I’ll admit I must have missed where someone said that. Can you point out where the claim was made that a cockapoo is as dangerous as a fila brasilerio?
Sadly, Cecil did not get this information, which is easily found in many books on APBT. ( And I was a baby raised around Pit Bull Terriers. I am now 27, and have a dog which is far more dangerous than any I have ever been around: a lab mix.)
There are traits you look for in a fighting dog, or any dog:
- A willingness to fight.
- The fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight.
- Just like humans, all dogs have individual temperaments.
- There are traits for Terriers which can be hard to control.
- Breeders can be at fault.
- Ignorant owners are half the battle.
- People ask to be eaten, let alone bitten.
- Is this dog right for you?
1: Individual: A dog that is willing or even enjoys a good scrap is not necessarily a dangerous dog, or even highly aggressive. Aggressive, in this case, is a dog that is out to dominate you, irrelevant of the discipline you give it. This often can be determined by watching them as puppies. If a puppy is bullying litter mates, especially to the point of damage, cull it. The same can be said for the a passive-aggressive dog: i.e. a dog that upon site of a stranger, runs and hides, then upon confrontation cowers, pees, or yowls without provocation like my lab mix. Both problem dogs will eventually bite someone, should not be raised around kids, and do not need to be bred. Play fighting is fine, fighting out of desperation is not. Nicks and scratches are acceptable, although the dog should be punished if it draws blood or bites down too hard in play, just to keep it in its place.
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Breed Specific: Now, when it comes to a fight, while most other dogs will bite when they are in significant pain, Pits often ignore something that should hurt like hell: (Dad raised rabbits, and one got lose around one of the Pits that did not like small animals. In an effort to stop him from eating the creature, my dad unthinkingly punched the dog in the skull. Remember, this is a 250 lb linebacker whose punches can break bones without any effort: and we have proof that he could–long story, and was deserved. The dog didn’t even shake it off and killed the rabbit, and my dad’s hand throbbed all day long. Serves him right for punching the dog.) (My baby brother used to drag around the last female my dad had by the upper lip, and he was about 8 months old, something I couldn’t find anything but a Pit Bull taking.) Also, if a dog enjoys a fight, they will not give the same physical reactions when biting. Most pits will not lay their ears back, raise their hair, and growl, which is seen as the obvious sign of biting. Some pits do not bark or growl at all–which is why my dad trains them to do both. People respond to it. Most APBT, when likely to bite, raise their ears forward, become unnaturally still, often become quiet, and quit wagging their tail. It’s the same thing hunting dogs do before they point. It should be obvious, at this point, that APBT can be severely misread.
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Individual: No two pits are alike. Some are high strung, and require careful handling to acquire the desired temperament. (Generally, a particular line of Pit Bulls will have a reputation, so following a breeds lineage will tell you what type of handling is needed). The desired trait that my father is in love with is that most Pits naturally do not understand the notion of “I can’t”. (The last female hated squirrels with a passion. This dog would run vertically up pines over 25 feet in the air, just for the phrase “Get the Squirrel”. People who just petted that pit would freak out when they heard it was an APTB, and would make a comment about climbing a nearby tree, if the dog showed signs of aggression. Dad would just let the thing lose and then tell it to get the squirrel, and watch the dog hang from a branch.)
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Breed Specific: Now for the typical Terrier behavior: Terriers are terrors. They are extremely hyperactive and need a lot of attention, otherwise they will destroy everything that you own. APBTs are part Bulldog and part Terrier. Those with the more Terrier attitude will wear you out. Some act more like a laid back Bulldog–which I prefer. Some will even show different types of behavior at different ages, mostly being more Terrier as a puppy and more Bulldog as an adult.
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Individual: Some people breed dogs for the money they bring in as a secondary income, without knowing a thing about the breed. These people are no better than puppy mills, allowing traits that should never survive to become common in the breed. Get dogs from reputable breeders, and the likelihood of being bitten due to a poor temperament is negligible. The only time it is advisable to buy from mom and pop breeder is when you are an experienced owner.
