Wolf dogs excluded, those numbers are the result of the popularity of Pit Bulls, and probably misidentification, along with faulty data gathering outside of the attacks that result in death or serious injury. When Rotts were more popular they were the most dangerous dog, same with Dobermans, and German Shepherds in their heyday.
The most popular dog in the US is the Labrador Retriever.
Indeed. I worked for many years at an open-access animal shelter (aka “Kill” shelter–so called because, unlike no-kills, our shelter didn’t turn animals away when we were full). The idea that the bulk of our dogs were bulldogs is just silly. The bulk of them were hound mixes, because we live in an area with lots of hounds, and chows, because chows were popular around that time. The dogs that were euthanized were overwhelming large dogs, first because that’s what we got the most of (IIRC, and I may not, large dogs tend to have larger litters as well), and second because folks who come to animal shelters disproportionately want small dogs, so the small ones got adopted much faster and therefore had a better chance of making to the adoption rooms.
As I understand it, the mix of dogs in different shelters tends to be determined by what’s popular in the region at that time. It varies pretty significantly across the nation.
I’m pro-facts, too, but there is a lot left to be desired in dog statistics. I researched both pro- and anti-pitbull advocacy sites before I adopted my pitbull, and I had spent several months working with them to get a sense of the breed and temperament. Pro-pitbull sites get a little on my nerves, repeating “nanny dog” type stuff, which doesn’t seem to be true, from all I’ve been able to research. (for example, I find this anti-pitbull site’s take on the myth accurate) but I don’t find the anti-pitbull sites much more convincing. One of the problems for me is what exactly is identified as a “pitbull”? I feel that there is a problem of misidentification, when dogs from boxers to bull mastiffs to cane corsos to dogo argentinos, to even Boston terriers get misidentified as “pitbulls.”
Here’s what I find to be an interesting article from the CDC (WARNING: PDF). This covers dog fatalities from 1979-1998. There are some interesting numbers there, at least to me. Purebred pits rank highest in dog-related deaths overall, but rotties fared worse in the years from 1993-1998. Crossbred pits, average about 1 death a year. German Shepards (both purebred and mixes), purebred malamutes, purebred huskies, and purebred rotties fare as bad (in the case of German Shepherd mix) or worse. So, if you take that at face value, a pit mix is less dangerous than a German Shepherd or huskie.
But I’m not completely buying those numbers, either. For me to come to an accurate conclusion about the relative danger of a pitbull, I would need the following:
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A scientific, consistant way of identifying the breed. Are we treating the American Pit Bull Terrier as a single, specific breed, or are we lopping in the American Stafforshire Terrier, or the Stafforshire Bull Terrier, or the Bull Terrier, etc.?
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An accurate breakdown of breeds by ownership in the US, subject to the same definitions as governed by the point above.
I would also be interested in stats on non-fatal bites across all breeds, too.
That would be a nice starting point. Then we can get into dog ownership, how they’re socialized, etc., which I do think is a big part of the equation. As I said, I feel the data out there leaves a lot to be desired. Hell, let’s just look at genetic markers and skip the whole breed names thing if we must.
Here’s the thing: they are strong dogs, and they are tenacious. Because of that, if they do “go bad” because of improper socialization or whatnot, they are likely to cause much more damage. But I’m not convinced that a properly socialized pitbull is much more likely to bite a human than other breeds of dog. I’m even surprised at how trusting and forgiving even poorly socialized pitbulls tend to be.
So, those are just my thoughts. At any rate, I do believe it is important, as an owner, to understand the history of the breed (as Sailboat pointed out), and to be aware of their strength and size, as one should owning any type of strong breed like this. Oh, and a picture of my buddy, since this is a dog thread.
I agree on both. But honestly, if the Dachs slightly breaks the skin on your ankle and the pitbull causes a ER visit- which should and will be reported more? This does make the PB a more dangerous breed.
Yes, I certainly would not quibble with someone calling a pitbull “more dangerous” based on that.
The hard part is determining which dogs are most dangerous on a pound for pound basis. Obviously larger dogs are more dangerous than smaller ones in terms of the damage they do, but determining how many of each breed exist, and the number of times they attack is very difficult. And it’s all complicated by the large population of mixed breeds of unknown composition.
