I thought we’d made it pretty clear in the last two extensive pit bull discussions that citing dogbitelaw.com (or its sister site) in any serious conversation is as laughable as citing Stormfront.org in a discussion of “racial characteristics,” and for exactly the same reason. They are hate sites only, and furthermore the one you cited is basically trolling for lawsuit plaintiffs – it’s pure ambulance-chasing.
Any breed descended from a wolf, ya know, excepting those grossly dwarfed by human intervention. Literally hundreds of breeds could do that. We bred many of themm for exactly tat sort of purpose.
You know who competed with wolves to kill horses? Humans. You know who won that competition? Humans kill livestock by the billions each year in the US alone.
The US Government wants to kill ponies.
I don’t want ponies to die, but I’m not going to single out a breed of dog to blame for it when we’re all in on it.
You’ve made it clear that you believe that, and that you repeatedly see no difference between racist human violence and caution toward a breed of dogs. You aren’t, to put it mildly, an impartial observer.
Are you, or are you not, arguing that dogbitelaw is regarded as a reputable information source by knowledgeable dog people?
You guys aren’t talking about caution. Not really.
And banning/killing anyone because of what they were born as, not whether they’ve individually done something wrong, is racist when applied to humans – it’s /speciesist/breedist/whatever word you prefer when applied to nonhumans, but it’s parallel.
You know that pit bulls per se are not a menace because we’ve had pit bulls living among us for 200+ years and only in recent media culture has there been alarm about that. It’s historical fact.
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Based solely on the statistics of this thread, I tried as hard as I could not to skim to the punch, expecting it to end tragically… Nice to know your fine.
The Pit’s I’ve been around have all been great, luckily. Though, quite the contrary with German Shepherds, I don’t seem to get a long with any of them.
I’m not sure how the quoting thing works on SD so please forgive.
Please let me state up front that I’m not trying to condem pitbulls here. Pits are GREAT usually. Usually… Did I mention usually?
Trixie went on to bite people as a 2-2.5 yr old. I should have mentioned that. Eventually she went to the pound (long before I was a volunteer there) and was most likely put down. Trixie was adopted from the same pound as a pup and was raised ideally - lots of exercise, love, she was a great dog until she became aggressive toward dogs and then people. She even bit her lifelong buddy through the ear who happened to be my old Lab/Shepard mix. And a dog was not “hurt” by Trixie - a defenseless poodle was violently shaken to death by the head on the front lawn of a birthday party in front of horrified children and adults. This was when Trixie was about 2 and had never hurt a fly prior. It was a gruesome horror show and witnesses were scarred for life by the memory.
Hobbs. Hobbs came from the same shelter as all the other dogs (except maybe the dead poodle). My old friend is a dog guy and he married a dog girl and they really love dogs to a point that I personally think is anthropomorphic. Hobbs was a 95lb pit (not 80 as I said in the original post - I talked to my friend today) and he had endless energy. The pound was going to put him down but my friends kids girlfriend was a volunteer there at the time and alerted them to the situation. So they fostered Hobbs and things were fine for a little while. But Hobbs had crazy energy and would freak people out when they came by so putting him in the yard for a few hours a day on a dog run (not a fixed chain) where he could see people in the house and was frequently interacted with. Hobbs was super attached to my friend and came to view his wife as a threat…
Let me say here that its obvious that my friend and his wife misunderstood things. They didn’t see things from the dogs perspective. When the dog you misunderstand can kill you thats an important thing to be aware of though.
All I’m really trying to say here is that if you misunderstand a dangerous dog, pit or Rottie or whatever, you might pay big.
DOGS in the papers. I’m not just reading current papers. When I said over the years I meant over the years of my life and I’m no kid. I remember when boxers were accused and shepherds and dobies but there has never been a dog like a pit in my memory.
NO dog should be entirely unsupervised around children?? I totally disagree, I’ll elaborate if anyone cares.
I’m not entirely sure what this means. “A dog like a pit”?
Your stories are sad, but they don’t read any differently than any uncountable number of stories about people mishandling dogs. When I was a kid, some people in my neighborhood had a St. Bernard who killed another neighbor’s dog. My nextdoor neighbors had a cocker spaniel, a husky, and a nondescript 45lb muttley that one day put on a gruesome horror show by ripping my cat, Rosie, to shreds (literally, one at each of three “corners”, pulling the cat apart) right in front of me and my mother. Another neighbor had a german shorthair pointer and chesapeake bay retreiver (both well-trained active field hunting dogs) repeatedly escape from the yard and killed a total of about a dozen cats before anyone figured out who was doing it.
The worst biting dog I ever personally knew was a springer spaniel. Coincidentally, my husband grew up with a (different) springer who put scars on three family members, including him.
The point is, there is one common factor in dog bite cases, and it’s not breed.
What makes a dog “dangerous”? Is it size? Genetics? Nature? What in their genes or nature, specifically? Is a rottie more dangerous than a great dane? Is a malamute more dangerous than a chow? What breeds are inherently “dangerous”, and why?
