*You’re *the one claiming that the data (pits account for the majority of dog fatalities) is accurate, yet the natural conclusion one would arrive at from that data (fewer pits around = fewer chewed-to-death kids) is wrong. In fact, in your fantasy world, apparently more pits = fewer fatalities.
But if you - someone that apparently fervently believes in this position - can’t be bothered to actually argue your views, then why the hell should we?
I’ve seen the data. I’ve heard your arguments (which appear to boil down to ‘*it’s not the doggiessss nooo, it’s the bad bad nasty owners!’). *I’m unconvinced.
Can you can provide cites for cases where dogs that chewed kids to death were incorrectly identified as pits?
Can you provide some sort of actual data showing that pit owners are really proportionally more likely to be shitty owners (as opposed to pit owners simply more likely to be owning shitty dogs)?
Because otherwise your argument boils down to a bunch of hand-waving about how ‘teh evil media’ is inaccurately reporting on innocent pits mauling kids to death, and this in turn has meant a significant proportion of the dog-owning population has gone, ‘hey, cool, *that’s *the kind of dog I want!’, and breeders are saying, ‘cool, I know lots of people that would *totally buy *a bad-ass dog like that’, etc. I don’t buy it (and that’s before we get into how you’d explain the whole cause-and-effect works…why was the media reporting on pits begin with anyway?)
You missed a step. I, along with others, have argued. Brought the data and everything. I’m just not going to RE-bring it for folks who can’t be bothered to read the threads in their entirety and wish rather to be spoon fed specific items on demand. Especially when the demands arise from incorrect assumptions…based on not reading the threads.
I’m thankful morons like DragonAsh have thus far lacked the support for the nonsensical laws they’d like to pass. I love my dog of unknown breed whom may or may not be genetically linked to a pit bull.
And I’m thankful I don’t have to hang around shit-for-brains pond scum like **boytyperanma **that apparently suffer from a tragic reading comprehension disability. Unless you can point to the post where I proposed breed bans.
I get to jump in and do anything I want, pretty much. It’s the Pit. So I can – and I do – ask. You don’t have to reply. So around we go.
I said “skim” and again, I’m not sure what color you use for sky, but on my world “skim” doesn’t mean I read the last 3 posts. It means I went through the thread and “skimmed” a lot of posts in an attempt to glean the essence if not the comprehensive detail of the discussion. I believe I have a pretty good idea how this has gone. And I’ve both read and participated in some other threads in the past on this subject. In none of them did I advocate for breed bans, by the way, so I am at least nominally on your side. I think.
Further, I have some professional expertise in the area of animal safety, and in regulatory standards which (in part at least) exist to protect people from various animals kept both by professional institutions and for “personal use”. I’m actually one of those guys that gets consulted when questions of animal possession versus public safety are raised. So I wasn’t just pissing in the wind.
I was merely offering a suggestion, to wit, that you stop making the stupid argument that dog attacks are too rare to rationally be of concern. It doesn’t work. Not here, and not in the real world outside. And it actually highlights (if your stats are to be believed) a point exactly 180 degrees from supporting the position you advocate. “Bottom line”, as they say – again – is that pit-type dogs seem to be involved in a higher proportion of human fatalities than their pro rata numbers as a breed among breeds. Bad owners, bad breeders, bad training, chicken versus egg, blah, blah, blah – it all looks like hand waving to a soccer mom whose kids stand at a bus stop in a neighborhood where peoples’ pits are even occasionally seen to roam. Or where they charge the fence as the kids walk past, leaving mom to wonder “What happens if the gate is ever unlatched?”
You want people to accept pits and stop the breed ban cacophony, but all you offer are insults (they’re too stupid to understand rational risk assessment) and generalities about other factors (people fail to train, or deliberately aggression-train dogs out of some sick human macho impetus) that aren’t amenable to correction. Then you express surprise that you’re not winning the argument hands down.
I’m just telling you that you need to find some other set of statistics to reinforce your point, as I said above. (In point of fact, what does happen to attack stats after a breed ban? Does carnage decrease? Does it decrease then rise again with a new breed as the primary aggressor? Does it not change at all?) Or you need to propose other solutions, including perhaps other regulations, that you believe will reduce the raw numbers of human casualties when applied to all dogs, pits included. Or both. Because right now, out in that real world where the sky is (usually) blue, the wind just isn’t blowing your way. (I decry that reality, but dog breed bans just isn’t my fight; I have others on my plate.)
