No dog is 100% safe. Any dog can bite. Every breed can kill. Even the cute and familiar ones.
COME ON…A DACHSHOUND CAN KILL?A CHIHUAHUA, A BEAGLE,A CHI TZSU?I GUESS IT COULD HAPPEN,AND PROBABLY HAS BUT VERY VERY VERY RARELY. IT’S FAR MORE LIKELY FROM THE “PIT BULL TYPES”.WHATEVER BREED THEY MAY BE THEY ARE RESPONSABLE FOR MAJORITY OF ATTACKS AND BY FAR MOST OF THE KILLINGS.sorry about all caps,in a hurry
Uhh … did someone forget his meds last night ?
The bit in bold seems to be your problem. You are obviously hanging out with a group of pitbull owners who do not know how to handle their dogs.
If only those owners had responded the same as the man in the following link - we’d have a lot less “savage pitbull-types” to worry about, eh?
hamhawk, honey, if I’d been a victim of, and witness to as many “vicious attacks” as you claim to have, I’d be hanging out with a better class of dog owners.
It’s pretty clear that no matter what evidence is put before you, you’re totally invested in this myth. I hope some day you’ll come to understand that people who want tough and mean looking dogs will pick a certain type of dog based on what’s available and popular. It doesn’t mean all of this breed are incurably bad, it just means that bad dog owners don’t raise mannerly dogs of any breed, and when all the bad dog owners in your neighborhood pick the same type of dogs, it leads to cognitive bias. If dogs that looked like rottweilers or dobermans were popular in your neighborhood, you’d be in here hysterical and ranting about rottweilers and dobermans and what psychotic dogs they are because every bad dog you’ve ever met is a rottweiler or a doberman. Some people think that because there are a lot of black drug dealers in their neighborhood, that all black people are bad. It’s not objective reality. It’s attentional bias, availability heuristic, and belief cascade effect with a healthy dose of Semmelweis reflex.
You seem one step beyond grasping the concept that if it’s only vague physical characteristics that tie these dogs together (and not actual breed) then it’s not a “pit bull” issue, it’s a “poorly raised dog” issue. It can’t be a “pit bull” issue, because these dogs are not all “pit bulls”. I know you can’t or won’t listen to any of this right now because you’re too invested in your own perception of reality… but maybe some day you’ll figure it out. If not… well, some ignorance just can’t be fought. You can’t win 'em all.
You know, hamhawk, something I’m curious about… throughout your involvement in this thread, whenever you’ve talked about the numerous times you’ve been bitten by dogs personally and the voluminous, uncountable number of times you’ve been witness to “pit bull” attacks… doesn’t it ever occur to you to wonder why there are so many people around you who don’t control their dogs?
Doesn’t it ever occur to you to wonder why those shih-tzu owners didn’t keep their dogs from biting people… or why your neighbor was letting her “pit bull” run loose and attack other dogs?
Do you really never stop for a minute to think about the owners of those uncountable thousands of “pit bulls” that you’ve seen rampaging in the streets and mauling innocents, and why they’re not restraining, training, or controlling their dogs? Mannerly and well-behaved dogs aren’t just made that way.
Have you really never stopped to consider that what you’re seeing is a neighborhood full of people that own barely-managed dogs? And that large and athletic barely-managed dogs cause more problems than small and sedentary barely-managed dogs? …and that because “pit bulls” are cheap and plentiful and popular, that the large and athletic barely-managed dogs you usually see are of the “pit bull type”?
People don’t usually lay out a thousand or two dollars on a dog and then let it run around, act like a maniac, breed indiscriminately and attack anything it feels like chasing. That doesn’t mean a mastino is less potentially “dangerous” than any random “pit bull type” pound puppy, it just means that mastino owners typically handle their dogs better. On the flip side, it doesn’t mean that the random-bred, free-to-good-home neglected pit bull type dog left to run around your neighborhood and attack other dogs is more dangerous by virtue of genetics, just that it’s an unmanaged, uncontrolled dog with an irresponsible owner. It’s the “unmanaged, uncontrolled dog with an irresponsible owner” part that makes it potentially more dangerous… not the breed.
Similarly, that’s why LHOD can continue to believe that pit bulls which come from reputable breeders who take steps to heavily socialize their puppies and place them with responsible owners are “breeding the psychosis out” of their dogs. He’s got the “good breeder” correlation right, but he’s wrong about the “good dog” causation. It’s not that these people are creating good dogs with genetic manipulation and selective pressure, it’s that dogs which come from reputable breeders and go to reputable owners are far more likely to come out as mannerly, well-socialized animals. Backyard breeders and owners who don’t bother to socialize and handle their dogs turn out different kinds of dogs. It just happens that the uncontrolled dogs you’re used to seeing are of the “pit bull” phenotype.
Here’s a question: did you even notice that half the breed mentions you highlighted in your list of 2009 dog bite related fatalities weren’t pit bulls? You highlighted rottweilers, mastiffs, and disputed mixes too. Is this because you believe that a rottweiler and a bull mastiff are the same thing as a pit bull?
