Signed up to weigh in on this one. My brother has a 90-lb AmStaff and being his “uncle” I’ve seen him show his sweetness over the years.
Pit bulls are bred to be dog-aggressive but not human-aggressive. There is no point in fighting dogs that would rather kill their owners or observers. If they are human-aggressive, this is not so much their breeding and so much more their training. That’s why the “tough looking” dogs of the decade (80s - Dobermans, 90s - German Shepherds) get trained to be nasty. Pit bulls don’t have mean streaks. Their white trash owners (or whatever Michael Vick is) have mean streaks.
In my personal anecdotal case, this dog does not seek a fight with other dogs, but he will not back down from an aggressive dog. He personally caused severe injury to a small poodle who was always provoking a fight. But I’ve seen him give babies kisses. I can boast the most bite scars from him that anyone received (two), but it was my fault for holding his toy while he was chewing on it when he was a puppy. The worst harm he ever did humans is whacking them by wagging The Strongest Tail on Earth.
My brother actually has been training his dog to be tolerant of aggressive behavior by boxing with him (not hard, just accustoming him to motions toward the face). I can rough-house with him until the whole house shakes and he has never bitten me once in play.
I second the notion that yappy little dogs are the worst biters. Been bitten by them several times, but I didn’t get infected so I forget about them. My grandmother did once get infected by a bite from her own dog though.
Ever seen a dog hater or cruel child provoke a dog? It’s a sad, sad thing to see. The dogs can’t be faulted for defending themselves, just like any animal would. Again, it’s the bigger, stronger dogs that will get the news for doing what all dogs do. Have some sense when dealing with strange dogs, people.
Una, I could swear I’ve seen a researcher (maybe even Dr. Brady Barr from my cite above) saying words to the effect that the only correlation he found for bite force was the size (body mass) of the dog. I am looking for this cite now, stand by please.
I would have to agree that this was not a very good article. It reads like Cecil realized there wasn’t the data to back up his opinion, but went ahead to present his opinion as fact anyway.
When I was a kid, the dog was ALWAYS put up if we had friends over and any kind of horseplay started (even just running around screaming). Our dog was extremely protective and would not tolerate anything that she perceived as threatening. She would growl and snap at other kids if “her” kids were yelling. No one got hurt at my house because we understood the problem and dealt with it instead of ignoring it.
Despite this horrendously evil and anti-social behavior, she never randomly attacked innocent passersby nor did she ever maul any of my family! Amazing!
I’m guessing that you’re under 30 and therefore don’t remember when German Shepherds were THE MOST DANGEROUS DOG EVAR!!!1111!!!
Or when Dobermans where HORRIBLE VICIOUS ANIMALS AND THE MOST DANGEROUS DOG EVAR!!!111111111!!!
Or when Rottweilers …
I was warned constantly about how our GSD was going to go nuts and rip my family to shreds any day now, because GSD are so vicious and crazy.
:rolleyes:
Really? You’re claiming a poorly written and poorly researched website on naming your dog as a source? Really?
Mastiffs aren’t attack dogs per se, it’s true. But all the guarding breeds are bred and trained to regard strangers with some suspicion. Pit bulls are not – they are selected in part to never, ever redirect onto a human. Serious breeders (and also criminal breeders, for that matter) say they keep guardian breeds at their pit bull kennels because the pit bulls will happily get into anyone’s car and leave with complete strangers.
So my cite is basic logic – pit bulls by long breeding and training are disinclined to regard humans as enemy, mastiffs by much longer breeding and training are inclined to regard strange humans as “outside the pack” and at least threaten.
I do not mean to demonize any breed – even purse dogs :). In fact, your finding only one manbiter ever among the mastiffs matches my assertion in one way – I’ve never found ANY manbiter among the pit bulls, personally. So by a statistically meaningless score of one-to-zero, my point would stand. <–ok, I’m way out on a limb there.
But I wish to stress that I don’t mean to impugn the mastiff in general – the ones I’ve met have been playful and cuddly as soon as they got the signal from their human that I was no threat. And very far back in time the mastiff and pit bull share Molosser dog ancestry.
During the world wars, Americans killed dachshunds in the streets because they were German dogs.
