General rules about dogs:
[ul]
[li]A dog is an individual whose behavior depends on the individual’s psychological makeup and its training[/li][li]Any breed can be dangerous if not trained properly[/li][li]Some breeds have more individuals with behavior problems than other breeds have[/li][li]Some breeds have more individuals with physical problems than other breeds have[/li][li]Some breeds have more individuals with a strong psyche, requiring firmer training and tighter follow-up, than other breeds have[/li][li]Small dogs are on average more insecure and more prone to attacking than big dogs. But the bell curve is pretty wide.[/li][li]Big dogs can more easily maul a child’s face than a lapdog can, because they are tall enough[/li][li]Big dogs have more muscle than small lap dogs and will be a bigger challenge to resist and/or subdue if they decide to attack[/li][li]No breed - not even the (in this thread) beloved Staffordshire bulls or the American pit bulls - are guaranteed to not attack a human given the wrong circumstances (poor training, mental problems, feeling threatened, thinking that the pack is in danger).[/li][/ul]
And, finally, an IMNSHO: Personally, I prefer largish dogs who have not been bred for fighting spirit and stubbornness because I believe that those attributes make a pretty dangerous mix when combined with poor training, mental instability (which can happen to any dog, regardless of breed) or panic.
I have one thing to add to 2Square4U’s excellent post - I think that because of the inaccurate representation of Pit Bulls as dangerous dogs, they have become the preferred breed for a certain type of asshole who wants to make a dog vicious.
Whereas any dog which is deliberately mistreated by its owners will become a problem dog.
What I find offensive in this thread is how so many automatically assume that small dogs are yappy, nippy misbehaved little rats. If someone made a blanket statement like that against pits the scream of outrage would be heard round the world.
I have 3 smal dogs at this time, 2 Papillons and a Rat Terrier. They rarely bark, are well behaved,would NEVER think of biting, friendly, sturdy little dogs that play with my big Setters and love a long walk. I don’t dress them up unless it’s a sweater when it’s chilly, I don’t carry them everywhere. They are treated just the same as my big dogs. The ONLY behaviors problem I have that I would like to make go away is with my older Papillon, as she ages she is getting grumpy with the Setters. But I guess it hurts her more now when they bump her or step on her.
Your prefered type of dog may not be a small lapdog, but please think before you insult them so. Not ALL of them live up to your stereotype and there are those of us who love our small dogs.
You’re right. We pit bull and other “dangerous” dog owners have been on the defensive for so long, I do think we tend to look for faults in other types of dogs to sort of alleviate that . The snarly, yappy small dogs are as much the fault of their owners’ poor or lack of training as unruly large dogs are. Sadly, small dog owners can get away with it more often by just picking up their dog and holding it. Large dog owners must train as they are less able to just physically restrain their dog.
Well, I actually hope that under certain, dire circumstances my dog would attack a human being. My lab/border collie cross most certainly would have. When it seemed someone was trying to come into the house who shouldn’t, he was all hackles and growls. I am pretty darn certain, though, that my pit bull would hide under the bed. He hides when the doorbell rings.
Believe me… I understand. I have owned several Dobermans in the past- the sweetest, kindest dogs I have ever known, and almost anytime I had one out (except at dog shows) there were the idiots that SWORE my dog was going to turn on me, how dangerous they are, etc. So yeah, I get it. BUT… it hurts me when someone makes a blanket statement about ALL small dogs without ever bothering to get to know one personally.
I have owned a lot of dogs in my 51 years and have never known ANY dog with as mych personality as my Papillons, they are funny, silly little dogs that live to make their person laugh. My younger one, Bunny has earned the nickname Bunshine… she is the ‘Bunshine’ of my life.
My uncle is a veterinarian. When I was a kid, he used to run these rabies vaccination clinics at the county garage. This was a rural farming community, so the farming families would round up their cats and dogs and drag 'em over to the county garage to get $5 rabies shots. My uncle often recruited family members to help out. I did it several years in a row and got to vet tech for him, which mostly consisted of holding on to the critters while my uncle gave the shots.
In my experience, the dogs would could take a shot without flinching or acting like anything had happened at all were all small dogs. It was always the big dogs who yelped or cried or howled and made a big dramatic deal about a little needle stick. I always thought it was funny. You’d see these cute little lap dogs taking shots like heroin junkies and these big huge tough-looking dogs whimpering and cowering.
Whenever I’m at the vet and I’m locked in the little exam room and cannot see what’s going on in the treatment room… if I hear a dog whimpering and crying, I’ll ask the doc or the tech when they come back in, “Was that a big dog out there crying, or a little one?” 98 times out of 100, unless it’s a really sick/injured dog, the answer is “Oh, it’s always the big ones who fuss like that.”
You seem to focus on big dogs a lot in this list. That’s fine, and accurate as far as it goes – I just want to point out that pit bulls are NOT considered a large breed. They are a medium-sized breed by every formal definition.
The really large ones (80-100+ pounds) you occasionally hear about thugs using to intimidate people are mixes by definition. An individual example of such a dog might indeed be dangerous, but that has little to do with pit bulls. It’s just a large, aggressive mongrel.
And while I agree that a large dog can reach a child’s face, a small dog can be more easily injured or threatened by a child and therefore might lash out under circumstances a larger dog would shrug off.
One of the main reasons pit bulls were considered “the nanny dogs” for 200 years is their supposed combination of submissiveness toward all humans and resistance to pain – the thinking being that little kids could thump them, pull an ear, or step on a tail without provoking a defensive response.
Yes, I already stuck up for miniature dachshunds in this thread and restated my policy against maligning any breed.
Rhiannon8404 is right, what starts out as the argument “other dogs misbehave too, it’s not specific to pit bulls” too easily turns into finger-pointing against other types of dogs.
But when “pit bull people” advocate against Breed-Specific Legislation (BSL) they advocate for all breeds, not just pit bulls. It might seem unlikely at the present moment that small dogs would be caught up in BSL, but previous national hysteria against dachshunds proves otherwise. I’ve never seen a slogan or website that said “Protect pit bulls, ban Papillons!” it’s always “Fight BSL!”
It’s all too common for BSL to include catchall clauses banning “similar types” or even allowing law enforcement officers without any training or expertise to define which dogs get seized and killed and which dogs do not. Even in the absence of a slippery slope, those of us who love dogs are all in this together.
It must have been a pit bull, and it must have attacked someone. The new biological classification for* canis lupus familiaris has two categories, cute *and pit bull.
nods In other news, bears are Catholic and the Pope shits in the woods.
Was anyone arguing that bull terrier breeds NEVER attack people? I can’t find such a statement in this thread. The statements I CAN find (pit bulls were bred to be docile to people, if aggressive to other dogs; pit bulls are not especially dangerous compared to other dogs of similar size like retrievers) seem pretty factual to me.
No dog is ever guaranteed not to attack. None. Not the nicest dog you ever met. Every dog, under the right (wrong) set of circumstances WILL bite, and it would do humans well to remember that more often, especially when children are involved.
