to avoid continuing a MPSIMS thread hijack (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540636):



Okay, lovely. First, some follow-up questions:
-What do you define as "tendencies for aggression toward other animals"?
-What breeds carry these tendencies? A handful of examples, or a general type is fine, I'm not necessarily asking for an encyclopedic listing, though the more specific you are the more helpful that will be in understanding your thoughts on the topic.

When I posed the question it was in response to an insinuation that a pit dog's propensity for violence extends to any living thing, cat, dog, human, ponies, whatever. You said "if a dog is both large and prone to attack" but it seems you're not quite willing to tell us exactly what that means. Is a 30lb pit dog "large"? Do the traits which make a dog prone to attack another dog have any connection to the traits which make a dog prone to attack a wolf, a fox, a hog, a rabbit, a rat, or a human being? What does "prone to attack" mean?
Do you know anything about the traits that make a dog prone to attack another dog? There are several of them, and they all function a little differently. Do you know what causes most of these traits?
Hint: it's not genetics.

To answer your question, of course I don't dispute that pit dogs have historically, and in some cases are currently, bred for dog-aggression, and for pit fighting. That's... what "pit dog" means. To elaborate on what I assume you're getting at: this of course means that dog-aggression is a significant concern in the care and handling of pit-type dogs, and that such traits must be addressed with specific and extensive socialization and continuous "proof-training" throughout the dog's life, starting at birth. Does that answer your question?



Yes, it does very much matter. This is the whole basis for the urban legend, the mythology which drives breed-specific legislation efforts, and to which some not-insignificant percentage of the hundreds of thousands of dog bites perpetrated by non-bull-type breeds are in many ways directly attributable.

Dog aggression may be what you "came in [to that thread] about", but you're certainly happy to continue conflating dog-aggressive traits with human-aggressive traits. Would you now have us believe that you're changing your tone, and that you no longer wish to assert that pit dogs are more potentially dangerous to human beings than any other breed?

Along the same lines, in the other thread you mention two other breeds which you refuse to board your dogs in the company of: Rottweilers and German Shepherd Dogs. What leads you to believe these two breeds are more particularly dangerous to your pets than any other breed? Above you (rightfully) assert that a pit dog's fighting background raises concerns. Neither of these two breeds are dogs with pit-fighting histories. What makes them more inherently dangerous in a boarding situation where your expressed concern is dog-aggression?

As a small aside, how do you feel about Dobies? They're the only one of the "four dogs of the apocalypse" which you missed. That you lump these three breeds together as "aggressive" without distinction suggests to me that you fall into the category of folks who "just know these dogs are dangerous... everyone says so, duh" without much further thought than that.
This is the idea I'm trying like hell to get you to explore: what makes you think a GSD is a bigger threat to your pet than, say, a Shar-Pei? Or a mutt of indeterminate phenotype? It's the flip side of the pit/human aggression question.



Did you actually miss the multiple times I asserted (and linked to AVMA and CDC reports justifying) that no breed of dog is more potentially dangerous than any other? And that the only consistent factor in severe dog attacks is not breed or type, but mishandling?
If not, if you read and comprehended those posts, then... where did you get the idea I was arguing that one breed is more dangerous than another, and that these other "more dangerous" breeds lessened the potential risks with dogs of pit-blood background?

The question I posed comes in response to the repeated assertion (not just by you, but several other folks in the thread) that pits are "OMG SRSLY the most dangerous dogs EVAR". That "there has never been a dog like a pit", and so on.

If pit bulls are alleged to be the OMG WORST DOGS EVER, then I'd really, really love to know: what do people suppose makes them so? A game-type pit dog, with a serious, concentrated lineal history for pit fighting is a 35-45lb dog bred to fight other dogs... what makes this animal so absolutely demonic, way over and above a host of other breeds? Why do some people point to pit dogs as murder-minded hellspawn, savagely bent on destruction and willing to rend their owners limb-from-limb with no warning and no provocation whatsoever?
The reason I bring up various guardian breeds is not to suggest that these dogs are more dangerous [thus you shouldn't worry about pit dogs], it's to highlight the ill-logic of drawing a parallel between pit-fighting dogs and people-biting dogs.

As it appears you're now backing out of this characterization, I'm posing the question as a general one, to any poster who wants to seriously contend that pit bulls truly are inherently human-aggressive dogs. You appear to be hinting toward that in the other thread, but I understand now that you're backing down from that characterization.


That's not actually enough. Your posts waffle all over the place, though I see upon further review that you're very careful to never quite come out and say it. You refer to pit dogs as responsible for "carnage" and as having a "terrible rep [for attacking humans]", you refer to those of us citing reliable research showing no breed to be inherently more dangerous than any other as "apologists", and you conflate dog-aggression with human-aggression by casually "mentioning" such things side-by-side. You don't quite get so far as to come right out and say that pit dogs are more likely to harm a human than another breed of dog. You sure as hell tippity-toe all around it, though.

So, direct answer time: do you believe pit dogs to be inherently more dangerous to human beings, or not? Do you conflate a history of breeding for dog-aggression with an increased potential for violence toward other species of animals, including human beings?


You'll need to help me out here. Why is it silly?


And lastly, though I've said this... many times, many ways...

...the main factor in dog attacks (whether it's violence against another dog, a cat, a human, a pony, or any other living thing) is not genetic, but owner-error.
Sure its always owner error. Strange why pits have so many more owner errors. They are far above other breeds in ratio of dog and people attacks. Maybe they just attract error prone owners. But if you encounter a loose pit ,you are more likely to be in trouble than any other breed. That means something.

[NajaNivea]

Sure its always owner error. Strange why pits have so many more owner errors. They are far above other breeds in ratio of dog and people attacks.

Oh come now, gonzomax. There's very little excuse for this. You were in that thread four weeks ago, too. Surely you read this information at least once in the dozen or more times it's been posted. If you disagree with the CDC and AVMA's conclusions on the matter, you'll need to come up with some better justification than "everyone knows".

There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbites.htm)
Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite (http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf).7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.
But if you encounter a loose pit ,you are more likely to be in trouble than any other breed.
Cite?
Hint: shystery dog bite attorneys don't count.

[magellan01]

Any dog can get nasty. And many pit bulls can be wonderful, docile pets. The problem is that when a golden or a setter or a poodle or a collie or a spaniel gets ugly you wind up with some stitches; when a pit bull gets ugly you often wind up with a headline and a funeral.

Pit bulls are not just another dog.

[NajaNivea]

The problem is that when a golden or a setter or a poodle or a collie or a spaniel gets ugly you wind up with some stitches; when a pit bull gets ugly you often wind up with a headline and a funeral.
I realize this is a pervasive belief, but it's very simply not true (http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Working+with+patients+-+technicians/Study-Chihuahuas-bite-vets-most-Lhaso-Apsos-inflic/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/613820).

The severity of injuries by breed differs greatly, however, with American Bulldogs, Dalmatians, Standard Dachshunds, English Bulldogs and Lhasa Apsos delivering the most severe injuries.
...with the caveat that breed reports made by dog bite victims are always suspect. Certainly some of those Lhasas and Dauchshunds might have been pit bulls in disguise. ;)

[magellan01]

I realize this is a pervasive belief, but it's very simply not true (http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Working+with+patients+-+technicians/Study-Chihuahuas-bite-vets-most-Lhaso-Apsos-inflic/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/613820).

Says who? Your "study"?:

The five top breeds involved in bite incidents in the study, which aims to challenge breed bans for dogs like Pit Bulls,

Please. Now why don't you get me all those headlines of golden retrievers killing people.

[NajaNivea]

Says who? Your "study"?:

Please.
Um... not real sure why you think it's "my" study, but okay. I'll bite. Do you have any actual evidence that their results are flawed, or do you just not like them?

Now why don't you get me all those headlines of golden retrievers killing people.

Okay. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/848713/two_dogs_kill_74_year_old_woman.html?cat=9) How about a lab puppy, are they dangerous (http://www.komonews.com/news/national/26032164.html)? How about a pomeranian (http://www.igorilla.com/gorilla/animal/2001/pomeranian.html)?

Any dog is capable of killing a person in the right circumstances. By far the single overwhelmingly consistent factor in fatal dog attacks is not breed or type, but mishandling by the owner.

Now, why don't you get me all those reputable cites which will provide some useful, meaningful support for your claim?

Failing that, since we already know no such cites exist, why don't you start by offering some remotely plausible explanation as to why a medium-sized dog bred to fight other dogs is more inherently dangerous in an attack than any number of much larger, much more powerful, and much more human-aggressive breeds?


Please try to stick to the topic, and please don't try the "just because other dogs are dangerous doesn't excuse a pit dog's potential" quibble, because that's not the claim I'm making.

[gonzomax]

Oh come now, gonzomax. There's very little excuse for this. You were in that thread four weeks ago, too. Surely you read this information at least once in the dozen or more times it's been posted. If you disagree with the CDC and AVMA's conclusions on the matter, you'll need to come up with some better justification than "everyone knows".

There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbites.htm)


Cite?
Hint: shystery dog bite attorneys don't count.

You guys claim on one hand there is no way of knowing whether the dogs are deep in their DNA pit bulls. How do you know they aren't/
Pit owners are like gun lovers loudly proclaiming how safe they are. Then claiming that the incidents were not pits and if they were it couldn't be the breed. Then it has to be the owner. Anything but the breed. Except many studies that show the overwhelming incidents of Pit Bulls on top of the bite lists, were backed by vets or people who are in field like Humane Society techs.. The lists were compiled by pros just to avoid the weak protestations of pit owners.

[NajaNivea]

Then it has to be the owner. Anything but the breed.
Right. It's always the owner. The only consistent factor across the board in dog bite fatality incidents is mismanagement, whether the dog in question was a malamute, a rottweiler, a pit bull, or a pomeranian.

Except many studies that show the overwhelming incidents of Pit Bulls on top of the bite lists, were backed by vets or people who are in field like Humane Society techs.. The lists were compiled by pros just to avoid the weak protestations of pit owners.
Oh yeah, all those reputable cites you keep mentioning? Let's see them. It'll be interesting, because as we've already established, the CDC and the AVMA do not believe any such reputable statistics to exist. They also confidently assert that the single overwhelming common factor is mismanagement of the dog: particularly unattended, free-roaming dogs, and dogs on chains. These factors are consistent, breed is not.

"Weak protestations of pit owners"? Does that include the "weak protestations" of the CDC and AVMA? :confused:

[Blake]

You guys claim on one hand there is no way of knowing whether the dogs are deep in their DNA pit bulls. How do you know they aren't/

This is just an argument from ignorance.

[independentminded]

As been repeatedly noted in such threads as this any dog can be "mean" and Pit Bull type dogs are not especially mean and in fact rank better temperament-wise than many other breeds not considered to be especially dangerous.

As with many things it is the owner that makes most of the difference. A well trained, well socialized AmStaff (for example) is a very pleasant dog and a good family dog.

Problem is the sorts of people who want to look "tough" and want a badass dog are not likely to socialize their dog well and perhaps encourage its more aggressive instincts. More, especially if they want a dog for dog fights, the Pit Bull types of dog are a favorite because they excel at the task better than most other breeds. Also, if a Pit Bull type dog attacks they as a breed tend to be more tenacious. Thus stopping the attack can be more problematic.

These add up to giving those breeds a bad rap which is unfortunate.

There's a reason why pitbulls are often chosen by people who wish to look tough and to own a badass dog; First, it is in their DNA, which is a cross between a regular bulldog and a terrier. Secondly, your sentence about Pit Bull dog attacks being more tenacious, due to a combination of physique and temperament is spot-on. They are much more dangerous due to their very strong beartrap-like jaw, which, while it doesn't lock, it's much stronger and wider and can clamp down even deeper, penetrating the musculature of its victim. Plus, pitbull's noses are built back so they can still breath while they clamp down on their victims (who, btw, can be much larger than they are) and suffocate them.

[gonzomax]

This is just an argument from ignorance.

The identification was made by Humane Society pros. It was not some guy on the street . But I don't expect pit fans to concede anything.
Clifton report
America and Canadian people killed by dogs over 24 year period
264 deaths
137 pits and pit mixes-
67 rotts
Identification by Humane Society pros
Pits are extremely capable of doing damage. when a Pit has a bad moment, people get maimed or killed. You can get hurt by a Dachshund if he gets pissed, but not killed.
American dog fatalities
2005 28 57 percent by Pits
2006 30 53 percent by Pits
2007 35 57 percent by Pits
2008 23 65 percent by pits

When someone gets killed by a dog, they have dog professionals in charge.

[NajaNivea]

There's a reason why pitbulls are often chosen by people who wish to look tough and to own a badass dog; First, it is in their DNA, which is a cross between a regular bulldog and a terrier. Secondly, your sentence about Pit Bull dog attacks being more tenacious, due to a combination of physique and temperament is spot-on. They are much more dangerous due to their very strong beartrap-like jaw, which, while it doesn't lock, it's much stronger and wider and can clamp down even deeper, penetrating the musculature of its victim. Plus, pitbull's noses are built back so they can still breath while they clamp down on their victims (who, btw, can be much larger than they are) and suffocate them.
Nonsense. Your whole post reads like a laundry list of pit bull myths (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf). At least you got the "no locking jaw" bit right.
Let's take this piece by piece, shall we? First off, are you... serious? "'Badass' is in their DNA, which is a cross between a regular bulldog and a terrier"? Why is a bulldog and terrier cross badass down to their DNA in a way that, say, a 100lb dog bred to attack human beings is not? Why would a bulldog and terrier mix be more fundamentally badass than, oh, I don't know, a dog bred to fight wolves?

Now, as for their "very strong beartrap-like jaw", is it more beartrap-like than the jaws of these dogs (http://dogbreedinfo.com/images18/BlackMouthCurTerrellBMCur1.JPG), bred to clamp down on 500lb wild boar and not let go 'til death do us part? Are their jaws bigger and stronger, their noses more recessed than these dogs (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_21/1127057641POm78L.jpg), mastiffs? Are their heads stronger and wider than all of these dogs (http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html)? Because a fair number of those breeds are two to three times as large as pit dogs, with in some cases identically-shaped heads. How come a pit bull's head is somehow built for maximum carnage, and this dog's (http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/images15/Bullmastiff16montholdbrindledoodoo.JPG) is not?
You assert that a pit dog's nose is "built back", bullshit. Prognasthism is a trait of brachycephalic dogs like Boxers and Bulldogs. The UKC standard (http://www.apbtconformation.com/ukcstandard.htm) for pit dogs calls for an underbite as a serious fault. See the dog in that photo? Does his nose look "set back" to you? Here are very famous (http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/calikeith/380-1.jpg) historic pit dogs (http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/calikeith/Chinaman.jpg). Do their noses look "set back" to you?

Contrary to the unmitigated urban legend crap spewed in your post, pit dogs do not have a bite any stronger than any other breed of dog, and though they are tenacious, they are no more tenacious than any other high-drive working breed. There is no reputable research to support a claim that a pit dog has a bite force higher than any other breed. Dr. Barr of National Geographic did a small test to measure relative bite force in different species of animals, and though the sample sizes are too small for definitive answers, the results were as follows:
Crocodiles: 2,500lbs PSI
Hyenas: 1000lbs
Snapping Turtles: 1000lbs
Lions: 600lbs
White Sharks: 600lbs
The three breeds of dogs tested, a GSD, a Rottweiler, and an APBT averaged 320lbs PSI. The pit dog came in last of the three breeds tested.



The identification was made by Humane Society pros. It was not some guy on the street . But I don't expect pit fans to concede anything.
Clifton report...
When someone gets killed by a dog, they have dog professionals in charge.

Haha, you mean, this Humane Society, the one that puts out this informational flyer (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)?
"When someone gets killed by a dog, they have dog professionals in charge"? What does that mean?

Please try to keep up, gonzomax. The Clifton report has been debunked ad nauseum ten ways to Tuesday in every pit thread that comes along.
Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.Emphasis mine.

[NajaNivea]

The identification was made by Humane Society pros. It was not some guy on the street .

...Wait, what? I just realized what you were saying here. Dogs in the Clifton report weren't identified by "Humane Society pros", they were identified by the dog bite victims themselves. That's what makes it such utterly useless crap.

Furthermore, "Humane Society pros" are no better at identifying mixed-breed dogs by phenotype than anyone else. In fact, they fail with rates we'd call "gross incompetence" (http://www.animallawcoalition.com/breed-bans/article/1008) in any other field.
A short report in press in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science indicates low agreement between the identification of breeds of dogs by adoption agencies and DNA identification.7 The dogs in this study were of unknown parentage and had been acquired from adoption agencies. In only a quarter of these dogs was at least one of the breeds proposed by the adoption agencies also detected as a predominant breed by DNA analysis. (Predominant breeds were defined as those comprised of the highest percentage of a DNA breed make-up.) In 87.5% of the adopted dogs, breeds were identified by DNA analyses that were not proposed by the adoption agencies. A breed must have been detected at a minimum of 12.5% of a dog's make-up to be reported in the DNA analysis.7. V. Voith, E. Ingram, K Mitsouras, et al, "Comparison of Adoption Agency Identification and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, July 2009.

[NajaNivea]

Oh, and just as a shoutout to LHOD who may or may not be lurking, if you want to come on in and try your "nuanced argument" again, I'd be more than happy to demonstrate a second time why your claims are unsupported by science... though I think we did a pretty thorough job of it four weeks ago (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=530560).
Here, for example, are my last (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11678467&postcount=213) few (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11679734&postcount=216) responses to you (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11687333&postcount=231), which garnered no response then.

I bring this up because in the parent thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11812083&postcount=142), LHOD expressed the feeling that I had dismissed his claims out of hand, or had woefully misunderstood him. I'd hate to think I had not done my job adequately, so rest assured LHOD I'm absolutely more than happy to revisit and explore the delicate nuances of your argument, any time you like.

[gonzomax]

Actually Pit owners would debunk the Clifton Report because it disagrees with their emotionally held beliefs. I recognize that pit owners will concede nothing but the truth is there are some characteristics of pits that appeal to people who should not have any dog. They buy them, breed them, mistreat them and unleash them on the neighborhood. Would a normal well treated pit be dangerous. Maybe not, but i can not tel, the difference. Sure they are big and strong and fearless. But the ones I encounter running free are not well trained pets. The ones I meet in the park are not being controlled by the owners. That is the facts that we deal with. The one we encounter may well be a loose fighting dog. If we see a beagle running free ,our first reaction is to see if we can help it. A loose pit will be shunned for logical personal safety reasons. It is simply not the same thing. A loose rott will engender the same reaction. A dog that is capable of doing severe damage will scare you if it is loose. It is a correct reaction .

[Contrapuntal]

Actually Pit owners would debunk the Clifton Report because it disagrees with their emotionally held beliefs. Even conceding your point, what difference does it make why something is debunked? Do you know what debunk means?

The Clifton report is useless. There is no way to verify the identifications, and no way to know how large the population of specific dog breeds is.

[NajaNivea]

Is the AVMA controlled by a secret cabal of pit owners? What about the CDC?

As for the rest of your post, you may be surprised to hear that I agree with it in its (near) entirety. The one point of contention I have is with your ultimate conclusion... that this is somehow the fault of the breed of the dog. You spent the entire post describing all the behaviors to which very nearly all severe and fatal dog attacks are directly attributable, summed up: "people who should not have any dog". These same people would not be raising stable, well-socialized, obedience trained huskies or Australian shepherd mixes, either, would not be keeping them contained and under control, or spay and neuter them.
This is like claiming some particular type of car is dangerous because the types of people who tend to like them drive them recklessly.

We believe the same things about loose, unattended, poorly socialized and untrained dogs. The main difference between you and me is that I am every bit as cautious about handling a loose Husky or Dauchshund or Cocker Spaniel, because I don't fool myself about the potential these dogs have to bite, or to inflict damage if they do. I don't know if that stray is half Chow and potentially very volatile, or with herding breed background and thus potentially inclined to be mouthy or snappish... because I can't read its DNA, nor do I know anything about its particular history, whether it's been socialized or not, how reactive it might be in stressful situations, and so on and so forth.

I just have a lot more experience handling random-source dogs than most people. In any case, the consistent factor overall in the vast, overwhelming majority of dog bite cases is not that it is "scary looking". The consistent factor is mismanagement. Additionally, 80% of bites inflicted upon children were caused by either the family dog, or a friend's dog. This brings us back around to the discussion about how you cannot relax your vigilance, even around friendly, stable, familiar dogs (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11683938&postcount=224).

Dog bites are a big problem. Look at the numbers (http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/biteprevention.html):

* About 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year.
* Almost one in five of those who are bitten :a total of 885,000: require medical attention for dog bite-related injuries.
* In 2006, more than 31,000 people underwent reconstructive surgery as a result of being bitten by dogs.

Dog bite fatalities are so statistically insignificant as to be considered a "freak occurrence". According to the CDC: "Each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs. These bites result in approximately 16 fatalities; about 0.0002 percent of the total number of people bitten." Your inclination to casually handle a stray beagle is far... far more likely to get you injured than your concerns over a freak pit bull mauling. Beagles are famously "bitey" dogs. Of course it's natural to be fearful of a dog capable of doing severe damage, the catch is... you're pointing to the least important factor in using phenotype to determine whether or not a dog is "capable of doing severe damage".

[whole bean]

Beagles are famously "bitey" dogs.
[Homer Simpson] I call the big one "Bitey." [/Homer Simpson]

[Whack-a-Mole]

@NajaNivea

Just curious.

If a Pit Bull is really no more aggressive or dangerous than any other breed (or at least sizeable breed) then why are Pits a favorite for the dog fighting ring?

Seems to me people pick the best tool for the job. If Pits did not have some advantage in physique, aggression, tenacity and so on then why would they be chosen more often than not?

[NajaNivea]

@NajaNivea

Just curious.

If a Pit Bull is really no more aggressive or dangerous than any other breed (or at least sizeable breed) then why are Pits a favorite for the dog fighting ring?

Seems to me people pick the best tool for the job. If Pits did not have some advantage in physique, aggression, tenacity and so on then why would they be chosen more often than not?

You're conflating dog aggression with human-targeted aggression. They are two very different things. Pits are great at fighting other dogs, but not so much at fighting people.

You are correct that people pick the best tools for the job. That's why when people want a good property guardian, personal protection dog, or police (military, etc) dog, that is to say, a dog which will be required to demonstrate suspicion of, and ultimately chase and bite human beings, they choose molossoid-types or herding (including cattle-droving) breeds, depending on the circumstances.

There's a reason they don't use bull-breeds. Mostly it's because for hundreds of years they've been heavily pressured against human-aggressive traits, and thus they are terrible at these jobs. It's possible for a pit dog to, for example, compete in Schutzhund or personal-protection type sports, but they're not very good at it because they're just not all that inclined to chase and bite people--that wasn't ever their job. Similarly, you might be able to train a golden retriever for the job, they're smart enough and it has been done, but they're just not very good at it.

Dog aggression stems from more than one source. Partly it's genetic, but much of it comes from terrible socialization. I spend some time talking about the trait of tenacity (commonly called "gameness" in pit dogs) as well as where dog aggression comes from in this post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11675915&postcount=152).
For context, because I know you didn't allege it, all the talk about "psychosis" was in response to LHOD's earlier claim.

So it's true, pits are more dog aggressive than other dogs, a point addressed here on page one. However, dog aggression does not equate to added risk of human-targeted aggression. As far as the "physique" issue goes... well, I think I've addressed that pretty thoroughly already. There are lots of dogs with big, broad heads and muscular bods, and many much larger, and more physically powerful than a pit dog.

[NajaNivea]

About the idea of "dog fighting" equating "human aggression", my theory on this is simply that for most of us in normal society, dog fighting is an utterly reprehensible activity... thus in some minds the dogs involved must be just as reprehensible. I think for a lot of people it's easy to extend that feeling to the belief that a pit dog must then be inclined toward any range of horrific, anti-social behaviors, but a pit dog is no more apt to turn his drive for killing a dog into human aggression, than a foxhound is to turn his drive for killing a fox in the same direction. They're different drives entirely.