There has DEFINITELY been a cycle of hysteria about which dog is “dangerous.” When GSDs and Rotties and Dobermans were in the wringer, many Americans hugged their trusty American Pit Bull terrier while worrying about those other, dangerous, dogs.
This is really my point, but this poster states it much better than I did. Aside from every other statistic and measurement made, again, I ask the question: which breed of dog would you least want to face in an attack? That’s my definition of “most dangerous breed.”
And my simple answer is this: fighting dogs are pitbulls. They are the most tenacious, aggresive, and pain-proof dogs out there. It’s almost like a guard-dog breed is attacking for training reasons, doing a job. Pit bulls attack because of rage. (that’s a symbolically comparative association, not a statement of fact - obviously I am not a pit-bull dog, so I do not know the level of “rage” involved)
If someone can show that some other breed of dog (of any size) is better at fights to the death than a pit-bull, then maybe you can talk about that dog being the most dangerous. Otherwise, that’s the proof I need.
Chewing through metal: Let’s just say that I don’t bother citing sources because none of them would be good enough for you. I’m not a researcher, just a dog-owner and I know people who have owned wolves and half-wolves. However, I am confident you can satisfy your own belief system if you do your own checking on it.
Keep in mind, however, it was Cecil who started this by assuming dogs can’t bite through chain-link fence. With no apparent proof or cited references, rather, just labeling it a “numbskull report.” What exactly is your counter-proof that asserts someone is a numbskull for citing an animal’s ability to chew through metal? Just because you can’t do it doesn’t mean Fido can’t.
Me, personally? Any dog with a dumbass owner who can’t or won’t control it.
As far as breeds, probably a Chow or St. Bernard, those being the two I have personal experience with bad crazy from.
Pits are way, way down on the list of dogs I worry about.
I’ve currently got a dog that chews up concrete. I’ve no doubt she’d chew through chainlink given time. Breed? A chihuahua/terrier mutt. Ooooh, scary!
OK, terriers. You wanna talk about some never-give-up, never-let-go dogs. I knew a pitbull that was killed by fox terriers, precisely because the terriers hung on until a piece of the pit came loose.
I’ve never been a part of this site before, but a friend sent me Cecil’s piece for my reaction. I own (or am owned by) two dogs currently and have had about 15 over the course of my life (and have lived with many more). I found Cecil’s answer to be fairly reasonable, without making a lot of claims and statements that are not necessarily supportable. I can’t say the same for many of the other answers that I saw today. Clearly, the “general wisdom” creature has taken front seat over reliable information.
There is not enough reliable information out there to make general statements about particular breeds. I will say this from my experience with dogs. There are numerous factors that go into a dog’s behavior, many of which are too subtle for the average person or dog owner to comprehend. Among these are the alpha and beta relationships between the dogs themselves and between the dogs and the humans that reside in the household; the presence of outside factors that can alter normal dog behavior (food, toys, chewies, loud noises, new people to the situation; unusual human behavior; unusual smells, etc. - the list goes on and on).
Dogs have for millenia had instincts that can cause them to attack as a pack, despite the fact that any one of that pack would be perfectly safe on its own. They also have the ability to recognize who is part of their pack and who is an outsider - and that can cause a normally docile dog to attack a child play wrestling with the dog’s “sibling” (or, in the case cited, probably the dog’s co-beta male).
Dogs can be trained to have one of any number of different personalities - and it is strongly dependent upon both the personality of its trainor and how (s)he trains the dog and the type of training that the dog is given.
I think that Cecil does ignore that the behavior of many dogs is considerably tied to the socio-economic background of the owners and the nature of those owners’ lifestyles.
I could go on and on with these threads, but the fact remains that you cannot correctly or rightly peg any one particular animal based upon its breed, size or history, without taking into account all the socioligical factors that the particular dogs are beholden to.
Umm, aren’t pit-bulls in the “terrier” class? Also, citing example of multiple dogs vs one kinda wasn’t the spirit of the question. And I think you know that.