Also, a “95lb pit” is not a pit bull terrier, but a mixed-breed dog that looks like a pit bull. This brings us back to the discussion about mixed-breed dogs, and how phenotype has little direct connection to recent breeding history… and how phenotype cannot be used to determine a dog’s relative safety.
The truth of the matter is, the main factor in dog attacks is not breed or type, but handling. Cite.
And, you know, I will say one thing–you’re right that people who carry fundamental misunderstandings about handling a large, athletic, high-energy dog should not be keeping and handling large, athletic, high-energy dogs.
Hobbs’ story isn’t one about a “crazy, aggressive pit bull carrying murder in his genes”, it’s a story about a large, high-energy mixed-breed dog which was not adequately trained or socialized. As ever, this is a failing of the owners, not the dog. In this case, it wasn’t Hobbs’s breed, but the fact that he was mishandled that caused the problem. Your friends would be better off with a smaller, easier dog, and you’re right about that… but again attributing their problems to breed is a gross mistake.
Trixie’s story is a sad one, too–and unfortunately common. Dogs who lack adequate training generally start to manifest behavioral problems in late adolescence. Dog aggression is a behavioral trait that needs to be addressed early and daily. It doesn’t appear Trixie was the recipient of any sort of concentrated socialization or training on this matter, no matter how much she was loved and exercised. That’s not enough… and anyone who mismanages a dog then returns it with a bite history and substantial dog aggression development to a shelter to be foisted on some other unsuspecting person but now with extra, shiny-new abandonment trauma… well… this isn’t the forum to address that issue in the proper words. Suffice it to say that’s a very clear indication that Trixie’s problems were Trixie’s owners’ fault, period.
You’ve been given a couple links and several accounts of how the “evil dog du jour” has evolved over time. Your recollection is what it is - but it’s just not reliable or accurate (no one’s is compared to the actual evidence presented).
Are you sure they’re pit mixes though?
Take a look here. I know there is a “pick the pit bull out” page you claim to have passed witth flying colors but this is for pit mixes.
I was genuinely surprised by some of the answers.
And I’ll leave this thread with my usual plug for people to read Vicki Hearne’s work with pit bulls.
And of course people who are least able to handle a big dog, buy pits. They have a mystique which appeals to some who should not have dogs at all.
http://www.dogsbite.org/blog/2008/10/dog-bite-victims-group-releases-video.html
Of course they are all misidentified.
So banning pit bulls would fix this problem? Or would the people who purchase these dogs simply move on to Rot’s, which are people aggressive (by nature) and need far more socialization throughout their life to avoid being far more dangerous?
So, are we now saying that banning the dog will fix the problem of idiotic people buying animals that they cannot control?
A dog that does this, whether within its family or to strangers, is not well socialized. People need to train dogs, even small breeds, not to jump up on people. And when you own a breed with a poor reputation, it particularly needs to be well-disciplined.
As to how changes in human attitudes are responsible for mistaken views on dog breeds that had formerly been viewed as good pets - there actually is such a thing as breed quality declining over time. When people value aggressiveness and fighting qualities in a breed (and/or indiscriminately overbreed) we wind up with more maladjusted animals.
So true - and this is why drug dealers are increasingly turning to Shih Tzus as fashionable protectors. Less expensive to feed…but you’d better not tread on their territory. :dubious:
Pits (and half pits and full pits and akc pits and muscle dogs with square heads…) are more aggressive than average and sometimes kill humans and dogs as opposed to Pugs and other non lethal breeds which are harmless to humans is all I’m trying to say, lol.
Lets change the subject to human responsibility otherwise cant we agree that potentially lethal dogs deserve a category?
It is my experience, which has just been reinforced by this thread, that pit owners have an unrealistic view of their animals. Everyone thinks they have the nicest most adorable little squishy thing in the world, and refuse to acknowledge that their dog could ever hurt anyone. Well, your fucking dog CAN hurt someone, so please supervise it and make sure it doesn’t shake your neighbor’s dog to death or maul some poor kid who doesn’t know any better than to treat a pit like a cocker spaniel. No dog that has maimed someone or killed someone’s pet ever had an owner who expected it to happen. If you own a pit bull, chances are that’s YOUR DOG, if it ever gets into the right (wrong?) combination of circumstance and mood. Supervise your pit! I don’t care how adorable you think it is.
The OP was right in this case. The dog was clearly very well-socialized (heavily acclimated to new people, places, and things, self-confident and with a generally happy and friendly outlook toward novel situations). The dog clearly needs better obedience training, but they are two separate things.
Well, I don’t know about your local drug dealers, but mine are perfectly happy to turn to Rottweilers, Presa Canarios, Cane Corsos, or any number of other very large, very powerful molossoid breeds which carry a much longer history of much more human-targeted aggression, if y’all want to rid the world of pit bulls.