I talked a bit in the last post about purposeful training for human-targeted aggression, and which breeds take to that job most readily. When it comes to the type of "aggression" we're talking about, dog bite incidents, well, there are a lot of reasons why dogs bite, and most of them aren't due to "aggression", per se.

[gonzomax]

Is the AVMA controlled by a secret cabal of pit owners? What about the CDC?

As for the rest of your post, you may be surprised to hear that I agree with it in its (near) entirety. The one point of contention I have is with your ultimate conclusion... that this is somehow the fault of the breed of the dog. You spent the entire post describing all the behaviors to which very nearly all severe and fatal dog attacks are directly attributable, summed up: "people who should not have any dog". These same people would not be raising stable, well-socialized, obedience trained huskies or Australian shepherd mixes, either, would not be keeping them contained and under control, or spay and neuter them.
This is like claiming some particular type of car is dangerous because the types of people who tend to like them drive them recklessly.

We believe the same things about loose, unattended, poorly socialized and untrained dogs. The main difference between you and me is that I am every bit as cautious about handling a loose Husky or Dauchshund or Cocker Spaniel, because I don't fool myself about the potential these dogs have to bite, or to inflict damage if they do. I don't know if that stray is half Chow and potentially very volatile, or with herding breed background and thus potentially inclined to be mouthy or snappish... because I can't read its DNA, nor do I know anything about its particular history, whether it's been socialized or not, how reactive it might be in stressful situations, and so on and so forth.

I just have a lot more experience handling random-source dogs than most people. In any case, the consistent factor overall in the vast, overwhelming majority of dog bite cases is not that it is "scary looking". The consistent factor is mismanagement. Additionally, 80% of bites inflicted upon children were caused by either the family dog, or a friend's dog. This brings us back around to the discussion about how you cannot relax your vigilance, even around friendly, stable, familiar dogs (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11683938&postcount=224).

Dog bites are a big problem. Look at the numbers (http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/biteprevention.html):

* About 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year.
* Almost one in five of those who are bitten :a total of 885,000: require medical attention for dog bite-related injuries.
* In 2006, more than 31,000 people underwent reconstructive surgery as a result of being bitten by dogs.

Dog bite fatalities are so statistically insignificant as to be considered a "freak occurrence". According to the CDC: "Each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs. These bites result in approximately 16 fatalities; about 0.0002 percent of the total number of people bitten." Your inclination to casually handle a stray beagle is far... far more likely to get you injured than your concerns over a freak pit bull mauling. Beagles are famously "bitey" dogs. Of course it's natural to be fearful of a dog capable of doing severe damage, the catch is... you're pointing to the least important factor in using phenotype to determine whether or not a dog is "capable of doing severe damage".

I could respond that I am on my 4th and 5th beagle right now and they never bit anybody. But that is a poor argument because I can not speak for all beagles. That is why the anecdotal stories of posters about their perfect pits is a waste. Stats are against you. Pits are the the worst biters around.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/st-louis-crime-beat/2009/11/02/alton-cops-kill-pit-bull-wound-second-taser-a-third/ This is practically a daily story in the news. In Detroit there are so many pits used in fighting ,the Humane Society and the cops put them down.

[NajaNivea]

I could respond that I am on my 4th and 5th beagle right now and they never bit anybody. But that is a poor argument because I can not speak for all beagles. That is why the anecdotal stories of posters about their perfect pits is a waste. Stats are against you. Pits are the the worst biters around.

Sigh. I guess sometimes you just have to throw in the towel. Some ignorance refuses to be fought.

Just out of curiosity, where in any of this discussion have I relied on "anecdotal stories of posters about their perfect pits" as evidence to support my claims?

Also, I'm still waiting for an answer to the question on whether the CDC and American Veterinary Medical Association are secretly controlled by the pit bull cabal, maybe the dog-fighting branch of the Illuminati? Just wonderin'.

[gonzomax]

http://lemonzoo.com/funny_videos/20008/Invincible_pit_bull.html This does not happen either.

[NajaNivea]

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/st-louis-crime-beat/2009/11/02/alton-cops-kill-pit-bull-wound-second-taser-a-third/ This is practically a daily story in the news.

Neither officer was injured.

Waldrup said the owner of the dogs, 22-year-old Jason Edwards, would be cited for allowing dogs to roam without restraint, for keeping more than the three dogs allowed by city ordinance and for failure to obtain required vaccinations and city licenses for the animals.

Waldrup said Edwards is a convicted felon

Oh yeah, this sounds like a real horror-show, I hope those cops make it out of the hospital with some physical capabilities left.
That guy Edwards sounds like a model dog owner, these must absolutely have been savage killing beasts, and despite their owner's extensive efforts at socialization and obedience training, and despite his every effort to keep the dogs properly contained, the dogs just went loco through no fault of his. It's in their DNA, you know.

:rolleyes:

[NajaNivea]

http://lemonzoo.com/funny_videos/20008/Invincible_pit_bull.html This does not happen either.
This proves that pit bulls are naturally dangerous just about as well as this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75GEzD6wh8o) proves that all pit dogs are adorable schmoopie-pies. Or, for that matter, that a video of an Iraqi decapitating an American proves that all Iraqis are naturally inclined to go around lopping people's heads off.

Which is to say, not at all.

[Magiver]

Dr. Barr of National Geographic did a small test to measure relative bite force in different species of animals, and though the sample sizes are too small for definitive answers, the results were as follows:
Crocodiles: 2,500lbs PSI
Hyenas: 1000lbs
Snapping Turtles: 1000lbs
Lions: 600lbs
White Sharks: 600lbs
The three breeds of dogs tested, a GSD, a Rottweiler, and an APBT averaged 320lbs PSI. The pit dog came in last of the three breeds tested.

I'm Not sure what crocodiles or sharks have to do with this debate but you're comparing a pit bull against 2 other dogs in an attempt to downplay the ability of the dog to rip and tear flesh. The ability is not in question.

What makes this more dangerous than larger and more powerful breeds is the engrained behavior to go off without warning. Even the mildest pit-bull can exhibit this behavior and it shows up in the percentage of serious attacks. I've seen this behavior in puppies and I've seen it in dogs I would judge cowardly. When a pit bull goes off, it is a dramatic change of behavior compared to other breeds.

How is this manifested in real life? It is manifested by unforeseen attacks when young children inadvertently trigger this behavior in a familiar setting or a stranger is attacked by a dog as he or she walks by. It is not the reality that these dogs are continuously dangerous, it is the reality that they are more likely than other breeds to attack without apparent warning.

[dropzone]

How is this manifested in real life? It is manifested by unforeseen attacks when young children inadvertently trigger this behavior in a familiar setting or a stranger is attacked by a dog as he or she walks by. It is not the reality that these dogs are continuously dangerous, it is the reality that they are more likely than other breeds to attack without apparent warning. This is similar to why dogs get skunked: When they feel threatened skunks drop to their front elbows and hop back and forth on their hind legs before they spray. Dogs, OTOH, when they want to entice another dog to play, drop to their front elbows and hop back and forth on their hind legs before they lunge playfully. It's a mistranslation. The kids don't speak Dog and a misinterpretation is likely.

[NajaNivea]

What makes this more dangerous than larger and more powerful breeds is the engrained behavior to go off without warning.
Urban Legend #2. (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)

Even the mildest pit-bull can exhibit this behavior and it shows up in the percentage of serious attacks.
Urban Legend #1 (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)

I've seen this behavior in puppies and I've seen it in dogs I would judge cowardly.
I've seen similar behavior in all breeds of dogs, and I've seen a whole lot more fear-biting Dalmations than I have pit dogs. In any case, fear-biting is not genetic, it's a consequence of poor socialization.

When a pit bull goes off, it is a dramatic change of behavior compared to other breeds.
Urban Legend #5 (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)

How is this manifested in real life? It is manifested by unforeseen attacks when young children inadvertently trigger this behavior in a familiar setting or a stranger is attacked by a dog as he or she walks by.
I'm confused. Are we talking about fear biting behavior, or unprovoked (dominance-type) aggression? Are you suggesting they're interchangeable concepts..? Or that pits are equally notoriously common biters because as a breed they're fearful and cowardly, and also because they're hyper-aggressive? I'm having a hard time following your reasoning, here.
Are you trying to tell me that you truly believe an overwhelming percentage of that 4.7 million bite incidents per year involve pit bull dogs? If they're such savage killers, why are there only a very small handful of fatalities a year attributed to them, when according to you, multiple millions of them are roaming every American neighborhood, attacking savagely without provocation in unOgly numbers?
The thing is, you're right about young children inadvertently triggering biting behavior, but you're wrong about the breed correlation. Children don't have any better ability to communicate with a fear-biting sheltie than they do a fear-biting pit.

It is not the reality that these dogs are continuously dangerous, it is the reality that they are more likely than other breeds to attack without apparent warning.
Oh look, our old pal, Urban Legend #2 (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)! It had been so long.

[Whack-a-Mole]

I have a question about bite force.

I have grown up with German Shepherds (or Shiloh Shepherds which is nearly the same thing) my whole life. To be sure they can bite hard and you do not want to be on the receiving end of a serious GSD bite.

That said, looking at the video linked earlier with the Pit Bull licking a baby bunny, I cannot help but be struck by the massive musculature in that dog's head and jaws. My GSDs, powerful as they could be, were nowhere near muscled like that.

It just seems amazing to me to think my GSD has a more powerful bite.

Or is it the reverse and perhaps where the "locking jaw" thing comes from? They of course do not have a locking jaw but all those muscles makes it especially difficult to pry the dog's jaws off something it does not want to let go of.

Dunno...I cannot imagine all that muscle is just show and achieves nothing.

[NajaNivea]

I'm Not sure what crocodiles or sharks have to do with this debate but you're comparing a pit bull against 2 other dogs in an attempt to downplay the ability of the dog to rip and tear flesh.
Actually, that's not why I posted it at all. I posted it in response to the contention that they have a massively more powerful bite than other breeds of dogs.
The rest of the stats were just to forestall the inevitable "OMG pits have 348946093lbs PSI bite power!!!" urban legend, because (believe it or not) plenty of people in the world believe that a pit dog can bite with more force than a crocodile or a shark.

I don't downplay the ability of any dog to rip and tear flesh, which is a particular difference between experienced dog handlers and the average public, who frequently think a lab couldn't hurt a flea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Dinoire).

[NajaNivea]

Or is it the reverse and perhaps where the "locking jaw" thing comes from? They of course do not have a locking jaw but all those muscles makes it especially difficult to pry the dog's jaws off something it does not want to let go of.

Dunno...I cannot imagine all that muscle is just show and achieves nothing.

Sure they have a strong bite, and some have more muscle-y jaws than others. They have no more muscle and no physically stronger a bite than most of these breeds (http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html). Also, AmStaffs' "braincase", the part of the skull between their ears and from stop to occiput is proportionally much wider than their muzzle. Because Sharky's muzzle is small, it makes the rest of his skull look proportionately massive. An APBT's muzzle is broader and a little longer, fading more gradually into the skull, like so (http://z.about.com/d/dogs/1/7/O/n/1/peanut_apbt_pp.jpg) --it significantly reduces the "bulging muscle" effect around the cheeks.

[gonzomax]

I can show pit bull bites ,pictures and stories without end. If you can match me with as many with other dogs, I will be convinced Pits are just regular dogs. But you can not. If you watch the news you see stories quite often of pits attacking postal workers, cops and kids. It is a common story. They just are not regular dogs. Sorry.

[NajaNivea]

I should say that I don't know that Sharky's of AmStaff background, but of the spectrum of pit-type dogs, that "bulging jaw muscle" effect is more pronounced (http://www.dogencyclopedia.org/stradfford%20terrrier.JPG) in some types of pit dogs than others (http://animal-world.com/dogs/Terrier-Dog-Breeds/images/RedNosedAmericanPitBullTerrierWDT_AcD110.jpg) because of the differences in skull conformation I described.

[NajaNivea]

I can show pit bull bites ,pictures and stories without end. If you can match me with as many with other dogs, I will be convinced Pits are just regular dogs. But you can not. If you watch the news you see stories quite often of pits attacking postal workers, cops and kids. It is a common story. They just are not regular dogs. Sorry.
I can show examples of African American people committing crimes without end, in fact, a huge percentage of convicts and prisoners in our system are African-American. If you can match me with as many suburban white teenagers committing crimes, I will be convinced Black people are just regular people. But you can not. If you watch the news you see stories quite often of black people committing crimes. It's a common story. They're just not regular people. Sorry.


See how that works? There are lots of reasons why crimes committed by thug-looking guys get reported more frequently than crimes committed by geeky white kids. There are lots of reasons why urban African American teenagers may be more likely to end up in the prison system. All are social and economic. None are genetic.


Oh, and hey, what about that secret Pit Bull Cabal that runs the CDC? I was thinking, maybe the Rockefellers are the ones who started it, and maybe they purposely genetically engineered pit dogs to bite people, and maybe they injected all pit dogs with H1N1 so that when they bite they can secretly spread the global depopulation pandemic. Also, maybe they shoot bees out of their mouth when they bark.

[Whack-a-Mole]

I should say that I don't know that Sharky's of AmStaff background, but of the spectrum of pit-type dogs, that "bulging jaw muscle" effect is more pronounced (http://www.dogencyclopedia.org/stradfford%20terrrier.JPG) in some types of pit dogs than others (http://animal-world.com/dogs/Terrier-Dog-Breeds/images/RedNosedAmericanPitBullTerrierWDT_AcD110.jpg) because of the differences in skull conformation I described.

Not sure you can put it all down to essentially an optical illusion. I can see how head/muzzle shape can change the impression of this to an extent. However, I have played with a Sharky-like dog before and certainly played with my GSDs. If you grab my GSD's head and rub her cheeks there is just not the sense of muscle there that there is in the Sharky-like dog. The muscle is there in both of course, but the sense of mass is distinctly different.

Maybe it is the mind playing tricks because it "looks" like that so we establish a cognitive bias. Not so sure though...I have worked in animal shelters and been around my share of various breeds. Sure seems different.

[NajaNivea]

Not sure you can put it all down to essentially an optical illusion. I can see how head/muzzle shape can change the impression of this to an extent. However, I have played with a Sharky-like dog before and certainly played with my GSDs. If you grab my GSD's head and rub her cheeks there is just not the sense of muscle there that there is in the Sharky-like dog. The muscle is there in both of course, but the sense of mass is distinctly different.

Maybe it is the mind playing tricks because it "looks" like that so we establish a cognitive bias. Not so sure though...I have worked in animal shelters and been around my share of various breeds. Sure seems different.

Heh. I didn't "put it all down to essentially an optical illusion". Did you miss my first sentence? Not all pit dogs have equal muscling around the jaws, and there are quite a few breeds with equal or greater skull musculature. Additionally, in some pit dogs the visual effect is more pronounced than in others, because of the differences in skull conformation I described.

[Magiver]

Actually, that's not why I posted it at all. I posted it in response to the contention that they have a massively more powerful bite than other breeds of dogs.
The rest of the stats were just to forestall the inevitable "OMG pits have 348946093lbs PSI bite power!!!" urban legend, because (believe it or not) plenty of people in the world believe that a pit dog can bite with more force than a crocodile or a shark.

I don't downplay the ability of any dog to rip and tear flesh, which is a particular difference between experienced dog handlers and the average public, who frequently think a lab couldn't hurt a flea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Dinoire). Here lies the crux of the thread. Your post was not of a dog attack by a lab but of one trying to help (or so the family says - insert grain of salt here).

I can only react to my personal observations and statistics. There is no way in hell I would leave a toddler alone with a pit bull no matter how loveable it appears to be. Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes go off and every time I'm amazed at both the lack of warning and the severity of the attack. It's not the only breed I have reservations about but it's pretty high on the list.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Oh, and just as a shoutout to LHOD who may or may not be lurking.
Heh, just saw this. Your well-poisoning, irrational, misrepresentational method of argument, coupled with a terminal case of prolix writing and a repulsive conflation of dog breeds with human races, makes me utterly unwilling to engage with you.

[NajaNivea]

Here lies the crux of the thread. Your post was not of a dog attack by a lab but of one trying to help (or so the family says - insert grain of salt here).
...What? You... don't consider a woman having her face ripped off a "dog attack"? If a pit bull was "just trying to help" and ripped someone's face off, would that not be a "dog attack" either?
If the dog doesn't think it's doing anything wrong, that excuses ripping a person's face off? Does that go for a border collie that mauls a kid in the face because it thinks it has the right to correct and school the child for trying to take its toy away?
What do you think your reaction would be, if the situations were reversed, the dog in question was a pit bull, and I was trying to excuse a face being ripped off because "the dog didn't mean it"?

I can only react to my personal observations and statistics. There is no way in hell I would leave a toddler alone with a pit bull no matter how loveable it appears to be. Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes go off and every time I'm amazed at both the lack of warning and the severity of the attack. It's not the only breed I have reservations about but it's pretty high on the list.

You can only react to your personal observations and statistics? The CDC's numbers and advice are meaningless to you, personal anecdotes and observations are more reliable now? Somehow I thought I'd started this thread in GD.

There is no way in hell I would leave a todder alone with any dog, no matter how loveable it appears to be. This is a particular difference between people with lots of experience handling dogs, and the general public, who frequently think a husky couldn't hurt a flea (http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/sep/24/coroner-rules-death-of-baby-killed-by-dog-was/). Personally, I don't much care that the dog didn't "mean" to attack, and only thought it was playing with a toy. I don't downplay severe and fatal dog attacks just because they're perpetrated by a PC breed.

You are certainly free to carry an irrational fear of pit dogs, no quibble there, but if you think any breed of dog is de facto "safe" with children, you're putting your kids at serious risk. By all means, be cautious of pit dogs. Be cautious of all dogs.

Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes go off and every time I'm amazed at both the lack of warning and the severity of the attack.
Really? You've personally been witness to countless severe pit bull maulings? How fascinating. Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes not go off, and every time I'm amazed at what nice dogs they are. See how that works?

Continued insistence on urban legend #2 (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf) doesn't make it any more true. That you, personally, are a crappy interpreter of canine behavior doesn't actually give us any reliable evidence to work on.

[NajaNivea]

Heh, just saw this. Your well-poisoning, irrational, misrepresentational method of argument, coupled with a terminal case of prolix writing, makes me utterly unwilling to engage with you.

And your name-calling and blind inability to comprehend your own argument doesn't make me any more impressed with your mental capabilities.

Someone once said something about mental schema... what was it..? I don't remember, something about how hard it is sometimes to break down, but when those breakthroughs happen... man, education is awesome.

[NajaNivea]

Sorry, that first comment was an insult, and this isn't the forum for that.

Striking that from the record, your name-calling and refusal to engage still doesn't make your argument any more impressive, or factually correct.

[dropzone]

The SDMB can be slanted, and in my years here I've come to understand that, if the ratio of posts by one poster vs disagreeing posters exceeds 1:2, the first poster is possibly a crackpot. In this thread the ratio between NajaNivea and all her detractors is around 4:1. She may be a person who knows her topic better than others, but the odds are against it.

[NajaNivea]

The SDMB can be slanted, and in my years here I've come to understand that, if the ratio of posts by one poster vs disagreeing posters exceeds 1:2, the first poster is possibly a crackpot. In this thread the ratio between NajaNivea and all her detractors is around 4:1. She may be a person who knows her topic better than others, but the odds are against it.

That's interesting. Are you meaning to suggest I'm not what I represent myself to be?
The odds are against it, or the evidence? Do you have any evidence, or any reasonable support for your contention that I'm a liar or a nutcase? Any evidence to contradict anything I've said? Because your accusation pretty goddamned offensive.

[NajaNivea]

Look, sorry if my willingness to respond to all comers bothers you, but assuming that we're here to fight ignorance, and seeing a multitude of it spewing forth on this topic kinda gets me. It's one I happen to be very experienced in, knowledgeable and passionate about. Do you need my resume?
That others aren't in here fighting the good fight against ignorance on the matter doesn't bother me all that much, as I don't appear to be having much difficulty holding up my end of the debate.
When someone, anyone comes along to refute the CDC and AVMA reports with better, more reliable evidence, or for that matter comes along to refute anything I've said as it pertains to canine behavior and aggression with better, more reliable evidence, then I'll start feeling bad about my willingness to stand behind reason and not let this urban legend bullshit go unchallenged just because it makes me unpopular with folks who want to keep believing it.
Otherwise, just like LHOD, your name-calling doesn't change the facts of the discussion; it says more about you than me.

[Magiver]

Really? You've personally been witness to countless severe pit bull maulings? How fascinating. Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes not go off, and every time I'm amazed at what nice dogs they are. See how that works?

Yes, I've seen pit bulls go off many times. It was with other dogs and for no apparent reason. The one event I missed seeing firsthand was with a person whom I specifically warned and her arm was shredded in the attack.

As has been posted already, the statistics of fatalities in dog attacks is overwhelmingly due to Pit Bulls and not Dachshunds.

[NajaNivea]

Yes, I've seen pit bulls go off many times. It was with other dogs and for no apparent reason. The one event I missed seeing firsthand was with a person whom I specifically warned and her arm was shredded in the attack.

As has been posted already, the statistics of fatalities in dog attacks is overwhelmingly due to Pit Bulls and not Dachshunds.
So... all these horrific mauling incidents you were personally witness to, was the "going off" directed at other dogs, or at people? Again, that you are a shitty interpreter of canine body language does not actually provide us with any appreciable evidence to support your claim.

As has been posted already:

Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite. (http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf)7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.

Now, if you want to convince me that you know more about dog aggression than the American Veterinary Medical Association, you're going to need to come up with a better argument then "because I think so".

Continued repetition does not make Urban Legends #1 and 2 (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf) any more true.

[NajaNivea]

Yes, I've seen pit bulls go off many times.
And, you know, anecdotes != data. I've handled easily many thousands of random-source dogs, a large plurality of them "pit-type". The dogs that came through our facility were not just "random-source" dogs, but the dogs deemed "unadoptable" by city and county shelters, frequently due to bite histories or aggression complaints against them.
Suffice it to say, my experiences do not tally with yours... but then again, anecdotes != data. On the other hand, I find it easy to believe the AVMA, because my experiences do tally with what they have to say on the subject. That's a little part of why I find all this so mind-boggling. "Because I think so" or "because everyone says so" as a debate platform usually gets folks laughed out of threads around here.

[MrDibble]

So many pictures of cute pups. Must resist urge to go home and roll on floor with my Staffies.

I know two "pit bulls" who are getting extra biscuits this afternoon, from my 5 y.o.

[Magiver]

And, you know, anecdotes != data. . My observations coincide with the data listed above showing a relationship between the breed in relation to people killed by dogs.

[Magiver]

So... all these horrific mauling incidents you were personally witness to, was the "going off" directed at other dogs, or at people? Again, that you are a shitty interpreter of canine body language does not actually provide us with any appreciable evidence to support your claim.
It has nothing to do with my interpretation of "canine body language". A dog attacking another dog or a person is not an interpretation, it's an event.

If you're referring to canine body language leading up to the event then you must be Dr. Dolittle and know more than the dogs who were attacked because they missed the interpretation too. If you expect people to know more about dogs than other dogs then you'll have to make a case for it.

You remind me of Timothy Treadwell and his all-consuming passion for nature.

[NajaNivea]

My observations coincide with the data listed above showing a relationship between the breed in relation to people killed by dogs.

So... I don't get it.

What about this sentence do you not understand? Are the words too big or...?
Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite. (http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf)

[NajaNivea]

It has nothing to do with my interpretation of "canine body language". A dog attacking another dog or a person is not an interpretation, it's an event.
Oh, so you were talking about dog aggression... which as a trait of pit dogs has never at any point been under contention.