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Individual and Dog Generalization: Potentially high-strung dogs need strong handlers that can break bad habits. Owners also need to understand that dogs are tamed wolves and that you are their Alpha. More specifically, they are the omega dog in the house, subordinate to children and other small pets. They are not to hump, they are not to growl, they are not to show any signs of dominance (look them up), and you need to affirm that you are alpha the whole way. This is how you get dogs to stop biting children. If you cannot dominate the dog, then you should forget dogs and go buy a cat. It’s not hard to intimidate a dog, without harming them. For instance: no dog likes to be cradled like a baby, laying on their backs in the air.
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Individual and Dog Generalization: Dogs are naturally territorial. You stay out of other people’s yards, and do not pet them until they obviously ask for it, unless their Alpha (owner) is home. Make no sudden moves. Dogs are naturally intuitive. If a woman answers the door to a man, when alone, they tend to tense up. The dog can read that, and was likely bought to intimidate you, so be careful. In this case, it’s a female that is more likely to attack. The dog won’t relax until she does. ** Dogs are naturally active**. Nicks and scratches and sometimes stitches (sharp puppy teeth) are acceptable, and people who do not understand this will call it a dog attack. Considering what damage a dog with some fight in it can do, it is pitiful to think of a 2 inch cut as an attack. That being said, the longest scar I have from a dog is less than a cm long due to puppy teeth, and is around the hand. Some APBT we raised never left a scar, bit me even in play (which means no bearing down, not an actual attack bite where chunks may never be found), or even wanted to play with me in a hyperactive manner. Dogs will never respond well to torment. The last female hated squirrels because they tormented her. Neighborhood boys would torment her. Thankfully, she took it to be play, otherwise we would have had to put her to sleep. But she did chase after them and knocked my then 1 year old baby brother off the retaining wall with her chain. ** Dogs have the emotional capability of maybe a 5 year old, if you are lucky. They are not babysitters.** You leave an infant alone with a dog, especially since you probably have not established dominance, do not be surprised when the dog eats the kid. ** Dog reasoning will never match human reasoning.** Our last APBT female was attacked by an older, poorly handled APBT with a horrible temperament towards other dogs. At the vets, the vet reached for her suddenly after surgery, after being forced to stay in a cage, after being cut for the first time, @ 6 months old: being a young dog, while still under the effect of the drugs they gave her. She really bit him, then pulled back, realizing what she just did. Being an experienced vet, he knew he deserved it, got his stitches and shots, and warned my dad about socialization. Dogs need to be socialized. You don’t want a dog to bite, you bring them around people and* train them to behave*. That same female we used to bring to nursing homes for the old folks to play with. It is easier to kill or maim a dog than it is for them to do the same to you. Humans are by far meaner than a APBT. Humans can snap necks by lifting the head back towards the spine. You weigh more than the dog, put your weight into it. One well placed kick can at least break a leg. The most humane thing to do is to yank it’s tail in an upwards motion. I have yet to meet a dog that will hold onto anything if you have it’s tail. There are several other things to do. No adult should die from any dog attack. You have a superior brain, think.
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Not the dog’s Fault: So many people get their first-time dog without knowing if they have the background to handle the dog. I fell into this category with the damn lab mix. I have been around dogs that you could literally pound on and they think it is play. To this day, if I want to play with my dad’s APBT, I smack it. I even raise my hand in a threatening manner towards my dog, even in play, she acts like I am about to beat her to death–although I am working on that behavior with her. All the APBTs I have ever been around had the natural desire to please. It wasn’t hard to train them, and they loved the praise. My lab mix knows she will be in trouble for doing certain things (like running under buildings), pauses when I yell at her to stop, then consciously decides to go and do it anyway. Being a coward, I have to watch her when she is around strange people, especially when the person is large and hulking. Right now, she cowers and barks, but one day, especially as she gains some confidence in herself, she’s going to bite someone. I have to explain to people that they can pet my dad’s APBT, but shouldn’t touch my dog, unless they are willing to be careful. Her attitude problem spells danger to a child. She wars me out, and I will never own a lab again. I’m sticking with a dog I can handle–an APBT.
