Princhester, you are not thinking logically - you are thinking with fear. Breed specific legislation does not work. Both the Netherlands and Italy lifted their bans on Pit Bulls a couple of years back citing their ineffectiveness to reduce attacks. It hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been enacted. Hell, the UK banned pits back in 1997, yet saw a 50% increase in dog attacks during the ten years after the law was enacted. Additionally, a JAVMA study in the US found that it would take the euthanizing of 100,000 dogs to prevent one single hospitalization! Does it still sound like banning pit bulls is going to do anything except kill a bunch of dogs and make fearful idiots like yourself feel a tiny bit better?
What’s the solution with folks who let their dogs roam free in and around their property, particularly in the rural areas, that chase and try to nip me when I ride my bike through the roads adjacent to their property? Report all of them? That never seemed to do any thing.
How can we have all dog owners to have their dogs leashed? Apparently leash laws don’t seem to phase some dog owners. What are none dog owners/folks with no dog experience at all to do when randomly encountering unleashed dogs?
Dog pepper spray. You’re right about leash laws - we have strict leash laws here, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I think part of the problem here is the off-leash areas - it opens the door for owners to be irresponsible with their pets (dogs are supposed to be under control all the time while off leash - you can imagine how strictly enforced THAT is). It gives the (mistaken) impression that leashing/controlling your dog is a sometime thing, and no particular big deal. I’d like to see the off-leash areas completely done away with - all dogs leashed at all times while around other people - no exceptions. They’re counting on owners to do the right, responsible thing, and that just isn’t happening.
It would have been very impressive if, when confronted with the fact that this is a ridiculously false statement, you had gathered yourself together sufficiently to acknowledge that and say something like “I misspoke: certainly not all dogs are liable to attack. I meant that any dog is capable of attacking, regardless of breed.”
Another glaring error on your part that you repeat is the idea that UNtrained dogs (the breed issue completely aside) = likely to bite/attack/be vicious. This is completely ludicrous, of course. UNtrained dogs are likely to jump, run out the front door, crap on the carpet, tear up the couch, chase the cat, and steal the garbage. Bite? Attack? What planet do you live on? Dogs are not born vicious and need to have it trained out of them! Dogs become vicious as a result of the training they experience, whether it is intentional training by some asshole who wants a vicious dog (and he will have a very tough job in front of him - dogs are not by nature vicious, they are by nature very submissive and sweet) or the unintentional training of the life experiences that lead to viciousness in dogs, all breeds of dogs. (And interestingly, the kind of treatment that most often unintentionally produces viciousness is excessive indulgence, not abuse. Which is why so many Chihuahuas are so fucking obnoxious.)
Sorry, Jack, but you’ve demonstrated that what you actually know about dogs wouldn’t fill a thimble. The only dogs that are hard to train are dogs that are stupid (which aren’t very easy to find; dogs are generally very clever as well as very eager to please) and dogs that are not particularly motivated by things which are easy to give to them as rewards. When your dog doesn’t really get that much juice out of food or praise or a round of fetch, it’s much more challenging to train her. (Fortunately, it’s extremely rare to encounter a dog for whom nothing is rewarding. )
The only challenge that bully breeds present is their strength. They are powerful, so if you don’t train them early and you let them become bratty, it’s definitely harder to*** physically control*** them. But good, effective training shouldn’t really call for all that much in the way of physical control: that’s the point.
Fuck, man, if I had to rely on being able to physically control my dog I’d be in deep shit. He’s a Rottweiler/Border Collie - he’s 65 pounds of lean, lightening fast muscle and I know from experience that my 260 pounds of smart human with a leash on him is not worth much when he decides to ignore me, which he has only done on walks with barking dogs behind fences. In every other situation my control over him is pretty much total and it has nothing at all to do with my (lack of!) ability to physically overpower him. I have total control because he loves and respects and is bonded to me. He WANTS to make me happy, which is what the vast majority of dogs want. That’s why they are dogs. They have evolved to be with people and to view them as the bosses.
No, again: you are confusing physically controlling a big powerful breed with training a big powerful breed. Which really concerns me because it makes me wonder what you consider training.
“Kick me” breeds are actually much more challenging than a big dog. I’m not sure if it’s something about the little breeds littleness, or whether it’s because people who choose that sort of breed tend to be total wusses while people who choose big dogs have more of a commitment to making sure they have a well-trained dog, but ask any professional trainer and they’ll tell you that big dogs (all kinds) are a cakewalk compared to a lapdog.
