Thus banning the weapons will be helpful in reducing the damage caused. Will it eliminate the dangerous dog attacks? No. But it will reduce the frequency and the degree of damage.
It’s not pitbulls but an interesting article on a pack of German Shorthair Pointers in NYC and the locals’ inability to get anything done about them.
Out in the country, they would be shot. Dog packs are a clear hazard to livestock, other animals, and humans. Unfortunately, the NYPD would probably take a dim view of a citizen solving the problem for them.
That article made my stomach turn. I would be inclined to feed the dogs poison through the fence. This would never happen here.
When it comes to packs, any breed is subject to bloodthirst.
I’ll never forget the time a pack of approximately 20 dogs attempted to take me down at two in the morning. I was maybe 100 yards away from the door that I had just left. In order to defend myself, I charged the pack. They backed off but some of them went around to behind me to close in on my Achilles tendon. (that’s what it sure seemed like). I escaped by charging 3 steps away from the door I just left and 4 steps toward the door. Dog packs are killing machines , and I swear I’d seen some of these dogs before in the daytime, only in individual circumstances. Keep in mind I was in a northern Ontario community which did not have any leash laws.
That is truly chilling.
I feel uncomfortable with this analogy, as I am not in favour of firearm ownership.
The point is: the damage is being caused by the owners of the “weapons”, so banning a certain kind of “weapon” won’t help, because the owners will probably just get another kind.
To take your analogy further, educating the owners about safekeeping and proper use of these “weapons” will do more to reduce the number of attacks.
Also we need to create a society in which a person unwilling to take proper care of his “weapon”, learn about how it works and what it needs to function properly, can not get such a “weapon”, no matter what kind.
To get back to clear speech: banning breed A does not help, to avoid dog attacks 100% you would have to ban all dogs.
Something else to consider: how many of the “attacks” that are so prominent in the news (especially when there’s not much else to report) are really attacks? How many of these incidents are actually accidents, caused by a lively large dog jumping at a stranger, wanting to say hi and making him fall?* How many of these incidents happen because people just act stupid around dogs (teasing them, taking away bone of strange dog, windmilling with your arms when you feel threatened etc.)?
It’s not as if Germany before the ban was full of packs of Pitbulls trying to rip your throat out. There is a certain “clientele” that likes to keep aggressive fighting dogs and show them off (some pimps, bouncers, mafiosi-types etc.). Now it’s harder, illegal and more expensive for them to keep pitbulls. You tell me how much of a deterrent that will be to those types. They simply ignore the ban or get a Rottweiler, German Shepherd, whatever.
- not that I condone lazy dog owners who do not try hard enough to make sure this never happens!
He’s in the wrong hands now.
This arguement is a standard for pro gun lobbyists, and in my opinion makes a great deal of sense. However, we can’t control people and their access to weapons (including dogs), but we can remove the weapons.
Don’t hold your breath. We are, after all, talking about the Ontario government.
Knowing the alacrity, honesty, and skill with which they do most things, we can expect the chinchilla ban to be in place by early 2073.
Well, then you might as well just ban every single dog over 40 pounds. ANY dog can kill. ANY dog can be taught to be aggressive, either by inaction through lack of socialization and training, or by abusing the animal until it’s mean.
What you pro-breed specific law people are not getting, is that it does not matter if you ban pit bulls. It doesn’t matter if you ban Rottweilers, it doesn’t matter if you ban Dobies.
http://www.rottclub.ca/bsl_article.html
You going to ban labs too? How about Cocker Spaniels…Goldens? They should go too, then, I guess.
Do you get it yet? THE
What you pro-breed specific law people are not getting, is that it does not matter if you ban pit bulls, Rottweilers, or even Dobies or Germans. The people who own the dogs you are so fucking afraid of, will just get another fucking kind of big dog, and train it to be an aggressive, dangerous animal.
http://www.rottclub.ca/bsl_article.html
Do you get it yet? Or do you want to ban Golden Retrivers, Labradors and Cocker Spaniels too? Hey, fuck it, let’s just ban every dog over 30 pounds…that ought to work!
Well, let’s see what the CDC has to say about it.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047723.htm
So the CDC doesn’t think breed specific laws work…they want to target chronically irresponsible dog owners, instead of penalizing the hundreds of thousands of Pit Bull and Rottweiler (and Dobie, and German, and Chow, and Mastiff, and Great Pyr…etc etc) owners who ARE responsible for their animals, and whose animals bring joy to others lives, not pain.
What a concept.
Er, sorry, not sure how the double post happened… =(
For anyone in the Toronto area who wishes to protest the proposed pitbull ban, there will be a demonstration at Queen’s Park. Information can be obtained here. (This info was posted on my Doberman list and I know nothing more on the protest.)
So just to be clear you, Cerri, believe that this overrepresentation of “so called” dangerous dogs in death statistics relative to their proportion of the dog population is purely attributable to a conglomeration of “bad owners” around these breeds?