Basically it comes down to 2 things: If you cannot be boss, you do not need to be around a dog. If it is of the same stock as an APBT, basic signs of a desire to attack may not be the same as every other dog. Everything else is pretty much common sense.
This is something that Pit dogs were trained to do: attack another dog without hurting the handlers. Some owners still at least test the Pit in this manner to see if the trait holds true, but is not necessary, as there are other ways to figure this out. Neither APBT, in this case, were Pit trained, but it is good to note that my dad picked up the dog that was not his, and had us pull off the 6 month old, without any human harm, and no dog was harmed after the human interference.
The sad part is that this dog was never the same again. She quit acting like a puppy, and would not tolerate any other dog of significant size threatening her. It seemed like almost every other walk I had to pick up my leashed dog to keep other dogs from being attacked. The other dogs were lose, not APBTs, often with foul temperaments (like the stupid Dalmatian-with-severe-attitude-issues-to-the-point-of-genetic-defect), and I was likely in danger of being mauled by the other dogs. She would wriggle around in my arms, trying to get a clear shot at the other dog, without getting me, but I was never in danger from her.
**wears
I’ll make a claim that a chihuahua has an easier time severing an Achilles tendon than an APBT. Smaller mouth latches onto the tendon better, and it’s actually in range of the mouth, whereas the APBT is more likely a knee-biter. 
Plus, my point was that an APBT is as dangerous as the surrounding people allow it to be. A well-trained APBT with no one threatening it’s territory (human or land) is far safer than an ill-bred, ill-raised chihuahua. The problems is as much the situation as the dog.
I’m a little confused by this – if cockapoos are not your issue, why vigorously assert the “point” about relative cockapoo damage?
You’re so close to the truth here, but you can’t quite see it. A dog bred for fighting – and here you select much larger dogs than a cockapoo – is capable of doing more severe damage if provoked than a dog not bred for fighting – and incidentally much smaller, like a cockapoo. Size is the hidden context in your argument.
My point here has been that science and common sense agree that dog size determines potential damage. Bite pressure is directly related to dog size, and to date, no reputable measurement has shown a difference for breed type except for size difference. Dr. Barr’s research showed that larger breeds had stronger bite pressure than the pit bulls – and my research has shown that pit bulls proper are not large dogs, but medium-sized dogs, outweighed – and exceeded in bite force – by many breeds.
It’s not “bred for fighting” that makes the dog capable of inflicting a serious bite. Mechanically, it’s size alone; temperamentally, it’s whether the breed has been selected for human aggression – “bred for fighting” humans – like guarding, police, and security dogs – or not. Speaking in generalizations, a large breed selected for human aggression – and here I acknowledge that guarding breeds are usually carefully trained and very obedient – is capable of mauling and killing a human, and it is possible – specifically, more possible – to get them to do it. They’re heavier, stronger, and taller than a pit bull; they have bigger teeth, and they are genetically predisposed to occasionally, when the command is given, close those teeth on a human throat.
Many pit bulls will never, under any circumstances, hurt a human being, which is how Michael Vick was able to kill them by slamming them against the ground repeatedly with his bare hands, or holding them underwater, and yet still live to serve time. For hundreds of years, pit bulls which did hurt a human intentionally have been killed or not bred – it’s been selected against. Guarding breeds have been given medals for doing it.
My point is not that guarding breeds are bad – but that, if you are concerned about the potential harm to humans, you have many, many dog breeds to work your way down through before an American Pit Bull Terrier is the worst problem out there. Knowledgeable dog people know this. Yet neither you nor the media nor dogsbite.org are calling for the destruction of Lassie or Rin Tin Tin; it’s Petey of the Little Rascals that holds our fascinated, terrified gaze.
The hysteria-driven fear of pit bulls is not based in the reality of the breed itself – or in realistic assessment of the experiences humans have had with other breeds.
It’s just as logical as 9/11 conspiracy theory or anti-vaccination claims, to name other things people hear a lot about in the media.
