I know my own dog and he was a sweetheart dog. He was an award winning Staffordshire Terrier show dog. I left home at the age of 19 and my Mom hired the neighbor kid to watch ‘Spike’ while she was at work.
One fine day, the neighbor kid had Spike out and he was wrestling with his buddy. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but Spike tore up the buddy.
My Mom loved the dog and so did I. I would have had Spike put down.
Anyway, it’s a long story. I love dogs and I loved Spike, but I do think pitbulls have an evil streak.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I love dogs and all animals, so don’t get me wrong.
So, you’d allow your dog to be exterminated, just because your Mum allowed two strangers to treat your dog as a plaything and your dog took a disliking to it?
I think you mistook what he said. I read that as the neighbor kid was wrestling with the buddy, while the dog was around. The dog, not realizing that the*** two kids*** were merely playing, attacked the buddy. The kids were NOT treating the dog as an anything.
Smackdaddy9, welcome, and it’s considered helpful here to add a link to the column under discussion so we know what of Unca Cecil’s opinions are being shredded, er, that is, are being bandied about.
I had a rottweiler mix named Mia. Although she couldn’t actually chew* through* a chain link fence, she could tear it up enough to get out under it. I had to lace it down with 10ga wire to keep her home when she was outside. The damage she could do with those jaws was awesome but she never hurt a fly.
I now own a pit-mix, a lab-mix, a terrier-mix (all adopted) and a beagle, Mia’s old companion, named Bailey. They all get along great although the pit is more aggressive in play and likes to run and provoke the others to chase him. But when it comes down to it they all defer to Bailey. He’s been there the longest and gets his way. Whether it’s a spot on the bed or a favorite toy, Bailey rules.
I think Cecil is missing an important point: how many pitbulls are trained to be attack dogs?
There are some sicko people out there who see their dogs as weapons and train them as attack dogs. Those people, for obvious reasons, favor strong large dog breeds with big jaws like pitbulls or rottweilers.
Maybe if all breeds had a large number of their members trained to be attack dogs, they would take part in as many attacks.
Of course, all the analysis about the deadliness of being attacked by a dog with a large locking jaw is still valid.
While I believe that breeding and temperament are important factors, I agree that training and environment carry much of the blame. After all, Petey, of Little Rascal fame was a Pit and so were all of his progeny that assumed the role.
I think the column also missed part of the problem in reporting. It’s not just that it’s difficult to say what breed of dog did the biting, it’s that known breeds are misreported.
For instance, my neighbor doesn’t keep his dog leashed and doesn’t have control of it. It chases cars, bikes, dogs, people. I will not be at all surprised when someone gets bitten.
A friend of mine came over a while back. He complained about the vicious, aggressive pit bull that was threatening him as he walked from his car to our porch. I went to see what dog was causing problems.
It was the neighbor’s dog. A tall, rangy boxer/retriever mix. Doesn’t even remotely resemble a pit bull - but since it was being threatening and kinda-sorta has a vaguely almost squarish head, obviously it must be a pit bull.
(I haven’t told the same friend that I would bet money that his dog – a stray they rescued, who’s going to be a terrific, attentive, loving dog once she finishes growing up a bit – is part APBT.)
I’m a little taken aback by Cecil’s dismissal of volumes of factual information as “pit bull owners’ rationalizations.” Anything more than cursory research should clarify that the “pit bull problem” is way, way overblown.
Also he doesn’t name the study that said “pit bull attacks on children were unprovoked 94 percent of the time.” Did that – or any of the information used for the article – come from the notorious hate site “dogsbite.org”? That woman is the Joseph Goebbels of pit bull haters.
Dr. Brady Barr of National Geographic (Dangerous Encounters: Bite Force, 8pm est 8/18/2005) – Dr. Barr measured bite forces of many different creatures. Domestic dogs were included in the test.
Here are the results of all of the animals tested:
* Humans: 120 pounds of bite pressure
* Domestic dogs: 320 LBS of pressure on avg. A German Shepard, American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) and Rottweiler were tested using a bite sleeve equipped with a specialized computer instrument. The APBT had the least amount of pressure of the 3 dogs tested.
* Wild dogs: 310 lbs
* Lions: 600 lbs
* White sharks: 600 lbs
* Hyenas: 1000 lbs
* Snapping turtles: 1000 lbs
* Crocodiles: 2500 lbs
A pit bull (well, an APBT – AmStaffs are almost identical, thoughm, and thae Staffy is smaller) is properly considered a medium-sized dog. Male APBTs in conformation to the breed standard weigh between 35 and 65 pounds. People with larger dogs claiming they are “pit bulls” have dogs that have been outcrossed with larger breeds, typically mastiffs. Although mastiffs are also loving dogs, they are a guarding breed, and as such substantially more likely to bite a human than a pit bull is.
