Pit bulls

[DrFidelius]

Obviously Chronos, a “pit bull” is a dog from any one of the bully-breeds (or mastiff, or otherwise big doggie with a brick-shaped head) which bites people.

Conversely, if it is a good family pet that doesn’t leave little shreds of squirrel around the back yard, it *cannot *be a “pit bull” no matter how closely it resembles one of those demon dogs.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Acid_Lamp

I don’t know if the numbers are out there, but pitbull and pitbull mix type dogs are among the most common and popular breeds. If they command a significantly larger proportion of the population then they will be disproportionately misrepresented in statistics as well.

Top 10 AKC Breeds:

*  Labrador Retriever
* Yorshire Terrier
* German Shepherd
* Golden Retriever
* Beagle
* Boxer
* Dachshund
* Poodle
* Shih Tzu
* Bulldog

SOURCE: http://www.dog.com/Breeds/Default.aspx

The Pit Bull type terriers are not even on the top ten. German Shepherd however is right near the top and ranks far behind Pit Bulls in killing humans (and consider that GSDs are very often used as guard/attack dogs).

[Guinastasia]

@drastic_quench

Yeah, what the fuck was that about? Call the damn cops.

One wonders what happened to the poor little boy pup.

I have a West Highland White Terrier, and while she’s a sweetie, she’s also VERY dominate and known for being a biter. We can’t let her have toys because she’s VERY possessive and will just attack and bite you if you try to take them away, and we can’t let her into any of the upstairs rooms, because she’ll grab anything and chew it all to hell. In order to get her to let go of something, you have to bribe her with a milkbone. sigh

And she’s not a nasty, hateful dog-just a very willful, stubborn, attention-whore. (I think her main problem is she’s too damned smart)

So if a freaking Westie can be an aggressive dog, any dog can.

[Miltonyz]

@Whack-a-Mole

Top 10 AKC Breeds:

The Pit Bull type terriers are not even on the top ten. German Shepherd however is right near the top and ranks far behind Pit Bulls in killing humans (and consider that GSDs are very often used as guard/attack dogs).

LOL good luck finding Pitbull terriers in the top million AKC registered breeds.
Here is a list from Petfinder an online adoption service that many humane societies, rescues, and animal shelters are on.

Pets for Adoption | Petfinder

#1 is labrador retriever with 20,213 dog available
#2 is Pitbull terrier with 10,288
the nex few appear to be Beagle,
Shepard, and Chihuahua.

I havent included any of the other dogs generally called Pitbulls such as the staffy bull, Amstaff, or American Bulldog because there would be significant identification overlap but undoubtably the number of dogs the would commonly be called Pitbull would be higher then the number listed above.

[gonzomax]

In Detroit ,pits are euthanized if they are taken from homes. There is a lot of dog fighting in Detroit.

[treis]

@BMax

I have a ten year old American Pit Bull Terrier. I got him as an eight week old puppy. He’s not the first pit bull I’ve raised either.

Pound for pound, they are the strongest breed of dog. They have the strongest jaws and the most powerful bite of any breed I am familiar with. They were bred for centuries to fight each other, so some them have a very strong drive to fight other dogs.

This is the point of the matter. Different breeds were bred for different purposes. Retrievers retrieve things, Bloodhounds sniff things, Terriers kill pests, greyhounds race, Sheepdogs herd sheep, Guard dogs protect etc. Pitbulls were bred to protect owners from hostile bulls. Obviously the traits you are looking for in a dog that will attack a bull are strength and aggressiveness, and that’s what the bred has. No one blinks an eye when you say a collie is better at herding than another breed, so why do people object when they say Pitbulls are more aggressive and stronger than other breeds?

[Contrapuntal]

@Mosier

Think about it with common sense, here. Are you seriously arguing the idea that aggressiveness and mental instability are completely unaffected by genetics? Obviously, they are. Deliberate breeding of particular behavioral traits into dogs has happened to every dog breed. It’s the main reason there ARE different breeds in the first place. Some dogs ARE nastier and more likely to to attack someone unprovoked than other dogs.

