The disproportionate number of deaths from pit bulls support it.
Excellent idea, and I appreciate the reminder to do so. That’s what I’ll do :).
Yes, and again, I have a view of the issue that is not at either extreme. For example, I agree entirely and think that breed-specific legislation is a terrible idea, for essentially the reasons you suggest.
Again I totally agree that folks who love dogs bred for gentleness have a right to be frustrated with folks who breed dogs for aggression, especially when those folks end up calling their bred-for-aggression dogs by the same name as others call the bred-for-gentleness dogs.
Much of this discussion, as always, centers around the fact that people have trouble identifying dog breeds.
Can we agree, though, that dogs do kill adults and children on a regular basis across the USA? I don’t think the documentation is at all in doubt.
So, is it vaguely possible we can all agree that people should be actually focused on doing something about dogs? Why do we need them, just as companions? Working dogs, okay, but as a companion? Neuter them all.
An acquaintance just told me that there are two shelters in South Carolina that are forced to destroy a total of 30000 dogs a year. they are mostly strays and dogs seized from puppy mills or dog fighting networks. The acquaintance is part of a network that moves decent, neutered dogs up north where there is a possible demand for adoption.
Perhaps we should just focus on the fact that dogs don’t really serve any useful purpose, for the most part, and should be greatly reduced in numbers, with strict breeding standards imposed for type and numbers.
the Constitution may prevent us from doing the obvious things required to stop the slaughter of innocent children because of intentional or accidental or negligent gun use, but we can certainly removed the threat of dog attack from the USA without having to amend the Constitution.
There are no statistics to report such disproportionate number of deaths. No report exists where the dog breed was reported in a way that is meaningful. Since the reporting criteria was “big mean dog that looked like it might be a pit bull” and they based it on first hand accounts/descriptions for most of these statistics it’s simply a worthless set of data. If there is a study out there that actually took each dog that killed and found its parentage and lineage and ascertained it was one of the three AKC pit bull breeds, then you’d have a point. But we don’t have that.
LHoD is ascribing to the view that pit bull is basically a term with no meaning, basically equated to “all dogs in the world that are bred by disreputable people for illegal dog fighting or for general thuggery.” He can call all dogs like that pit bulls if he wants, but it doesn’t mean anything because none of those dogs are distinctive breeds of dogs. They are just the offspring of a disreputable breeder not following any sort of breed standard and there will be little to no consistency from one such breeder to the other. So that’s not a dog breed at all, that’s just a bunch of badly bred and socialized dogs. Which has nothing to do with the three AKC pit bull breeds.
If you consider 10 or 15 deaths per year in a country with well over 300 million people a “regular basis”, then yeah. It’s a real epidemic.
No one is arguing against the need for legislation to help prevent attacks by dangerous dogs. What we are arguing against are laws which specify “pit bulls” as calling out one (ill-defined) breed does not address the problem of aggressive owners raising dangerous dogs.
It is I think going to be very necessary that you each time explicitly make clear when you are talking about junkyard dogs and MMMMMs that idiots label as “pit bulls” and when you are discussing Pit Bulls. The reason for these threads is specifically because many are extremely fearful of Pit Bulls because of that conflation.
Can we agree that people do kill adults and children on a regular basis across the USA? Neuter them all.
Perhaps you do not see the useful purposes that pets serve, but they do indeed serve them.
Mind you I am in full support of pets being neutered and of choosing animals out of rescue. Of our three dogs two are rescue greyhounds, repurposed as pets in a way. Encourage rescue. Encourage neutering pets. Want to get gubbermint involved then give a tax credit for rescuing an animal and require that breeding for sale requires licensing with fees that offset that tax credit. Hold owners of animals who have been involved in attacks criminally liable if they have been found to have not adequately secured their animal. But your draconian solution exceeds the magnitude of the problem.
Perhaps we should, as the CDC guidance suggests, focus on irresponsible owners and breeders.