Ok, we agree. But they are generally, a sweeter better disposition dog than many smaller, “less dangerous” breed.
Agreed. My friend was fostering a pitbull once. When I walked into her house, the dog jumped up on me. She was a very friendly dog, and was greeting me, not attacking me, but she was a big and very strong dog, and if I’d been weaker, I might’ve been knocked over (though with no malicious intent.)
Which is why big dogs need to be trained to not jump up on people. 
OK, you present yourself as knowledgeable about dogs, and then this canard pops out. You’ve been on the site before, you’ve seen me debunk it with the words of actual scientists – meaningful “statistical data” does not, per the CDC and others, exist – and you haven’t argued. So what could cause you to repeat this known untruth?
Ah hah, that’s it. Look, dogsbite is a hate site, pure and simple. It’s no more a source of accurate data and opinion than stormfront or NAMBLA. And we’ve been over THAT before as well. How anyone who’s been reading dog threads on the Straight Dope can take Colleen Lynn’s little hate project seriously is beyond me.
The idea that you would still use it as a source clarifies what you are trying to do here.
Frankly, I wish the moderators would at least break the link like they do for porn.
You do know dogsbite doesn’t record “data,” don’t you? They scan the web for the word “pit bull” and use anything negative they can find. If a rabid bat bit someone and I said it was a pit bull, Colleen would happily add it to her unchecked, unverified “statistics.”
And “pit-bull-type dog” is a phrase (originating in breed-specific legislation) intentionally chosen to broaden the number of animals that can be defined as pit bulls.
Well, you refute that quite clearly using dogsbite.
TriPolar is right. Both dog experts and the Center for Disease Control have explicitly pointed out that ALL THREE PARTS of any formula that might show which breed is most likely to bite are missing – we know NEITHER how many dogs exist overall, NOR what proportion each breed represents of that number, and the third leg necessary, individual bite reports, are heavily biased, badly tracked, spottily maintained, and plagued by an inability of the persons reporting to identify breed in the first place.
The American Veterinary Association has supported this understanding as well.
Absolutely unprovable, according to statisticians and scientists at the CDC.
UH, yeah.
The Sacks study has been explicitly disavowed by the CDC and the AVMA. Unfortunately, it’s online, and it’s easier to link to it than read the CDC disclaimers. Why do people always link to the Sacks study? Because there aren’t any better studies than this flawed paper disavowed by the people who funded it.
Here’s the thing. It’s not just that the data is bad, but that good data probably cannot be compiled.
Dogs don’t live very long – especially abused or abandoned dogs, or those living with inadequate human care. People don’t like reporting things to the government (I’ve balked at filling out “race” on surveys myself). Huge numbers of dogs are coming and going, all sorts of breeds and mixes, all sorts of situations. It’s a pipe dream to think we could get an accurate accounting, and if we did, the fluid situation would change. How many of us gave thought to the Portuguese Water Dog before the Obamas were given one? Now they’re, well, not hugely popular, but they’ve undoubtedly risen dramatically in popularity from their previously all-but-unknown status.
This isn’t something I’m making up or something I haven’t shown, with links, before. So quoting “dog bite statistics” is inherently suspect, in my mind; simple Googling shows it to be fatally flawed, so I can’t help but perceive an agenda when people start citing them.
Bear in mind that, historically, there was no “pit bull problem” decades ago, although the breed has always been in the public eye (and presumably popular, although I can’t say how popular, obviously.) We didn’t hear about it in the 1940s, or later, when I was growing up.
It must, therefore, have started to be perceived as a problem at a specific point in time. Which point? Hard to pin down scientifically, but I agree with those who suggest it started to take off on July 27, 1987.
Thanks, Sailboat. That’s more-or-less the conclusion I’ve come to. The reason I partly bring up the Sacks study is that when anti-pitbull types bring it up, I bring up the fact that the same study shows crossbred pits to be no more dangerous than a German shepherd. They seem to ignore that part and want to get rid of pits and all pitbull-type dogs, which would include pit mixes. The numbers just don’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
I agree that it’s probably impossible to get good data for this.
