[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Not specifically directed at anyone in this thread, I’d like to bring this article to the attention of anyone interested in public policy and pit bull bans:
Troublemakers: What pit bulls can teach us about profiling
Malcom Gladwell talks about “category problems” when we make generalizations. It’s thought-provoking.
Sailboat
[/QUOTE]
What a great article! It should be required reading for anyone who believes that “pit bulls” are inherently dangerous. Here’s a snippet :
I have another comment to make about the specific concern that “pit bulls are bred to kill dogs, so they’re not appropriate pets, they might kill other peoples’ pets.”
Well.
Rat terriers, among others, are bred to kill rats. Many people have beloved pet rats…or working rats.
The following is a list of bird dogs from a bird dog website: Pointers, Retrievers, English Setters, Irish Setters, Gordon Setters, Red Setters, Red and White Setters, Brittany Spaniels, English Pointers, Vizslas, German Shorthaired Pointers, German Wirehaired Pointers, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons, Pudel Pointers, Pointing Labradors, English Cocker Spaniels. I have pet birds; mine are parrots currently, but I used to have pet chickens and a duck.
Bulldogs and mastiffs were bred to pin and wound cows. Some people have beloved pet cows
Even the gentle beagle and sporting harrier are deadly enemies of rabbits.
Cats were bred to kill rats and mice, and small rodents like hamsters. not only does medical science rely on small rodents, but many people love them as pets.
Ferrets also kill rats and mice, as well as small birds.
Pet aquarium fish not only have been used in fighting as savage as any in the world of animal cruelty, but many will kill pet sea monkeys.
Pet snakes will kill small animals.
Chickens have been used by cockfighters.
Some kids have ant farms, but some people have pet anteaters.
Are we banning all these pets because they were bred to kill other peoples’ pets?
Sailboat
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Are we banning all these pets because they were bred to kill other peoples’ pets?
[/QUOTE]
I appreciate the withdrawal of the statistical claim of disproportionate attacks due to lack of citation, but would still like a response to this that I posted last night:
Daniel,
Out of curiosity, does this “breeding to attack child-sized animals” which causes pit dogs to attack small children in disproportionate numbers hold true for, say, foxhounds? What about coonhounds with their monstrous prey drive, are they just as likely to attack small children (and attack them fatally) as pit dogs? A big coon is about the same size as a game-bred pit, so it seems logical. What about breeds designed to hunt pigs, like the various cur dogs, Catahoula Leopard Dogs, and Dogos Argentinos? Feral hogs and Russian boars are both roughly human-sized, does this mean my boar hunting dog can’t differentiate between a wild pig and an adult human? Should he be more likely to indiscriminately attack adults than children because his prey is adult-sized?
How about wolfhounds? Deerhounds? Can they tell the difference between their prey and people? 'Roo dogs in Australia?
These are all dogs bred to attack and kill other animals. Do you think all of these breeds untrustworthy around people and particularly children? If not, why not?
[QUOTE=NajaNivea]
IDaniel,
Out of curiosity, does this “breeding to attack child-sized animals” which causes pit dogs to attack small children in disproportionate numbers hold true for, say, foxhounds? What about coonhounds with their monstrous prey drive, are they just as likely to attack small children (and attack them fatally) as pit dogs? A big coon is about the same size as a game-bred pit, so it seems logical. What about breeds designed to hunt pigs, like the various cur dogs, Catahoula Leopard Dogs, and Dogos Argentinos? Feral hogs and Russian boars are both roughly human-sized, does this mean my boar hunting dog can’t differentiate between a wild pig and an adult human? Should he be more likely to indiscriminately attack adults than children because his prey is adult-sized?
How about wolfhounds? Deerhounds? Can they tell the difference between their prey and people? 'Roo dogs in Australia?
These are all dogs bred to attack and kill other animals. Do you think all of these breeds untrustworthy around people and particularly children? If not, why not?
[/QUOTE]
Again, I can’t find statistics on this. However, I would not be surprised, as long as you look at the specifics of my suspicion: I am specifically suspicious that this is true for those dogs recently bred for the killing of small animals. If you’re looking at a boarhunting dog that has been bred within the past couple of generations to kill boar, I would be much more leery of having them around kids than I would be of having a golden retriever around kids.