Also you believe that the tradition/history of breeding working dogs for temperment/personality is complete bunko? Honest question…
IANCerri, but I’ve finally managed to read through all of the thread and found that Cerri and blackhobyah, among several others, have already made most of the points I’d raise. However, I’ll take up your questions since no one else has.
First, please read that quote again…it says that only 1/3 of the dog-related deaths are attributable to the “dangerous dogs”. In other words, banning those breeds won’t even stop the majority of attacks. The only way to stop all dog attacks is to ban all dogs.
I would say that the overrepresentation (i.e., 1/3 of deaths attributed to only a few breeds) comes from a number of factors, most of which have been previously discussed, but yes, most of those factors are owner-related. Please note that I did NOT say “purely attributable” - there ain’t no such thing, except sometimes maybe in the lab.
One major factor already discussed is the fact that many dog attacks are mis-attributed to “dangerous” breeds, particularly when it comes to cross-breeds. There are many breeds of dogs that will produce the square head and blocky body that, especially in a crossbreed, almost immediately gets called “pitbull”. SharPeis, for instance, will produce a very pitbull-looking cross, and SharPeis can be quite aggressive; they were also extremely popular for a while, so there’s a fair number of SharPei crosses running around. There’s also the problem I noted above, where even when the breed is known to be something else, a dog attack is attributed to a pitbull (or Rottie, or Dobie, or German Shepherd, or whatever else is the “dangerous dog” of the moment). And when popular news coverage (or local gossip) is your source, there’s the fact that anything from an over-exuberant puppy startling a shy child to a well-deserved warning growl to an unprovoked mauling is called a “dog attack”.
A very major factor is the popularity of the breed. Any breed that becomes extremely popular almost immediately begins to have problems - health problems, congenital ailments, temperament problems, etc. - simply due to ignorance and greed. Greed causes poor breeding and poor care because, as with most things, it’s much cheaper to do something badly than to do it well. Ignorance causes people to purchase dogs that are not remotely suitable, and then to fail to properly train and handle them. This becomes even worse when the breed popularity is based upon that breed’s status as a “guard dog”, “attack dog”, or anything similar. That simply attracts people who breed for mean, aggressive, easily-provoked dogs, and idiots who intentionally purchase such dogs and then mistreat them to encourage those traits.
Popularity of a dog breed also ensures that there will be many of that type of dog causing problems, just because there are more of them, and because popular breeds are often owned by poor dog owners - dogs running loose because their owners think it’s “more natural” or “OK because he’s a just a sweetie”, dogs running loose because the owners can’t be bothered to walk them or fix the fence, dogs running loose because they’ve been dumped after they: grew up/got sick/misbehaved due to lack of training and attention/are no longer “in”; lots of puppies because the owners can’t be bothered to or “don’t believe in” neutering, because little Joey has to see the “miracle of birth”, because their dog is just so special that they just have to breed it, or because they think dog-breeding is an easy buck and have not the first clue what they’re doing, etc., etc., etc., etc. That’s without even starting on the real assholes who buy dogs as penis-extensions or weapons.
Another major factor, and one that I believe heavily skews the statistics, is the lack of enforcement against bad owners. I actually read all of the articles linked in this thread. Many of them mentioned situations in which there were repeated complaints about specific dogs, complaints which were ignored, whether due to legal loopholes or apathy on the part of local officials. I know that we had such a problem in our neighborhood - when I called animal control because a new neighbor’s Lab/Golden cross, who was turned loose anytime the man was home, repeatedly went after other dogs and people, including following delivery men onto our porch, I was told that animal control couldn’t do anything unless he bit someone. When I called to report that he had, indeed, finally bitten a woman, they wouldn’t take the report from me - I had to bring her in and put her on the phone. The only reason the jerk didn’t get his dog back was because he didn’t have/want to spend the money to pay the quarantine fee and fines - in fact, he tried to claim that we should get his dog out, because it was our fault it got picked up. When one owner and/or one dog repeatedly causes problems and yet nothing is done, it not only mucks your statistics (e.g., ten pitbull attacks doesn’t mean attacks by ten dogs out of the population of fifty, but rather ten attacks by two dogs out of fifty), it encourages similar poor behavior from other assholes who own dogs. Considering that said assholes are highly prone to have the popular, “dangerous” breeds (as previously discussed), then you get a heavy weighting of problems from those dogs.
I think the stats are also skewed because most people don’t report bites from small dogs, whether because they don’t require medical attention, or because it just plain sounds so silly to say you’ve been mauled by a Chihuahua. However, every person I’ve known that worked in dog-related areas (breeding, veterinary, etc.) agrees that the small, inbred lapdogs are by far the most vicious and most prone to attack. These dogs can be quite dangerous, even so - any number of children are badly bitten by small dogs. In fact, I know of a pitbull that was killed by several fox terriers.
