I’m not afraid of dogs in general. I’m afraid of rotweilers and anything that somewhat looks like one and of great danes, if you want to know.
I came to fear pitbulls too on the basis of what I read about them. The case against them has been made to my satisfaction. I don’t need it to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to support restrictive laws.
I’m also wondering how you would determine on-line whether or not people fear dogs. Their body language, perhaps?
An understandable preference. Unfortunately, the uber-confident, dominant personality type can be found in ALL dog breeds. You’re not any safer around a strange standard poodle or strange collie than you are around a strange pit bull (even though it may not feel that way to you). That’s my point.
You need to care whose fault it is - because if you don’t know where the actual problem lies, any solution you propose isn’t likely to be effective. Banning pit bulls accomplishes nothing, because the problem isn’t a dog problem, but a human problem. Ignorant, lazy people who don’t care to train their dogs and people who want a ‘mean’ dog to intimidate others and boost their pathetic little egos would just move on to other breeds and ruin those breeds’ reputations in turn, just like they’re doing now with pit bulls. (Put bulls aren’t the first breed with a ‘killer’ reputation, you know. Chow Chows, German Shepherds, and Doberman Pinschers were all once the ‘demon dogs’ of their day. There are plenty of other large and potentially aggressive breeds ready to take the pit bull’s place when the current pit bull and Rottweiler fad begins to fade.) Unless you’re going to propose a blanket ban on ownership of any dog breed weighing more than about 40 pounds, ownership bans just aren’t going to be an effective way to solve the dangerous dog problem.
Well, except little dogs like that do cause actual damage. I missed a fucking month of work because of a bite from a min pin. Little bugger managed to scrape the muzzle off his snout and nailed me when I was trying to unbuckle it from his neck. Latched on and wouldn’t turn loose. I had to bounce his head against the wall of the cage a few times to get free. The wound abscessed, and since it was right over a joint I wound up having to have surgery to explore and make sure the joint capsule itself wasn’t septic. They had to leave the wound open, and I wasn’t supposed to touch an animal, even my own, even with my good hand, until it closed on its own. Took four weeks, with three times a week bandage/packing changes and physical therapy. That joint is pretty arthritic already, and I’m only 33. By the time I’m 50, I won’t be able to restrain an animal with that hand, which is really going to suck because I love what I do.
And you know what people here on this board told me? Not that the breed was aggressive or bad, or even that this particular dog was a menace. Nope, it was my fault that dog grabbed me and wouldn’t turn loose. It could tell I didn’t like it, and I should have been handling it differently. But somehow it’s never a human’s fault when a big dog bites somebody. Nope, that’s all the dog.
Horseshit.
The aggressive dogs I’ve worked with over the years have almost all been the result of shitty owners. Usually people who won’t/don’t socialize or otherwise train the animal, or crappy breeders who have bred two dogs who had no business reproducing to make a buck. This is especially bad with breeds that have a sudden upsurge in popularity due to some pop culture fad–you get nimrods who’ll breed any sort of shitty stock selling puppies to nimrods who have no idea how to raise a dog or anything about the particular needs of that breed, and the poor dog tends to wind up with a double dose of asshole.
Sometimes you run across one that’s just…not right for real reason. Typically pretty friendly, even-tempered breed, bred from good stock, raised by responsible, knowledgeable owners, but still bad to damn bone. These dogs are really, really rare–I’ve run across only a handful of them in over 10 years of working in vet clinics. A couple of Goldens, an Irish Setter, and a lab or two. These and a couple of mixes I’ve run across in various places are the only dogs I have ever been afraid of. (There have been plenty of them I thought were pure-d assholes and dreaded seeing come in the door, but only that handful who ever scared me.)
I think they meant on the tag sticking out of their butt in between the washing instructions and where it was made.
For what it’s worth, pit-bulls (that is, the French acception of the word, meaning, as I learned today, “anything looks like a cross between terrier and bulldog and isn’t an established breed”) are already heavily restricted in France. Mandatory castration, can’t give them, can’t sell them, can’t give away puppies, mandatory muzzle anywhere public, interdiction to leave them unattended. The non-breed is well on its way to extinction round these parts, you can sleep tight.
Which, admittedly, doesn’t solve squat except making people who think it’s the Evil Breed feel safe - as I’ve said before, any large dog can be dangerous, and trained to bite on sight. You erase pitbulls, Mr. Smalltestes McBadass will get himself a Rottweiler instead. You erase Rotts, he’ll get a Pinscher. On and on until he’s down to a Basset Hound. And how do you expect him to get *any * respect with an attack Basset Hound, seriously ? 
What restriction would you advise, exactly ?
Do you know dogs, like, at all ?