Because many people such as yourself try to perpetuate a casual attitude about the breeds overall ability to deal damage, despite their marked tenaciousness in fights, and their vigorous shaking, tearing instinct, combined with strong jaws and long teeth, the dogs have “earned” a bad reputation that they don’t really deserve if they had responsible owners. I don’t see one cite in your post to validate any of your assertions. But the fact is the US Centers For Disease Control, and the Humane Society have conducted in depth, detailed, fairly scientific studies on the question independently and both reached almost identical numbers. Out of the dog bite fatalities between 1979 to 1988, 41% of the dogs involved were pit bull terriers. Almost 3 times higher than the next highest breed, German Shepherds. http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dog1.pdf But Pit Bull breeds only accounted for about 2% of total dogs owned. That is a staggeringly disproportionate number. It is a testament to the dogs ability to fight if a fight is a given, not that it has a unreasonable propensity to bite or attack. Bull Terriers are one of the best, most stable, human friendly dogs that anyone can imagine, in the right home. All of us here who have posted things in favor of pit bulls are well aware of this fact. But statistically they are also one of the most likely dogs to cause death to a human when things go wrong. It is that simple and that is all that I have tried to say despite hairsplitting about cockapoos and fila brasileiros in attempts to obfuscate this point. If owners of more dangerous than average dogs don’t respect the dogs abilities they run the risk of becoming a part of the statistics used to discriminate unfairly against the breeds. They are intended to be owned by responsible, assertive handlers who have experience with dogs and a healthy respect for the potential of serious injury the dogs carry with them. This discussion has strayed far from the original column. Yes pit bulls accounted for nearly half of the dog bite fatalities reported despite comprising only one fiftieth of the dogs owned by the general population. That part is an accepted fact. The question on the table is if that is because the breed itself is just low-down mean and nasty, and likely to attack people, or because of irresponsible ownership of a dog with greater-than-average ability to inflict serious injury when abused, provoked, or left in circumstances likely to result in tragedy. (e.g. on a short chain 20 feet away from a playground or alone with an annoying kid who likes to poke eyes and pull ears, etc.). I argue that it is due to irresponsible ownership and not an inherent desire to attack humans. Having to pull these statistics out is really a shame because they encourage laws banning the breed. Anyone who advocates pit bull ownership would do well to leave the mentality that they carry absolutely no more risk of injury as any other breed behind them, and move toward a position of requiring owners to be responsible. If we all were, I would bet everything that I have in the world that pit bulls would not top the list of dog bite fatalities. I agree completely with you about their general temperament. As to this argument about being scared of attacking humans it is usually small children who make the fatalities list, dogs including pits and others are always more likely to attack a child than an adult in otherwise equal circumstances. I agree they absolutely are not inclined to bite anyone more often than any other dog if they are stable, well kept and happy dogs. Its just that when they do attack for whatever reason, the damage is severe enough to be reported (e.g cause serious injury or fatality).
Nope. You’re attributing words and motivations to me that are absent from my posts – another sign of hysteria. I am a strong advocate of responsible pit bull guardianship, if you look through my posting history. These dogs are not for everyone. they are way overbred, mis-bred, misused, misunderstood.
But their ability to deal damage is not the problem. I have never disputed that the breed’s overall ability to deal damage is equivalent to their size and athletic ability – I have merely point out that many, many dog breeds you seem unwilling to crusade against clearly exceed them in this area. Look up the work of Dr. Brady Barr for national Geographic, don’t take my word for it.
But the fact is the US Centers For Disease Control, and the Humane Society have conducted in depth, detailed, fairly scientific studies on the question independently and both reached almost identical numbers. Out of the dog bite fatalities between 1979 to 1988, 41% of the dogs involved were pit bull terriers. Almost 3 times higher than the next highest breed, German Shepherds. http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/dog1.pdf But Pit Bull breeds only accounted for about 2% of total dogs owned. That is a staggeringly disproportionate number.