What considerations do you feel should not be trumped? Because what you’ve said thus far leads me to think that you believe an irrational, unfounded fear of all dogs which have the physical capability of causing serious damage to a human being is a legitimate “consideration”. It isn’t. If there is a particular dog that has demonstrated a violent nature, that’s different. But no breed is by nature more aggressive or violent than any other, and size and power mean nothing when assessing a dog’s likelihood to actually employ the impressive tools nature has given him to hurt another living thing.
I wub you.
Anyone who knows how dogs think would not be surprised by this. Cute little lap dogs that are allowed to do anything they like believe they are the boss and will not hesitate to correct any behavior they object to, even coming from the person they seem to love most.
When possible, ignore them - don’t look at them, don’t act fearful, don’t approach, just act like they don’t exist.
If they chase you on your bike and nip at you…well, that’s different. Pepper spray is a good, but not perfect option. If it’s a truly vicious dog it might just make them crazier, but for the average territory guarding pooch who is just showing off, it will get the job done.
Sticks toe in the water. I do rescue. Mostly, I do cats. I have …maybe…cut chain collors off dogs and had them follow me home. I’m not scared of dogs that look like pit bulls. I am however scared of dogs that are frightened and agressive.
The only scars I have on my hands from dog bites were from a frightened ankle biter who was running around on the highway. The big ones just jump into the car when I open the door and call for them.
Cats…they will eat my hands, climb up my arm and try to eat my nose. Smaller is not better.
I gotta ask… what the hell is a Dalmatian Pointer??? Two entirely different breeds, bred to do entirely different jobs,from entirely different AKC groups.
Stern words can work. As can a can with pennies tossed at them when they least expect the noise. But not much beats grabbing them by the bottom of their throats, pushing them on their backs, and in a low voice tell them how disappointed you are, just like Mom would.
The best was my Collie, who found the neighbors’ Dachshund pup too nippy so she took its head in her mouth and voiced her disapproval. Neighbors thought she was killing it, but it started to behave.
Again, dogs are pack animals. They should not be raised alone because they need someone to teach them how to be dogs. And how to be polite.
Not that different. You want different? My SMART one is a Lab/Corgi. He’s a perfectly generic dog. You see the mutts that are black with a white bib but are damned fine companion dogs? That is what you get when you cross breeds that are too far apart. Dalmatian/Pointers may be too close, being both Hounds. Sounds like a nice mix, though, as long as the pups aren’t deaf.
dropzone: Supporting redistributing the canine gene pool since 2000.
I was young so I don’t exactly remember the bleeds they were but they were pointers with sorta dalmatian like patterns (I guess I ought to look up for proper name). They were hunting dogs from professional hunting dog bleeders/trainers. There were some 10 pointers in about 10-12 yrs period.
So in my friend’s scenario, her friend got a lap dog, then after a couple of years my friend start coming around and hang out at the house. There were no warnings of any problem nor were the owner aware of any problem from this docile lap dog. Then one day the dog instantaneously jumped up and nearly bites my friend’s nose off. By then this dog’s been around and sitting on my friend’s lap for something like 2 years. Everyone was baffled and in total shock as to how, why, what? Do average people expect a docile lap dog to, one day, bite someone’s nose off? Well, since then everyone who was around do.
How realistic is your suggestion in real life applied to preventing this kinda things from happening all over the globe with all sorts of people in every imaginable scenarios?
I suggest training and treating a tiny cute little lap dog pretty much the same way you train and treat a 150 pound Bull Mastiff or a 75 pound Golden Retriever: teach them from puppyhood that they are the bottom of the totem pole, below all human beings (or at the very least all human beings that their human beings like and approve of allowing for dogs usefulness as sentries).
What that means:
[ul]
[li]they give up their food, toys, and favorite spot on the couch without any argument to any human being that asks it of them.[/li][li]They never bare their teeth or growl, certainly never bite.[/li][li]They never do anything remotely aggressive in any situation towards anyone, whether they are the world’s tiniest or the world’s largest dog.[/li][/ul]
Of course that is the absolute minimum you teach your dog so that you have control over it and so it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
In order to protect it from hurting itself, you also teach it that:
[ul]
[li] it never goes through the door without permission[/li][li] it never crosses whatever boundary you set for it without permission[/li][li] it will turn on a dime to come to you the instant you call, without the slightest delay.[/li][li] It will drop anything it already has and[/li][li] leave anything it wants but hasn’t gotten yet[/li][li] it will never steal things to eat[/li][li] it will never dig in the trash[/li][/ul]
And if you desire to have your dog be liked and accepted most people in most places, you also teach it
[ul]
[li] not to jump[/li][li] not to beg[/li][li] not to bark (in most situations)[/li][li] and finally, to go away - probably to lay down and be quiet[/li][/ul]
If you train your dog, no matter what size or breed, to do/not do all of the above, people will be safe around your dog, your dog will be safe, and most of the time your dog will be welcome.
