Thank you for stating this as your opinion and not as a fact.
While you are correct that I cannot read my dogs’ minds any better than I have read yours, I do know my dogs’ personalities well and can read the behavoiral cues of their emotional state and reliably predict their actions.
Regardless of my dogs’ fast reflexes or the strength of their mouths, I know them well enough and take enough responsibility to insure that they do not pose a threat as long as no one climbs my fence or breaks into my house. And their barking and running along the fence is a certain deterrent to climbing it. I base the actions I take re: their security (yes, the 6-foot chainlink fence around the back yard with locking gates and BEWARE OF DOG signs is as much to protect them from being harrassed, stolen or mistreated as it is to protect the dogs and people of my neighborhood from them) and training on my knowledge of them, their needs and proclivities.
[OT] I was bitten in the face at the age of 9 by 30 lb mixed breed owned by my friend Kevin. I have to admit that I was teasing the dog at the time, he growled at me once but I persisted. 3 weeks later I went to visit Kevin and Sparky bit me in the face again, unprovoked this time. They ended up putting him down a few months after that because he was becoming more nippy and aggressive as time went on.[/OT]
IF either of my dogs bit a person and drew blood, I would have them put down. I do not beleive this will happen, or I would not keep either of my dogs. Some people think we should err on the side of safety by banning ownership of certain breeds of dogs and having them euthanized. I choose to excercise more responsibility than would be necessary for a lab or golden retriever. I doubt that there is any realistic chance of reconciling these two viewpoints, but I think the discourse we’re having is good.