If you're referring to canine body language leading up to the event then you must be Dr. Dolittle and know more than the dogs who were attacked because they missed the interpretation too.
Anecdotes != data

You remind me of Jenny McCarthy, and her all-consuming hatred of vaccines based on her own personal experiences and statistics, the CDC be damned.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

The SDMB can be slanted, and in my years here I've come to understand that, if the ratio of posts by one poster vs disagreeing posters exceeds 1:2, the first poster is possibly a crackpot. In this thread the ratio between NajaNivea and all her detractors is around 4:1. She may be a person who knows her topic better than others, but the odds are against it.Indeed. It's also an indication that the first poster believes quantity is a fair substitute for quality.

[NajaNivea]

Indeed. It's also an indication that the first poster believes quantity is a fair substitute for quality.
Sometimes, it's ad nauseum repetition for the benefit of posters who believe urban legends are a fair substitute for fact.
I don't know about your neck of the woods, where maybe it's okay to turn to ad hoc in place of reason, but where I come from, that's a clear indication you've got nothing left. Walking away from an argument after being called on bringing up a shyster as "evidence" and then calling me names isn't exactly a shining recommendation for your own debate style, big guy.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Sometimes, it's ad nauseum repetition for the benefit of posters who believe urban legends are a fair substitute for fact.
I don't know about your neck of the woods, where maybe it's okay to turn to ad hoc in place of reason, but where I come from, that's a clear indication you've got nothing left. Walking away from an argument after being called on bringing up a shyster as "evidence" and then calling me names isn't exactly a shining recommendation for your own debate style, big guy.
Oh, I'm absolutely not recommending my debate style here: I'm not debating you here, after all. I'll let my debate style recommend itself elsewhere, when I actually am debating someone. But you called me out here, so I'm responding to that. I don't consider your "debate" style to be worthy of response: you burned me already with misrepresentational, well-poisoning, irrational, offensive posts in the previous thread, and I learned my lesson there. I'll save my debates for someone who is going to respond with reason, honesty, respect, and perceptive points.

[NajaNivea]

Oyou burned me already with misrepresentational, well-poisoning, irrational, offensive posts in the previous thread, and I learned my lesson there.

Really? Maybe you could show me where that happened, here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11677640&postcount=207), here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11678467&postcount=213) and here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11679734&postcount=216), because to me it looks an awful lot like you offered unfounded assertions, denied your belief in the same assertions, then continued to repeat the same unfounded assertions. When pressed for clarification, you responded like so: with reference to a shystery dog bite attorney as "evidence" (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11678337&postcount=212).

My response was to call bullshit on the source, then to ask you for some even remotely plausible theory to back up your assertion: namely that breeding for dog aggression directly equates to an increased risk for harm to children.

I thought I had been a little unfairly dismissive, so I went back and reviewed the shyster's link, just to be sure I wasn't doing something magellan01 did earlier, and dismissing relevant data because I didn't like the source. It looks to me like I offered a pretty reasonable assessment. Maybe you can show me where I was irrational and offensive in response to you in the posts above which burned you so badly you had to walk away from the poisoned well?

Clearly this is a topic that means quite a bit to me, so if you truly do believe I'm arguing from a stance of ignorance and bias, I'd really like to know. After all, I wouldn't want to go around spouting a bunch of bullshit, even with the CDC and AVMA on my side.

[rhubarbarin]

Here lies the crux of the thread. Your post was not of a dog attack by a lab but of one trying to help (or so the family says - insert grain of salt here).

I can only react to my personal observations and statistics. There is no way in hell I would leave a toddler alone with a pit bull no matter how loveable it appears to be. Many many times I've seen pit bulls and pit bull mixes go off and every time I'm amazed at both the lack of warning and the severity of the attack. It's not the only breed I have reservations about but it's pretty high on the list.

If you would leave a toddler alone with any breed or type of dog, you are playing with fire. Young children should never, ever be left unsupervised with any dog. This is child safety 101.

FWIW, I know three people who were 'mauled' by small breeds as toddlers. Thankfully, they didn't lose a lot of blood and the scarring was minimal. Yes, if the dog had been larger it would have been more serious. This doesn't mean that larger breeds are more likely to bite people.

[gonzomax]

If you would leave a toddler alone with any breed or type of dog, you are playing with fire. Young children should never, ever be left unsupervised with any dog. This is child safety 101.

FWIW, I know three people who were 'mauled' by small breeds as toddlers. Thankfully, they didn't lose a lot of blood and the scarring was minimal. Yes, if the dog had been larger it would have been more serious. This doesn't mean that larger breeds are more likely to bite people.

What it distills down to is that people who should not have dogs gravitate toward pits. I am sure a pit kept by responsible people are pretty safe. But those are not the dogs we run into. The ones we encounter are loose and poorly trained, perhaps trained to fight.
I have personally had 6 encounters with loose pits while I was walking my beagle. One time I dropped my dog into a trash can to keep him from a pit. Each and every time ,the owner ran up and said "he never did that before'. It is only big dogs that people let run loose in the park. No body opens their car door and lets their Peke run loose. They are always on leashes. If it means that the owners are at fault and pits are pure as the driven snow, it does not matter. The fact is pits we encounter in life are apt to be dangerous. They are always scary. They are not under control. That is the fact I deal with.
I guess the next time a loose pit comes running up to me .I will just scratch it on the head. After all, they are just like any other dog. I have to assume it just a sweet little puppy.

[Contrapuntal]

The SDMB can be slanted, and in my years here I've come to understand that, if the ratio of posts by one poster vs disagreeing posters exceeds 1:2, the first poster is possibly a crackpot. In this thread the ratio between NajaNivea and all her detractors is around 4:1. She may be a person who knows her topic better than others, but the odds are against it.Well, pulling an imaginary rule of thumb out of your ass is one way to go. Especially if you can't be bothered to evaluate the posts for what they actually say, and weigh the evidence accordingly.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Clearly this is a topic that means quite a bit to me, so if you truly do believe I'm arguing from a stance of ignorance and bias, I'd really like to know. After all, I wouldn't want to go around spouting a bunch of bullshit, even with the CDC and AVMA on my side.
A couple of things. Well, three.
1) This topic doesn't mean quite a bit to me. My experiences, coupled with my research, have led me to certain conclusions, but I don't have much invested in these conclusion. The debate is basically a form of entertainment for me; when it stops being entertaining, I step away.
2) I do truly believe you're arguing from a stance of bias. Hey, you said you'd like to know. I think you're operating from ignorance only to the extent that you're reinterpreting everything you read to be favorable toward your preconceived notions.
3) I do not think the CDC and AVMA are nearly as much on your side as you believe they are. I think you've vastly overstated the degrees to which they agree with you.

That said, if you really want me to continue the debate, here are some things you'll need to do.

1) Knock it off with the poisoning-the-well tactics by declaring (with a faintly martyred sigh) that you're carrying on the good fight against ignorance. If you're going to start off by assuming that your opponents are simply ignorant, there's little chance you'll give their positions a fair hearing, and I see no reason to waste my leisure time.
2) Knock it off with assuming that you've won a point that's not been conceded. You keep calling dogbitelaw a shyster site, but I haven't seen convincing evidence that it is. That point is in contention. This is just one example of your doing this obnoxious behavior.
3) Limit yourself to a maximum of one response per post; keep your responses short and to the point (a good rule of thumb is that on average you shouldn't be exceeding the length of the post you're responding to); don't do that line-by-line refutation thing. Remember, this debate is in my leisure time, and I have no interest in wading through a sea of words because you couldn't be bothered to trim away the excess verbiage. Take the time to make your point concisely.

Note that I'm not asking you to refrain from misinterpreting both your cites and mine. That behavior can be annoying, but I think it's the crux of the debate. Similarly, I'm not asking you to refrain from misinterpreting my point--although I will ask you, if I tell you you're misunderstanding what I'm saying, to take me at my word on this and seek clarification.

I don't expect these conditions to be acceptable to you, and that's just ducky. I've got other things to do. But if they are, I'll participate to a limited extent in this thread.

[CannyDan]

I do not know why I’m bothering to enter this discussion, since I’m not really invested in these issues. Also, I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to keep it up. If my post is merely a drive-by, well, so be it, my apology in advance. But the subject is interesting on its own merits, despite the shitstorm.

First I’ll say that I do not support breed bans. But not because I believe all breeds to be equal; rather, I think bans are ineffective because they fail to address the root problem, which is people who desire and/or glorify “macho” (i.e., aggressive) dog behavior and are irresponsible in the socialization and control of their dogs. The specific breed that is the currently fashionable “big bad boy” changes with time, as do all fads. Further, some breeds, especially certain small ones, appear to appeal to owners who reward behaviors that would be completely unacceptable in larger animals (“Oh, isn’t little Killer cute when he snaps and growls like that?! Such a funny baby!!”) and to breed dogs that exhibit those behaviors.

Still, while I agree with NajaNivea's position on bans, I find your arguments to be unsatisfying. You rely in large measure on a statement from AVMA to the effect that “Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7”. You repeatedly link to that paper and that statement as if that was, as Mark Twain might remark, “a settler”. It isn’t.

You left off the reference to the citation on which this statement is based (“7”) which tracks to this link (http://www.mercer.edu/psychology/Faculty_Staff/Wright_JC/downloadable_articles/Canine%20Aggression%20-%20Dog%20Bites%20to%20People.pdf) !PDF! 1991 article by J.C. Wright, PhD, an animal behaviorist. Interestingly, at that time the poster child “bad boy” of the dog world was apparently the German Shepherd. But the thrust of the article relates little to breed identification, for good or for ill, but rather to the problem of dog bites in general, the complexity of the problem, and the need for a comprehensive approach to its solution. Wright himself cites a multitude of studies identifying one breed as the leader in bite cases (the GSD) and makes no attempt to refute breed specific factors as having a role. He notes that “aggressive behavior is not a unitary phenomenon” and concludes that “canine aggression toward people is a complex, multivariate phenomenon” and solving the problem of dog aggression will “necessitate more than simplistic statements regarding breed”. Indeed, he mentions pit bulls only once, and that to apparently accept a breed related aggressive behavior. In regard to dogs releasing their victim when the victim does not struggle, he says “…dogs release their grip and discontinue the attack. There may be exceptions to this ‘rule’ for certain dogs (e.g., ‘pit bulls’)”. From this, it seems difficult to conclude that Wright supports your contention that breed specific aggressive behaviors are totally unsupportable by statistics.

The table from here (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dog3.pdf) !PDF!, Gershman, Sacks and Wright also from 1991, again identifies GSD as the number one threat. This study, by the way, used a random pair analysis to produce its conclusions. Without belaboring the point, this seems a reasonably valid methodology. At any rate, here Wright (et al) does offer objections to statistical identifiers for bad breeds, primarily citing misidentification as a factor. Further, it is correct that the more populous breeds should show a correlation to involvement in all associated phenomena, biting included. (The more Dalmations in the general dog population mix, the more Dalmation shit deposited in the local park, compared to less popular breeds.) So as pit types increase in popularity, they should also increase in statistical representation in all dog related occurrences. And you are correct that many breeds and breed mixes are phenotypically similar to pit type dogs, and pit types may therefore be over-represented in offhand identifications. So you toss aside all statistical evidence, and conclude that Wright gives you leave to do so.

But this is not sufficient for you to hand wave away the fact that Wright himself (et al) offers a table of Predominant Breed Distribution (with GSD and Chow at the statistical top) and offers the following statement in conclusion:
We urge pediatricians to also advise parents that failure to neuter a dog and selection of male dogs and certain breeds, such as German Shepherds and Chow Chows, may increase the chances of their dog biting a nonhousehold member….
The emphasis is mine, and it shows that this study and these authors conclude that there are indeed breed specific factors involved in dog bites. These are not to the exclusion of other factors, especially issues related to gender and its expression, but are breed specific nonetheless. Note, by the way, that pit bull types are not represented in this study, apparently because at that time possession of the breed had been outlawed in the study area for two years.

Your entire argument requires the invalidation of all statistical studies, including those above. You say:
There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to indicate a medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears is any more dangerous to man or beast than any other dog of comparable size, seeing as how such a description can fit a countless number of dogs with no pit-fighting blood in recent history.

But all the hand waving in the world cannot discount Sacks, Sinclair, Gilchrist, Golab, and Lockwood here. (http://www.dogbitelaw.com/breeds-causing-DBRFs.pdf) !PDF! Their data includes both HSUS database and media accounts, and I’ll accept some issues with hysteria, media hype, and other factors having an influence on breed identification. You reject Clifton (http://www.dogbitelaw.com/Dog%20Attacks%201982%20to%202006%20Clifton.pdf) !PDF! as a “steaming pile of fly-ridden nonsense” but offer no specific refutation. It appears that Sacks et al supports Clifton, not you.

To accept your conclusion (that there is either no link or no proven link between breed and biting) it would be necessary for there to have been as recently as 1991 a wholesale country-wide misidentification of everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors, as GSD-type dogs, and today everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors are being misidentified as “medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears” instead. Either that, or such dogs now represent an overwhelming majority of all dogs kept as pets. Or both. For those would be the only ways to explain “pit type dogs” jutting Everest-like out of the statistical background of dog-breed molehills in bite reports.

Either that, or there really IS something about the breed.

[NajaNivea]

A couple of things. Well, three.
1) This topic doesn't mean quite a bit to me. My experiences, coupled with my research, have led me to certain conclusions, but I don't have much invested in these conclusion. The debate is basically a form of entertainment for me; when it stops being entertaining, I step away.
2) I do truly believe you're arguing from a stance of bias. Hey, you said you'd like to know. I think you're operating from ignorance only to the extent that you're reinterpreting everything you read to be favorable toward your preconceived notions.
3) I do not think the CDC and AVMA are nearly as much on your side as you believe they are. I think you've vastly overstated the degrees to which they agree with you.

Your lack of interest in the topic doesn't make it any more right for you to assert (or agree with an assertion) that my professional experience causing me to feel strongly about refuting urban legends as they relate to dog-breed hysteria makes me a nutcase... and your accusation of bias is unsupported by any evidence yet offered, by you or anyone else.
As to your point #3, fine, then let's see some evidence for this case. I've already provided the link to the AVMA's report several dozen times, so it should be easy to find.

That said, if you really want me to continue the debate, here are some things you'll need to do.

1) Knock it off with the poisoning-the-well tactics by declaring (with a faintly martyred sigh) that you're carrying on the good fight against ignorance. If you're going to start off by assuming that your opponents are simply ignorant, there's little chance you'll give their positions a fair hearing, and I see no reason to waste my leisure time.
2) Knock it off with assuming that you've won a point that's not been conceded. You keep calling dogbitelaw a shyster site, but I haven't seen convincing evidence that it is. That point is in contention. This is just one example of your doing this obnoxious behavior.
3) Limit yourself to a maximum of one response per post; keep your responses short and to the point (a good rule of thumb is that on average you shouldn't be exceeding the length of the post you're responding to); don't do that line-by-line refutation thing. Remember, this debate is in my leisure time, and I have no interest in wading through a sea of words because you couldn't be bothered to trim away the excess verbiage. Take the time to make your point concisely.
.
I did not start off by assuming that my opponents are simply ignorant. I came to that conclusion after a lengthy discussion four weeks ago, and two pages worth of discussion this time, wherein my opponents' sole debate platforms were "because I think so" and "because everyone knows it's true". I tried very hard to give your position a fair hearing, even asking repeatedly for clarification, which you declined repeatedly to provide. I will not deny I've gotten snarky here and there, but honestly, it's like being in the middle of an anti-vax thread, where people keep popping in to tell me how many kids they know who have autism because of their vaccination history, and who cite Jenny McCarthy's attorney as "evidence". Eventually it gets awfully tiresome--how many times, and in how many ways can I link to the CDC and AVMA before just calling bullshit seems like the best possible option?
If the CDC and AVMA's direct quotes refuting the Clifton report don't convince you, then you and Ms. McCarthy really are two peas in a pod. The point is not in contention by any reputable expert. A dog bite attorney trolling for plaintiffs is not so objective and unbiased as you might imagine.
Disliking my style and winging that you just don't have the time is still no refutation of my argument. I've done a line-by-line refutation exactly once in this thread, and that was in response to a poster who spewed a post written directly from the Pit Bull Urban Legend handbook. He deserved it. You will too, if you resort to the same nonsense. It's not typically my style, but sometimes nothing else seems to work.

Now, you want to provide some support or an apology for your name-calling as it referred to the allegedly vicious way I maligned and slandered you before? Or is this to be taken as a concession?

Either way, I look forward to exploring the nuances of your argument.

[gonzomax]

I don't accept the misidentification argument either. people know what a Pit looks like. If it is mixed .it won't be with a Peke. They usually go for bigger and stronger. Many select Pits because they figure it is the baddest dog around. It is not generally the choice for people who want a lap dog.

[NajaNivea]

But the thrust of the article relates little to breed identification, for good or for ill, but rather to the problem of dog bites in general, the complexity of the problem, and the need for a comprehensive approach to its solution. Wright himself cites a multitude of studies identifying one breed as the leader in bite cases (the GSD) and makes no attempt to refute breed specific factors as having a role. He notes that “aggressive behavior is not a unitary phenomenon” and concludes that “canine aggression toward people is a complex, multivariate phenomenon” and solving the problem of dog aggression will “necessitate more than simplistic statements regarding breed”.
...But this is exactly what I've been trying to argue all along. That there are quite a few breeds with higher-than-average tendencies to use their teeth on human flesh... that these breeds are not by any means all of the "pit dog" phenotype, and that a dog looking vaguely like a pit bull is by no means the best identifier of such risks. Dog aggression is an extremely complex topic and an enormous social problem... and myopic focus on one minor piece of the puzzle is no way to solve it.

The emphasis is mine, and it shows that this study and these authors conclude that there are indeed breed specific factors involved in dog bites.
But again, this study, as all others, rely on only half-complete statistics. There are plenty of other breeds (some of which you mention below) which are much harder, more volatile dogs, much more inclined toward human aggression. That a Chow is ranked right on up there, but, say, a Presa Canario doesn't show up at all in a study that didn't survey less-common breeds doesn't mean that a Chow is more inherently dangerous than a Presa, and that's my biggest problem with using these sorts of stats as evidence to support breed bans and the like... or even with using such reports to decide which dogs are "safe" to leave unattended with your children. I said, as did the CDC and the AVMA, that there are several problems with the methodology used previously to collect such statistics, and that there are several problems why such stats don't really tell us what we think they do, when we see such lists which purport to rank breed aggression.

but offer no specific refutation.
Well, to be fair, my specific refutation pretty much lies solely in the AVMA report, as well as the CDC commentary that:
Each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs. These bites result in approximately 16 fatalities; about 0.0002 percent of the total number of people bitten. These relatively few fatalities offer the only available information about breeds involved in dog bites. There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill.
(emphasis mine)
Because of these problems with census and so on, these numbers are meaningless as far as compiling useful statistics. That doesn't mean GSDs and other protection breeds aren't more potentially risky in terms of human-targeted aggression, simply that we don't have good enough statistics at this time to make the conclusions that those referring continually to Clifton would like.

To accept your conclusion (that there is either no link or no proven link between breed and biting) it would be necessary for there to have been as recently as 1991 a wholesale country-wide misidentification of everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors, as GSD-type dogs, and today everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors are being misidentified as “medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears” instead. Either that, or such dogs now represent an overwhelming majority of all dogs kept as pets. Or both. For those would be the only ways to explain “pit type dogs” jutting Everest-like out of the statistical background of dog-breed molehills in bite reports.

Either that, or there really IS something about the breed.

I think you've missed a third option: that at the time of the earlier report, the "bad dog du jour" for the shitty dog owners was the GSD, just as today, the "bad dog du jour" for shitty dog owners is the pit dog. Shitty owners make for shitty dogs, so that ill-tempered and uncontrolled GSDs were predominant in bite reports then, and ill-tempered and uncontrolled pit dogs are predominant in bite reports now makes perfect sense to me.

Furthermore, I absolutely do agree that back then every random mutt would have been misidentified as a GSD. After all, the default dog, product of any random population breeding randomly results in a phenotype just about like this (http://www.californiacarolinadogs.com/update09-30-02/6large.jpg). At the time, any random mutt would have fit the same vague profile of "shepherd type", just as today's random mutt fits the same vague "pit dog" profile. Look at those dogs, and imagine the general features... almond-shaped eyes, muscular chest, kinda thick around the muzzle... and now imagine a healthy push in the general direction of "bulldog type" with a glut of pit dogs entering the breeding population, about twenty years ago.

I have handled too many dogs to make any sort of claim that no breed is more potentially human-aggressive than any other, or that there are some breeds that should not be handled by novices or the general dog-owning public. My problem lies primarily in the willingness of such folks like Magiver to cheerfully ignore that a much larger percentage of fatal dog attacks were perpetrated by unrestrained or unattended dogs than by pit bulls.

[Magiver]

So... I don't get it.

What about this sentence do you not understand? Are the words too big or...? That's easy, what I don't undestand is why you would post a link titled: A community approach to dog bite prevention as a link titled Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite after admitting this: Oh, so you were talking about dog aggression... which as a trait of pit dogs has never at any point been under contention.

Pit bulls are an aggressive breed, and when combined with an ability to do great damage pose a greater threat than other breeds. It is the combination that makes it so. I don't worry about yappy dachshunds because I can stomp them into the ground if they were to bite me and latch on. I don't worry about Labradors because getting licked to death is extremely rare.

[NajaNivea]

I don't accept the misidentification argument either. people know what a Pit looks like. If it is mixed .it won't be with a Peke. They usually go for bigger and stronger. Many select Pits because they figure it is the baddest dog around. It is not generally the choice for people who want a lap dog.

See post #3. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11811110&postcount=3)

You are right to be concerned about an unattended pit dog, but again the most concerning factor there is not breed... else there'd be no concern over a stray chow, GSD, Rottweiler, Dobie, or Perro de Presa Canario, would there?
The biggest concerning factor you're describing is that an unattended dog is significantly concerning evidence that there is no "good dog owner" behind the training and socializing of that unattended animal. A loose husky mix should be no less concerning. If you're inclined to walk up and pat a stray anything on the head, you're looking for trouble.

[NajaNivea]

That's easy, what I don't undestand is why you would post a link titled: A community approach to dog bite prevention as a link titled Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite after admitting this: Oh, so you were talking about dog aggression... which as a trait of pit dogs has never at any point been under contention.
One, because it wasn't a title, it was a quote. Two, because dog aggression is not human aggression. They are two different things, with vastly different genetic roots. That both may also stem from poor socialization and mishandling doesn't mean they're both a consequence of a breeding for pit fighting.

That a poorly socialized and mishandled pit dog might bite someone I have no doubt. My big problem is with the contention that this is somehow a result of their breeding for dog aggression.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Either way, I look forward to exploring the nuances of your argument.
Looks to me like you don't agree to those rules of debate I suggest. Fine. Take it as a concession, as a blow-off, or as a clown blowing balloons out of his ass, I don't give a shit.

[NajaNivea]

Looks to me like you don't agree to those rules of debate I suggest. Fine. Take it as a concession, as a blow-off, or as a clown blowing balloons out of his ass, I don't give a shit.

How so, punkin? You keep launching accusations and making spurious ad hoc claims, and then acting like I'm a nutcase when I respond. This isn't my failing. I asked you twice for proof that I had done the things you accused me of in that thread. The next time you launch a spurious ad hoc attack against me, my response won't be nearly so mannerly.

In any case, you don't get to make the rules. That's kinda how this whole "debate" thing works. You make claims, then provide evidence (or don't, as the case my be), and I respond. Sorry if that sticks in your craw, but I'm not going to let you get away with tossing off all sort of spurious nonsense without some sort of response.

[NajaNivea]

I don't worry about Labradors because getting licked to death is extremely rare.
Well, I'd say that even by the most "generous" statistics, a half-dozen out of 4.7 million incidents, .00001% or so, makes getting mauled to death by a pit bull extremely rare, too. Even including all dog bite related fatalities, you're several times more likely to get struck by lightning than killed by a dog.

[Mosier]

Well, I'd say that even by the most "generous" statistics, a half-dozen out of 4.7 million incidents, .00001% or so, makes getting mauled to death by a pit bull extremely rare, too. Even including all dog bite related fatalities, you're several times more likely to get struck by lightning than killed by a dog.