As far as breeding goes, Pit bulls are bred to be dog aggressive, not human aggressive. As far as your “statistics,” I’ll have to ask for a cite or two, as well as substantiation that the animals involved were actually pit bulls.

There are no bad breeds. Only bad owners.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Miltonyz

LOL good luck finding Pitbull terriers in the top million AKC registered breeds.
Here is a list from Petfinder an online adoption service that many humane societies, rescues, and animal shelters are on.
Pets for Adoption | Petfinder

#1 is labrador retriever with 20,213 dog available
#2 is Pitbull terrier with 10,288
the nex few appear to be Beagle,
Shepard, and Chihuahua.

You’ll note I said “Pit Bull type terriers”. I fully realize that there are several breeds fall under that umbrella and none of them are on that AKC list.

And showing adoption stats are not useful. Just means there are a lot of unwanted Pit Bulls (and labs are so ubiquitous it is not surprising they are on there). I used to volunteer at the Anti Cruelty Society adopting out dogs and we’d rarely ever see something like a German Shepherd yet they are a very common breed (some Shepherd mixes and they tended to fly out the door when one came in). As such I just do not know that such a number tells us anything for the purposes of this thread.

[cowgirl]

A non-fatal pit bull attack gets much more media coverage than a fatal attack by another breed.

From here (a blog post debunking the most widely-cited source for the breed’s singular evilness, the Clifton study):

Breed “is no longer considered to be of discernible value” when addressing dog bite prevention, according to a CDC spokesperson.

The most important factors affecting the odds of a dog bite or attack have always been the ones any dog person can rattle off: Puppy socialization. Training. Pack behavior. The dog’s health. The dog’s care and condition. Something as simple as never leaving a small child unattended with any dog. Size of the dog: when big dogs bite they generally do more damage than little dogs — although that’s a moot point if you’re six weeks old.

<snip>

f you want facts on dog aggression, read A Community Approach to Dog Bite Prevention, the AVMA’s groundbreaking 2001 task force report. [You’ll find it in the sidebar, under More Dog Links]. Seminal quote:

Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.

<snip>

.82%. Eighty-two hundredths of a percent of hospitalizations due to dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, if the press has accurately represented the number of serious attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes. [this is based on numbers from the Clifton study]

This is my favourite article on pit bulls - What pit bulls can teach us about profiling by Malcolm Gladwell.

Of course, not all pit bulls are dangerous. Most don’t bite anyone. Meanwhile, Dobermans and Great Danes and German shepherds and Rottweilers are frequent biters as well, and the dog that recently mauled a Frenchwoman so badly that she was given the world’s first face transplant was, of all things, a Labrador retriever…

After the attack on Jayden Clairoux, the Ontario government chose to make a generalization about pit bulls. But it could also have chosen to generalize about powerful dogs, or about the kinds of people who own powerful dogs, or about small children, or about back-yard fences—or, indeed, about any number of other things to do with dogs and people and places. How do we know when we’ve made the right generalization?..

It can even be argued that the same traits that make the pit bull so aggressive toward other dogs are what make it so nice to humans. “There are a lot of pit bulls these days who are licensed therapy dogs,” the writer Vicki Hearne points out. “Their stability and resoluteness make them excellent for work with people who might not like a more bouncy, flibbertigibbet sort of dog. When pit bulls set out to provide comfort, they are as resolute as they are when they fight, but what they are resolute about is being gentle. And, because they are fearless, they can be gentle with anybody.”

[treis]

@Contrapuntal

As far as breeding goes, Pit bulls are bred to be dog aggressive, not human aggressive. As far as your “statistics,” I’ll have to ask for a cite or two, as well as substantiation that the animals involved were actually pit bulls.

There are no bad breeds. Only bad owners.

Again, that just doesn’t make sense. If you take two bad owners that are exactly the same, and give one a lab and one a pit bull, the pit bull is much more likely to be dangerous.

[cowgirl]

@Mosier

This is all silly. Dog bite statistics show pit bulls cause more deaths than other dogs. We’ve done this discussion a thousand times, and the same cites show the same statistics and are ignored by the same people every time we do it. Rottweilers and Dobermans and German Shepherds suffered the same bad press that Pit Bulls do, but none of those breeds actually WERE as dangerous as their reputation (except maybe Rotts, which account for the 2nd highest number of bites and human fatalities). Pit Bulls are more likely to attack unprovoked than other dogs. Pit Bull attacks are more likely to be deadly than attacks from other dogs. Whether you want to blame owners or not is just semantics.