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We’ve been over this before in other threads on this board. The CDC has since disavowed that very study – their website explicitly says that they have concluded it was not a scientific study of what breeds actually did the reported bites and explicitly says BOTH that the study is useless for determining if any breed is over-or-under-represented in bite “statistics” AND that the CDC doubts any study can scientifically determine that any breed bites, because we do not have a firm scientific grasp of the numbers of dogs, bite reporting is very inconsistent, breeds are misreported and not reported, and the whole question is mired down in political hysteria. The CDC further explicitly says this study is not to be used to single out particular breeds for breed-specific legislation or public policy, and that other approaches offer more promise.
The CDC study is flawed and the CDC itself urges us not to use it to draw conclusions about pit bulls. Yet over and over and over people post it – usually a direct link to the PDF, like you did, so no one sees the CDC’s conclusions in the website itself.
Sixth bullet point from the top
No it’s not. It’s disputed everywhere on the web and by the CDC itself. Those figures are old and known to be falsely compiled.
Not true. The scientists at the CDC and researchers at other sites have been over this again and again – no credible statistics exist for this, and it is unlikely that they can be determined, given the lack of rigorous scientific control of, well, the entire human and canine populations. There are many more pit bulls than many other breeds; there are many dogs misidentified as pit bulls; there are many people willing to call any biting dog a pit bull; there is gross under-reporting of bites by some breeds. OF COURSE you can find claims that pit bulls bite a lot – that’s part of the hysteria. “If it bit it was a pit.” What your statistics show is that when humans report a dog bite, especially a fatality, those humans are more likely to use the term pit bull then other breed names. That’s what you’ve found. The CDC agrees with other experts – people are bad at identifying pit bulls and terrible at reporting bites consistently wand accurately. Maybe pit bulls ARE disproportionately represented in actual bites – but our current studies and methodology are no help in verifying this; both scientists and dog experts know they’re hopelessly flawed.
And this has been discussed extensively on the Straight Dope before – you can use the search tool yourself. The CDC study is like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for pit bulls – a document known to be false, but repeatedly dragged up by people trying to justify hate.
Pit bulls proper are working dogs – most working breeds require knowledgeable human handlers in order to thrive, and pit bulls are no exception. I once saw a comparison that said a pit bull is like a high-powered sports car – dangerous in the hands of idiots and beginners. But a pit is dangerous to dogs – and squirrels and sometimes cats – not dangerous to humans, any more than another dog of equivalent size and athletic power.
You could raise a Rottweiler or a Doberman or a Beauceron to be human aggressive more easily than you could a pit bull, and those are larger, stronger, harder-biting dogs. If thugs were doing that in every inner city in America, we’d have a Beauceron crisis, not a pit bull crisis.
Many people who shouldn’t have pits do, and many people raise them wrongly and irresponsibly. but to the extent we have a crisis, it’s one of popularity and image with the wrong sort of people, not specific to the dogs breed itself.
Missed the edit window. What I meant to emphasize is that I have tried to narrowly limit my responses to specifically refuting some of your points – I have not expanded it to general casualness about pit bulls. To the extent that I have expanded it as the conversation evolved I have not advocated “pit bulls for everyone!”
Look, we both know that when things go south between a pit bull and a human, the dog can do a lot of damage.
But my point is that specialized human-killing dogs can do even more damage, and as a general breed tendency, lack the powerful inhibitions pit bulls have against harming humans. A specialized human-killing dog will do you in faster and more quietly and we both know it.
The fact is that thugs from Miami to Cleveland to LA are not training Dobermans to do this. But if they were, oh my God you’d have a worse problem on your mind than pit bulls. This is a thug-culture problem, or in the case of the “old-time dogmen,” a rural subculture problem, and a weakness-of-politicians-and-police problem.
It’s not because a medium-sized, high-drive dog that is strongly inhibited against harming humans has somehow overpowered the human race.
It’s almost amusing to watch two people fighting with each other over how to defend pit bulls, and accusing the other of being the problem.
Here’s a slideshow of some real dumbasses putting their lives and the lives of their children literally inches from the slavering, ravaging, bone crushing jaws of death and destruction.
Or maybe it’s just folks chillin with a bunch of creampuff sofa hounds. You be the judge.
It looks like the blood lust of pit bulls knows no boundaries.