A large raccoon is the same size as a fighting pit bull? Not in my experience, and I’ve been barked at by both. A huge raccoon is around 40 pounds or so; a pit bull is around 80 pounds or so. More importantly, a pit bull stands at about the same height as a toddler; a raccoon does not. (Before you ask, no, I would not be remotely comfortable having a bred-to-kill-raccoons coonhound around a crawling infant).
Daniel
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
I have another comment to make about the specific concern that “pit bulls are bred to kill dogs, so they’re not appropriate pets, they might kill other peoples’ pets.”
[/QUOTE]
Your objections are deeply considered and well-thought-out. Except for one small issue: the pets you mention are virtually never wandering around in public, on or off a leash.
That issue makes the objections irrelevant from a public safety perspective.
Daniel
Man with the apparent ignorance that people overall have about Pitbulls (including myself but now feel somewhat more informed) I think I just want to get on to piss off my neighbors…I don’t think I can resist the urge.
No dog, be it pit bull, pit bull “type,” or otherwise, has ever harmed a human being while under the control of a responsible owner (police/military dogs excepted.)
The owner bears the responsibility. A dog is not a moral agent. Blaming the animal is stupid. Blaming a particular breed is *beyond *stupid. I could raise a beagle to be a vicious killer. I could raise a Rottie to be all sweetness and light. I adopted a Rottie who was taken from her owners because they allowed her to run loose time and time again. She spent the next six months of her life confined in a kennel. And yet, she has adapted to a home with two other dogs. Although her jaws could crush my arm to the bone, all I get are licks and kisses. She is very strong, and could knock me over (I’m a big man) if she wanted, but instead she sits for attention, and rolls over for belly scratches. I would not hesitate to bring her into any social setting. She has a bad habit of jumping up on people to garner affection, so I keep her on a tight leash when around people who object to such behavior. And I always keep her on a leash when outdoors. Always. As I do my Jack Russells. And the Wheaton Terriers that I provide care for. And the mutts I care for. Anyone who is not 110% certain of a recall command is irresponsible if they do otherwise.
If these organizations, who specialize in pit bulls, want to socialize Vick’s dogs so that they can be a part of a happy family, then more power to them. I would take one in a minute.
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
Your objections are deeply considered and well-thought-out. Except for one small issue: the pets you mention are virtually never wandering around in public, on or off a leash.
That issue makes the objections irrelevant from a public safety perspective.
Daniel
[/QUOTE]
Uh…I mentioned cats and cocker spaniels. There are off-leash examples of both in my condominium complex. The cocker spaniel is with his human but never leashed. The cat wanders at will most evenings.
Labrador retrievers are often recently bred to kill small animals…you can get hunting dogs in almost any rural area.
The truth is, pit bulls shouldn’t be wandering around off leash in public either. Proper guardianship includes controlling ANY animal’s access to potential trouble, as well as training and socializing social animals. That’s not a pit-bull-specific problem.
A pit bull inside my condo is no more dangerous to people or other animals than a snake inside his vivarium or a cat reclining on a couch.
The fact that some pit bulls do NOT have educated, responsible human guardians is hardly the dogs’ fault. That’s entirely a human-caused problem. It’s also a function of popularity and media image, at least in part.
Here’s another page of myths about pit bulls.
Although it’s not directly related, I do recommend you take the time to read the “Troublemakers” New Yorker article I linked previously.
Sailboat
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Uh…I mentioned cats and cocker spaniels. There are off-leash examples of both in my condominium complex. The cocker spaniel is with his human but never leashed. The cat wanders at will most evenings.
[/QUOTE]
I have a 14 lb. Jack Russell. She has a strong prey drive. When she goes to the vet, the house cats get put up. Also when she goes to the groomer. She has killed cats, possums, and snakes who wandered into my backyard, which is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence. But she has never harmed anyone’s pet that was properly cared for. (I have no idea if the cats were pets or strays/feral. They had no collars or other markers.) And she is never in public unless she is crated or leashed. No exceptions.
Even though her nature and breeding might suggest that she is a pet killer, I would not hesitate to unloose her amongst a horde of toddlers, as long as their parents did not mind the attendant face licking, tail wagging, and pogo jumping.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
I have a 14 lb. Jack Russell. She has a strong prey drive. When she goes to the vet, the house cats get put up. Also when she goes to the groomer. She has killed cats, possums, and snakes who wandered into my backyard, which is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence. But she has never harmed anyone’s pet that was properly cared for. (I have no idea if the cats were pets or strays/feral. They had no collars or other markers.) And she is never in public unless she is crated or leashed. No exceptions.