I'm not sure what statistic you're quoting. Of 4.7 million dog bite incidents, only 6 were pit bulls who killed someone?

[Mosier]

See post #3. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11811110&postcount=3)

You are right to be concerned about an unattended pit dog, but again the most concerning factor there is not breed... else there'd be no concern over a stray chow, GSD, Rottweiler, Dobie, or Perro de Presa Canario, would there?

Rotts, Dobermans, and Presa Canarios are also breeds with a reputation of being dangerous. I would be concerned about them every bit as much as a pit bull, and substantially less so than an escaped golden retriever or cocker spaniel.

ETA: the only difference is that Doberman owners don't pretend their dog isn't dangerous. Doberman owners seem to be more likely to handle their dogs appropriately than Pitt Owners, and Doberman owners tend to have a more realistic view of their dogs. Nobody who owns a pit bull thinks their dog is dangerous.

[NajaNivea]

Rotts, Dobermans, and Presa Canarios are also breeds with a reputation of being dangerous.
Right. Which doesn't explain the continued fervent insistence by several folks in this thread that pit dogs are astronomically more likely to be dangerous to people than any other breed of dog.
My point is not that no dog is more dangerous than any other, just that pit bulls are not the demonic hellspawn some would like to make them out to be, any more than German Shepherd Dogs were in the 70's.

[CannyDan]

...But this is exactly what I've been trying to argue all along.

No, what you've been doing all along is defending pit bull dogs.


But again, this study, as all others, rely on only half-complete statistics. ... Because of these problems with census and so on, these numbers are meaningless... we don't have good enough statistics at this time to make the conclusions that those referring continually to Clifton would like.

That is indeed your assertion, but I do not accept it as correct. There are likely identification and population-mix issues with these data, but by no means are they sufficient to cast the entire database out. Look, when the balance beam dips this far to one side, no reasonable amount of confusion about the genetic identity of pit-like dogs is enough to undermine the reality that agression has some basis in breed. And pit-types are to be included in "breeds with aggressive tendencies".

Nor is it reasonable for you to insist upon some complete separation between dog-directed aggression and human-directed aggression. Admittedly I work primarily with wild animals, not domestic breeds, but I know of no such inviolable delimitation. Aggressive animals are aggressive animals, and humans are merely other animals of a size that may or may not be subject to attack. Although this is exactly what "domestication" attempts to inhibit, and even given the fact that dogs including pits are "domestic animals", a tendency to inhibit aggression against humans can still be overcome by baser instincts. Some species, and certain individuals of many species, reach (for a large variety of reasons, some relevant to this discussion, some not) a mental state wherin an attack will occur with either more or less stimulus. At that point, the animal in question makes little distinction between humans and other creatures. Pits are not exempt from this.

Again, I do not support breed bans. Nor do I condemn pits for being what they are (whatever that is) any more than I condemn my rattlesnakes for striking at me. But I think you do a disservice by failing to admit that there are some breed specific tendencies for aggression in a number of breeds, and working to get all dog owners, regardless of breed, to be more proactive in proper socialization and proper control.

Ahh, on preview I see that your latest post offers a more nuanced approach. Congratulations! I find it much more agreeable than your previous efforts.

[rhubarbarin]

What it distills down to is that people who should not have dogs gravitate toward pits. I am sure a pit kept by responsible people are pretty safe. But those are not the dogs we run into. The ones we encounter are loose and poorly trained, perhaps trained to fight.
I have personally had 6 encounters with loose pits while I was walking my beagle. One time I dropped my dog into a trash can to keep him from a pit. Each and every time ,the owner ran up and said "he never did that before'. It is only big dogs that people let run loose in the park. No body opens their car door and lets their Peke run loose. They are always on leashes. If it means that the owners are at fault and pits are pure as the driven snow, it does not matter. The fact is pits we encounter in life are apt to be dangerous. They are always scary. They are not under control. That is the fact I deal with.
I guess the next time a loose pit comes running up to me .I will just scratch it on the head. After all, they are just like any other dog. I have to assume it just a sweet little puppy.

Of course I'm not discounting your personal experiences. Mine however are opposite.

It's odd, because I live right outside Philadelphia where there are tons of dogs, and a high percentage of Pits and bull breeds, as well as a large dog fighting I have dogs myself and walk them daily where we encounter many neighborhood dogs, as well as making many trips to our local dog park. I am also active in the rescue community, most of my friends have dogs, and all in all I have fairly close contact with many dogs and multiple pit bulls.. daily. Although I don't own one myself.

Yet I have never had an aggressive incident with a pit or bull breed, involving myself or any of my three dogs. Any visit to the dog park, half of the dogs there are 'pits bulls' and nary a conflict. There are 5 living on my block alone and they are all well-behaved, personable dogs.

My three hated dogs in my canine social circle neighborhood are a Standard Poodle (high-energy with an ineffectual owner who considers bringing him to our dog park to harass the other dogs his 'exercise' when he clearly needs to have all that energy run off before he comes anywhere near other dogs), an enormous Golden Retriever (the only dog my Shepherd has ever fought - he pulled his leash out of his owners hands and pinned my poor Ferdy to the sidewalk, thankfully neither was badly hurt), and a very scary 200-lb Mastiff mix whose dumbass owners always let him off lead in a public field.

[rhubarbarin]

Referencing my above post: when I encounter a pitbull, loose or leashed, I am no more concerned than when I see any other breed of dog, loose or leashed - I have no reason to be, since I haven't had any problems with them being aggressive towards me or my dogs in the past.

If you have, then it only makes sense that you would be cautious when you are around pits or bull breeds.

[NajaNivea]

That is indeed your assertion, but I do not accept it as correct.
Well... I guess that's just a fundamental difference between you and me. When the CDC says it and the AVMA fully backs it up, then I guess I just take that as factual gospel for the purposes of this discussion. If you want to keep contending that these two organizations meant something else when they said Each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by dogs. These bites result in approximately 16 fatalities; about 0.0002 percent of the total number of people bitten. These relatively few fatalities offer the only available information about breeds involved in dog bites. There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill. ...or that your opinion should matter more than theirs, then, well, like I said, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

Nor is it reasonable for you to insist upon some complete separation between dog-directed aggression and human-directed aggression. Admittedly I work primarily with wild animals, not domestic breeds, but I know of no such inviolable delimitation. Aggressive animals are aggressive animals, and humans are merely other animals of a size that may or may not be subject to attack.
Not true. I, too, work with wild animals, and aggressive wild animals have no real connection to a discussion about selectively emphasized behavioral traits. The root factors behind a propensity to enjoy fighting with other dogs are very different than the root factors behind a propensity to view people with suspicion and to carry a low threshold for attacking human beings. While it is true that a highly reactive, highly aggressive animal can be aggressive indiscriminately, this is a different conversation than a discussion about the root genetics and socialization factors that cause dog aggressive traits, and the genetics and socialization factors that cause human-aggressive traits. Even "human targeted aggression" comes in a lot of different flavors, and what one breed, type, or individual is prone to is not necessarily the same as others. It's a very complex topic, and the line isn't hard and fast, but the differences are there all the same. It's one reason why pit dogs make such terrible personal protection or sportwork or police dogs.
In any case, there are lots of reasons why dogs bite, and most of them aren't due to "aggression" per se as you keep describing it.

You're right that pits are not exempt from untoward aggression issues, no breed of dog is. This is true across the board for all breeds and is no support for a contention that pit dogs are drastically more dangerous than any other dog. However, pit dogs have been heavily selected against this propensity with a culling program for human aggression more rigid and more lengthy than any other breed. Consider that a pit dog by necessity was tested for human aggression in the heat of battle and the consequence for failure on this matter was a swift bullet in the head. Very few other breeds have received anything even remotely like this specific and heavy directed pressure against human aggression. Having been tested and selected for this trait does not mean pits are magically non-dangerous, just that as a broad generalization I trust a pit to keep sensible in stressful situations far... far more than I trust most other breeds.

But I think you do a disservice by failing to admit that there are some breed specific tendencies for aggression in a number of breeds, and working to get all dog owners, regardless of breed, to be more proactive in proper socialization and proper control.

Ahh, on preview I see that your latest post offers a more nuanced approach. Congratulations! I find it much more agreeable than your previous efforts.

I've been saying for months on this board that there are many, many breeds which carry traits with far more significant potential for translation to human-targeted aggression. That's been one of my biggest points of contention for the frothy "pits are eeeeeevil" POV that floats around. That large, high-drive working breeds, and in particular guardian and personal protection breeds, carry more potential risk than small, sedentary dogs is not a point under contention. The point under contention has always been that pits are somehow drastically more dangerous than any of these other dogs. Personally, I think it has a whole lot more to do with the types of people that get a dog wanting a four-footed weapon than the breed itself, but maybe that gives too much credit to the average dog-owning public. To my mind, its a little bit like blaming guns for homicide. Sure, a gun is potentially lethal, and a semi-automatic rifle is more potentially lethal than an air rifle, but it still requires mismanagement on the part of a human being for it to kill someone. I blame bad dog owners across the board when their dogs misbehave, regardless of breed. I blame them even more when it's clear they've gotten themselves more dog than they can handle.

Again, maybe that's giving too much credit to the average dog-owning public.

That my efforts in this thread have mostly been about debunking the urban legends doesn't mean I don't firmly believe in "working to get all dog owners, regardless of breed, to be more proactive in proper socialization and proper control." In fact, that's been my one insistence from the start of the initial thread, last month--that breed-specific prejudices are useless for increasing public safety as it relates to dog bite incidents... that the one consistent factor is mismanagement of the dog, and that comprehensive, behavioral based legislation along with widespread "dog bite prevention" education is what's needed.
I think we see pretty well eye-to-eye on that one.


I do want to thank you for your participation in this thread. It's a breath of fresh air.

[NajaNivea]

I'm not sure what statistic you're quoting. Of 4.7 million dog bite incidents, only 6 were pit bulls who killed someone?
Approximately, yes. There averages about 16 dog bite related fatalities a year, which account for approximately .00002% of dog bite incidents. Even going by the worst statistics and including all dog bite related fatalities, getting killed by a pit bull is a pretty remote concern. Cite (http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Dog-Bites/dogbite-factsheet.html)

[Magiver]

Well, I'd say that even by the most "generous" statistics, a half-dozen out of 4.7 million incidents, .00001% or so, makes getting mauled to death by a pit bull extremely rare, too. Even including all dog bite related fatalities, you're several times more likely to get struck by lightning than killed by a dog.When you look at the percentage of deaths by dog and then percentage of breed the pit bull stands out. You can then take your .00001% and extrapolate that against attacks in general and those that don't kill but cause serious injury. Pit bulls are more aggressive from birth and when that is combined with the ability to cause harm represent a greater danger than other breeds.

[NajaNivea]

On the Clifton report: I was wrong not to delve more thoroughly into the complete crapitude of it. Fortunately, someone's already done the work for me (http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2007/08/dangerous-breeds-dog-bite-statistics.html) :)

[NajaNivea]

When you look at the percentage of deaths by dog and then percentage of breed the pit bull stands out. You can then take your .00001% and extrapolate that against attacks in general and those that don't kill but cause serious injury. Pit bulls are more aggressive from birth and when that is combined with the ability to cause harm represent a greater danger than other breeds.

Taken from the article I just linked above:
According to Clifton's report [which, once again, is based entirely on press accounts], during the 24-year period covered by his study there were a total of 2,209 “[dog] attacks doing bodily harm” in the U.S. and Canada. 1,182 of those attacks were by pit bulls and pit bull mixes. (Lumping mixes together with so-called purebreds makes no sense from any standpoint, but Mr. Clifton lumps them together --- so I will, too, again for the purposes of this post.)

1,182 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes in the U.S. and Canada over a 24-year period [according to the Clifton statistics] works out to an average of just over 49 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit bull mixes in North America per year.

If Clifton’s pit bull numbers are correct, and no more than 49 of the 6,000 or so hospitalizations due to severe dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, then pit bulls and pit mixes are responsible for less than one percent of those hospitalizations.

.82%. Eighty-two hundredths of a percent of hospitalizations due to dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, if the press has accurately represented the number of serious attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes.

[gonzomax]

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/article_32555ff7-4ac9-5a3c-99b3-9e526f2654f8.html Pits are different.
http://www.momlogic.com/2009/09/babys_toes_chewed_off_by_pit_bull.php
http://www.kptv.com/politics/18832622/detail.html

[Freudian Slit]

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/article_32555ff7-4ac9-5a3c-99b3-9e526f2654f8.html Pits are different.
http://www.momlogic.com/2009/09/babys_toes_chewed_off_by_pit_bull.php
http://www.kptv.com/politics/18832622/detail.html

But that doesn't prove anything. I don't have a dog in this fight, but there's no logic to this argument. I could come up with three stories of beagles attacking someone. Or labs, or St. Bernards, or German Shepherds. It wouldn't prove that those breeds are different.

[rhubarbarin]

hey gonzo, even Golden Retrievers and Labradors kill people sometimes.

Look up the case of Julia Beck, killed at 87 by a dachshund and a labrador (originally the family blamed loose 'pit bulls' but it turned out that the dogs responsible were family pets). Or Lorraine May, also elderly, killed my dogs described as 'Golden Retriever mix' and Australian Shepherd mix'. Zane Earles, 2 months, killed by the family Lab. Justin Mozer, 6 weeks, killed by a Jack Russell.

In this case, the lab was only 6 weeks old himself: http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=8753165

That doesn't seem too 'different' to me.

[The Flying Dutchman]

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/article_32555ff7-4ac9-5a3c-99b3-9e526f2654f8.html Pits are different.

QFT

LAKE ELSINORE -- Jennifer Ruckel never saw it coming, she said on a recent afternoon. One minute she was sitting on her bed talking to her sister Robin, laughing and watching her 18-month-old son Taylor dance on the rug at their feet -- the next, their 30 seconds of terror began.

With no provocation or warning, the family's 5-year-old pit bull, Molly, suddenly lunged across the room and grabbed Taylor's head in its jaws and began shaking the boy like a rag doll.

"The dog just snapped; it changed from a protective, loving dog to a beast within a second," Jennifer said of the March 31 attack.

Robin threw a cup of hot coffee on the dog. Jennifer began pounding on the animal from behind, desperately trying to get her to let go, the woman said. The dog's lower jaw was clamped on the back of the boy's head, its upper jaw locked onto his face next to his ear and neck and it continued to shake the boy.

Finally, the dog loosened her grip for a split second, letting go of Taylor, and Jennifer threw herself on top of the toddler as the dog continued to lunge and dig beneath her body to get at the child.

The whole incident lasted perhaps 30 seconds, Robin said. "But it seemed like 30 years."

What a shame. Check the picture of Molly. She was so cute and friendly....Until she went berserk for no reason and then went all friendly again.
That is the problem with Pit Bulls.

A compilation of statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on fatal dog attacks on human beings shows that American pit bull terriers, or pit bulls, have the worst record of any breed. Between 1979 and 1996, there were 60 fatal attacks across the country by pit bulls on humans. The second-worst record was for rottweilers, with 29 fatal attacks, followed by German shepherds with 19.

Those are the numbers, and here's why

An official with the Humane Society of the United States said Friday that breeds are selectively bred to accentuate specific characteristics. In the case of some retrievers, for example, the dogs were bred over the years to leap into the water at a moment's notice, retrieve downed birds and carry them softly in their mouths back to hunters.

Pit bulls, however, were bred to fight other dogs in closed environments such as pits or arenas, said Eric Sakach, director of the West Coast regional office of the Humane Society of the United States.

"They were selectively bred to cause maximum damage, which includes grabbing, holding and shaking, which causes tearing," Sakach said.

Breeders also gradually eliminated from the animals some of the typical signals of coming aggression, like barking, growling or raising the hair on the back of their necks, he added.

"These animals offer little or no indication that an attack is imminent," he said.

Pit Bull Myth indeed :rolleyes:

[dropzone]

Well, pulling an imaginary rule of thumb out of your ass is one way to go. Especially if you can't be bothered to evaluate the posts for what they actually say, and weigh the evidence accordingly.It was more of a reaction to the same handwaving dismissal of any study that might say anything against NajaNivea's favorite breed. She (he?) is acting as a True Believer, not merely unswayed by any evidence that might argue against her pet theory, but someone who dismisses it out of hand. THAT is the definition of a crackpot.

[dropzone]

OTOH, the only dog to have attacked me unprovoked (yeah, I'm stupid and trusting around dogs) was a toy poodle. I was a paperboy and the owner said, "He must've seen you rolling up a newspaper and since that precedes him getting whacked...."

(Thanks, old and probably-dead bitch who'd be over 100 by now)

The little dog bit my knee. Drew blood but didn't require stitches. I didn't need to kill it to make it stop.

[valleyofthedolls]

Pit Bull Myth indeed :rolleyes:

Quoting chapter and verse from the HSUS is akin to using PETA as a reliable source. Actually, I take that back, PETA is better, at the very least they don't try and hide their agenda.

I'm pulling out Vicki Hearne again. She was an extremely well-respected dog trainer and author and served as an expert witness on dogs/dog behavior in several trials.

Hearne (in a book called "Bandit") makes an excellent case for the HSUS deliberately creating a dog bite hysteria in the early '80's (when there was no such thing) in order to raise money. Pit bulls were brought into their little campaign and the breed has been attacked ever since.

The HSUS is responsible for the thousands of pit bulls leading miserable lives in shelters and in the posession of garbage like Michael Vick and it is responsible for the thousands of dogs killed for no other reason than their breed.

[Czarcasm]

Vicki Hearne? She of the poem "The Bull Terrier"?:

"Their legs and backs

Should seem to be

Merely the motive

Power for the low

Broad, implacable

Jaw. They will never

Hurt a child and never

Leave justice undone,

They are justice."

[valleyofthedolls]

Yep, she wrote some poetry.

But her poetry isn't particularly good so therefore anything she to say has no validation? Her years of experience and training and study are null and void?

And this board claims to fight ignorance?

How do you reconcile your post with this board's motto? Shouldn't you leave the logical fallacies behind especially when you are a moderator?

[Magiver]

Taken from the article I just linked above:

Your own cite shows 50% of the events involved pit bulls. You're trying to downplay this by displaying it as a percentage of the population. in my area a man was attacked and killed by 2 pit bulls. A co-worker of mine was mauled by her own dog. I have a friend with a pit mix and that routinely attacked his other dogs with no obvious provocation. The neigbors behind me had a pit that got loose and attacked (get ready) another pit that was being walked by their owner(that was fun). The neighbor next to me (glad to see him move) had a pit that jumped into my yard and tried to attack me. Luckily I was able to shut the door before he could bite.

In short, every dog problem I've personally come across or read about in my paper involved a pit bull. It's not that poodles don't bite, it's just the fact that most people can kick the shit out of them if they get out of hand. You don't seem to get this reality of this at all. Pit Bulls are not only more aggressive then most dogs they are more dangerous when that aggression is manifested.

[valleyofthedolls]

Oh, and one more thing.

If you google Vicke Hearne, the 3rd link to come up is her New York Times obituary. That obituary contains the poem you quoted. Your post seems to imply you're familiar with her work

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/arts/vicki-hearne-who-saw-human-traits-in-pets-dies-at-55.html

Vicki Hearne? She of the poem "The Bull Terrier"?

but this doesn't seem to be the case. And it's also nice that you make fun of her poetry but neglect to mention she was a Stegner Fellow in poetry. That's not an easy fellowship to obtain.

It's also odd that though the obituary contains a laundry list of pretty impressive credentials, you chose to sweep them aside in favor of making fun of a poem you don't care for. Please explain how that works.

How again is this board about fighting ignorance?

[NajaNivea]

It was more of a reaction to the same handwaving dismissal of any study that might say anything against NajaNivea's favorite breed. She (he?) is acting as a True Believer, not merely unswayed by any evidence that might argue against her pet theory, but someone who dismisses it out of hand. THAT is the definition of a crackpot.
dropzone, I've spent so much time refuting stuff in this thread that I've been accused of spewing verbiage. I've referenced reputable sources everywhere they exist. The only thing I dismiss out of hand is the Clifton report... and for very good reason, as cited in the last article I've linked to. As ever... if you can provide any cite for your accusations, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, it's pretty goddamned offensive for you to come along and call me a liar and a crackpot, don't you think?
Also, not that it's in any way germane to the argument, I like pits very much, but I wouldn't say they're my "favorite" breed, if I have one. I don't even own one. That doesn't stop me from doing battle against an urban legend when it's spewed forth with disgusting regularity on this site. I have something like twenty five years worth of experience handling dogs in several different professional contexts, I can't even begin to guess how many over the years. I have a lot of relevant experience... and you're damn right that makes me a "true believer" in the same sense that I'm a "true believer" in gravity, because I have much experience that such a force exists.
Everything I have said in this thread comes from many, many years of experience handling dogs of all breeds, types, and backgrounds, and especially a lot of years handling thousands upon thousands of random-source dogs, some small majority of them "pit type".
I feel very confident in the assertions I've made, but as always I'm perfectly happy to have my mind changed in the face of good evidence to the contrary. I've yet to see it presented here, though. So far, just a lot of urban legend bullshit matched with personal anecdote. I keep wondering just exactly what the response would be to these same arguments being voiced in anti-vax or moon hoax threads. People would be cutting each other's throats over this kind of spurious bullshit.

Your own cite shows 50% of the events involved pit bulls.
The Clifton report, yes. "My" cite. Did you happen to notice that he got his stats not from hospital records or any verifiable source, but mined from media reports?

How often do you think a lab mauling gets national news coverage, even when it happens?

Even using his horrifically skewed stats pits come in at less than one percent of severe dog attacks annually. 49 out of 6000 people hospitalized every year, assuming we can trust Clifton's numbers, which you so confidently assure me we can. You do the math.

Of course, I suppose that a report of severe dog attacks that includes breeds like "chox mix" and "buff mastiff" must surely have been conducted with nothing but the finest methodology. :rolleyes:

[Czarcasm]

Oh, and one more thing.

If you google Vicke Hearne, the 3rd link to come up is her New York Times obituary. That obituary contains the poem you quoted. Your post seems to imply you're familiar with her work

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/arts/vicki-hearne-who-saw-human-traits-in-pets-dies-at-55.html



but this doesn't seem to be the case. And it's also nice that you make fun of her poetry but neglect to mention she was a Stegner Fellow in poetry. That's not an easy fellowship to obtain.

It's also odd that though the obituary contains a laundry list of pretty impressive credentials, you chose to sweep them aside in favor of making fun of a poem you don't care for. Please explain how that works.

How again is this board about fighting ignorance?Actually, I read "Bandit" about ten years back, and was rather unimpressed. As far as her credentials go, She earned a bachelor of arts degree in English at the University of California, Riverside, in 1969 and was a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University during a year of study there.

She worked as a lecturer in creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, from 1980 to 1984 and as an assistant professor of English at Yale from 1984 to 1986. From 1989 to 1995 she was a visiting fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale.
Pretty impressive credentials...but none of them have anything to do with expertise in the field we are talking about here.

[dropzone]

dropzone, I've spent so much time refuting stuff in this thread that I've been accused of spewing verbiage. I've referenced reputable sources everywhere they exist. The only thing I dismiss out of hand is the Clifton report... and for very good reason, as cited in the last article I've linked to. As ever... if you can provide any cite for your accusations, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, it's pretty goddamned offensive for you to come along and call me a liar and a crackpot, don't you think? Several cites have been proffered. You continue to act as is the only way a Pit can go bad is if its owner is bad. This may be true, but the lion's share of the evidence says that the breed, as many owners train it, is unreliable and dangerous. We cannot ban people. We are stuck legislating against a breed of dog.

My daughter owns a bulldog-basset cross. His personality tends toward the basset side, but I was very concerned when he got loose and jumped into the mail lady's van. Turns out he wanted love, but he noticed the girls playing soccer across the street. Running into practice he frightened some, but a coach kicked a ball toward me. Coach had no idea how wide he could open his jaws when Riley grabbed the ball and brought it back to him.