Whatever else you may know or have read, you obviously have not read my participation in these threats. I was responding specifically to one specific comment, not taking a stand representing the entirety of my point of view on the subject of dog aggression.
Ah yes. Quite glad you brought that up. Yes, I also asked in that thread for cites of dogs chewing kids to death being misidentified as pits.
Oddly enough, nobody provided cites in that thread either.
[QUOTE=CannyDan]
I’m just telling you that you need to find some other set of statistics to reinforce your point, as I said above.
[/QUOTE]
You’re wasting your time, CannyDan. Stoid and the rest of that ilk know they have no data that actually support their arguments and thus can’t win their ‘argument’ using minor things like ‘facts’.
Although I don’t know what you’re going on about. Stoid’s admitted that pits account for the vast majority of dogs that kill people; he’s arguing that the logical conclusion to draw from that is wrong. Actually, his argument is essentially along the same lines as the NRA: If we have a dangerous thing among us, having *more *of that dangerous thing would make us safer. Or something.
She has done no such thing. A “vast” majority would be 9 out of 10. From the teensy-weensy sampling I have at hand (34 in 2012) it’s more like half. But considering what a teensy-weensy number 34 is to begin with, it’s hardly definitive.
She is arguing that the conclusion some have drawn (that the flaw lies in the breed itself, therefore the cure is to outlaw the breed) is actually sloppily reasoned, it is emotional and reactive, not logical.
It’s fun to make things up, isn’t it? “Or something” would be the correct answer: See Calgary.
I’m well aware of that article, repeated pretty much verbatim on practically every pit advocacy website etc. Not sure you want to be citing that as your evidence though. The article is from 2009. Guess what has happened in Calgary since 2009? That’s right - they’ve had a sharp *increase *in dog bites. Canada also gives us data from Ontario, where the total number of dog bites has *fallen *since a pit bull pan was implemented in 2005. Perhaps even more importantly, the rate at which people required hospitalization due to severe dog bites has *also *fallen.
Majority, vast majority…whatever, man. One specific breed of dog chewing people to death more frequently than all other breeds *combined *should be a shock. For 2012 alone, Pits accounted for c. 60% of dog fatalities in the US, even though the highest estimates put Pits at only 4-5% of the total US dog population. Something is clearly wrong with those proportions.
Pit bulls are banned in the uk, but staffies aren’t. They are different breeds. Just FYI because clearly you like to be well-informed and are scrupulous about breed identification.
Fwiw neither of shayna’s dogs, from the photos, would be banned under current laws, which are based on appearance and only apply to purebreds. One is definitely a staffie -head’s not big enough for a pit bull - and the other (Duke) obviously has a fair bit of retriever in there. Duke, at least, would be extremely unlikely to be accused of being an illegal breed in the UK. Due to the banning we’re pretty good at separating breeds. That is one of the inevitable outcomes of a ban.
See, to me, Duke looks pretty by-the-book pit bull. Where would my dog fit on the UK scale?
I have a friend who has a Staffordshire bullterrier, and, to me, the main difference is they’re more English bulldoggy in look: lower to the ground and about 10 pounds smaller than an average pit bull.
You evidently skipped reading the rest of the thread where cougar attempted to discredit Calgary by the same means. Unfortunately, it no worky. Go back and read.
Heres a recent video… The black dog is a Rottweiler border collie mix, he weighs about 65 pounds. She weighs about 45, she’s nine months old. And all the noise? It’s coming from him, not her.
Looks like a pit to me. Adorable. My poor guy had to get an operation today to take out a mass on his shoulder. Hopefully, it’s not anything serious. He’s only two years old and the vet thinks it’s probably benign, but I sure hope so. Poor guy is so out of it right now.
To me, this is a pretty quintessential Staffordshire bull terrier. Bit more of a “low-rider” than a pit bull. But there is an “American Stafforshire terrier,” aka “AmStaff” which is basically another name for a pit bull terrier, although some make a distinction with the AmStaff being a bit taller and heavier than a pit bull. My guy is almost 70 lbs, which is a bit heavy for an American Pit Bull Terrier, so I don’t know exactly what he is. Some say there’s boxer in him. Some say he’s pure pit. Some say he’s Staffie (although there’s no way he’s straight up Staffordshire bull terrier, IMHO. Way too tall and big for that.) When we got him from the pound, his sheet just said “Pit Bull terrier” and that’s how we reported him to our insurance and our veterinary records. If I wanted to avoid the “pit bull” stigma, I could say he’s a boxer-American bulldog and nobody would know the difference.