Shepherding has been bred into shepherd dogs for hundreds, if not thousands of years and Og knows how many generations of careful selection. It’s seared into their bones. A shepherd dog couldn’t refrain himself from shepherding anymore than he could refrain himself from licking his balls.
Breeding for human aggressivity, by comparison, is a fairly recent developpment - wikipedia gives the 80s as a starting point, and only by a few unethical breeders at that. And that’s for the APBT non-breed breed only. What you and I call pitbulls are mutts, and mutts of mutts. They’re not bred for anything, they’re not bred at all. They reproduce. The aggro dogs that make the news are not the result of genetics, but training (or rather, mistraining) and mistreatment.
You’re gonna make loooots of friends if you propose banning any dog larger than a Chihuahua 
I’m sick of saying this in these dog threads.
"Muzzles!"
What is wrong with them? They are all the restriction a dog needs, unless it is a St. Bernard, which I’ll admit, could possibly still flatten you!
This would be acceptable providing it applies equally to all dogs as do leash laws. Likewise, the law would have to be made with reasonable exceptions, for hunting and retrieving dogs, dogs that have jobs (like therapy and assistant), dog parks, off leash wilderness areas and parks, and reasonable accommodation for neighborhood walks. (I’m NOT going to wrestle my two dogs into muzzles and harnesses just for a trip to the end of the block for a widdle.)
I know another few posts up you mentioned a couple of other countries that have passed Pitbull bans. It’s a common argument of many of us who love APBT’s that the banning of pits will just lead to toughs moving to another dog. In your experience has public focus turned towards another potentially dangerous dog? If I remember right you are French? Have dog bite related fatalities gone down in the countries that have passed these bans?
Didnt the UK ban pitbulls and number of dog bites have risen?
Im pretty sure about some Canadian town banning pitbulls and bites going up at least.
If I only could remember where I read it.
I have tried to understand the legalese of the rural code, but it’s not really all that clear. If clairobscur wishes to peruse it, let him be my guest (the relevant article is art.211-1 to 9).
Here’s what I can gather : they are not outright banned. They are, however, classified as “class 1 : attack dogs” and “weapons by destination” (whatever the fuck *that *means). Their sale, or gift is forbidden. Their importation or any other means of introduction in the country is forbidden. The penalty is a huge fine (around 15.000 dollars) and 6 months jailtime. So, essentialy, either you already own one, or piss off.
Other restrictions include : mandatory registration of the dog at the city hall (and thus P.D.) and where he lives. Mandatory sterlization, effective immediately. Mandatory muzzle at all times in public. Access to public transportation verboten. Access to all public places except for streets and other open air places verboten. For penalties, see above.
Essentially, the only thing missing is art.211-10 “oh, and also the dog must be dead”. Now, bear in mind I’m working from Google here, so it’s worth what it’s worth. But this is what turns up :
TL;DR version : not only have the regulations failed to stop violent incidents caused by illegally owned dogs, they’ve also resulted in lots of *feral *dogs. Yay ! Results !
Details :
According to this article on the official webpage of the city of Angoulême, and apparently coming from the National Police, one result of the regulations was a huge spike in abandons. What’s the point of having a mean dog if you’ve gotta muzzle him and tell the cops about him, am I right ? So the fuckwits turned them loose.
According to the article, written in 2003, about 100 a month turn up at the big shelter north of Paris, which coincidentally is also where the worst cités (=projects) are. Loooots of fuckwits who want mean dogs in the ghetto.
Besides that, a simple “pitbull France” search turns up two incidents in the first page :
August 1st, 2008 : pitbull (pictured, you be the judge of the exact breed) escapes from a garden, bites three passerbys before the cops finally manage to restain it and take it to the shelter. They only managed to do that by shooting fucking FLASHBALLS at it. That’s rubber anti-riot bullets for you. Yeah, that’s one crazed dog allright. Dog was registered as per regulations, but not neutered. No fatalities.
August 8, 2008 : 4 pitbulls (no picture) and 10 puppies captured after they attacked and killed a pony. The dogs were all owned by a single, I quote “marginal living in a cabin”. In other word : antisocial crrrazy. He’ll face charges. The dogs won’t - they all got the lethal injection. No word on whether the 4 dogs were pits grandfathered through the law or not - but since they had puppies it’s safe to say they weren’t neutered.
Have at it.
Seriously? You think that tetanus has anything at all to do with a person or animal’s jaw latching on to a person or thing and holding on permanently?
In further news : President Sarkozy, never one to let a dead horse unmolested as long as it’s a mediatic one, has proposed a law (which passed) that would require the obtention of a special permit to own class 1 and 2 dogs (essentialy all Molosser type dogs) and a mandatory psych exam of the dog.