I do not know how reliable this mutt is, but I know not to trust him. In the mean time I can pretend he's reliable, but only as far as I can reach him. Pits are like this: dogs bred for a purpose and one should never trust them to ignore their breeding. I consider you a sap who loves the way your own dogs act and who projects that onto all of the same breed, despite all studies that state otherwise.

[NajaNivea]

We cannot ban people. We are stuck legislating against a breed of dog.
What, we cannot ban people so now we must ban sports cars when bad drivers cause accidents in sports cars? There's no way to legislate human behavior?

I consider you a sap who loves the way your own dogs act and who projects that onto all of the same breed, despite all studies that state otherwise.
I consider you... something else entirely. I suppose you didn't even notice that two sentences later I pointed out that I don't even own a pit dog?

Your insights are endlessly fascinating.

[valleyofthedolls]

Actually, I read "Bandit" about ten years back, and was rather unimpressed.

I have no idea what you mean by "unimpressed." Was the book to difficult for you to understand? Did you not care for her writing style? Did you disagree with her conclusions? If so, why?

I'll admit it's not the most user-friendly book. Her interests in linguistics might have been better served in a different format. But again, a book doesn't have to be user-friendly to be correct (you understand that, right?). As far as I can see, her research and the arguments that spring from it are very thorough and well laid out. If you find fault with her documentation, please show me.

And the poem you quoted doesn't appear in Bandit, so why bring it up at all if you weren't trying to argue from ignorance?

Pretty impressive credentials...but none of them have anything to do with expertise in the field we are talking about here.

The New York Times obituary also said:

"Victoria Elizabeth Hearne was born Feb. 13, 1946, in Austin, Tex. She worked as a self-employed animal trainer beginning in 1967."

"In addition to ''Adam's Task,'' she was the author of ''Animal Happiness''"

"Ms. Hearne, who trained animals and their owners at Silver Trails: The Animal Inn, turned her childhood love of dogs and horses into a life's work and the foundation of a philosophy of human and animal relations and communication that was articulated in her best-known book, ''Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name'"

Her life's work was training animals. She wrote 3 well-respected books on her training philosophy. But let's ignore that in favor of a silly poem

Look, I don't even agree with most of her training methods (she was a Koehler trainer) but I can recognize an intelligent and fact-based argument when I see one. And Hearne does present an intelligent and fact-based argument with regards to the HSUS causing (to this day) a moral panic involving pit bulls. I can even look at the timeline she presents, do my own googling and see that it follows, almost to a T, something called the deviancy amplification spiral (Stanley Cohen, Folklores and Moral Panics) but that's something for another post.

So you'll have to forgive me if I take her word over someone who believes making fun of a poem is the best way to fight ignorance.

[Mosier]

Approximately, yes. There averages about 16 dog bite related fatalities a year, which account for approximately .00002% of dog bite incidents. Even going by the worst statistics and including all dog bite related fatalities, getting killed by a pit bull is a pretty remote concern. Cite (http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Dog-Bites/dogbite-factsheet.html)

That site says 386,000 people a year require treatment in an emergency room from a dog bite. Are you trying to say that because it doesn't typically KILL you, a dog bite which puts you in the ER isn't worth being afraid of?

Your site also suggests consulting animal experts and health professionals before deciding on a particular dog breed. That's not advice I would expect an expert who thought no breed is more dangerous than any other breed to give.

Honestly though, all debate aside, do you really think a random stray cocker spaniel is just as dangerous as a random stray pit bull? Or is your position more along the lines of "some breeds are indeed more dangerous than others, but pit bulls have been unfairly demonized well beyond what they deserve"? The former position is just silly, but the latter one is certainly defensible.

[furt]

Clearly this is a topic that means quite a bit to me, so if you truly do believe I'm arguing from a stance of ignorance and bias, I'd really like to know.FWIW, I'd go with "a stance of obsession and delusion."

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Y'know how Charlie Brown always falls for Lucy holding out the football? That's me.

According to Clifton's report [which, once again, is based entirely on press accounts], during the 24-year period covered by his study there were a total of 2,209 “[dog] attacks doing bodily harm” in the U.S. and Canada. 1,182 of those attacks were by pit bulls and pit bull mixes. (Lumping mixes together with so-called purebreds makes no sense from any standpoint, but Mr. Clifton lumps them together --- so I will, too, again for the purposes of this post.)

1,182 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes in the U.S. and Canada over a 24-year period [according to the Clifton statistics] works out to an average of just over 49 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit bull mixes in North America per year.

If Clifton’s pit bull numbers are correct, and no more than 49 of the 6,000 or so hospitalizations due to severe dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, then pit bulls and pit mixes are responsible for less than one percent of those hospitalizations.

.82%. Eighty-two hundredths of a percent of hospitalizations due to dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, if the press has accurately represented the number of serious attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes.
This is far more craptastic than the Clifton report ever could be, and it's astonishing that anyone doesn't immediately see the problem. This blogger is calculating pit bull attacks reported in the media as a percentage of hospitalizations in the US due to dog bites. That's like calculating the number of hairs on your head as a percentage of the number of raisins in a bowl of Raisin Bran, and trying to draw some conclusion from the result. The numbers are unrelated.

FWIW, gonzomax, your arguments don't really rise to the level of arguments, either. The old saw applies here: the plural of anecdote ain't data.

[NajaNivea]

do you really think a random stray cocker spaniel is just as dangerous as a random stray pit bull?
No, not exactly, although it's funny you cite cocker spaniels as your "obviously a-ok friendly ol' pooch", as they are well-known for aggesssion issues. So much so that specific (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16313036?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed) research (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9257436) has been conducted to explore why this breed has such a higher-than-average rate of aggression problems. The Cocker Spaniel Breed Council provides extensive counseling (http://www.cockerspaniel-info.org.uk/temperament.htm) on temperament concerns. This problem is not specific to the US, a recent analysis of 1,040 cases of aggression (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/22/cocker-spaniel-aggressive.html) seen at a veterinary teaching hospital in Spain found: Of those cases, the majority of cases were attributed to English cocker spaniels, Rottweilers, Boxers, Yorkshire terriers and German shepherds.
Vets in New Zealand consider them to be more aggressive than Staffordshire Bull Terriers (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16031916?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=3). You can't blame it all on genetics, though. It turns out though that even in a breed of dogs with known and documented genetic aggression problems, owner influence has a correlation with the expression of this trait. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19520239?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=3&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed)

So my answer to your question is simply that I handle all random-source dogs of indeterminate history with equal caution, because I have no desire to be bitten by a cocker any more than I do a pit dog. This is exactly the same as my attitude toward dogs and children. I urge parents to supervise their children's interactions with dogs of any breed or type, regardless of how I might view any given breed or individual in terms of temperament generalities.

I'm sure though that those research results are just a result of my obsessional, sappy delusion with my imaginary pit dogs. :rolleyes:

Or is your position more along the lines of "some breeds are indeed more dangerous than others, but pit bulls have been unfairly demonized well beyond what they deserve"?
This is certainly me in a nutshell.

[Czarcasm]

Are pit bulls one of the more dangerous breeds, then?

[NajaNivea]

This blogger is calculating pit bull attacks reported in the media as a percentage of hospitalizations in the US due to dog bites. That's like calculating the number of hairs on your head as a percentage of the number of raisins in a bowl of Raisin Bran, and trying to draw some conclusion from the result. The numbers are unrelated.
You'll need to help me out here, some. Why are they unrelated?
Clifton's numbers, the ones you and everyone else have been stroking yourselves over all thread long are lifted directly out of media reports. There is a clear problem with this methodology, but let's set that aside for the moment, since as you assure us, Clifton's methods reflect reality perfectly, and my dismissal of them is just sappy, delusional nonsense.
So... Clifton's numbers of purported "attacks causing great bodily harm" don't have any connection to the actual numbers of people hospitalized in the US due to dog attacks annually? Is this because pit bull attacks are reported in the media with some different frequency than attacks by other dogs? If Clifton's numbers are so reliable, I wouldn't expect you to believe this to be true. Taking Clifton's findings, that 49 attacks per year on average by pit bulls cause great bodily harm, why can we not take that number and compare it to the total number of dog attacks each year causing great bodily harm?



...Or are you now trying to assure me that "pit bull attacks reported in the media" have no direct correlation with the actual frequency of severe dog attacks? Hairs are pretty different from raisins, and all.

[ivan astikov]

If it is indeed the case that some pit bulls turn ferocious for no apparent reason, what is the explanation for the vast number of pit's that don't go beserk at the drop of a hat?

Are their owners just lucky it hasn't happened yet?

If pit's really were as nasty as some people on here are making them out to be, shouldn't we expect to be seeing a lot more instances of their aggression being reported?

[NajaNivea]

Are pit bulls one of the more dangerous breeds, then?
No more dangerous than, say, boxers, shepherds, great danes, dobermans, rottweilers, borzoi, various and sundry cur breeds, briards, akitas, shar-pei, chows, rhodesian ridgebacks, American bulldogs, any of the pastoral flock guardian breeds, and so on and so forth. They fall into a class of "medium to large working breed dogs" which necessitate more active management than sedentary breeds or, say, sporting and companion breeds which were selected for soft temperaments and close companionship.
If we're talking about what breeds are most "dangerous" for children, I'd include frequently fearful breeds like Dalmations on the list.

These, though, are broad generalizations. Behavior is dictated by many more factors than simply breed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11314475?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed), and what dogs wind up with behavioral issues (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17107314?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed) is (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18672152?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_MultiItemSupl.Pubmed_TitleSearch&linkpos=1&log$=pmtitlesearch4) more (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17891468?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=19) complicated (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980492?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=20) than the generalizations above. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18672156?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_MultiItemSupl.Pubmed_TitleSearch&linkpos=2&log$=pmtitlesearch4)

[gonzomax]

If it is indeed the case that some pit bulls turn ferocious for no apparent reason, what is the explanation for the vast number of pit's that don't go beserk at the drop of a hat?

Are their owners just lucky it hasn't happened yet?

If pit's really were as nasty as some people on here are making them out to be, shouldn't we expect to be seeing a lot more instances of their aggression being reported?

They are all over the news with pit bull attacks. If all dogs are capable of snapage, pits will cause more damage. They are bred not to quit. That is why when kicked and punched, they keep on coming. Those characteristics have been bred for. Dog attacks are not rare,. When they hit the news they are generally pits. The cameras catch them coming back over and over. That is a trait of pit bulls. That is a reason they get so much bad press. That and the fact they dominate the statistics.

[ivan astikov]

They are all over the news with pit bull attacks. If all dogs are capable of snapage, pits will cause more damage. They are bred not to quit. That is why when kicked and punched, they keep on coming. Those characteristics have been bred for. Dog attacks are not rare,. When they hit the news they are generally pits. The cameras catch them coming back over and over. That is a trait of pit bulls. That is a reason they get so much bad press. That and the fact they dominate the statistics.

But, if every pit bull was like that, merely because of breeding and with no blame laid on the owners, don't you think we'd be hearing of even more of these kind of events than we are now?

What % of pit bulls do you think are involved in these known pit bull related incidents?

And, even if they are more dangerous than the average dog, is that any reason to want to wipe them from the canine gene pool, rather than simply insist they are muzzled?

[dropzone]

What, we cannot ban people so now we must ban sports cars when bad drivers cause accidents in sports cars? There's no way to legislate human behavior?Ha! Between safety, pollution, and Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations the Feds as much as banned sports cars forty years ago. It took the manufacturers years to find ways to make cars fast and fun while still safe and clean. A Corvette from the mid-70s had (IIRC) 175hp and could barely break 100mph. The base engine in a 2010 Furd Fusion sedan also puts out 175hp. The engine in a 2010 Corvette ZR1 puts out 638hp and will take the car to over 200mph, but you would have a tough time killing yourself breathing its exhaust.

[NajaNivea]

Ha! Between safety, pollution, and Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations the Feds as much as banned sports cars forty years ago. It took the manufacturers years to find ways to make cars fast and fun while still safe and clean. A Corvette from the mid-70s had (IIRC) 175hp and could barely break 100mph. The base engine in a 2010 Furd Fusion sedan also puts out 175hp. The engine in a 2010 Corvette ZR1 puts out 638hp and will take the car to over 200mph, but you would have a tough time killing yourself breathing its exhaust.

What do pollution and Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations have to do with reckless drivers, or laws put in place to regulate the behavior of people behind the wheel?

[magellan01]

No more dangerous than, say, boxers, shepherds, great danes, dobermans, rottweilers, borzoi, various and sundry cur breeds, briards, akitas, shar-pei, chows, rhodesian ridgebacks, American bulldogs, any of the pastoral flock guardian breeds, and so on and so forth. They fall into a class of "medium to large working breed dogs" which necessitate more active management than sedentary breeds or, say, sporting and companion breeds which were selected for soft temperaments and close companionship.

Okay. So, you agree that not all dogs are equally dangerous. That the ones you mention above probably, on average, cause more of a problem than others not on your list. I agree. But I see this is the initial way to slice it. After that, if one breed (any one of them) is bred to fight, selectively encouraging those traits that make it better at killing—both physically and tempermentally—that breed would be become MORE dangerous than if not so bred, wouldn't it. And, therefore, MORE dangerous than those other dogs. Right?

[NajaNivea]

After that, if one breed (any one of them) is bred to fight, selectively encouraging those traits that make it better at killing—both physically and tempermentally—that breed would be become MORE dangerous than if not so bred, wouldn't it. And, therefore, MORE dangerous than those other dogs. Right?

...You do realize, of course, that a fair number of those breeds up there were bred to fight human beings, selectively encouraging those traits that would make them better at killing human beings both physically and temperamentally...right? That several of the breeds are bred to fight wolves, foxes or coyotes, a couple for lions or mountain lions, a whole bunch of them for wild boar...? So yes, I do agree with your statement--that dogs bred for battle-related work duties have stronger temperaments and greater potential for harm if involved in human conflict. As I said, many medium and large working breeds fit the bill, pit dogs no more so than any other.

[magellan01]

...You do realize, of course, that a fair number of those breeds up there were bred to fight human beings, selectively encouraging those traits that would make it better at killing human beings both physically and temperamentally...right? That several of the breeds are bred to fight wolves, a couple for lions or mountain lions, a whole bunch of them for wild boar...? So yes, I do agree with your statement--that dogs bred for battle-related work duties have stronger temperaments and greater potential for harm if involved in human conflict. As I said, many medium and large working breeds fit the bill, pit dogs no more than any other.

So, in theory, if one of these breeds were bred to be even better fighters, be even more powerful, and be even more aggressive and unrelenting once they're involved in a fight, that breed would be on a track to be potentially more dangerous than all the others. Correct?

[NajaNivea]

So, in theory, if one of these breeds were bred to be even better fighters, be even more powerful, and be even more aggressive and unrelenting once they're involved in a fight, that breed would be on a track to be potentially more dangerous than all the others. Correct?

You don't think a wolfhound is expected to fight to the death? Or a pastoral flock guardian? You think Great Pyrenees breeders are peachy-keen and dandy if their flock guardian takes a powder because he gets concerned about his own skin? What about boar dogs? A hog dog that quits in the middle of a fight gets other dogs and the hunter killed, and you can most certainly bet that dog is going to get a quick bullet in the head if he manages to survive the fight after tucking tail and running.
You don't think a lion hunting dog is bred to be a relentless killer once engaged?

What about protection dogs? Do you think that working doberman breeders breed dobies who, when they get smacked around a little, pack it up and go home? Any of the eastern European herding breeds (GSD, Malinois, etc), you think people spend fortunes and lives breeding dogs to chase and fight bad guys, but who give up when the going gets tough?

[magellan01]

You don't think a wolfhound is expected to fight to the death? Or a pastoral flock guardian? You think Great Pyrenees breeders are peachy-keen and dandy if their flock guardian takes a powder because he gets concerned about his own skin? What about boar dogs? A hog dog that quits in the middle of a fight gets other dogs and the hunter killed, and you can most certainly bet that dog is going to get a quick bullet in the head if he manages to survive the fight after tucking tail and running.
You don't think a lion hunting dog is bred to be a relentless killer once engaged?

What about protection dogs? Do you think that working doberman breeders breed dobies who, when they get smacked around a little, pack it up and go home? Any of the eastern European herding breeds (GSD, Malinois, etc), you think people spend fortunes and lives breeding dogs to chase and fight bad guys, but who give up when the going gets tough?

Thanks for not answering my question. I thought as much. But now I can leave you alone again and go debate Young Earth Creationists. My skills are so lacking I need an audience who is more open to reality and more open to the idea that they might be wrong. I'll leave you to your Benign Pitbullism.

[NajaNivea]

Thanks for not answering my question. I thought as much. But now I can leave you alone again and go debate Young Earth Creationists. My skills are so lacking I need an audience who is more open to reality and more open to the idea that they might be wrong. I'll leave you to your Benign Pitbullism.
Sigh.

So, in theory, if one of these breeds were bred to be even better fighters, be even more powerful, and be even more aggressive and unrelenting once they're involved in a fight, that breed would be on a track to be potentially more dangerous than all the others. Correct?
Okay, sure. Now, why don't you go ahead and tell me how this hypothetical applies to a 35-40lb dog bred to fight other 35-45lb dogs, more so than any number of 80-100lb+ breeds bred to fight to the death against wolves, coyotes, lions, wild boar, or human beings?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

..Or are you now trying to assure me that "pit bull attacks reported in the media" have no direct correlation with the actual frequency of severe dog attacks? Hairs are pretty different from raisins, and all.
They may have a proportional correlation, but not a one-to-one correlation (unless you're suggesting that every single dog attack is reported in the media--edit--or suggesting that a sample is necessarily unrepresentative).

If the blog's method of analysis is correct--if we may consider number of media-reported cases as a percentage of hospital-reported cases to determine how many bites a particular subgroup is responsible for--then a much more alarming trend emerges. We just need to apply this analysis on the species, rather than the breed, level.

Look at the analysis again:
According to Clifton's report [which, once again, is based entirely on press accounts], during the 24-year period covered by his study there were a total of 2,209 “[dog] attacks doing bodily harm” in the U.S. and Canada. 1,182 of those attacks were by pit bulls and pit bull mixes. (Lumping mixes together with so-called purebreds makes no sense from any standpoint, but Mr. Clifton lumps them together --- so I will, too, again for the purposes of this post.)

1,182 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes in the U.S. and Canada over a 24-year period [according to the Clifton statistics] works out to an average of just over 49 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit bull mixes in North America per year.

If Clifton’s pit bull numbers are correct, and no more than 49 of the 6,000 or so hospitalizations due to severe dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, then pit bulls and pit mixes are responsible for less than one percent of those hospitalizations.

.82%. Eighty-two hundredths of a percent of hospitalizations due to dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, if the press has accurately represented the number of serious attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes.
Now we see that there were 2,209 dog attacks doing serious bodily harm in a certain 24-year period, or roughly 92 per year. There were 6,000 or so hospitalizations each year due to severe dog bites. Apparently, only 1.5% of all dog bites are caused by dogs!

Which, as I promised, raises a much more alarming question: who's causing the other 98.5% of dog bites? Is it cats with prosthetic dog teeth implants? Dog-headed aliens from the Sirius system? Werewolves?

Or maybe--just maybe--the media presents a sample (representative or not remains to be determined) of dog bites, not all of them. In which case the werewolf threat may be overstated.

Edit: incidentally, check it out (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4749265&postcount=3), and please knock it off.

[The Flying Dutchman]

So my answer to your question is simply that I handle all random-source dogs of indeterminate history with equal caution, because I have no desire to be bitten by a cocker any more than I do a pit dog.

I've been bitten by a cocker spaniel when I was a paper boy. Drew a little blood from my outstretched hand ready to pet , settled down and then wagged its tail. No big deal. Everyday it would come out aggressively barking at me and settle down friendly like when he got closer. Since then, no problem, I just didn't pet him again.

To compare a cocker spaniel attack to a pit bull attack is ludicrous. Its almost like comparing a house cat attack with a lion attack. Even if the lion is cute Elsa.

[independentminded]

I don't accept the misidentification argument either. people know what a Pit looks like. If it is mixed .it won't be with a Peke. They usually go for bigger and stronger. Many select Pits because they figure it is the baddest dog around. It is not generally the choice for people who want a lap dog.

I agree with you here, gonzomax. Your point is spot-on. There's a reason why Pitbulls are considered the "baddest" dogs around by many people who select them; they're bred for fighting and for attack, and, contrary to what lots of people say, it's not "just the owner", but the dog itself. Pitbulls have both the means (the DNA and physique) and the motives (temperament) to inflict much heavier damage than most dogs, and they do.

[independentminded]

Way to go, The Flying Dutchman!! This:



To compare a cocker spaniel attack to a pit bull attack is ludicrous. Its almost like comparing a house cat attack with a lion attack. Even if the lion is cute Elsa.

is spot-on!!

[independentminded]

Nonsense. Your whole post reads like a laundry list of pit bull myths (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf). At least you got the "no locking jaw" bit right.
Let's take this piece by piece, shall we? First off, are you... serious? "'Badass' is in their DNA, which is a cross between a regular bulldog and a terrier"? Why is a bulldog and terrier cross badass down to their DNA in a way that, say, a 100lb dog bred to attack human beings is not? Why would a bulldog and terrier mix be more fundamentally badass than, oh, I don't know, a dog bred to fight wolves?

Now, as for their "very strong beartrap-like jaw", is it more beartrap-like than the jaws of these dogs (http://dogbreedinfo.com/images18/BlackMouthCurTerrellBMCur1.JPG), bred to clamp down on 500lb wild boar and not let go 'til death do us part? Are their jaws bigger and stronger, their noses more recessed than these dogs (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_21/1127057641POm78L.jpg), mastiffs? Are their heads stronger and wider than all of these dogs (http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html)? Because a fair number of those breeds are two to three times as large as pit dogs, with in some cases identically-shaped heads. How come a pit bull's head is somehow built for maximum carnage, and this dog's (http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/images15/Bullmastiff16montholdbrindledoodoo.JPG) is not?
You assert that a pit dog's nose is "built back", bullshit. Prognasthism is a trait of brachycephalic dogs like Boxers and Bulldogs. The UKC standard (http://www.apbtconformation.com/ukcstandard.htm) for pit dogs calls for an underbite as a serious fault. See the dog in that photo? Does his nose look "set back" to you? Here are very famous (http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/calikeith/380-1.jpg) historic pit dogs (http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q169/calikeith/Chinaman.jpg). Do their noses look "set back" to you?

Contrary to the unmitigated urban legend crap spewed in your post, pit dogs do not have a bite any stronger than any other breed of dog, and though they are tenacious, they are no more tenacious than any other high-drive working breed. There is no reputable research to support a claim that a pit dog has a bite force higher than any other breed. Dr. Barr of National Geographic did a small test to measure relative bite force in different species of animals, and though the sample sizes are too small for definitive answers, the results were as follows:
Crocodiles: 2,500lbs PSI
Hyenas: 1000lbs
Snapping Turtles: 1000lbs
Lions: 600lbs
White Sharks: 600lbs
The three breeds of dogs tested, a GSD, a Rottweiler, and an APBT averaged 320lbs PSI. The pit dog came in last of the three breeds tested.





Haha, you mean, this Humane Society, the one that puts out this informational flyer (http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/docs/protecting-animals/PA-resources-pit-bull-myths.pdf)?
"When someone gets killed by a dog, they have dog professionals in charge"? What does that mean?

Please try to keep up, gonzomax. The Clifton report has been debunked ad nauseum ten ways to Tuesday in every pit thread that comes along.
Emphasis mine.

I disagree with you, NajaNivea. I know of at least two episodes, in which a pitbull had to be clubbed or shot to death, just to save their prey from being mauled or torn to death. One episode occurred in a workingclass section of Boston, in which a woman's dog was attacked by an unmuzzled pitbull and severely mauled. A passing neighbor saved the victimized dog's life by clubbing the marauding pitbull to death with a baseball bat. The victimized dog barely survived as it was.