However, what almost all of these boil down to is, indeed, bad owners. So I would have to agree that the overrepresentation of certain breeds is primarily, although not purely, attributable to bad owners. Bad owners make bad dogs.
I do believe that dogs have been and can be bred for temperament. Most reputable breeders not only breed for temperament, they temperament-test their puppies before placing them. However, such breeding only breeds for tendencies.
I can breed the two sweetest-natured dogs in the world, and still end up with a puppy that is shy and fear-bites, or is overly aggressive and easily provoked. However, either of those puppies can be perfectly good dogs, if properly trained and socialized. Unfortunately, most people haven’t the foggiest idea what that means, much less how to do it.
I can also breed the two meanest, nastiest, most psychotic dogs in the world, and still end up with a quiet, pleasant, friendly puppy. Dog-fighters call those “culls”. And I can take the friendliest, nicest puppy in the world and turn him into a mean, vicious dog with poor treatment and abuse.
IME, the most common problem is often not aggressive dogs per se, but assertive, dominant dogs. Most people don’t know how to deal with a dog who’s just determined to be alpha, and those dogs are often mishandled. They can be quite dangerous because they believe (rightfully so, from their perspective) that they are in charge and anything they do is OK - and OK in dog-world includes biting/attacking all lesser beings, unless said lesser beings behave properly and show submission. You get assertive dogs in all breeds (it’s definitely part of the natural range of “dog personalities”), they’re just not as scary running amok when they’re only ten pounds. However, some breeds definitely tend more towards assertiveness, especially the working breeds of all sizes - it’s part of what makes them good at their jobs.
But that brings us back to what others have already said: if you ban pitbulls, it will just be a different breed very soon. Hell, it will be a different breed before too long anyway, just because these things are fads. When I was very small, it was German Shepherds, and everyone was terrified of our “police dog”. When I was a bit older, it changed to Dobermans, and I watched a neighbor’s perfectly nice, friendly, sweet Dobie turn (apparently) mean and vicious due to the constant torment by kids daring each other to tease and harass the “dangerous dog”. (I say “apparently” because he was still perfectly nice if he knew you, or if you came in through the house like a civilized being. He just had absolutely no patience or goodwill towards kids outside his fence, and would bark and growl and charge when someone walked by.) When I was in my teens & early twenties, it was Rottweilers, and again I watched people snatch their children up and away from the horrendous Evil Roy Slade, my future sister-in-law’s baby, who was probably the most poorly behaved of the dogs I knew, simply because he was spoiled completely rotten. His name, however, was entirely apropos. And then it became the pitbulls. The only purebred pitbulls I’ve known were through my spouse’s employment as a vet tech in a bad part of town - they saw a lot of pitbulls. Even so, most of them were not people-aggressive, although they did tend to fight other dogs when they weren’t socialized early and well; I’ve known quite a few pit-crosses, and they have much the same problem. I’ve been surprised that one of the mastiff breeds hadn’t taken the top spot by now, although it sounds like it’s heading that direction. Soon, none of y’all will be worried about pitbulls, you’ll be screaming for mastiff bans instead.
It doesn’t matter what breeds you ban, another one will come along - there are hundreds of “aggressive”, working-dog breeds. If one didn’t exist, they’d create it, or breed aggressive behavior into an existing type, so that assholes can have scary dogs. If you ban all large dogs, they’ll select 'em for just under the limit. If a breed becomes popular, ignorant and uncaring people will buy the dogs and mis-handle them. As keeps being repeated, and is supported by several of the cites contained in this thread - banning breeds is not a workable nor useful solution.
What can be done? Well, that’s a whole 'nother topic, and I’ve already written quite the epic screed here. Real enforcement of existing nuisance/dangerous animal laws, possibly with new laws in some places to close loopholes, that would be a good start. I wouldn’t be averse to stronger licensing/training requirements, although those won’t work unless you (a)have them written by people that understand dogs, not local bigmouth Joe Blow, and (b)actually enforce them. The real solution is a major change in culture, but that’s so far away as to be meaningless. Perhaps at least we could achieve a society less-tolerant of animal abuse and mistreatment in the near future, and one that acknowledges, however faintly, that animals are not toys. My personal crusade would be against the breed associations such as the AKC - they could shut down the puppy mills if they wanted to, but they’re too greedy to do it; they’d rather just wring their hands and moan about how evil “those” people are. {I can expand on that last for at least as long as I’ve already gone on, but I’ll resist. :))
My word, this got longer (and took longer!) than I intended. Ciao!
Hi Red, thanks for joining in - all great points - did you not read from the beginning and see that all these points had already been made?
Not to be a dink but “What can be done?” is pretty much THE topic of the thread. My point about over-representation of dangerous dogs relative to their kill statistics is that banning a dog owned by <10% of the dog owning population would immediately affect (not eliminate I’m sure) ~30% of dog caused fatalities. Is it so ridiculous to try it?