From: http://www.ktvu.com/news/19662465/detail.html
Wow, first vice-like locking jaws, now leashes that lock on to their victims. 
I love that the article is entitled “Unruly Dog Drags Owner to Tragic Train Death” but then the body of the article actually notes the owner’s culpability in her death.
Bolding mine.
And this makes the *dog *unruly? How about maybe confused and frightened?
Also, I tend to doubt that the dog was a pitbull. 100 pounds? I’ve seen big Pits, I don’t think any of them were 100 pounds.
Pit bulls deserve their reputations. If your argument is that the owners are to blame ,fine. But the reality is ,is that pits appeal to people who like mean dogs. They train them to be dangerous. A lot of people train them to fight.
When a loose pit walks toward you, you have a reason to fear. If a loose poodle comes near you, you are less afraid. You can handle a poodle. You can not handle a pit. The poodle is unlikely to be trained to be mean. There is a good chance the pit has been trained badly.
Pits are the weapon of choice for many.
Pit attacks are far beyond their ratios. They are likely the most dangerous dog you can bump into.
Um… cite? I think your post just shows ignorance of the facts.
Almost certainly not a purebred. Desirable weights for males are between 35 and 60 lbs.
It often happens that dogs are misidentified as pit bulls in the press, as has been pointed out in this thread a few times.
Three chihuahuas keep mountain lion at bay: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-garage-cougar,0,224308.story
Chiquita the Chihuahua chases off mountain lion: http://news.opb.org/article/5086-chihuahua-chases-cougar-philomath-yard/
Just FYI.
Funny you should say that. My sister has a minature poodle purchased from a breeder (grrr) because she somehow believed the canard that papered dogs have more reliable temperament. Her mini poodle bit a woman who then fell down a flight of stairs trying to get away. Her mini poodle is registered as a dangerous dog.
The random pit bull we took in off the streets in a bad part of a rural town loves every human and dog she meets. She’d be a registered lap dog if there were such a thing.
What does that even mean? The scientists at CDC say that we do not, and can not, know what ratios of dog breeds live in the United States or how many dogs there are of any given type. Furthermore, these scientists – and dog experts generally support them in this – say that no statistics – that’s none, nada, zero – exist for how many bites each breed commits.
So you’re saying a number we know does not exist is disproportionate to a breed population scientists say cannot be calculated?
The scientific consensus is that what you are asserting cannot be asserted about ANY breed; that it is nonsensical on its face. Are you telling the Straight Dope you’ve made some kind of breakthrough that’s eluded science?
Again, while scientists are more conservative about making any assertions, dog experts are not – they unequivocally say that pit bulls are less dangerous to humans than most breeds. Scientists confine themselves to noting that large dogs – which pit bulls assuredly are NOT – are more dangerous than others.
Are you sure you’re not mis-estimating sizes? Our full-blooded pit bull is 34 pounds – that put her precisely in the median weight range for an American Pit Bull Terrier female (25-50 pounds as quoted in the breed standard previously).
People always marvel at how small she is and ask me if she’s a puppy. But she’s NOT small. She’s absolutely mathematically average in size for the breed, it can be measured.
Cougars are afraid of yappy dogs. They associate them with well-armed humans. Bears are, too.
Coyotes are turned away by the merest yip and stern look from my collie. Seems they know that she was raised to kill them. My only experience is that collies will drop whoever is carrying the football, but not leave fang marks unless the perp is EVIL, ie: coyotes, unfamiliar dogs, or foxes. They she would (when she was younger) kill unless they showed the appropriately submissive behavior. Foxes moved faster, showing what (canine) scum they are. Dogs politely acknowledge her role as Alpha Female, in her yard. Coyotes hear a single, dismissive, “Go away or I will kill you,” yip and they are gone. Solid gone. She’s old and the odds are evened out, but coyotes realize that it may be a fight, but it’s one to put off.
As a result, we have too many squirrels again. In the old days the foxes and coyotes solved that problem.
Who_me? said:
It’s also possible people misestimate the weight of their dog by its size. How big is a 50 lb dog? A 100 lb dog?