Another episode occurred in the downtown section of Boston, in which a policeman was attacked and bitten in the leg by an unmuzzled, loose pitbull, which, as pitbulls do, clamped down upon the cop's leg. Another cop had to pump a whole round of carbines into the pitbull just to make it let go. Most dogs don't have to be clubbed or shot to death just to make them let go their grip on their prey. That being said, requiring their owners to muzzle their pitbulls while out in public, and to put warning signs about their pitbull's presence in their place of residence or business isn't a terrible restriction, but very moderate and reasonable, imho. Nobody's asking pitbull owners to get rid of their dogs, but to take the responsibility that goes along with owning such a dog. I don't think that pitbulls are meant to have as pets, but they should be restricted in densely populated urban and/or even suburban areas.

[NajaNivea]

They may have a proportional correlation, but not a one-to-one correlation (unless you're suggesting that every single dog attack is reported in the media--edit--or suggesting that a sample is necessarily unrepresentative).
I agree, it doesn't make much sense to use media reports as a definitive method to count all severe dog attacks, but Clifton himself believes it to be true. In his description of methodology he claims: "Due to the exclusion of dogs whose breed type may be uncertain, this is by no means a complete list of fatal and otherwise serious dog attacks. Attacks by police dogs, guard dogs, and dogs trained specifically to fight are also excluded."
Also, of course such a sample is necessarily unrepresentative. Partly because the media will report absolutely anything as a "pit bull", partly because "pit bull mauling" stories are way sexier than "mutt of indeterminate origin bite" stories, and partly because a list of severe dog attacks that includes breeds like "chox mix" and "buff mastiff" and three different names for a single breed, alleging that "experts" identified them as such is... let's say, less than accurate.


Now we see that there were 2,209 dog attacks doing serious bodily harm in a certain 24-year period, or roughly 92 per year. There were 6,000 or so hospitalizations each year due to severe dog bites. Apparently, only 1.5% of all dog bites are caused by dogs!

Which, as I promised, raises a much more alarming question: who's causing the other 98.5% of dog bites? Is it cats with prosthetic dog teeth implants? Dog-headed aliens from the Sirius system? Werewolves?

According to Clifton, dogs of indeterminate breed origin, or dogs that have been trained to fight or attack in the line of duty. I agree... it doesn't make much sense.

[NajaNivea]

To compare a cocker spaniel attack to a pit bull attack is ludicrous.
I did not compare one to the other, I said I had no desire to be bitten by any dog. YMMV but I like to keep all my blood on one side of my skin, if possible.

[NajaNivea]

Most dogs don't have to be clubbed or shot to death just to make them let go their grip on their prey.
How much experience do you have with big-game hunting dogs in the performance of duty? Working military, personal protection, and police dogs? People have been breeding eastern European herding dogs to hang on to the bad guy in spite of clubbing and bullet wounds for more than a hundred years.

Nobody's asking pitbull owners to get rid of their dogs, but to take the responsibility that goes along with owning such a dog. I don't think that pitbulls are meant to have as pets, but they should be restricted in densely populated urban and/or even suburban areas.
I don't even necessarily disagree with the sentiments behind a statement like this, what boggles my mind is how pit bulls are singled out for this, over and above several much more "dangerous" breeds. I want people to take the responsibility that goes with owning such a dog any time the dog is a medium to large sized working breed capable of doing severe damage if involved in conflict--as I pointed out before, that includes a wide range of breeds. I want rottweilier owners to take just as much responsibility as pit bull owners, GSD, Chow, Akita, Malamute, Mastino and Presa owners, too. Many of these breeds I don't really feel are appropriate for urban and/or even suburban areas, but the history is very clear: breed specific legislation has been tried and does not work. It's hugely costly and entirely ineffective at reducing the number of dog bites or number of severe dog bites.

There are two basic reasons for this: one, because you cannot identify a dangerous dog by the label "pit bull". Plenty of other breeds are responsible for severe attacks, even if we are to assume it's true that pits are responsible for a plurality of attacks. Even going by Clifton's ridiculous numbers, it's less than half. Secondly, when you start legislating against a medium-sized, very temperamentally pliable breed like a pit bull, the "bad guys" who want a four-footed canine weapon simply turn to much bigger, much badder breeds, as we're seeing with the "exotic" molossers now entering the "bad dog arena". Even a "moderate" plan like the one you propose has flaws: muzzled pit bulls don't help when the stray dog mauling you is a chow mix (or even a "chox" mix, whatever that is), nor does a "dangerous pit bull" sign on a premises help you if the poorly-socialized and untrained dog is a GSD. Furthermore, freak dog attacks are exceedingly rare. Most dog bites happen by the family dog or a friend's dog, most happen at home or in a familiar place, and most times the victim is a child. Pit bulls muzzled in public don't stop the chained boxer mix from mauling the unattended toddler that wanders within range.

It is for these reasons that the CDC, AVMA, and ASPCA recommend comprehensive, behavior-based legislation which applies to all "dangerous dogs" regardless of breed or type, as well as extensive good dog-ownership education and dog bite prevention education. Unlike breed-specific legislation, these methods do work.

[NajaNivea]

Pitbulls have both the means (the DNA and physique) and the motives (temperament) to inflict much heavier damage than most dogs, and they do.

I'm curious: how does their DNA and physique compare (http://dogspatch.com/images/American_Bulldog.jpg) to (http://www.mastino-napoletano.be/fotos/lu10m.JPG) these (http://www.boerboelsusa.com/images/332_Abbie_Stand_A.jpg) dogs (http://www.abouttimecanecorso.com/images/CaneCorsoSecuritySystem1.jpg), all much larger than pit bulls, and all bred to fight much larger, much more dangerous animals (with much better weapons at their disposal) to the death?

[gonzomax]

Sure, now we are supposed to DNA dogs that attack you.
We know St. Bernards could do a lot of damage but because of that fact, the breeders bred for a docile temperament. But since pits are used in dog fighting ,they have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Why are you in such a state of denial? Pit bulls are bred to fight. Does that mean the next pit born will be a killer? No ,but the probability is a lot higher. Dog bites are one thing, but a dog that kills is another. A dog would have to be rabid to match the determination of a pit.

[The Flying Dutchman]

I did not compare one to the other, I said I had no desire to be bitten by any dog. YMMV but I like to keep all my blood on one side of my skin, if possible.

A little blood doesn't bother me. A month never goes by that I don't get a little break in the skin, mostly on my hands. It is the tearing flesh and the prospect of death that concerns me.

[NajaNivea]

But since pits are used in dog fighting ,they have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Why are you in such a state of denial?
Lots of dogs are used to fight animals much larger and much more dangerous than other medium-sized dogs, they have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Lots of dogs are used to fight and kill human beings. They have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Why are you in such a state of denial?
A little blood doesn't bother me. A month never goes by that I don't get a little break in the skin, mostly on my hands. It is the tearing flesh and the prospect of death that concerns me.
That's an interesting take on the subject. Experts (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3918325?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_PMC&linkpos=3&log$=citedinpmcarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed) disagree (http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf).
A "severe" attack was defined as one in which the dog "repeatedly bit or vigorously shook its victim, and the victim or the person intervening had extreme difficulty terminating the attack."
...
A majority of the attacks were by American Staffordshire terriers, St. Bernards, and cocker spaniels.

Dogs from small breeds also bite, and are capable of causing severe injury.
Sorry, but I'm going to go with the AVMA and my own extensive personal and professional experience, instead of your gut feeling on this one. I'm not "afraid" of any dog, regardless of the size of their teeth, but I will handle all dogs of unknown background with equal caution. Yes, cocker spaniels, too.

[gonzomax]

Sure thing, the news is full of stories about poodles being killed by cops because they would not quit attacking a mail man. Those poodles are just so dangerous. It is amazing what people can convince themselves of.
I don't deny the next pit I run into may be a sweet doggie. It could happen. But if you have any respect for statistics , you have to admit I would be a fool not to be wary of a loose pit. I am more likely to be in trouble encountering a pit than any other dog. And the degree of trouble is much higher. If I get attacked by a poodle , I can kick it away. That is not effective on a pit. They will eat your foot.

[NajaNivea]

Who brought up poodles as an example?

[Freudian Slit]

Sure thing, the news is full of stories about poodles being killed by cops because they would not quit attacking a mail man. Those poodles are just so dangerous. It is amazing what people can convince themselves of.
I don't deny the next pit I run into may be a sweet doggie. It could happen. But if you have any respect for statistics , you have to admit I would be a fool not to be wary of a loose pit. I am more likely to be in trouble encountering a pit than any other dog. And the degree of trouble is much higher. If I get attacked by a poodle , I can kick it away. That is not effective on a pit. They will eat your foot.

A small toy or mini poodle, maybe. I doubt you could shake a standard poodle off if it really wanted to attack you.

[CannyDan]

Checking back in.

NajaNivea, although you continue to condemn Clifton, and offer a blog in support, others have repeatedly pointed out your error. Clifton is not, and does not purport to be, a comprehensive and exhaustive compilation. It is instead a representative compilation. So when you try to calculate some absolute number of fatal dog attacks and/or hospital admissions using Clifton's 24 year data span and then show that this does not comport with actual fatal dog attacks and/or hospital admissions, you have not demonstrated any error in Clifton, but only an error in your own methodology. Clifton is more like a Nielson rating or a political telephone poll than a survey in which 100% of all possible participants are included. There are problems with this, but not the ones you point to.

Clifton does indeed rely on media reports, and these can certainly be slanted toward sensationalized accounts. There will surely be under-reporting of incidents that do not fit the media "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy. So I would expect nips that do not draw blood as well as bites not requiring hospitalization to be under-represented in Clifton. It seems acceptable to me to ignore this bias, since we are actually discussing serious danger, not how often Grandma's Chihuahua nips family members who have the temerity to sit on the couch. Perhaps we should read Clifton’s “totals” as “totals of medium and large breeds” instead of “totals of all breeds” since small dogs are unlikely to cause enough harm to attract media attention.

You also condemn Clifton for reporting multiple names for the same breed. Why is this a problem? Clifton is only repeating the identifications provided to him, and is making no assumptions himself of the "actual" breeds involved. He is relying on supposedly authoritative sources for these identifications. You, if you wish, can add together whatever Clifton's sources incorrectly parse out and place them into whatever you consider to be a correct breed. This in no way changes the percentage representation of Pit-like dogs in the total sample.

Earlier in the thread you made much of the supposed mis-identification of breed by visible appearance versus genotype. I'm sure you know that genotyping of dog breeds is fraught with problems-- differences in methodologies such as the specific genetic markers chosen for comparison, differences in databases used for comparison, even differences in the "representative specimens" chosen for inclusion in those databases in the first place. Dog genotype results frequently come back with the greatest percentage of "breed" of less than 25%, and with half a dozen or more other breeds making up the remaining 75+%. This is seen even in supposed purebred dogs! Dog breeds are too recent, too plastic, and too subject to outcrossing even in supposed purebred lines for genetic typing to be highly reliable in defining breed. So to declare as you do that genetic results demonstrate that animal control workers and other associated people are completely unreliable in their identifications, or systemically unreliable, is not supported by fact.

I will accept that there is some level of misidentification in Clifton. After all, we are talking about media accounts here. But come on-- when the media interviews the AC officer on site of an attack who says the dog looks like a GSD, or a Collie, or even a Bulldog, and asks the owner what kind of dog and the owner replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, and asks the shelter worker what kind of dog and the shelter worker replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, the media doesn't just call it a Pitbull because that sounds scary. And they don’t just dump a good bloody story because it wasn’t a Pit.

I accept that some rare breeds, and some rare breed mixes, and even some individuals of common breeds are surely misreported as Pits in Clifton. I am also quite sure that there are some AC workers and some shelter workers who cannot tell a Pit from a Catahoula, or even from a Pomeranian. But by the very nature of Clifton's survey, any such person will likely contribute only a single misidentification, as it is most unlikely that this same person will be involved in any larger number of media-reported maulings. To claim that such people are actually the majority of ACs and shelter workers, this being necessary if you wish to reject all identifications in Clifton, seems quite a stretch, and is not supported by evidence (although this is asserted repeatedly).

Clifton also does not take into account the relative populations, or popularity levels, of dog breeds. All other factors being equal, we should expect the most populous breed to produce the highest incidence of – well, anything, including bites. But in order to discount Clifton on this basis, at least half and approaching three quarters of all dogs owned (or of all medium and large dogs, see paragraph above regarding small breeds) would have to be Pit-types. While I might accept such a dominance of market share in certain areas or neighborhoods, I do not believe it to be true nationwide.

Clifton is by no means perfect, and I do not cite it as evidence that breed specific regulations or breed specific bans are appropriate or useful in reducing dangerous dog problems. I do not believe that Clifton makes any conclusive case for such regulation. And I’ll repeat that I do not support bans or similar breed specific regulation. As has been pointed out repeatedly by NajaNivea (credit where it is due) and many others, dog attacks are a complex problem whether they be fatal or only painful, inflicted upon humans, dogs, or other animals. Solutions will need to be equal to the complexity of the problem, and bans are a simplistic and ineffective palliative that should be avoided. To start, I believe that people should be held strictly accountable for the actions of their pets, whatever the breed, indeed whatever the species.

Abusive owners and failures in or deliberate avoidance of socialization certainly contribute to the dog bite problem, especially during the current fad for “bad” Pits. However, even given the problems noted above, Clifton does demonstrate that “Pit-type dogs” (in a rather flexible non-definition that includes at least some representatives of other defined breeds and crosses by way of definition) are a statistical supernova to the universal background noise of dog attacks. To refuse to accept this is to play the ostrich game.

Time for the Twelve Step Program. Step One:
“My name is NajaNivea, and I admit that Pits are a problem…” ;)

[NajaNivea]

Clifton is not, and does not purport to be, a comprehensive and exhaustive compilation.
He actually does make such a claim, as quoted above. He does not state "this is a proportional representation, the media only reports on a very small number of severe dog attacks", he claims to be making a comprehensive report, excluding only all "dogs of indeterminate breed background and dogs trained to fight or attack".

You also condemn Clifton for reporting multiple names for the same breed. Why is this a problem? Clifton is only repeating the identifications provided to him, and is making no assumptions himself of the "actual" breeds involved. He is relying on supposedly authoritative sources for these identifications. You, if you wish, can add together whatever Clifton's sources incorrectly parse out and place them into whatever you consider to be a correct breed. This in no way changes the percentage representation of Pit-like dogs in the total sample.
Why is this a problem? Because Clifton is relying on sources purported to be "expert" who identify dogs as breeds which do not exist. I'm not going to sort through Clifton's report and make arbitrary changes based on what I think those experts meant, after all, he's the one who claims "expert" authority, and I fail to see why the same experts who identified a "buff mastiff" as perpetrating an attack not to call any random boxer mix a "pit bull".
We also have no way whatsoever to verify these accounts, because there is no record of the reports he used to make his list, nor is there any record of independent verification.

I will accept that there is some level of misidentification in Clifton. After all, we are talking about media accounts here. But come on-- when the media interviews the AC officer on site of an attack who says the dog looks like a GSD, or a Collie, or even a Bulldog, and asks the owner what kind of dog and the owner replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, and asks the shelter worker what kind of dog and the shelter worker replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, the media doesn't just call it a Pitbull because that sounds scary. And they don’t just dump a good bloody story because it wasn’t a Pit.
Really? Never (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11673911&postcount=128)? These examples of media misidentification were dismissed as "anecdotes" earlier, yet these were only the ones caught due either to photos of obviously non-pit-type dogs included with the report, or caught due to later retractions which, as you might imagine are... rare.
Why do you think the AVMA includes the following quote on the very first page of their report?
"An often asked question is "what breed, or breeds of dog are most dangerous"? This inquiry can be prompted by a serious attack by a specific dog, or it may be the result of media-driven portrayals of a specific breed as "dangerous."
Why do you suppose neither the CDC nor the AVMA cite Clifton as reliable? Why, again, should I accept your recommendation that I do so?

But in order to discount Clifton on this basis, at least half and approaching three quarters of all dogs owned (or of all medium and large dogs, see paragraph above regarding small breeds) would have to be Pit-types. While I might accept such a dominance of market share in certain areas or neighborhoods, I do not believe it to be true nationwide.
I'm still waiting for some reason why I should accept your layman's assessment of these statistics, above the CDC and AVMA?

Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.

There is currently no accurate way to identify the number of dogs of a particular breed, and consequently no measure to determine which breeds are more likely to bite or kill.
Emphasis mine.

You may believe pits to be a specific and "supernova like" problem, but according to all relevant experts, unsocialized, intact, free-roaming or chained dogs are a much bigger problem.

[Mosier]

If it is indeed the case that some pit bulls turn ferocious for no apparent reason, what is the explanation for the vast number of pit's that don't go beserk at the drop of a hat?

Are their owners just lucky it hasn't happened yet?

If pit's really were as nasty as some people on here are making them out to be, shouldn't we expect to be seeing a lot more instances of their aggression being reported?

How many times would you have to see it before it would be enough to satisfy you? "More than what we see now" is pretty undefined. In my personal experience, every case of serious dog aggression I've seen in my life involved a pit bull aggressor.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

According to Clifton, dogs of indeterminate breed origin, or dogs that have been trained to fight or attack in the line of duty. I agree... it doesn't make much sense.
Clifton only says that if you think he's claiming that every single dog bite that requires hospitalization is reported in the media. The nonsense is in the blog you quoted, which applies an incredibly unsophisticated statistical butchery to the analysis in an attempt to discredit Clifton. my joke about 98.5% of dog bites not being from dogs shows the error in the blog, not in Clifton.

[CannyDan]

He actually does make such a claim, as quoted above. He does not state "this is a proportional representation, the media only reports on a very small number of severe dog attacks", he claims to be making a comprehensive report, excluding only all "dogs of indeterminate breed background and dogs trained to fight or attack".

Please. By noting certain information as specifically excluded, he does not make a claim that other included info is comprehensive. It is explained to be a media survey. Nobody, not even Clifton, believes a media survey is comprehensive.

Why do you suppose neither the CDC nor the AVMA cite Clifton as reliable? Why, again, should I accept your recommendation that I do so?

I'm still waiting for some reason why I should accept your layman's assessment of these statistics, above the CDC and AVMA?

Because the citation relied upon when they make that statement does not support your use of the sentence you underline. The little "7" references this (http://www.mercer.edu/psychology/Faculty_Staff/Wright_JC/downloadable_articles/Canine%20Aggression%20-%20Dog%20Bites%20to%20People.pdf) article. As I explained upthread, in this Wright presents a case for complexity of the dogbite phenomenon, but he himself clearly accepts breed as one factor among many in dog aggression cases. The rest of the paragraph following your underline also speaks to the complexity of the issue. In fact, it speaks to the same caveats I discussed just above. But nowhere does it entirely repudiate Clifton's data.

Wright in the cited paper, and CDC and AVMA in their use of his article as background for their own policy statements, are all making similar generic arguments to emphasize an important point-- that dog aggression is not simply a matter of breed, and blaming a specific breed is dangerous because it allows the public to overlook the fact that other breeds can be dangerous as well. And so they exercise a bit of artistic (not quite poetic) license in their assertions ("...statistics are not really statistics... ...do not give an accurate picture... no accurate way to identify... ...no measure to determine... etc.) by way of emphasis. They do not though perform any actual analysis, let alone present any actual refutation, of Clifton's data. So these assertions are at best generally descriptive, not strictly accurate.

Your dogged ( :D ) insistence on totally rejecting any breed specific component to dog aggression is not supported by your own cites, and it only serves to undermine your (and their) more generalized and quite correct argument for a complex issue requiring complex answers.

[rhubarbarin]

How many times would you have to see it before it would be enough to satisfy you? "More than what we see now" is pretty undefined. In my personal experience, every case of serious dog aggression I've seen in my life involved a pit bull aggressor.


In my personal experience, NONE have.

[valleyofthedolls]

In my personal experience, NONE have.

Agreed with this. The most human aggressive dog I've ever met was a German Shepherd. The most dog aggressive dog I've ever met was a Labrador Retriever. And in the general category, the nastiest, most mean-spirited dog (who did some damage to a child and had to be put down) was a lhasa apso. The pit bulls have all been great.

[dropzone]

What do pollution and Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations have to do with reckless drivers, or laws put in place to regulate the behavior of people behind the wheel?Nothing. Just like laws banning specific breeds of dog. The laws didn't make people better. They just made it harder for people to be bad.

[The Flying Dutchman]

That's an interesting take on the subject. Experts (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3918325?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_PMC&linkpos=3&log$=citedinpmcarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed) disagree (http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf).





You've got to be kidding me .

For someone who's been making a big deal about reputable cites, You sure picked a doosy.

Since you didn't catch the author's obvious incompetency , let me explain.

The author concludes from the study that 2 out of 1000 reported dog bites is likely to result in a fatality. That's like 1 out of 500.

Yet the study reports only 1 fatility in a total sample of 5711 reported dog bites.

The conclusion erred by a factor of one order of magnitude !!!!!

But what really gets me is the fact that of the 16 "severe" dog bite incidents your beloved pit bull is featured along with dalmations and cocker spaniels and no other breed. Where's the German Shepherd ? Where's the Rottweiller.

I just don't believe it.

You know what would convince me that a cocker spaniel could do great damage?

A news report. A Cocker Spaniel killing someone would make front page news. Find one and I'll back right off.

[independentminded]

A small toy or mini poodle, maybe. I doubt you could shake a standard poodle off if it really wanted to attack you.

I tend to side with gonzomax on this one, Freudian Slit and nivea. A standard poodle might attack under the "right"circumstances, but they still cannot inflict the kind of damage that pitbulls are capable of inflicting.

[independentminded]

I'm curious: how does their DNA and physique compare (http://dogspatch.com/images/American_Bulldog.jpg) to (http://www.mastino-napoletano.be/fotos/lu10m.JPG) these (http://www.boerboelsusa.com/images/332_Abbie_Stand_A.jpg) dogs (http://www.abouttimecanecorso.com/images/CaneCorsoSecuritySystem1.jpg), all much larger than pit bulls, and all bred to fight much larger, much more dangerous animals (with much better weapons at their disposal) to the death?

I disagree with you on this one, NajaNivea. Comparing pitbulls and pitbull attacks with that of other dogs is ludicrous, imho. It's agreed that any dog can inflict a certain amount of damage if and when they bite, but even rottweilers and German Shepherds aren't capable of doing the kind of damage that pitbulls inflict.

[rhubarbarin]

Please visit the American Temperament Test Society at atts.com for a full range of data on all AKC recognized breeds. Samples sizes of the different breeds vary.

American Pit Bull Terriers have a 'pass rate' (which means the dog is determined to be tempermentally sound, no danger to humans and suitable for breeding or adoption) of 85%, higher than the average pass rate of all breeds of 81%.

[rhubarbarin]

I disagree with you on this one, NajaNivea. Comparing pitbulls and pitbull attacks with that of other dogs is ludicrous, imho. It's agreed that any dog can inflict a certain amount of damage if and when they bite, but even rottweilers and German Shepherds aren't capable of doing the kind of damage that pitbulls inflict.

Please provide any evidence at all for believing this (I know you can't). I am prepared to admit, if real evidence is ever available, that pit bulls bite more than other breeds. And it does seem evident that bull breeds are responsible for a majority of the small number of yearly dog fatalities. But this persisting belief that their jaws are 'special', 'bear traps' or 'lock in' is just... silly. So silly that I am embarrassed for those of you who keep bringing it up (maybe I should be embarrassed myself for being such a dog and genetics nerd that I know this is impossible).

The only studies that have been done so far show that the larger the dog, the harder to bite, the more damage inflicted. Breed has nothing to do with it.

I feed my dogs wholly on raw animal parts, and believe me, this is obvious if you watch dogs of different sizes eating whole raw bones. My best friend's 40-lb pit can't get though bones half the size my 80-lb German Shepherd/Lab can. And what better test is there than who can decimate a goat's thigh bone and tear off the biggest mouthfuls of muscle?

[NajaNivea]

You know what would convince me that a cocker spaniel could do great damage?