And the major bonus is that your dog will also be happy, secure, and free of stress, as will you, at least when it comes to your dog.
With all due respect, this is impossible. I believe that the people who were around the dog didn’t recognize the signs, but they were absolutely present.
And if you don’t know how to read the signs, then just know and absorb this truth: any dog that is never taught that boundaries exist, who is permitted to do anything and everything he likes at all times, will be very likely to bite at some point.
What almost certainly happened here is that the dog perceived something which it interpreted as crossing the dog’s boundaries. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that no one noticed or remembered anything unusual, but remember that dogs are exquisitely observant and sensitive to the tiniest things: sounds, movements, simple emotional state changes. So while the people in that scenario have no awareness of what set the dog off, something set the dog off: the only dogs that genuinely “come out of nowhere” to attack are sick in some way. That little lap dog believed itself to be the ruler of that house, because it was allowed to act like that, so when someone did something that the dog interpreted as encroaching on its power, it “corrected” the offender, who had acted out of place.
If that little dog had been trained as I described in the last post, I guarantee you that it would never have dared to attack anyone at all, much less the person it was closest to. It would never have crossed the dog’s mind.
As is true ust about 100% of the time, one way or another: there was nothing at all wrong with that dog, what happened was the fault of the people he lived with, who did not make clear to him what his role in the house was.
No, I am saying that you have no right to impose limitations on people simply due to your paranoid phobias. There is no risk from my dogs, yet you want them killed anyway simply because they are bigger than you feel comfortable with. (FTR, they are not a bully breed.)
Nope, and your freedom to continue to overpopulate the planet isn’t absolute either. Irresponsible “breeding” of humans is much more of a danger to you and yours than all of the pit bulls in the world, but I’m sure you would have a serious problem with any society that outlawed your freedom to have as many kids as you want.
Sigh. No. Its a matter of “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” Before pits it was Dobes, before them Chows, before them German Shepherds. The general public decides a whole breed is vicious and people are not allowed to have them, they are killed wholesale in shelters, lies are made up and circulated and on and on. It has nothing to do with the breed, what you are trying to do is deny responsible people the freedom to own a dog just because it happens to be the breed-du-jour of thuggish idiots.
Oh, well, you are being a hypocrite there - you won’t even respond to the idea that you would sacrifice.
Yeah, there is that too. I groomed for years, and taught obedience classes for years. I have scars from retrievers, cockers and a Maltese. No pit scars.
Don’t raise them to think they are the boss.
I think that poster was confused - it sounds like they were Pointers with small spots.
Um, no. A dog, mutt or purebred, that is black with a white bib is a dog who inherited the color genetics for black, and one of the white spotting forms. There are purebreds who have that color combinations, so it has nothing to do with “far apart”.
Again, no. Pointers are Sporting dogs and Dalmatians Non-Sporting. Hounds may have been used to create the breeds way back when, but as they are now neither is a hound breed.
So, again, what would be the ball park figure of folks with knowledge to notice problems/train their dogs, worldwide? How about what ball park percentage of dogs in US are currently trained and will be trained? How realistic is this kinda dog bites/attacks happening with how dogs are and are not currently being trained? Who’s fault is it that non-dog owners are being attacked and killed by dogs?
Those who think I post from fear are mistaken. I’m not fearful. I just value having dogs large enough to do any damage around extremely little. So little that it’s like trying to balance some scales with a measurable weight (risk) sitting in the first pan and an abstract concept on the other. The more so since barking and shitting everywhere add weight to the first pan.
A Monkey with a Gun, your cites (as most from the pro-pitbull camp) are pathetic. One is from the same lobby group that the pro-pitbull camp always link to, which I would trust to provide a balanced view about as far as I could throw an English Mastiff. The other is a press release for an insurance company selling dog liability insurance, written by someone who I would describe as able to grasp the implications of statistics only if I wished to insult the word “grasp”*.
Further, insofar as you blather about the failure of breed specific bans why do you think they don’t work? Probably because they are specific. Which, if you’d read my posts, you’d know I don’t support.
*A quote from the second cite: “Practically all vets (96%) interviewed by LV= said they have been asked for advice on training dogs, showing that the vast majority of pet owners take their responsibilities seriously.” I mean fer fuck’s sake. Is this person for real, or trying to set some sort of record for abuse of statistics?
Where are you distributing it too?