Which would actually have been a *good *law, had it been put forward before the hysterics.
As for stats (which is what Miltoniz was asking about) : I found really, really few. First one was a throwaway comment that dogs (of any kind) had cause 30+ fatalities over the last 20 years. So, to answer your question, I don’t know that the ban did reduce fatalities, but there weren’t much of those in the first place.
The other stat was an estimation of #s dogs bites collated through insurance claims. The numbers are deemed bloated by dog lovers and far from the reality by dog haters. What else is new ? Anyway, the average number of claimed bites per year is 500.000 (for an estimated million total, accounting for non claimed ones), 60.000 of those requiring a trip to the hospital.
While there’s no rundown per breed provided, the article notes that pit-bulls and other molossers were not responsible for the majority of them, that title belonging to Labrador retrievers (n°1), followed by German Shepherds and Yorkshires - the most common breeds, eh. Which either tells us absolutely nothing, or that Pits & similar are not dangerous demon dogs, depending on how you look at it.
Maybe, but then so are the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Humane Society of the US, my local SPCA, and the CDC.
Beagles were bred to hunt rabbits… Sheepdogs were bred to herd sheep. Pit Bulls were not bred to attack people; they were bred to fight other dogs.
Don’t try using real logic, like jettboy will have no part of it!
I’m getting this puppy next week.
Quick, hide the children and old ladies. He looks like he’ll cause damage.
PS. The OP is retarded.
Except that it turned not to be true. People with badass pit bulls were all over my neighbourhood, when the breed was banned. They haven’t been replaced by other badass dogs. The habit of parading in the streets with badass dogs went away with the pit bulls, which was a net gain.
I’m perfectly happy with the current ban. But since we’re discussing about the USA where they aren’t, I’m just saying that I’ve no issue with specific restrictions for certain breeds
Yes. I can recognize them easily. They purr and go “meow”, right?
Seriously : yes. I even like dogs, believe it or not. Though I don’t own one, first because being single and childless I don’t want to be hampered by being responsible for a dog, and second because I live in Paris, and I believe that a dog does not belong to an apartment. Same goes for cats, actually. Such pets have to have a lot of space to roam, IMO (I’ve been brought up in the countryside).
Maybe. But they have been breed for fight for much longer than that. That was their “job”.
That’s probably why French law doesn’t only ban owning pit bulls but also the mutts of mutts you’re referring to. Makes perfect sense to me.
As I said before, that’s not a valid argument for me. If the breed is dangerous, even if it’s because it attracts morons, I’m OK with banning it. And I’m not going to take the word of the breed’s defenders when they state that the high number of attacks is only caused by bad owners. I look at the 65% statistics, and think : there are indications that this breed is abnormally dangerous. I don’t need anymore evidences, I don’t want the thing around me anymore than I want a mountain lion, thanks. There are plenty of other dogs to choose from.
Plus, living in France, you’ve probably noticed that over here, dogs are very very rarely muzzled, rarely neutered (something that impacts the aggressiveness of males) and very often roam around freely when their owners walk them in any space where they’re allowed (parks, walks, etc…). It’s significantly different from the USA, from what I gather.
I almost added : “buy a chihuahua” to the part you were quoting. I eventually didn’t because I hate the concept of “pocket dog”. That’s just unnatural, bordering sick to breed such dogs. So I might not even allow the chihuahua. 
Clairobscur, I think you and I won’t come to an agreement in that you’re okay with the arbitrary banning of dogs and (presumably) objects, where I on the other hand am against the banning of anything on the basis of ‘because we can’ and ‘because it makes me feel good.’
As I just wrote above, in my experience, it has been very obvious that the pitbullesques dogs haven’t been replaced by other intimidating breeds in the area where I live, and where shady (or wannabe shady) characters with such dogs were very common.
In the eye of the public opinion, they haven’t been replaced by another breed, either. The mass media “dog fear” appeared and disappeared with the pit bulls and consorts.
I’ve no clue about the impact (or lack thereof) on wounds and fatalities.
I quickly perused.
Indeed. But the net effect is the same. The breed is going to die out in France, since they can’t be imported and must be neutered. Actually, I suspect there must not be many left, since the law was passed 8 years ago.
“Arme par destination” (weapon by intent) means that a person committing an infraction in which the dog is involved will be prosecuted as if he person was armed. For instance, if the dog is used to threaten someone, the culprit will face the same sentence as someone who would have used, say, a gun.
Yes. That was the intent of the law.
He is adorable! How old will he be next week? And is his name really Walter? As in “Walter the Farting Dog?” I have always wanted to name a dog Walter…