A news report. A Cocker Spaniel killing someone would make front page news. Find one and I'll back right off.
Third page, last entry on the table (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:nvs7Tbl77BYJ:www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbreeds.pdf+yorkshire+terrier+fatal+dog+attack&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESizjGKtRmruXV-Gn1akWEenvXZU2bnituG-xu3G4KXtB6-dcP1InQO1m6msfVTn5_TYeRv8WFxs6YB0mZvnhk_KI3wto2Y821KuxHAx8FTYFXsWI10hnRTYL8pf6msnbvVSVnQE&sig=AHIEtbSiWkYCub0J-B002PVGplN3urUv3A). The table also lists a West Highland Terrier, a 15-20lb dog, along with a collie, lab, and seven of gonzomax's "bred for docile temperaments" St. Bernards. Also cited: first paragraph, right-hand column, page 4:
Indeed, since 1975 dogs from over 30 breeds have been involved in fatal attacks on people, including Dauchshunds, a Yorkshire Terrier, and a Labrador Retriever.

How about a Pomeranian? Are they dangerous? (http://www.igorilla.com/gorilla/animal/2001/pomeranian.html)

[NajaNivea]

I tend to side with gonzomax on this one, Freudian Slit and nivea. A standard poodle might attack under the "right"circumstances, but they still cannot inflict the kind of damage that pitbulls are capable of inflicting.

Again... who cited poodles, here?

[gonzomax]

In my personal experience, NONE have.

Personal experience every single incident(6) were pits. TV and internet ,all of them. It is not a fabrication, pits are the ,most dangerous dogs in the world. It does not mean every single one of them will kill someone. But the ratio is far ,far higher than any other breed. that is just the way it is.
None of my dogs have ever bitten anybody. I guess by your logic that means dogs don't bite.

[rhubarbarin]

Personal experience every single incident(6) were pits. TV and internet ,all of them. It is not a fabrication, pits are the ,most dangerous dogs in the world. It does not mean every single one of them will kill someone. But the ratio is far ,far higher than any other breed. that is just the way it is.
None of my dogs have ever bitten anybody. i guess by your logic that means dogs don't bite.

I'm sorry you've had such 6 bad personal experiences with pits.

6 times isn't very many in the big scheme of things, though. I've experienced and witnessed more incidents that I could ever count or remember in the last 15 years. Based on all these experiences, I have learned to be extremely cautious around Toy Poodles. Nasty little things. My dogs and I have been snarled at, snapped at, and bitten more times than I can count.

I think both of us are reasonable to be cautious. But I don't see how your personal experiences mean pit bull hysteria isn't partially or wholly fabricated.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Third page, last entry on the table (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:nvs7Tbl77BYJ:www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbreeds.pdf+yorkshire+terrier+fatal+dog+attack&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESizjGKtRmruXV-Gn1akWEenvXZU2bnituG-xu3G4KXtB6-dcP1InQO1m6msfVTn5_TYeRv8WFxs6YB0mZvnhk_KI3wto2Y821KuxHAx8FTYFXsWI10hnRTYL8pf6msnbvVSVnQE&sig=AHIEtbSiWkYCub0J-B002PVGplN3urUv3A). The table also lists a West Highland Terrier, a 15-20lb dog, along with a collie, lab, and seven of gonzomax's "bred for docile temperaments" St. Bernards. Also cited: first paragraph, right-hand column, page 4:


How about a Pomeranian? Are they dangerous? (http://www.igorilla.com/gorilla/animal/2001/pomeranian.html)

I asked for a news report.

Its possible to die from a single Chihuahua bite if it results in a heart attack.

[dropzone]

Had a Cocker. More of a Field Spaniel, down to the Roman nose. Closest came to a dog I trusted, but he made bites that required stitches on a couple occasions. The dog I trusted. My children, not using any of the three methods I taught them to break up dog fights (hose, broom, and kicks), stuck their hands in when the two dogs were arguing over a rawhide chip, I did not trust. Yes, my children are idiots learn by doing.

[NajaNivea]

And so they exercise a bit of artistic (not quite poetic) license in their assertions ("...statistics are not really statistics... ...do not give an accurate picture... no accurate way to identify... ...no measure to determine... etc.) by way of emphasis. They do not though perform any actual analysis, let alone present any actual refutation, of Clifton's data. So these assertions are at best generally descriptive, not strictly accurate.
"Artistic license"?

How many times do I have to post this before you read it?
Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7 Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite, and any popular breed has more individuals that could bite. Dogs from small breeds also bite and are capable of causing severe injury. There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds.
First, the breed of the biting dog may not be accurately recorded, and mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as if they were purebreds. Second, the actual number of bites that occur in a community is not known, especially if they did not result in serious injury. Third, 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, and existing licensing data is then incomplete.7 Breed data likely vary between communities, states, or regions, and can even vary between neighborhoods within a community.
"There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds."
Are you going to tell me you're "smarter" than the AVMA, too? That these words are just fanciful poetic license?
Specific refutations by the AVMA and supported by the CDC:
-Trouble with identification. Mixed-breed dogs are commonly described as purebred, random-source dogs of unknown parentage are frequently assumed to be whatever their phenotype most resembles. Many dogs are sold as purebreds which are not. Many breeds and mixes resemble other breeds and mixes. Clifton's numbers are taken from the worst possible source in this regard, and with no possibility for independent verification or review of his source material.
-Lack of canine census means no way to determine what percentage of "pit bulls" are involved in fatal attacks. Ten pit bulls out of ten million dogs presents a different picture of risk versus, say, two huskies out of half a million dogs. We have no way to know. Both organizations state this repeatedly, and both cite this as a specific reason why breed-tallies cannot be used conclusively to determine a dog breed's relative risk. You keep ignoring or dismissing this as though somehow you are able to make a conclusive determination that the CDC cannot. I find this mind-boggling on the moon-hoax level.

If there are ten or a hundred or a thousand times the number of pit bulls in the US than there are, say, Chows, then gross stats showing an "Everest peak" and a "supernova" sized risk are to be expected... as the AVMA very clearly states. Sure we can make some generalizations about "high-drive working breeds" and actuarial risk, but we cannot derive breed-specific conclusions because of incomplete data. That you believe you can, where the CDC cannot, is astounding to me.

Furthermore, you have not in any way addressed the issue with media bias surrounding demon-dog-of-the-moment, another issue the AVMA cites as being "of concern" when it comes to fostering misleading "dangerous breed" perceptions.

Your dogged ( :D ) insistence on totally rejecting any breed specific component to dog aggression is not supported by your own cites, and it only serves to undermine your (and their) more generalized and quite correct argument for a complex issue requiring complex answers.
Maybe you missed the twelve dozen posts where I discussed high-drive working breeds and breed characteristics which may make a dog more "dangerous"..?
Your dogged insistence on reading an argument I'm not making is... kinda bizarre.
It appears we pretty much agree on the final conclusion, except that part about the CDC and AVMA which both state quite clearly that due to lack of usefully complete census information, gross statistics aren't terribly helpful, and that demonization of one breed is a uselessly over-simplistic view on the matter. You keep saying you're against BSL and agree that this is a complex issue, yet you're awfully insistent in a belief that these statistics tell you something that the CDC specifically states cannot be ascertained from the current data. :confused:

[independentminded]

A small toy or mini poodle, maybe. I doubt you could shake a standard poodle off if it really wanted to attack you.

A poodle of any kind or size eating one's foot? Sorry, I don't buy it.

[NajaNivea]

I asked for a news report.
And... how is a news report more reliable than a peer-reviewed study?

Clifton mentions that cocker, too. Also, a Poodle, two Beagles, a Border Collie, three Dalmatians (plus one mix), two Dauchshunds, six Golden Retrievers, two Jack Russells, thirty nineLabs and Lab mixes, one Pug, three Springer Spaniels, and two Wheaten Terriers.

I'd show you those news reports, except Clifton doesn't provide them.

How about that news report on the pomeranian? Did the baby have a heart attack?

[NajaNivea]

I disagree with you on this one, NajaNivea. Comparing pitbulls and pitbull attacks with that of other dogs is ludicrous, imho. It's agreed that any dog can inflict a certain amount of damage if and when they bite, but even rottweilers and German Shepherds aren't capable of doing the kind of damage that pitbulls inflict.

You know, honestly, this is pure and total ignorance, in the truest sense of the word. You have no idea what a Catahoula Cur or American Bulldog is capable of in terms of bite power. These dogs are made to control 500lb wild goddamn boar with daggers for tusks. I have seen it. I've seen photos of a 350lb wild boar with a cracked skull from a catch dog's bite. You really, truly, honestly have no idea.

Can you give me any even... remotely plausible explanation for why a 35-45lb dog with the same physique, skull and jaw structure, same musculature, and same breeding background for battle-to-the-death would be phenomenally more powerful than any of the dogs whose photos I linked to, which are twice the size?

[The Flying Dutchman]

And... how is a news report more reliable than a peer-reviewed study?

Clifton mentions that cocker, too. Also, a Poodle, two Beagles, a Border Collie, three Dalmatians (plus one mix), two Dauchshunds, six Golden Retrievers, two Jack Russells, thirty nineLabs and Lab mixes, one Pug, three Springer Spaniels, and two Wheaten Terriers.

I'd show you those news reports, except Clifton doesn't provide them.

How about that news report on the pomeranian? Did the baby have a heart attack?

That news report shows exactly why I want a news report on the alleged nefarious cocker spaniel instigated fatality. I want to know the context.

I can assure you that it has long been known to never allow your baby to be left unattended by the family dog. No matter how friendly the family dog is. No matter what the breed is. No matter how good a dog owner the owner is.

This pomeranian induced infanticide is completely irrelevant when comparing breeds .

[NajaNivea]

Nothing. Just like laws banning specific breeds of dog. The laws didn't make people better. They just made it harder for people to be bad.
This makes no sense whatsoever. How, again, does pollution have any remote connection to the topic at hand? And why are you dodging the question about laws put in place to regulate the behavior of drivers on the road, as an alternative (and highly effective) method of increasing traffic safety over banning hot-rod sports cars from the highways?

And... are you really going to tell me you believe breed specific legislation to be a remotely effective method of curbing dangerous dog incidents? I mean, I'm just asking, for clarification, before I bother to cite the data on this topic.

[NajaNivea]

That news report shows exactly why I want a news report on the alleged nefarious cocker spaniel instigated fatality. I want to know the context.

I can assure you that it has long been known to never allow your baby to be left unattended by the family dog. No matter how friendly the family dog is. No matter what the breed is. No matter how good a dog owner the owner is.

This pomeranian induced infanticide is completely irrelevant when comparing breeds .

So now you're excusing this infantacide because the owner was negligent? Like the baby didn't die, the dog didn't cause "severe damage"? You asked for one example of proof that a small, companion breed dog was capable of causing death. I provided it.

The funny thing is, I agree with you. Owner-negligence is at fault 100% of the time. The only difference between you and me is I don't dismiss death caused by PC breeds as being irrelevant just because the dog is cute and cuddly.

[NajaNivea]

A poodle of any kind or size eating one's foot? Sorry, I don't buy it.

What about a boerboel eating a kid's foot (http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/107907-dog_attack-0/)? They're actually one of the dogs in the pictures which you assured me were "incapable" of causing the kind of damage you imagine only pit bulls to be capable of.

[The Flying Dutchman]

You know, honestly, this is pure and total ignorance, in the truest sense of the word. You have no idea what a Catahoula Cur or American Bulldog is capable of in terms of bite power. These dogs are made to control 500lb wild goddamn boar with daggers for tusks. I have seen it. I've seen photos of a 350lb wild boar with a cracked skull from a catch dog's bite.
For your information the Catahoula cur is a bay dog, not a catch dog used for razorback hunting. The catch dog breeds are mastiff in origin and the pit bull breed is commonly used.


You really, truly, honestly have no idea.

[Freudian Slit]

A poodle of any kind or size eating one's foot? Sorry, I don't buy it.

Why? Just because we think of them as cutesy or froo froo, they're still dogs. It's not like the dog says, "Well, I'd like to attack, but I'm a poodle/lab/nice dog, so I'm going to hold back." What makes pit bulls unstoppable killing machines while poodles are ladylike biters?

[The Flying Dutchman]

So now you're excusing this infantacide because the owner was negligent? Like the baby didn't die, the dog didn't cause "severe damage"? You asked for one example of proof that a small, companion breed dog was capable of causing death. I provided it.

The funny thing is, I agree with you. Owner-negligence is at fault 100% of the time. The only difference between you and me is I don't dismiss death caused by PC breeds as being irrelevant just because the dog is cute and cuddly.

I never said the owner was negligent. The baby sitter was. I suppose you would say that any mother who works and leaves her child in the care of a baby sitter is negligent.

Seeing as your responses are getting sillier and misinformed and you refuse to provide a news report of a cocker spaniel mauling, I'm done with this thread.

[gonzomax]

It is difficult for a pit owner to face up that the breed they like is the most dangerous dog . Then they are admitting they have invited a potential serious problem into their home. There are a lot of dogs and the chances are your dog will not eat you family. But the chances of a pit doing it are noticeably higher than any other breed and a lot more likely to be trouble than a poodle. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

[dropzone]

This makes no sense whatsoever.

And this shows how disconnected your arguments are from reality. Pollution, economy, and safety controls separated "sports cars" from those that were legal to drive. Same as laws banning ownership of pit bulls is from, er, owning pit bulls.

[dropzone]

It is difficult for a pit owner to face up that the breed they like is the most dangerous dog . Then they are admitting they have invited a potential serious problem into their home.Working with strangers, they are ALL like that. My cocker, which I trusted, would never bite anyone, but he bit and drew blood from a couple of people too stupid (note: both were my spawn, but were my dumber spawn, less attentive to what their parents taught them) to use one of the three tools to break up a dog fight: a broom, a water hose, or heavy boots. There is a point between "stupid" and "I told you not to do that."

[NajaNivea]

For your information the Catahoula cur is a bay dog, not a catch dog used for razorback hunting. The catch dog breeds are mastiff in origin and the pit bull breed is commonly used.

You really, truly, honestly have no idea.
/snicker
Bay dogs don't always just bay. Some catch, some bay, some do both. I sit on the board of directors for a national-based hog hunting group with a global membership.

[NajaNivea]

And this shows how disconnected your arguments are from reality. Pollution, economy, and safety controls separated "sports cars" from those that were legal to drive. Same as laws banning ownership of pit bulls is from, er, owning pit bulls.

...Wha...? Pollution controls stops people from driving cars capable of doing 200mph recklessly? A Ferrari isn't a "sports car"?

Again... you dodged my question. How do speed limit laws and stop signs not act to regulate car owner behavior and increase public safety? Although car insurance companies feel sports cars are more dangerous to drive (or else that sports car drivers are more likely to drive recklessly) and insure them accordingly, we do not ban them from the roads because reckless drivers are reckless drivers, regardless of what car they're in. It's far more effective to regulate all drivers' behavior, and demand equally safe car handling, regardless of vehicle, because even a Geo Metro can kill someone if run off the road or through a red light.

In the same vein, how do responsible dog ownership laws not act to regulate dog owner behavior and increase public safety? You didn't answer the question--do you, or do you not believe banning pit bulls to be an effective step at increasing public safety and decreasing the incidence of severe dog bites?

[The Flying Dutchman]

/snicker
. I sit on the board of directors for a national-based hog hunting group with a global membership.

Oooooooooooo. I'm so impressed with your important position in such a blood sport.

No wonder you are a defender of pit bulls.

[NajaNivea]

I never said the owner was negligent. The baby sitter was.
Uh, dude, that's the point. The person in control of the dog was not in control of the dog. Instead of blaming the dog for viciously attacking and killing the child, you are blaming the human being involved for not doing their job and attending to dog and child.

Owner (handler, whatever) negligence is always to blame. That you accept this as true for PC breeds but discard the correlation wherever it's convenient to do so makes your argument laughable. Saying "100% of PC dog fatal attacks are to blame on the owners, but 100% of pit dog attacks are to blame on the dog" is not a contention supported by any reputable authority on the subject. Suggesting that PC breeds are no concern in the discussion of dog bites is also not a contention supported by any reputable authority on the subject, not the CDC, not the AVMA, not the APSCA (http://www.aspcabehavior.org/articles/57/Dog-Bite-Prevention-.aspx), not the American Association of Pediatrics (http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/dogbiteprevention.pdf)(PDF), not the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (http://www.plasticsurgery.org/Media/Press_Releases/Take_a_Bite_Out_of_Dog_Attacks_Says_ASPS_AVMA_and_CDC.html) who repair something like 31,000 people for severe damage done, mostly by familiar pet dogs, every year.

[ivan astikov]

How many times would you have to see it before it would be enough to satisfy you? "More than what we see now" is pretty undefined. In my personal experience, every case of serious dog aggression I've seen in my life involved a pit bull aggressor.

I'd expect to hear of a serious incident per day in my own city, if the amount of people with pit's in my own area is anything to go by.

I've had my own dog attacked by a pit and I'm still not reacting as hysterical about them as some in this thread.

[NajaNivea]

Oooooooooooo. I'm so impressed with your important position in such a blood sport.

No wonder you are a defender of pit bulls.
I wasn't asking you to be impressed, though your response tells me a whoooooooooole lot about you. No wonder you are a hater of pit bulls.

The point of this is, I know whereof I speak when it comes to discussing the bite power and ferocious tenacity of working breed dogs. You do not.

[ivan astikov]

Post #211 was sponsored by the word "own".

[independentminded]

Why? Just because we think of them as cutesy or froo froo, they're still dogs. It's not like the dog says, "Well, I'd like to attack, but I'm a poodle/lab/nice dog, so I'm going to hold back." What makes pit bulls unstoppable killing machines while poodles are ladylike biters?

I still stand by my position that poodles and labs do far less damage than pitbulls.

[independentminded]

Please visit the American Temperament Test Society at atts.com for a full range of data on all AKC recognized breeds. Samples sizes of the different breeds vary.

American Pit Bull Terriers have a 'pass rate' (which means the dog is determined to be tempermentally sound, no danger to humans and suitable for breeding or adoption) of 85%, higher than the average pass rate of all breeds of 81%.

Pitbulls often give the appearance of being calm, which makes these dogs all the more dangerous.

[independentminded]

What it distills down to is that people who should not have dogs gravitate toward pits. I am sure a pit kept by responsible people are pretty safe. But those are not the dogs we run into. The ones we encounter are loose and poorly trained, perhaps trained to fight.
I have personally had 6 encounters with loose pits while I was walking my beagle. One time I dropped my dog into a trash can to keep him from a pit. Each and every time ,the owner ran up and said "he never did that before'. It is only big dogs that people let run loose in the park. No body opens their car door and lets their Peke run loose. They are always on leashes. If it means that the owners are at fault and pits are pure as the driven snow, it does not matter. The fact is pits we encounter in life are apt to be dangerous. They are always scary. They are not under control. That is the fact I deal with.
I guess the next time a loose pit comes running up to me .I will just scratch it on the head. After all, they are just like any other dog. I have to assume it just a sweet little puppy.

The phrases "he never did that before", or "She/he was so gentle. I didn't expect that", are common stock excuses that pitbull owners give when their dog attacks just out of the blue, or maybe turns on an owner, or injures/kills another person's pet, in an unprovoked attack. All too often, pitbull owners aren't willing to face up to the fact that there really is something in the dog's breeding, DNA, physique and temperament that makes them more prone to attack and do much more damage than many, if not most other dogs. I think if the breeding of pitbulls were halted altogether, it would be far better.

[gonzomax]

Part of the problem is the kind of person the pit appeals to. When I am walking my dogs in the park and I see a biker picnic, I am pretty sure there will be a pit there and he wont be restrained. That is through many encounters. So I just walk a big circle around that area. In my experience, pit owners like to demonstrate the power they think they have over the dog. It just does not work out that way. Your fantasy over controlling a pit becomes my problem.

[valleyofthedolls]

The phrases "he never did that before", or "She/he was so gentle. I didn't expect that", are common stock excuses that pitbull owners give when their dog attacks just out of the blue, or maybe turns on an owner, or injures/kills another person's pet, in an unprovoked attack. All too often, pitbull owners aren't willing to face up to the fact that there really is something in the dog's breeding, DNA, physique and temperament that makes them more prone to attack and do much more damage than many, if not most other dogs. I think if the breeding of pitbulls were halted altogether, it would be far better.

I've heard that excuse from many dog owners but not the pit bull owners. Their dogs always behave quite well. And it's pit bull (two words). Stop misspellling it.

I have to ask though why you (and other posters) are so invested in believing these urban legends? IMHO, you've been shown overwhelming evidence that pit bulls aren't the killing machines the media likes to portray them as yet you persist in your beliefs and worse yet, have nothing other than spectral evidence to back up your assertions.

In this thread, I've seen people claim pit bulls don't growl or bark like other dogs, are much stronger than dogs twice their size, have special jaws and musculature that makes their grip far deadlier than larger dogs and that they suddenly snap because of some time bomb in their genetics.

All of these things defy physics and biology but you still want to believe, why?

Vicki Hearne makes a connection between the moral panic of pit bulls with classism and racism. In this day and age, it's difficult to be outwardly racist, to say, for example, "I don't like black people" but it is very easy and very acceptable to say "I don't like those dogs, they're scary and aggressive and will kill you as much as look at you."

When I see posters such as yourself (and others) insist that pit bulls are capable of miraculous feats of strength and biology, I have to think she's correct and really you're just projecting your fears and dislikes of the (perceived) owner onto the dog.

[magellan01]

Vicki Hearne makes a connection between the moral panic of pit bulls with classism and racism. In this day and age, it's difficult to be outwardly racist, to say, for example, "I don't like black people" but it is very easy and very acceptable to say "I don't like those dogs, they're scary and aggressive and will kill you as much as look at you."

When I see posters such as yourself (and others) insist that pit bulls are capable of miraculous feats of strength and biology, I have to think she's correct and really you're just projecting your fears and dislikes of the (perceived) owner onto the dog.

And the shark gets marvelously, spectacularly jumped.

Unbelievable.

[valleyofthedolls]

And the shark gets marvelously, spectacularly jumped.

Unbelievable.

No. I believe it's a valid point.

This is a post from gonzomax that appeared while I was posting.

Part of the problem is the kind of person the pit appeals to. When I am walking my dogs in the park and I see a biker picnic, I am pretty sure there will be a pit there and he wont be restrained. That is through many encounters. So I just walk a big circle around that area. In my experience, pit owners like to demonstrate the power they think they have over the dog. It just does not work out that way. Your fantasy over controlling a pit becomes my problem.

He admits it. Pits appeal to scary people (or so he claims). And bikers are scary. And sometimes they have scary picnics. Worse yet, scary bikers sometimes have scary picnics and bring their scary dogs with them! So the best thing to do is avoid the area because the scary bikers are probably going to sic their scary dogs on him.

It's all rather pathetic.

If you disagree, would you please expand rather than trotting out some tired internet cliche?

[magellan01]

No. I believe it's a valid point.

This is a post from gonzomax that appeared while I was posting.



He admits it. Pits appeal to scary people (or so he claims). And bikers are scary. And sometimes they have scary picnics. Worse yet, scary bikers sometimes have scary picnics and bring their scary dogs with them! So the best thing to do is avoid the area because the scary bikers are probably going to sic their scary dogs on him.

It's all rather pathetic.

If you disagree, would you please expand rather than trotting out some tired internet cliche?

To inject racism into a debate about whether some dog breeds are more dangerous than others is unfortunate. It's a sure way to derail the real debate. It is clear from this and other threads, that there are some people that will turn themselves inside out to come to the conclusion that pit bulls are no more dangerous than a cocker spaniel. That is a ridiculous position for any sentient person. Just ask yourself, if you were going to be trapped in an alley with a really angry dog that was going to attack you, would you prefer it to be a pit bull or a cocker spaniel?

Are pit bulls evil? No. Can they be loving docile pets? Yes. The problem is that while any dog can go off one day—reasonably or not—when pit bulls do it it all too often leads to a headline and a funeral.