Can I please see these statistics? This is GQ, after all. I’ve provided my stats. Where are yours?

[Contrapuntal]

@treis

Again, that just doesn’t make sense. If you take two bad owners that are exactly the same, and give one a lab and one a pit bull, the pit bull is much more likely to be dangerous.

So? What has that to do with whether the breed is bad? If you take two bad guys and arm one with a drumstick, and one with a baseball bat, the one with the baseball bat is more dangerous. Does that mean baseball bats are bad?

For that matter, I just saw a dog competition where a 70 pound lab jumped 6’ 8" high and 20 some odd feet out in order to retrieve a duck float. If that dog were trained to be vicious I’m not sure what material difference there would be between being attacked by him and being attacked by a pit bull.

[cowgirl]

@treis

Again, that just doesn’t make sense. If you take two bad owners that are exactly the same, and give one a lab and one a pit bull, the pit bull is much more likely to be dangerous.

That’s quite impossible to say without data to back it up.

As an anecdote, my dogsitter will not work with Labrador retrievers, but she and her jack russell terriers adore pit bulls.

[wonky]

@Contrapuntal

For that matter, I just saw a dog competition where a 70 pound lab jumped 6’ 8" high and 20 some odd feet out in order to retrieve a duck float. If that dog were trained to be vicious I’m not sure what material difference there would be between being attacked by him and being attacked by a pit bull.

I grew up in a household with a 200 pound St. Bernard named Genevieve. I shudder to think of the carnage had that dog decided to go rogue. As it was, she tried to take out a neighbor’s cocker spaniel. Eep.

In any case, threads like this emphasize how much people don’t understand about dogs, despite their ubiquity.

[treis]

@Contrapuntal

So? What has that to do with whether the breed is bad? If you take two bad guys and arm one with a drumstick, and one with a baseball bat, the one with the baseball bat is more dangerous. Does that mean baseball bats are bad?

It means that if the criterion for ranking breeds is danger towards humans pit bulls are worse than labs.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Contrapuntal

So? What has that to do with whether the breed is bad? If you take two bad guys and arm one with a drumstick, and one with a baseball bat, the one with the baseball bat is more dangerous. Does that mean baseball bats are bad?

Baseball bats do not have a mind of their own and must be wielded by someone.

And for some stats that cowgirl is looking for (I already provided some):

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, has conducted an unusually detailed study of dog bites from 1982 to the present. (Clifton, Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006; click here (PDF) to read it.) The Clifton study show the number of serious canine-inflicted injuries by breed. The author’s observations about the breeds and generally how to deal with the dangerous dog problem are enlightening.

According to the Clifton study, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings. In more than two-thirds of the cases included in the study, the life-threatening or fatal attack was apparently the first known dangerous behavior by the animal in question. Clifton states:

If almost any other dog has a bad moment, someone may get bitten, but will not be maimed for life or killed, and the actuarial risk is accordingly reasonable. If a pit bull terrier or a Rottweiler has a bad moment, often someone is maimed or killed--and that has now created off-the-chart actuarial risk, for which the dogs as well as their victims are paying the price.

SOURCE: http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html#Thedogsmostlikelytobite

[cowgirl]

@Whack-a-Mole

Baseball bats do not have a mind of their own and must be wielded by someone.

And for some stats that cowgirl is looking for (I already provided some):

Thanks. You cited the Clifton study which was debunked in a blog post I linked to in my post @2:52 today.

Some problems with it (emphasis added):

Merritt Clifton’s study is actually a list of severe dog bites. The title itself [“Dog attack deaths and maimings”] is misleading, since the list is a compilation of “dog attacks doing bodily harm,” including some that are fatal or disabling. Clifton’s only source is the press: specifically, press accounts of dog bites requiring “extensive hospitalization” [never defined, so this might include anything from treatment of sepsis to multiple surgeries] and caused by “clearly identified” animals. [“[T]his table covers only attacks by dogs of clearly identified breed type or ancestry, as designated by animal control officers or others with evident expertise, who have been kept as pets.”]