Why do you think that it’s the breed’s fault in four cases, but not in the other eleven cases? Why do you blame the pit bull mix in one case but not the collie mix that attacked with it?
Um, and to the rest of the participants, is it worth it for me to keep responding to him, or am I just getting suckered by a bridge-dweller? I kinda can’t tell.
bridge-dweller?
Somebody who is just saying things to provoke me into responding, without actually caring about the conversation.
“One who dwells under a bridge”, i.e. a troll.
I went ahead and googled It and got a couple thousand hits.
Here’s urban distionary’s take:
Could go either way, I guess.
Different contexts. On the internet, a “bridge-dweller” is a euphamism for a troll, known in lore for living under bridges and eating the passers-by.
In non-digital space, a “bridge-dweller” is a pejorative for homeless folk who live under bridges because they are the best shelter available.
I am not up to speed on using homeless folk for cheap labor.
I’d seen “troll” used many times, of course, but that was a first for "bridge-dweller in the internet context.
Now it makes sense.
Thanks
Hate to break up this rivoting exchange about the meaning of “bridge dweller”, but I thought Mangeorge might enjoy some fresh material for his in depth study on pit bull media reporting.
The short version is that a CT animal control officer responded to a call (Sept 09) about an alleged pit bull acting strangely/aggressively outside someone’s house … Shortly after arriving on the scene, the female officer fell to the ground and suffered a head injury. A few days later, the woman died in the hospital. Multiple news agencies covered the story and reported it as a “pit bull attack”. With more facts now coming out, this thing is starting to smell bad and some news agencies are now softening their reports, but of course from a public perception standpoint, the damage is already done. You see, all those eye-popping headlines and snarling pit bull images (none of which were the actual dog, btw) DO actually stick in people’s minds. Rest assured, no one is standing around the water-cooler talking about how the media got that pit bull story wrong. Here’s the problem:
- The animal control officer was never bit … yep, an “aggressive pit bull attack” with NO bite wounds … hmmm?
- The officer apparently hit her head, but no one knows how or why? A witness (i.e. the people who made the original 911 call and later openly fired a weapon) said the pit bull knocked her over and was hovering over her, but even the police admit they don’t know how or why she fell. Perhaps the police now recognize that the lack of bite wounds suggest something else happened other than “an attack”.
- The officer’s own family has stated to the media (via the funeral home) that the death was NOT the result of the dog incident. One would think they’d be the first to blame the pit bull, but they are not. However, our public service friends at DogsBite.org don’t want to believe the family, and are working extra hard to link the dog with the death.
- It was NOT reported that the animal control officer was middle aged, significantly overweight, and likely unfit for strenuous field work. It was NOT reported what other health problems the officer may have had prior to the incident. It was NOT reported whether the officer carried or drew a weapon in handling the incident, as one might expect a trained officer to do when faced with an actual threat.
- Not one media source ever asked the original callers what the pit bull was doing to make them feel threatened. Could it be they simply saw a strange looking dog in their driveway and assumed it was dangerous (btw, one of the witnesses appears frail and attached to an oxygen tank … hmmm, wonder if she has any fear-based biases?). Isn’t it a little curious that the dog wasn’t terrorizing anyone else in the neighborhood?
- One of the original callers claims to have fired 2-3 shots at the animal, though the media never questioned what the hell he was doing shooting a gun at a dog NOT biting anyone in close proximity to a downed animal control officer. He claims the shots landed but of course the media felt no need to explain how the animal miraculously survived all night and showed up the next morning at its original owner’s house unscathed.
- The owner of the dog – a real winner himself – upon learning of his dog’s involvement, decided the best course of action was to shoot his dog to death and bury it 4 miles away. Did the media question this decision? … No. Did the media confirm the dog was dead? … No.
- According to one media report, the dog was regularly chained in the man’s back yard but “got out” one day. For all you following this thread, tethering a dog on any sort of regular basis is a leading cause of behavior problems … But who am I to think the media has some responsibility to report helpful research?
- Though failing to question the dog owner’s poor handling skills and his decision to blow the dog’s brains out, the media did manage to sneak this little quote in: “I lost out on a good dog, but when I found out he didn’t bite her, it was just a big relief”.
- Oh, I almost forgot, the breed of the dog was never firmly established or proven.
Now, multiply this story by a factor of X, and decide for yourself whether you believe pit bulls are being sensationalized or accurately portrayed in the media.
No problem. It was over anyway. I just needed clarification about NajaNivea’s bridge-dweller.
Thanks, Irishman.
Thanks, I hadn’t got to the East Coast yet.
I guess the cops are sticking to their original claim.
BTW; This is a nitpick, but “attack” does not equal “bite”. Not in this context, anyway.
Hey, my name in mercedes1’s long post was in quotes, but now it’s bolded! 
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I think this has strayed far enough from “comments” and can better be described as a “debate.”
If you wish to discuss this more, please open a new thread in Great Debates.
This thread is closed.
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