A point I should note on this - the bad crazy I’m talking about was directly linked to the owners. Nonetheless, said bad experiences make me wary around those breeds. Purely irrational, emotional reaction. :shrug:
Beating your dog regularly and then abandoning it does not make for a stable, well-behaved dog. In fact, it can create a dog that goes berserk at the sight of a leash and attacks the person carrying one, taking them to the ground and chewing them up thoroughly.
Entertaining yourself by tormenting your dog while it’s small can become problematic when the dog gets huge. Finding it funny to constantly confuse a puppy by issuing conflicting commands, randomly changing what behavior is rewarded and punished, and so on, tends to produce a non-sane dog. I didn’t ever actually see the dog attack anyone as I no longer associated with the owners, but that poor beast was on the way to the pound as “dangerously uncontrollable”, probably before he made it to two. One of the owners was already scared of him.
Why does everyone need a black or white answer on this one?
I think Cecil’s answer is perfectly reasonable: both the critics and the supporters have made exaggerated claims but all dogs are potentially dangerous. Pit bulls are more dangerous than some and probably less dangerous than others; caution is warranted.
How about because there is no proof that pit bulls are more dangerous than other breeds?
On top of that, “Cecil” raises a good point, what about mixes? My dog is a sweet, lovable Boxer, APBT and Shepherd mix. If, god forbid, she mauls someone some day, which breed did the biting?
I know I’m not following the “rules of debate” here. What can I say, shame on me. I’m saying I don’t have acceptable evidence. Probably because I’m not employed as a researcher.
I do however, have anecdotal evidence, and now, I have another (you’re dad’s black lab). So far, all we’ve got from Cecil is a random declaration of “numbskull report”
There are websites out there that instruct on how to build a proper containment system for wolf-dogs. They mention the need for heavy-gauge chain-link fencing, at least 9-gauge. Personally, I take that to mean that said animals can chew through lighter-gauge. (Either that or the bolt cutters they carry can only handle lighter gauge. )
Ah, good point on the first one. I forget that pits are classed as terriers (I know, I know, it’s in the name) because the ones I’ve known have had completely “un-terrier” personalities. :o
As far as the second - nope, you never said anything about fair fights, one-on-one fights, or anything else. I’ve read back through all your posts, and all you keep repeating is the same nonsense about pits being more ‘everything bad’ than any other dog. Can you read those posts yourself or do I need to go back and quote them for you?
My point wasn’t that the fox terriers killed the other dog, it was the fact that they killed it specifically because they refused to let go once they had hold no matter what that dog did. Exactly the type of behavior you’re saying makes pit bulls too dangerous to have around.
BTW, good work completely ignoring my points about the fact that German ShepHERD Dogs have been the subject of breed bans for the very same reasons you give. In fact, if you read through past threads here, you’ll find people strongly supporting banning GSDs as well as pits.
Can I assume that you’re fine with banning GSDs because they’re inherently vicious, aggressive attack dogs who are far too large and powerful to be kept safely?
Well, James Orr, who runs the Witter Wildlife Refuge, says “[wolves] can chew through a chain-link fence as did two of the wolves originally destined for our refuge” and this person, who apparently has had wolves before, says “I have seen wolves chew through 11-gauge chain link without a problem”. I don’t have any particular reason to doubt either of those people and while I’m not sure it’s a common occurrence, I too am not exactly certain what made the “numbskull report” so easy to dismiss. I’m not Cecil though.
You’re talking about being dangerous to other dogs. The topic on point is whether pits are dangerous to humans, so you seem to have wandered quite a bit.
Um… pit bulls are more dangerous than chihuahuas. There you are, conclusive proof that pit bulls are more dangerous than other breeds. We can list more if you need us to.
But, if you read my post and Cecil’s article, you’ll see that neither of us are willing to assert that pit bulls are more dangerous than all other breeds. Clearly, there’s insufficient evidence and too much complexity in breeding and training to make any conclusive statement about the most dangerous animal. Even if we had the evidence, people would argue nuances. Does most dangerous mean the most attacks or the most fatalities? The largest absolute number or the largest number per capita?
It really doesn’t matter to me. I don’t stop following the rules of gun safety when I use a .22 instead of a .45. One is “more dangerous” than the other, but they’re both dangerous. ANY dog is capable of seriously injuring any person under the right conditions.
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