Even though her nature and breeding might suggest that she is a pet killer, I would not hesitate to unloose her amongst a horde of toddlers, as long as their parents did not mind the attendant face licking, tail wagging, and pogo jumping.
[/QUOTE]
And that’s great, and that respects that particular dog’s dangers and strengths. That’s all I want.
Nobody in this thread has it in for pit bulls. Some folks are irrationally reading my caution around dogs bred for the pit (as opposed to dogs whose many-decades-removed ancestors were bred for the pit) as an animosity toward the dogs themselves. The analogy to guns is apt: even though the gun is not a moral agent, I’d still not want a gun to be unsupervised around a five-year-old, whereas I’d have fewer reservations about having a baseball bat or a golden retriever unsupervised around a five-year-old. (Of course I’d still have some).
This is a quintessential “no true Scotsman” argument, inasmuch as by definition, and only by definition, is it true. Since a responsible owner is by definition one who, when in control of the dog, doesn’t let it harm someone, of course you’re right; that’s irrelevant from a public safety perspective.
Sailboat, you missed the point. I was saying that the traditional prey of the animals you mentioned weren’t, as pets, commonly around the pets that acted as predators.
Daniel
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
This is a quintessential “no true Scotsman” argument, inasmuch as by definition, and only by definition, is it true. Since a responsible owner is by definition one who, when in control of the dog, doesn’t let it harm someone, of course you’re right; that’s irrelevant from a public safety perspective.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not irrelevant at all. The point is that the responsibility lies with the owner, not the dog. From a public safety perspective, wild (i.e., uncontrolled) dogs are a bad thing. Not just wild pit bulls. Any wild dogs. It has nothing to do with the dogs themselves. Only with how their behavior is shaped. And it especially has nothing to do with a particular breed of dog. From birth, any pit bull can become a sweetie pie, and any beagle can become a menace, excluding, of course, the genetic outliers. A certain percentage of humans are “naturally bad.” We don’t tar all of humanity with that brush.
From a public safety perspective, the problem of vicious pit bull attacks, if indeed said problem actually exists, would disappear if humans behaved responsibly. The dogs are no more at fault than is the car that plows into a group of pedestrians and kills a few of them. The driver is the murderer, not the sedan.
My 14 pound Jack is a threat to any cat in the world. My 80 pound Rottie, with jaws that can crack a leg bone like a twig, just wants to play with cats. However, if she were let loose in that same group of toddlers, she might hurt one simply by knocking her over. So, I don’t let Shiner hang out with cats, and I don’t let Chi Chi hang out with kids unsupervised. But only because she might knock them over in an attempt to play. The only times I have seen her with children she has pretty much allowed them to clamber all over her.
In my county, Rottweillers who end up at the animal shelter and whose owners cannot be found within three days are immediately euthanized, simply because of the mistaken idea that they are inherently vicious and inherently man killers.
Sailboat’s aricle does a good job of explaining how breed specific attacks on humans are directly related to the current popularity of the breed, which strongly suggests to me that whatever problem we have is a dog problem, not a breed problem.
[QUOTE=Aitara]
This is an oversimplification of the process used to determine the fate of these dogs.
I do encourage you to read more about the Vick dogs before deciding.
[/QUOTE]
You can encourage all you want; but my point is still valid. Why waste the the time with these dogs when there millions of more deserving animals that get euthanized every year.
From the American Humane Society Website:
The stats are old, but I imagine they they’ve changed too much.
Vicks dogs should have been put down.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
It’s not irrelevant at all. The point is that the responsibility lies with the owner, not the dog. From a public safety perspective, wild (i.e., uncontrolled) dogs are a bad thing. Not just wild pit bulls. Any wild dogs. It has nothing to do with the dogs themselves. Only with how their behavior is shaped. And it especially has nothing to do with a particular breed of dog. From birth, any pit bull can become a sweetie pie, and any beagle can become a menace, excluding, of course, the genetic outliers. A certain percentage of humans are “naturally bad.” We don’t tar all of humanity with that brush.