And anyone who doesn't give a group with loose pit bulls a wide berth is not too bright.

[independentminded]

I've heard that excuse from many dog owners but not the pit bull owners. Their dogs always behave quite well. And it's pit bull (two words). Stop misspellling it.

I have to ask though why you (and other posters) are so invested in believing these urban legends? IMHO, you've been shown overwhelming evidence that pit bulls aren't the killing machines the media likes to portray them as yet you persist in your beliefs and worse yet, have nothing other than spectral evidence to back up your assertions.

In this thread, I've seen people claim pit bulls don't growl or bark like other dogs, are much stronger than dogs twice their size, have special jaws and musculature that makes their grip far deadlier than larger dogs and that they suddenly snap because of some time bomb in their genetics.

All of these things defy physics and biology but you still want to believe, why?

Vicki Hearne makes a connection between the moral panic of pit bulls with classism and racism. In this day and age, it's difficult to be outwardly racist, to say, for example, "I don't like black people" but it is very easy and very acceptable to say "I don't like those dogs, they're scary and aggressive and will kill you as much as look at you."

When I see posters such as yourself (and others) insist that pit bulls are capable of miraculous feats of strength and biology, I have to think she's correct and really you're just projecting your fears and dislikes of the (perceived) owner onto the dog.

I disagree with you too, valleyofthedolls. I think that Vicki Hearne's connection between the moral concern/panic over pit bulls and classicsm and/or racism is a bunch of baloney, and I refuse to buy into it.

[The Flying Dutchman]

xx

[The Flying Dutchman]

xx

[independentminded]

...Wha...? Pollution controls stops people from driving cars capable of doing 200mph recklessly? A Ferrari isn't a "sports car"?

Again... you dodged my question. How do speed limit laws and stop signs not act to regulate car owner behavior and increase public safety? Although car insurance companies feel sports cars are more dangerous to drive (or else that sports car drivers are more likely to drive recklessly) and insure them accordingly, we do not ban them from the roads because reckless drivers are reckless drivers, regardless of what car they're in. It's far more effective to regulate all drivers' behavior, and demand equally safe car handling, regardless of vehicle, because even a Geo Metro can kill someone if run off the road or through a red light.

In the same vein, how do responsible dog ownership laws not act to regulate dog owner behavior and increase public safety? You didn't answer the question--do you, or do you not believe banning pit bulls to be an effective step at increasing public safety and decreasing the incidence of severe dog bites?


Comparing regulating driving behaviour with regulating and controlling pit bulls??!? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard yet.

[The Flying Dutchman]

I wasn't asking you to be impressed, though your response tells me a whoooooooooole lot about you. No wonder you are a hater of pit bulls.

The point of this is, I know whereof I speak when it comes to discussing the bite power and ferocious tenacity of working breed dogs. You do not.

Come on over to the pit. You can't miss it .

[independentminded]

You know, honestly, this is pure and total ignorance, in the truest sense of the word. You have no idea what a Catahoula Cur or American Bulldog is capable of in terms of bite power. These dogs are made to control 500lb wild goddamn boar with daggers for tusks. I have seen it. I've seen photos of a 350lb wild boar with a cracked skull from a catch dog's bite. You really, truly, honestly have no idea.

Can you give me any even... remotely plausible explanation for why a 35-45lb dog with the same physique, skull and jaw structure, same musculature, and same breeding background for battle-to-the-death would be phenomenally more powerful than any of the dogs whose photos I linked to, which are twice the size?

The regular American Bulldog (which is not to be confused with a Pitt Bull, btw) was originally bred as a work dog, not a fighting dog. The American Bulldog has often been used to herd cattle and sheep, to plough and till the ground, and to corkscrew one to to the ground who failed to catch up to the rest of the herd. Nowadays, particularly in the rural South, machines are used to herd sheep, cattle, etc. Then, when somebody decided to cross-breed the regular American Bulldog with various terriers, that created the pit bull, which has a much tougher, more muscular jaw than the American Bull Dog.

[valleyofthedolls]

To inject racism into a debate about whether some dog breeds are more dangerous than others is unfortunate. It's a sure way to derail the real debate. It is clear from this and other threads, that there are some people that will turn themselves inside out to come to the conclusion that pit bulls are no more dangerous than a cocker spaniel. That is a ridiculous position for any sentient person. Just ask yourself, if you were going to be trapped in an alley with a really angry dog that was going to attack you, would you prefer it to be a pit bull or a cocker spaniel?

I've mentioned racism and classism because I believe it underlines every myth I've ever read about pit bulls. I don't believe it derails "the real debate" because it is part of the debate. Understanding why a lie happens as well as why something is a lie is part of fighting ignorance.

And yes, I believe, as a general rule, pit bulls are safer than cocker spaniels. They were bred to be human friendly. Their entire history speaks to their soundess around humans. That you choose to ignore this in favor of media sensationalism, urban legends and faulty generalizations says more about you than anything else.

And if I were trapped in an alley and got to choose which viscious dog was going to bite me, I would prefer the smallest dog there is.

So, I'd take a yorkshire terrier over a cocker spaniel over a pit bull over a labrador retriever over a german shepherd over a rottweiler over a bull mastiff over a st. bernard over a irish wolfhound over an english mastiff. This is common sense. What is not common sense is attributing mythic feats of strength to dogs weighing, at most, 60lbs.

I disagree with you too, valleyofthedolls. I think that Vicki Hearne's connection between the moral concern/panic over pit bulls and classicsm and/or racism is a bunch of baloney, and I refuse to buy into it.

Why do you refuse to buy into it? There must be some reason why you prefer to believe in urban legends instead of factual evidence?

[independentminded]

I've mentioned racism and classism because I believe it underlines every myth I've ever read about pit bulls. I don't believe it derails "the real debate" because it is part of the debate. Understanding why a lie happens as well as why something is a lie is part of fighting ignorance.

And yes, I believe, as a general rule, pit bulls are safer than cocker spaniels. They were bred to be human friendly. Their entire history speaks to their soundess around humans. That you choose to ignore this in favor of media sensationalism, urban legends and faulty generalizations says more about you than anything else.

And if I were trapped in an alley and got to choose which viscious dog was going to bite me, I would prefer the smallest dog there is.

So, I'd take a yorkshire terrier over a cocker spaniel over a pit bull over a labrador retriever over a german shepherd over a rottweiler over a bull mastiff over a st. bernard over a irish wolfhound over an english mastiff. This is common sense. What is not common sense is attributing mythic feats of strength to dogs weighing, at most, 60lbs.



Why do you refuse to buy into it? There must be some reason why you prefer to believe in urban legends instead of factual evidence?

There must be a reason why you buy into Vicki Hearne's connection between so-called prejudice against pitbulls and classism and racism. I don't see what I say as urban legend, because I've talked to a number of pit bull owners and ex-pit owners who've either gotten rid of their pit bulls because they've proven to be too much trouble, or have decided not to get any more pit bulls if the ones they have go.

Racism and classism are directed against human beings, not pitbulls. That's why I refuse to buy into Vicki Hearne's connection.

[independentminded]

This:

My best friend's 40-lb pit can't get though bones half the size my 80-lb German Shepherd/Lab can. And what better test is there than who can decimate a goat's thigh bone and tear off the biggest mouthfuls of muscle?

I find hard to believe.

[valleyofthedolls]

There must be a reason why you buy into Vicki Hearne's connection between so-called prejudice against pitbulls and classism and racism. I don't see what I say as urban legend, because I've talked to a number of pit bull owners and ex-pit owners who've either gotten rid of their pit bulls because they've proven to be too much trouble, or have decided not to get any more pit bulls if the ones they have go.

I buy into because Hearne makes a good argument for it with documentation I can follow. I buy into because it explains why people like you are so desperate to believe pit bulls are killing machines despite all availalable evidence to the contrary. I buy into it because I don't believe an availability heuristic proves anything other than its believer is completely out of touch with reality. I buy into it because the media always seems to mention race and class when discussing pit bulls. I buy into it because people like gonzomax think their owners are scary and to be avoided.

And I buy into it because you would rather believe a 40lb dog is more capable of tearing through a goat's thigh bone than an 80lb dog.

Racism and classism are directed against human beings, not pitbulls. That's why I refuse to buy into Vicki Hearne's connection.

Is this a whoosh? That was exactly my point.

[gonzomax]

I feel no "racist" feeling about any dog. I am sure that 99 percent of pits will not eat their owners. But they can be life threateningly dangerous in the wrong circumstances. My beagles could under the right conditions nip someone. They wont have to call the police to empty a revolver into it to make it stop though. They wont keep coming and coming no matter how badly they have been struck. It is not the same as other dogs. That is the reality.

[rhubarbarin]

This:



I find hard to believe.

Words fail me. Will a picture suffice? http://adoptananimal.org/images/pets/ziggy_miller.jpg

These aren't our dogs, but that's about the size difference between them (Sonny is a little smaller and much thinner than that pit). As you can see, the Shepherd's head and jaws are about twice the size of the pit's. Also, see the big jaw muscles (made more visible with extra fur and skin, but still clearly larger in proportion to the head than the pit's) under the ears of the Shepherd? Additionally, a shepherd's teeth are much longer and larger, so their ability to penetrate muscle and bone with one bite is much greater.

I mean, really. You people are utterly deluded.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Words fail me. Will a picture suffice? http://adoptananimal.org/images/pets/ziggy_miller.jpg

These aren't our dogs, but that's about the size difference between them (Sonny is a little smaller and much thinner than that pit). As you can see, the Shepherd's head and jaws are about twice the size of the pit's. Also, see the big jaw muscles (made more visible with extra fur and skin, but still clearly larger in proportion to the head than the pit's) under the ears of the Shepherd? Additionally, a shepherd's teeth are much longer and larger, so their ability to penetrate muscle and bone with one bite is much greater.

I mean, really. You people are utterly deluded.

Apparent size isn't everything.

Remove the hair skin including the subcutaneous layer and the size difference becomes less dramatic. Pit bulls have less hair, skin and body fat. You'd think they were body builders.

What should be obvious however is that the distance from the joint of the jaw to the gripping canines at the front of the muzzle for the German Shepherd is more than twice the distance that exists for the pit bull. Using the lever principle in mechanics, means that the German Shephard's potential for gripping bite pressure is reduced by more than half that of the pit bull.

Size is important for strength , but not always relevant. it doesn't seem to be much of a factor in weight lifting for humans so why for dogs. However the size does become relevant when a prey tries to overcome the grip of a predator by shaking him off.

That is why these pit bulls were bred to act and look the way they do. They can clamp onto a bull's nose and hang on.

No way a GSD could do that.

[valleyofthedolls]

Apparent size isn't everything.

Remove the hair skin including the subcutaneous layer and the size difference becomes less dramatic. Pit bulls have less hair, skin and body fat. You'd think they were body builders.

What should be obvious however is that the distance from the joint of the jaw to the gripping canines at the front of the muzzle for the German Shepherd is more than twice the distance that exists for the pit bull. Using the lever principle in mechanics, means that the German Shephard's potential for gripping bite pressure is reduced by more than half that of the pit bull.

Size is important for strength , but not always relevant. it doesn't seem to be much of a factor in weight lifting for humans so why for dogs. However the size does become relevant when a prey tries to overcome the grip of a predator by shaking him off.

That is why these pit bulls were bred to act and look the way they do. They can clamp onto a bull's nose and hang on.

No way a GSD could do that.

None of this is true.

A pit bull's jaw structure is the same as any other dog. Please provide some sort of cite that proves their morphology is different than that of other canines.

And bite strength is related to size. If you disagree, then provide a cite and not just your biased and unprofessional opinion.

[gonzomax]

I don't think pits have a greater bite pressure than other dogs. There are a few that are worse. It is their attitude that differentiates them. It is that they don't quit. They fight, and fight and fight while taking huge injuries.

[The Flying Dutchman]

None of this is true.

A pit bull's jaw structure is the same as any other dog. Please provide some sort of cite that proves their morphology is different than that of other canines.

Muzzle length my dear, muzzle length. Comprehende?

And bite strength is related to size. If you disagree, then provide a cite and not just your biased and unprofessional opinion.

Read my post again ! Learn something For Christ's sake.

[CannyDan]

I’ll offer just one more comment, as the standards of GD seem to cry out for a reality check. Then I think I’ll drop it, as this has become tedious.

NajaNivea, you base your assertions on two primary foundations—your own experience, and some statements by CDC and AVMA which you continue to accuse me of not reading. Your own experience must be completely anecdotal, else you would have offered your own controlled studies as cites. Lacking such scientific background, it seems that you have failed to qualify yourself as an expert. Note that your position on a board having a special relationship with the breed you so vigorously defend does nothing to support your assertions. By analogy, one’s defense of, say, wildcat oil drillers might reasonably be questioned if one were simultaneously serving on an oil drillers’ board. Let us therefore dismiss your personal anecdotes as we dismiss others without recognized authority.

As for the statements you quote ad nauseum, no, I do not claim to be “smarter” than CDC or AVMA. But as a professional myself, I recognize something about the way professional associations work. I have already pointed out that the papers from which you draw your favorite quotes are neither “scientific studies” nor are they “peer review” of anything, including Clifton. They are position papers of the organizations, nothing more, nothing less. The positions they espouse are based upon those organizations’ own review of the factual information available, as well as internal and external politics specific to those organizations. The positions are impacted by the relationship between these organizations and various other stakeholders such as animal owners, breeders, law enforcement (“animal control”) agencies, humane organizations, animal rights activists, and a host of others. They attempt to provide both information and guidance for a diversity of possible audiences, to be put to a variety of possible uses. They do not condemn any specific breed despite agitation from some fronts for such an action. But neither do they declare that breed absolutely, positively cannot have any influence on biting behavior. Wright himself, in the citation upon which they and you rely so heavily (that “7” to which I have linked already) clearly accepts breed as one among many factors. (In his case, at at the time of his article, the GSD topped the list and Pit Bulls had been banned in the study area for the two previous years.) Instead they offer caveats to the data available, and declare difficulty of analysis as I have outlined upthread. They are, as is typical of position papers from national organizations, political statements, not scientific treatises.


Even this statement (below), which you offer as a clincher to your assertions, is itself merely an assertion that the authors do not back up with data or analysis:
"There are several reasons why it is not possible to calculate a bite rate for a breed or to compare rates between breeds."
We’ve iterated the caveats repeatedly, and still this is not, as you declare it, a statement that “no differences exist” but is instead merely emphasizing their observations on the current state of available statistics and analysis. They are clearly offering what modern parlance would term “a nuanced position”. This is often the politically expedient choice.

I am sorry that you cannot accept such a nuanced position yourself. The problem of dog bites is a serious one, and it is influenced by many human factors including history, fad, fashion, and the politics of animal rights plus doggie factors including but not limited to dog breeds, all woven together in a complex feedback system. Breed bans themselves will clearly do little to address let alone correct the problem. But neither will an adamant insistence that breeds (as they exist right now) have no effect on the problem at all.

[rhubarbarin]

Apparent size isn't everything.

Remove the hair skin including the subcutaneous layer and the size difference becomes less dramatic. Pit bulls have less hair, skin and body fat. You'd think they were body builders.

What should be obvious however is that the distance from the joint of the jaw to the gripping canines at the front of the muzzle for the German Shepherd is more than twice the distance that exists for the pit bull. Using the lever principle in mechanics, means that the German Shephard's potential for gripping bite pressure is reduced by more than half that of the pit bull.

Size is important for strength , but not always relevant. it doesn't seem to be much of a factor in weight lifting for humans so why for dogs. However the size does become relevant when a prey tries to overcome the grip of a predator by shaking him off.

That is why these pit bulls were bred to act and look the way they do. They can clamp onto a bull's nose and hang on.

No way a GSD could do that.

Of course a GSD could hang onto the nose of a bull. One is more than capable of killing a cow, and the best way to do that is to latch on to the throat or nose in order to suffocate the animal. This is a killing strategy used by wolves, dogs, and coyotes. It's not a pit-specific trait that was selected for. It doesn't seem like you know or understand anything about canines.

Size, more specifically weight, (nothing apparent about it) is the basis of strength in all animals. This is why there are very strict weight classes in all human sports that involve one-on-one conflict, and in dog fighting as well.

German Shepherd are the world's leading military and police dog, bred and trained to bite and hold potentially armed, violent criminals or enemy combatants. I can assure you their biting and holding capabilities are prodigious.

[rhubarbarin]

Muzzle length my dear, muzzle length. Comprehende?

If you really believe that the strength of a bite is stronger with shorter jaws, please explain how crocodiles and alligators can clamp onto and hold live, struggling animals up to twice their size for as long as it takes to drown them and rip them into chunks.

Animals are not simple levers.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I’ll offer just one more comment, as the standards of GD seem to cry out for a reality check. Then I think I’ll drop it, as this has become tedious.
Heh. Your posts are pretty similar to what I was saying a month ago, before arguing the position became tedious for me. Now I'm mostly just reading along looking for interesting posts among the dross, and because I've got a pit-bull-like tenacity when it comes to these debates.

At any rate, an excellent and insightful post, Dan; thanks!
Daniel

[gonzomax]

Heh. Your posts are pretty similar to what I was saying a month ago, before arguing the position became tedious for me. Now I'm mostly just reading along looking for interesting posts among the dross, and because I've got a pit-bull-like tenacity when it comes to these debates.

At any rate, an excellent and insightful post, Dan; thanks!
Daniel

I have to settle for a beagle like stubborness.

[The Flying Dutchman]

If you really believe that the strength of a bite is stronger with shorter jaws, please explain how crocodiles and alligators can clamp onto and hold live, struggling animals up to twice their size for as long as it takes to drown them and rip them into chunks.

Animals are not simple levers.

Comparing crocs to dogs is just plain ludicrous. If you paid attention you'll recall that the significance of muzzle length is the distance between jaw joint and the gripping canines.

Every tooth on a croc looks like a canine tooth. All 24 croc teeth are designed for gripping and crushing. They can't even chew their food. So the length of their jaw is completely irrelevant except for the fact that those huge jaws can grasp larger chunks of prey.

[NajaNivea]

The regular American Bulldog (which is not to be confused with a Pitt Bull, btw) was originally bred as a work dog, not a fighting dog. The American Bulldog has often been used to herd cattle and sheep, to plough and till the ground, and to corkscrew one to to the ground who failed to catch up to the rest of the herd. Nowadays, particularly in the rural South, machines are used to herd sheep, cattle, etc. Then, when somebody decided to cross-breed the regular American Bulldog with various terriers, that created the pit bull, which has a much tougher, more muscular jaw than the American Bull Dog.
Okay, now this is just getting ridiculous.
In the first place, it's "pit bull" pit, with one t. Secondly, you are absolutely correct that the AmBull was bred as an all-purpose farm and work dog. Part of their work was, and always has been, both personal protection and boar hunting. It's these two jobs that contribute to their status as "high drive working breeds", and which puts them into the "serious dog" group we've been discussing.
Finally, that last line is just a crackup. Common ancestors, but not a single family line. You wanna provide some, I dunno, even remotely plausible reasoning behind the "tougher, more muscular jaw" of the pit bull? I thought not.

That is why these pit bulls were bred to act and look the way they do. They can clamp onto a bull's nose and hang on.

No way a GSD could do that.
Sure they can.
Also, plenty of breeds clamp on to a bull's nose and hang on. Every cattle drover on the planet is bred to do that.

Let us therefore dismiss your personal anecdotes as we dismiss others without recognized authority.
Oh, sure, but let us assume as gospel the drivel pouring out of the mouths of those who have never seen any of these dogs in action, yet claim wildly specific knowledge which defies basic biology and the positions of all reputable and relevant experts. :rolleyes:

The positions are impacted by the relationship between these organizations and various other stakeholders such as animal owners, breeders, law enforcement (“animal control”) agencies, humane organizations, animal rights activists, and a host of others. They attempt to provide both information and guidance for a diversity of possible audiences, to be put to a variety of possible uses. They do not condemn any specific breed despite agitation from some fronts for such an action.
So... now your position is that the CDC, AVMA, ASPCA, AAP, and ASPS are all engaged in a conspiracy to cover up for the pit bull? And that's why all of them are clear to state that to accept the unsubstantiated media hype surrounding the "dangerous dog du jour" is the wrong step to take in the prevention of dog bites?
...Wow.

But neither do they declare that breed absolutely, positively cannot have any influence on biting behavior. Wright himself, in the citation upon which they and you rely so heavily (that “7” to which I have linked already) clearly accepts breed as one among many factors. (In his case, at at the time of his article, the GSD topped the list and Pit Bulls had been banned in the study area for the two previous years.) Instead they offer caveats to the data available, and declare difficulty of analysis as I have outlined upthread.
Yes. As do I, as you can clearly see at the end in my last response to you. Again, you are remarkably persistent in foisting upon me an argument that I am not making now and never have made.
The one point of contention I have is with the urban legend that surrounds this dog, the urban legend that says "a pit bull is a 'supernova' like risk as compared to other breeds of dogs." That statement is based on pure myth. They are no more dangerous than any physcally powerful, high-drive working breed. Chows, Presas, Rottweilers, GSDs, and so on. If they are more common than, say, Presas, and more frequently mishandled, this is not a fault of the breed, but of the owners. This is like an argument that handguns are inherently worse killers (in and of themselves) because they're more commonly involved in homicides than machine guns.

I am sorry that you cannot accept such a nuanced position yourself.
I am sorry that you cannot accept that I have offered such a position from the start. I don't know why, but, there we are.

[gonzomax]

http://pit-bulls.christianfunfair.org/attacks.htm It is probably sites like this that help give pits a bad name. That and the fact they actually did the acts on the site. I never saw one like this on beagles, or poodles.

[NajaNivea]

http://pit-bulls.christianfunfair.org/attacks.htm It is probably sites like this that help give pits a bad name. That and the fact they actually did the acts on the site. I never saw one like this on beagles, or poodles.

So... who brought up beagles and poodles as examples?

(hint: you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Man_argument))

[rhubarbarin]

Comparing crocs to dogs is just plain ludicrous. If you paid attention you'll recall that the significance of muzzle length is the distance between jaw joint and the gripping canines.

Every tooth on a croc looks like a canine tooth. All 24 croc teeth are designed for gripping and crushing. They can't even chew their food. So the length of their jaw is completely irrelevant except for the fact that those huge jaws can grasp larger chunks of prey.

I'm not comparing dogs to crocs. I'm saying it's ridiculous to assume to 'distance between jaw joint and gripping canines' is what determines the strength any carnivore's biting and holding ability.

Please cite any information you might have that indicates this is so.

[NajaNivea]

Hey, The Flying Dutchman you wanna offer me any remotely plausible explanation as to why a "pit bull" has more leverage for biting than this dog (http://www.sanderskennels.com/Meir/06-10-07%20578%20copy_American_Bulldog.jpg) or this dog (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1210/846830008_3dbce68ce3.jpg) or this dog (http://www.puppyfind.com/breed/cane_corso_italiano/l_h3eid198td.jpg)?

...I didn't think so.

[DragonAsh]

Not an expert on any of this, no bone (heh) in this fight, as it were, just a dog lover (golden retrievers here). But since I'm passing by:

- I would bet a lot of money that my current golden (and including the two other goldens I've owned) would never, ever bite any person out of aggression; the idea of my golden killing another animal is almost laughably absurd. (Quite frankly I'm actually a bit concerned that he doesn't even fend for himself when other dogs are aggressive...).

- The above notwithstanding, there is still no way I would leave my newborn baby alone in a room even for a minute where he was within reach of the dog, who was freely moving around.

- I was in debate class in high school, and was a judge my senior year. Based only on what I've read here? CannyDan is running circles around everybody else.

That is all, carry on.

[CannyDan]

Heh. Your posts are pretty similar to what I was saying a month ago, before arguing the position became tedious for me. Now I'm mostly just reading along looking for interesting posts among the dross, and because I've got a pit-bull-like tenacity when it comes to these debates.

At any rate, an excellent and insightful post, Dan; thanks!
Daniel

:):p:)