The numbers aren’t organized by year or location, and** readers have no way to access the original press accounts and follow-up articles. **There is a disclaimer of sorts — “dogs whose breed type may be uncertain” are excluded, as are police and security dogs and dogs trained to fight — leading logical readers to assume that the list must include virtually all severe bites by dogs of identifiable breeds. Clifton’s report never mentions that there is a huge discrepancy between actual hospital records and press accounts of dog attacks — between relatively objective data, in other words, and highly subjective reporting and editing with an eye to selling papers.

According to Clifton’s report [which, once again, is based entirely on press accounts], during the 24-year period covered by his study there were a total of 2,209 “[dog] attacks doing bodily harm” in the U.S. and Canada. 1,182 of those attacks were by pit bulls and pit bull mixes. (Lumping mixes together with so-called purebreds makes no sense from any standpoint, but Mr. Clifton lumps them together — so I will, too, again for the purposes of this post.)

1,182 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit mixes in the U.S. and Canada over a 24-year period [according to the Clifton statistics] works out to an average of just over 49 severe attacks by pit bulls and pit bull mixes in North America per year.

If Clifton’s pit bull numbers are correct, and no more than 49 of the 6,000 or so hospitalizations due to severe dog bites in the U.S. each year are a result of pit bull bites or attacks, then pit bulls and pit mixes are responsible for less than one percent of those hospitalizations.

From part II

In other words, Clifton is turning his back on everything known about the cause and prevention of dog bites, and is choosing instead to evaluate severe bites and attacks on the basis of “breed–specific characteristics”: an approach with no grounds in science, and one that has been discredited and rejected by the CDC, the AVMA, veterinary behaviorists, trainers, humane organizations and ACOs. Neither Merritt Clifton nor I nor anyone else can speak about any breed’s “bite frequency,” or compare “bite frequency” to “the frequency of severe injuries,” because no one knows how often dogs of any breed bite.

Honestly, anyone who reads the Clifton study (or stats based on it) needs to read the whole thing, because it explains why dog bite statistics cannot be reliable, and how Clifton (and others like him) happily conflate “pit bull mixes” but carefully demarcate all non-pit-bull breeds, and how breed-specific characteristics have been rejected by all major institutions as causal factors for dog bites.

Any statistics which are not vulnerable to these criticisms?

[gigi]

@Miltonyz

LOL good luck finding Pitbull terriers in the top million AKC registered breeds.

They’re #68 in 2007.

Most Popular Dog Breeds by City: The Favorite in NYC, LA, and More

[lavenderviolet]

@brujaja

There are indeed pit bull breeders doing just that.

I live in Oakland, arguably the “home of pit bulls.” A friend of mine lived in a duplex with a downstairs neighbor that had two pit bull puppies, a brother and sister. All through the winter, those two little puppies shivered & huddled together. (they have very short, sparse hair.) The guy fed them A CAN of dog food every two or three days. We snuck food out to them all the time, and I used to go out and let them sit in my lap for warmth. They were so sweet, so loving, they’d kiss you and kiss you if you spoke a kind word to them.

I know you mean well, but I have to agree with everyone wondering why you didn’t call the police about the animal neglect. Perhaps something would have been done to prevent the other horrible things that followed from happening, and also perhaps dissuade the guy from doing it again to other dogs.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@cowgirl

Any statistics which are not vulnerable to these criticisms?

How does the CDC strike you? I already provided this link but will provide it again.

Some breed information was reported for all 27 attacks. As in recent years, Rottweilers were the most commonly reported breed involved in fatal attacks, followed by pit bull-type dogs (Table 1). Together, these 2 breeds were involved in approximately 60% of human deaths.

<snip>

Despite these limitations and concerns, the data indicate that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs accounted for 67% of human DBRF in the United States between 1997 and 1998. It is extremely unlikely that they accounted for anywhere near 60% of dogs in the United States during that same period and, thus, there appears to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities.

SOURCE: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dogbreeds.pdf (PDF)