[/QUOTE]
Of course the owner and not the dog should be held responsible; nobody is disputing that. That’s an irrelevant point. The analogy to humans is inapt: humans haven’t been deliberately bred over the course of millennia to display specific behavioral traits. And besides, nobody in this thread is tarring an entire breed, let alone an entire species, with a brush.
The devil is in the details: “excluding, of course, the genetic outliers.” Dogfighters seek out and encourage those genetic outliers, intensively inbreeding their dogs to highlight and concentrate the power of the genetic abnormalities. This is what breeders have done for millennia; there’s nothing unusual about it. But it does mean that dogs that have, within a couple of generations, been bred to the pit ARE genetic outliers.
It has nothing to do with the AKC breed of the dog, but it has everything to do with the breeding of the dog.
Daniel
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
And besides, nobody in this thread is tarring an entire breed, let alone an entire species, with a brush.
[/QUOTE]
You claimed that pit bulls often attacked human children, which is untrue for generally accepted definitions of “often.” I’d call that a negative stereotype.
If the dog is properly controlled and supervised, breeding matters not one whit.
[QUOTE=Enright3]
You can encourage all you want; but my point is still valid. Why waste the the time with these dogs when there millions of more deserving animals that get euthanized every year.
[/QUOTE]
What makes another dog more deserving?
Another dog might take fewer resources. But I don’t see another dog as being more deserving.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
What makes another dog more deserving?
Another dog might take fewer resources. But I don’t see another dog as being more deserving.
[/QUOTE]
Are you serious, or just playing devil’s advocate?
In this case “more deserving” means less likely to cause harm to other animals or people in the future. To flip it around do you see other dogs as being LESS deserving?
Or to put in another way… Give two dogs of the same breed, age, etc. (I’m not the one who turned this thread into a debate on the merits of Pit Bulls) One dog has lived a life of violence, cruelty and neglect; the other one has been cared for all it’s life… or let’s be fair; the other one is relatively unknown, but doesn’t show any physical signs of scarring or fightings, or beatings. Now assume you HAD to make the decision to put one of the dogs down. Which one would you choose? I’d put down the dog with known history; because the ‘other’ dog likely isn’t going to be worse. So I think “more deserving” is a pretty easy test to complete.
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
A large raccoon is the same size as a fighting pit bull? Not in my experience, and I’ve been barked at by both. A huge raccoon is around 40 pounds or so; a pit bull is around 80 pounds or so.
[/QUOTE]
From here:
(emphasis mine)
Anecdotally, my pittie is 70lbs and he’s one of the biggest ones around. An 80lb pit bull would stand out as being unusually large. Also anecdotally, the huge ones (mine included) are really, really sucky and not at all interested in fighting. In my experience (and I do live in a neighbourhood where people illegally breed pits for fighting) the small ones are more likely to be aggressive.
[QUOTE=Enright3]
Are you serious, or just playing devil’s advocate?
In this case “more deserving” means less likely to cause harm to other animals or people in the future. To flip it around do you see other dogs as being LESS deserving?
[/QUOTE]
I see all homeless animals as equally deserving.
To say that an abused, neglected dog doesn’t deserve saving strikes me as a bizarre use of the word “deserve.”
“You, you’ve been tortured and abused. You don’t deserve help!”
As I already said, the abused, neglected animal might take up more of the limited resources, and I’d consider it reasonable to determine who gets help based on that. But I’m not about to tell organizations who are providing the help that the dogs don’t deserve it.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
But I’m not about to tell organizations who are providing the help that the dogs don’t deserve it.
[/QUOTE]
Especially considering that A) they are private non-profits who can use their resources as they see fit, and B) one of them (Bad Rap) is dedicated to rescuing pit bulls.
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
The analogy to humans is inapt: humans haven’t been deliberately bred over the course of millennia to display specific behavioral traits.
[/QUOTE]
Your faith in the good nature of your fellow humans exceeeds mine. I tend to agree with an argument made in Howard Bloom’s Lucifer Principle that “evil is a by-product of nature’s strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric,” although I find some of Bloom’s arguments a little far out for my taste.
Or Konrad Lorenz: “Intra-specific selection bred into man a measure of aggression drive.”
“Deliberately?” Well, maybe not, but only because nobody was in charge. Undergoing heavy selection pressure for aggression? Sure.
Aggression has been a characteristic of human groups which have displaced and replaced less-aggressive human groups since long before history. We are by far the most dangerous animal.
Sailboat