In my experience, that does seem to be the case, but that’s wholly anecdotal. I don’t want to paint small dogs with a broad brush, either. The smaller breeds I’ve encountered do tend to be yappier, snappier, and more annoying (when I’m walking my pit, it’s never him barking at the small dogs, but the small dogs barking at him and trying to provoke him. Luckily, he does not seem to be dog aggressive.) But, like with the pitbull, how much of that is the disposition of the breed, and how much is it their socialization?
I agree facts are thin on the ground, but one “fact” is that people get very exercised by the pit bull controversy on both sides. Anecdotally, what I have observed is that there are such things as breed characteristics. Labs generally like everyone, are greedy, and love water and fetching things. Shetland Sheepdogs bark a lot, and are loyal and perky and smart and sensitive. If I met a dimwitted, silent Sheltie, or a picky Lab who loathed getting wet, I would be surprised, because all my experience – rather larger than an ordinary citizen since I’ve been involved in various organized dog things since I was a child – has shown me that breeds have fairly predictable traits.
Where I live, pit bulls are one of the most common breeds. They typically are calm, stable, stoic, and friendly without being effusive. They typically are not “reactive” meaning that any little thing will set them off. But when something DOES set them off, they tend to inflict a lot of damage because of their tenacity, strength, the size of their jaws, and because they have been selectively bred to not let go.
Dogs bite people for a wide variety of emotional reasons, and the damage they inflict varies for a wide variety of reasons too. It is complicated, but humans are attracted to simple patterns to make sense of something, particularly if it is frightening. It is easy to say “pit bulls = dangerous dog”; also easy to say “pit bulls are no more dangerous than any other breed”, but the truth is not either of these. It is blurry.
Great, very well-thought-out and well-worded post, one that I think that both pro- and anti-pitbull people can appreciate.
I think the biggest problem with any “data” with respect to this topic is that people don’t know what a pit bull is. When I had two Boston terriers, people would walk up to me and ask if they were pit bulls. I would tell them yes since they obviously didn’t know any better and they might as well stay away from my dogs. My alternative answer was, “You’ve never seen a pit bull, have you?”
Currently I have an American Bulldog, which looks like an overgrown pit. At 75 pounds, she’s about twice the size of an American Pit Bull Terrier. Yet people insist she’s at least “mixed” with pit bull. She may very well be. She may also be mixed with Wiemeraner or Pointer, or some other Hound… who knows? Also, the genetic testing is unreliable and not to be considered a source of hard data.
You have stated both the problem and one of the sources of the problem-you.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame him as a source for the problem. He’s dealing with people who are insisting a dog is a pit bull despite attempts to inform them otherwise.
Pictures of dogs commonly misidentified as pit bulls.
Re-read the post. He was dealing with people that asked if they were pit bulls.
75 pounds is kind of the upper end of APBT, but kind of in the sweet spot for AmStaffs, which also get lopped into the “pitbull” category, so I could understand the confusion. My pittie is one-year old, 55 lbs and he’s at a healthy weight (smack dab in the middle of that Purina weight chart.)
But, yes, it is difficult identifying the breed. Before I started volunteering at the shelter, I couldn’t tell you for sure what looked like a pitbull and what didn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t confuse a Boston terrier with a pit, but something like a Staffordshire bull terrier or American bulldog, I probably would. Even my own dog, some people will say “oh, he’s definitely purebred pit.” Others say “no, no, there’s definitely boxer in him.” I mean, hell, I could call him an “America bulldog-boxer mix” if I wanted to avoid the word “pitbull” and nobody would know the difference. Hell, he might even be that mix for all we know. Even the pound’s records are fuzzy. The cage card and papers said “Pitbull terrer.” An email I got from them identified him as a “terrier mix.” Nobody really knows and, as you said, those genetic tests may as well be astrological charts for as good as they are.
He is a she.
And I don’t care if I’m also the source of the problem. Anyone who thinks a Boston terrier is or looks like a pit bull has no business being around dogs at all.
So yeah, I’ll take some blame for not patiently and calmly explaining that Bostons are not Pitties to every random person who walks up to me on my dog walk. Both my Bostons are gone now, so the issue is moot. When people ask what current dog is, I tell them “Some kind of bulldog mix, there’s no way to be sure.”