We have a lab-chow mix. She’s very protective of our home and us.
She’s gentle with our kids, but we don’t leave them unsupervised with her because they’re still small. I have little doubt she’d protect them well if anything happened - as it is she barks at people along our fenceline.
These seem like reasonable precautions - I wonder why more people aren’t so reasonable.
I have done rescue for quite a while, and in my experience, have only come across one mastiff that was a biter. For me in general, Mastiffs tend to be less likely to bite a human than another dog.
Mastiffs are known more as “gentle giants”. While they do have great protective instincts, they tend to body block and look intimidating by barking, rather than get aggressive like a smaller dog would. There is a huge difference between a dog that is protective and one that is aggressive. Also, based on my experience, even a mastiff that has been poorly socialized is much less of a danger to humans than most other breeds of dogs that are poorly socialized.
Cecil is off-base on this one. (IMHO) You can’t call foul just because there aren’t enough scientific studies around to support a home-run opinion.
Yes, we get it, we can’t label any dog “just because” of a breed. It’s all about the owners, training, blah, blah, blah. I love the comment on the “surprise” of a chow-chow. Clearly you haven’t been around many dogs. Chows are very vicious, and regularly dominate the dog-park. And don’t forget about purse-dogs - sure, their bite doesn’t pack much, but I’m willing to bet they lead the whole friggin’ planet in random bites. (which are likely never reported/tallied)
But back to the point - and let’s forget the studies and be realistic: why do dog-fighters use pitbulls and not germanshepards or others? Why? Because they’re honorable people who follow rules or something? NO!!! Because the pitbulls are the most vicious… They have a mean-streak in them that goes beyond all other breeds. Here’s your scientific study. Why don’t you go poll 1000 dog-fighters or burglars which dog they would most not want to be attacked by?
Drop the math and studies and the side-issues and the answer is still clear:
PitBulls are the most dangerous domestic dog.
One more thing: wolves can chew through normal chain-link fence no problem. (this is proven, look it up) While wolves have greater bite-force than a dog, why is it so hard to believe that some dogs could do it to? Especially a wolf-dog mix?
I was quite surprised this was not mentioned in the article.
My kids’ pediatrician insists that we do not get a small dog. She says small dogs often see babies and small children as a threat, and will snap at the slightest provocation.
My counter-argument is that it’s better for my kid to be nipped by a shitzu than to be eaten by a rottweiler.
My kids get bitten by small dogs at the park or at friends’ houses all the time. One once charged my 4-year-old in a rage for absolutely no reason.
Try an experiment some time. Attempt to pet a stranger’s chihuahua, and another stranger’s German shepard. See which one bites you. Or which one bites your kid.
I suspect (no, I won’t provide documentation) that there are many, many more bites from obnoxious yapping dogs than from big dogs. Just fewer that require hospitalization.
Cecil did not dismiss “volumes of factual information”, as evidenced by the entire rest of the column which follows that statement. For this column, from the last draft I saw (meaning, he could have looked at more), Cecil looked at more than 50 references, and took or got backing information from more than 30.
No.
Your cite doesn’t say they aren’t especially powerful biters, that’s your take on it. “Least amount of pressure of the 3” doesn’t mean anything without further qualification.
Aside from that, it is very difficult to measure pressure accurately, which is one of the several reasons why there is a large variation in reported pressures. Cecil saw ranges of 200 to 2,000 psi, with the average of the reported measurements being in the range of 400-500 (but not just for pit bulls, but similar-sized dogs such as German Shepherds, Rottweilers, and others). Because of the problems of measurement, I do not believe Cecil felt like he could quote any specific figure - in fact, all Cecil says on jaw strength is the following:
Without math and studies and “side-issues”, you cannot know that this is true. It’s the math and the studies that establish the truth of a claim like this. Else, you are just spouting an opinion, and one of no real value.
The rest of your post is just a set of assertions without factual basis provided, except for:
No, that’s not how it works. You make a claim like that, you provide some evidence to back it up. Not saying you are wrong; saying that, until you have credible evidence to support your claim, your assertion cannot be taken as fact. After all, light once travelled in straight lines, yanno.
um, Una, an APBT is not of comparable size with a German shepherd or Rottweiler, at least not as far as I know.
http://www.dogs-names.net/dangerous-dog-breeds.html Bite pressure is not the point. They hang on to those they bite and are hard to get off. They account for 2/3rds the deaths by dog according to this. Apparently they bite hard enough.
Then “he” dropped the ball, because the article includes a study that measured “pit bull types” as a dangerous breed and “he” never questioned that categorization.
Even after the previous paragraph, where “he” did go into some detail about how people cannot tell breeds apart just by sight.
