If I had a dime for every awful parent I’ve known who has emotionally and psychologically broken their child while proclaiming “I did everything right. I have no idea why she is this way. How could I have known,” I’d take us all out to dinner.
IOW, a person believing they did the right thing tells us nothing about whether or not they actually did the right thing.
I have no dog in this fight (heh), but these facts seem pretty indisputable:
-Some people are bitten/attacked by dogs
-There is no data collected about the breed of said dogs
-Police, reporters, and observers regularly identify dogs as “pit bulls” without knowledge of whether or not that is a true statement
-No study has been done that looks at breed and training and how those two things relate to dog temperament
That said, I really don’t see how anyone can with a straight face say “pit bulls are obviously a dangerous breed.” Who knows, maybe it’s true that they are more dangerous than other dogs, but there is no reliable information to back up that kind of statement. Considering that even anecdotes are problematic (in that often the breed is mis-identified, and training is likely unknown), I’m amazed at the number of people who are passionate about this just-so story.
facts are very clear. People just haven’t fully accepted that there is a terrible human cost to having dogs living with us, especially those who sometimes kill us.
Dog apologists are fond of saying that if a dog misbehaves, it is the owner’s or trainer’s fault. Yes, that is true, to a point, and when a dog misbehaves, the owner should bear the full responsibility as if he or she had committed the bad behavior themselves.
And, even when a dog is fully domesticated, gentle, non-aggressive and well used to being around people and children, sometimes they just suddenly snap and revert to some primitive instinct. It happened to me when I was around 10. A neighbor farmer had a fine shepherd mix female dog that had the run of his farm, three kids, and never had even a nip from her. One day, my stepfather and I were standing about 8 feet across from the farmer and his son, talking some sort of neighborhood news or trying to work out the loan of some equipment…the son and I were quiet, listening to the adult’s talk, when, with no provocation or warning, the bitch leaped up, lunged at me and bit my upper thigh, just missing my genitals. Broke the skin, needed a few weeks to stop hurting. They kept her in a stall for a few days to watch for any signs of rabies, but she was fine, and, so far as we know, never attacked anyone ever again.
So, you know, been there, done that. We owned a dozen hounds at the time, hunted fox and raccoon, rabbits, squirrels, etc. I’m not a crazy ban all guns liberal. None of those dogs we owned ever even nipped a human, and if they chased a chicken, they were smacked first time, then over the hill with the .22 the second.
No one I knew, 60 years ago, as a kid, ever heard of ‘pit bulls’. Probably thought of them as a useless bulldog or something. We did have terriers and other sorts of breeds, but never had a dog who wasn’t already sick to death snap at them.
The fact is, ‘pit bulls’ have mushroomed into a major problem for the pet-loving industry. They proliferate and fill the shelters. They are often poorly domesticated and every time one harms a human, the reputation of the ‘breed’ is diminished.
The fact is, again, that we would be better off eliminating that strain of dog before it becomes impossible for anyone to legally own a pooch. That day will come if dogs keep attacking humans and livestock around the world.
I stand by every word of this, no matter how stupid Skywalker or any other poster here becomes. Why would I lie about something like this? I never knew of anyone in rural Illinois of my area who kept or used a ‘pit bull’ for anything. We were all to smart to have them around.
You lot keep proclaiming that the facts about pit bulls are all ‘made up’ or ‘mistaken’ …but they aren’t. Why don’t you go interview emergency room doctors and make your own statistics? They’ll all tell you about the steady stream of pit bull (and other big dog) bites they have to treat. Why the hell do we need dogs of that sort in this day? Get a beagle.
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I have no dog in this fight (heh), but these facts seem pretty indisputable:
-Some people are bitten/attacked by dogs
-There is no data collected about the breed of said dogs
-Police, reporters, and observers regularly identify dogs as “pit bulls” without knowledge of whether or not that is a true statement
-No study has been done that looks at breed and training and how those two things relate to dog temperament
I think you are wrong about 3 out of 4, and I think it is just facile to continue to assert that pit bulls are not a dangerous ‘breed’ because a dog is called a pit that only resembles one. There are no ‘purebred’ pit bulls, but people who work in public safety certainly see enough dangerous dogs to know when to apply the term.
That still doesn’t excuse the fallacy that all dangerous dogs are pit bulls and that removing pit bulls from our society would save lives. I never said that. Many dogs are dangerous dogs who are not dogs that might be called ‘pits’. I would expect that removing all such dogs is the thing to do, whether or not they are called ‘pit bulls’.
Pit bulls are easily ‘weaponised’ through simple ignorance. Hence tearful owners thinking they were awesome house pets, and out of the clear blue, without warning or provocation, turned on and attack their grandchild!
When other dog breeds are involved in such incidents they seem, much more often, to my mind, to have been purposely weaponized dogs. They belong to gang members, or guard meth labs, or have been trained to attack, or worse still have been brutalized! Most already had reputations as vicious dogs, etc.
That’s not the case with most pit bull attacks I’ve seen reported. And I think, it’s an important distinction.
“The first dog you picked was American Pit Bull Terrier. It took you 0 seconds, and 1 attempt to find the Pit. The dog most commonly picked first is the American Pit Bull Terrier, and the average time is -11 seconds with 8 attempts.”
So… most people can’t spot the pit bull, but it’s the most commonly picked? And it’s the first pic most people pick, but it takes an average of eight tries? Negative eleven seconds?
Their site stats are one massive cluster of wtf. :dubious:
Hmmm, don’t know. They used to make a bit more sense. Wonder if it just hasn’t been updated in long enough that the data is all corrupted now.
The pit may be the most picked, but that doesn’t mean that is is picked more often than the other’s combined.
It may have a 12.5% pick rate, while all the others only have 5% or so each, which would be consistent with the rest of the stats. The -11 seconds I don’t know about though.
I’m going to have to ask for a cite of someone witnessing, or being victim of, a dog attack claiming a Jack Russell Terrier is a pit bull.
I mean, I guess it’s not impossible, since there are raving lunatics in the world who will say the moon is made of cheese, but that does not mean I am wrong in saying the moon’s made of rock.