Pits (and half pits and full pits and [the non-existent] akc pits and muscle dogs with square heads…) are no more aggressive than average unless their owners make them that way. That’s the point.
Which dogs are “potentially lethal”, and why? What makes you imagine that “muscle dogs with square heads” are more dangerous than, say, German Shepherd Dogs, Malamutes, Chows, or Huskies?
It turns out, no breed of dog is disproportionately lethal, and many are far, far more prone to using their teeth on human beings than the “muscle dogs” you describe. Is it time for a canine history lesson? I am still waiting for some reasonable answer to the following questions:
-Why is a dog with a breeding history for pit fighting more potentially dangerous to human beings?
-Why does a breeding history for pit fighting make a dog more potentially dangerous than a breeding history for human-targeted aggression?
-If it’s not the pit-fighting breeding history, then why does the dog’s external appearance make it more disproportionately dangerous?
What we’re seeing here in this thread, as with others, is continual repeats of “everyone knows these dogs are homicidal maniacs” but no one appears to have any sort of logical reasoning to back that up, no facts, no studies, just a “everyone knows” attitude. I thought we were here to fight ignorance?
The CDC and the AVMA disagree with you,. As it happens, they agree with those of us in here trying our damndest to fight ignorance on this topic. Do any of you want to engage in the facts or is this just going to be a “pits suck… just 'cause” discussion?
There is no breed of dog which is more prone to bite or more prone to kill if they do bite. **The single common factor in fatal dog attacks is not breed or type, but mishandling. ** Labs kill, huskies kill, chows kill, golden retrievers and Australian shepherds kill, even a pomeranian can kill.
It’s not breed or type that makes a dog dangerous, it’s handling. It’s training, socialization, and handling. The common factors in fatal dog attacks are mismanagement: unattended dogs roaming loose, and dogs on chains. Fatal dog attacks are not perpetrated by a breed or type, they’re perpetrated by udersocialized and untrained animals unsupervised by any human being. Remember, this is not my opinion, this is *fact *supported by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the CDC.
A loose pit bull roaming your neighborhood should not be worrisome because it’s a pit bull, it should be worrisome because it’s an unattended dog, just the same as if it were a loose chow chow or shepherd mix.
:rolleyes:
No one in this thread has, at any time, asserted anything like your commentary.
All dogs can hurt someone. Any dog needs to be supervised around children at all times. Pits are potentially dangerous, but they’re no more potentially dangerous than any other strong, athletic dog. I want my neighbor to keep their shepherd under as much control as my other neighbor’s pits. The yellow lab up the street that fence-fights every time I walk by, hitting the chain link with slavering snarls, should he jump the fence, he’s a whole living hell of a lot more potentially dangerous due to his complete neglect than the happy, over-socialized pit described by the OP.
It’s not breed or type that causes a dog to be dangerous. It’s shitty owners.
I think this is a fantastic idea. My dog came from a shelter and when asked “What is she?” the breed combinations always come back different. She’s just a dog and trying to ascribe motives to her actions to a breed she might not even be is just ridiculous.
Mosier: it’s not that any of us want to assure you that pits are “adorable, squishy little things that could never hurt anyone”. All we want is to fight the ignorance that leads to people crossing the street and glaring when you’re walking your friendly, mannerly, square-headed dog… the ignorance that leads to thousands and thousands of innocent family dogs being removed from their loving homes and slaughtered over what amounts to a stupid canine racial stereotype.
Ha! I somehow totally missed this exchange.
I seriously cannot believe that you’re here defending that cite, and doing so with a (proverbial) straight face, LHOD. Shall I just go ahead and link my response from the last time around? That’ll save us both some time, because as I recall, you didn’t bother to stick around to offer support for your contentions that time, either.
Nothing has changed in the last four weeks. Your shyster’s website is still a steaming, fly-ridden pile of ambulance-chasing nonsense.
Replace ‘pit owners’ with ‘dog owners’ and I will agree with this statement.
Unsupervised dogs and children are a risk, one that everyone should be aware of.
The breed, though, doesn’t make a heck of a lot of difference. I was chased down and bitten by a Cocker Spaniel as a kid (it didn’t end up being serious, thankfully, the owner was around and pulled him off of me). In fact I was bitten by 5 or 6 dogs growing up - none of them were a bull breed, even though I live in one of the pit bull (and dog fighting) capitals of the world, Philadelphia.
When I was 11 my new puppy was nearly shaken to death by our neighbor’s Poodle (she pulled through, and will be 13 next month). My friend’s child has a scarred face thanks to her MIL’s Bichon Frise. This stuff happens constantly. There needs to be much more awareness, and more caution on the part of dog owners.
It does make a bit of difference, the size and strength of the dog you have. I have an 80-lb German Shepherd mix, and two 20-30 lb fluffy dogs. You can bet I take a lot more care with the big dog - if he were ever to bite someone (never has), it would be a hell of a lot more serious than if my other two did, just because his teeth are an inch long and his jaws could easily fit around a child’s neck.