I tried to make it clear in my first post that I see two different groups labeled “pit bulls” with related, but different, genetic histories. I disagree that labeling the mean dogs as “pit bulls” is the action of idiots, though, as I don’t think the AKC “owns” the term any more than anyone else does.
Describing the distinction is crucial, I agree. Privileging one definition over the other, however, isn’t helpful in my opinion.
It may be helpful to understand where I’m coming from to know that I’m a pretty hardcore language descriptivist: I think words mean what the people using them, and the audience receiving them, think they mean, and that there’s no other useful way to define words. I apply this to grammatical disputes, political disputes (so “liberal” doesn’t generally mean “economic libertarian,” despite historical connotations), religious disputes (so I consider Phelps to be a Christian), and, yes, disputes about dogs.
raises his hand I think we have enough legislation to help prevent attacks by dangerous dogs. Dog attacks are exceedingly rare and the owners are held accountable for the actions of their ill-trained animals. I don’t think we really need to invest more time or money into more legislation. We have enough laws on the books to punish stupid people in regards to their dogs.
Conversation requires some significant overlap between the conceptual space associated with a word or phrase as used by all engaged in the discussion. Hence Humpty and Alice’s difficult conversation.
In this particular case “the audience” does not generally understand that “pit bull” as used by those to describe their junkyard dogs is a different entity than “Pit Bull” as used by most pet owners. The overlap between the concepts is only some superficial features. They are different words with different meanings and easily confused when used in an overlapping context without further elucidation. Most of the audience presumes the word “Pit Bull” is included or intended when one says “pit bull” which impairs clear discussion.
It is a hijack but I have great difficulty with your language position in general. The parallel to the junkyard dog owners alleged equal right to the previously extant word Pit Bull would be someone calling any cheap person with curly hair a “jew” regardless of the persons actual religious belief or heritage. By your standard those who are of the Jewish religion or of Jewish heritage would have no rightful objection and no claim to “owning” the term … “jew” just means cheap person with curly hair because some people are using it as such?
That’s fine but no one actually cares how anyone uses the term pit bull until you start writing insurance policies and laws that treat pit bulls in a certain way. In insurance contracts and laws, you have to work with precise, technical, and unambiguous terminology. The more ambiguous a law or a contract the less effective it is and the less value it has. No one involved in the debate about pit bulls is interested in a lexicographical argument or discussion.
Further, if we’re talking scientific statistics, again we need to have a precise understanding of terms. Someone posts an article from the CDC that says pit bulls are more likely to bite than other dog breeds. What does that mean? Well unless it means the three AKC pit bull breeds are more likely to bite, then it doesn’t have meaning that should apply to those three breeds. When you dig into the statistics and find that no, by and large the breed identification was not done in a way that works (and I don’t think it even could be, and the CDC now agrees) then those bite statistics say nothing about the AKC pit bull breeds. Could you then talk about “pit bulls” as a more generic term and their propensity to bite? Sure, but you must recognize such talk leads to laws that, because they have to be specific, will unfairly target those three AKC breeds and not the more amorphous “pit bulls” that you are talking about. Since only a professionally bred dog can even be identified as a purebred dog, by its very nature then if we have no ability to meaningfully collect breed based statistics with breed specific insurance policies and laws you’re basically setting up a situation in which the problem dogs (the ones not bred professional or to any breed standard) escape the letter of the law while the dogs that have never been demonstrated to be dangerous (the professional bred dogs that were bred to the breed standard) run afoul of the law.
So I’m really not interested in how you use language, I’m interested in how not following the technical use of breed specific language hurts breeders, dog owners, and the reputation of breeds that have nothing to do with anything based on scientific fact or verifiable statistics.
Errr…the main problem with that would be the racist and antisemitic aspect of it, not the descriptivist aspect of it. If I were to do the same kind of analogy to your position, I could defend the use of historically document racial epithets similarly. I won’t do that, however, because I think that sort of analogy-by-negative-connotation doesn’t help.
Given the fact that I never plan on writing insurance policies or laws, you may not be interested in discussing the issue with me, then :).
Of course dogs are not people and being breedist is not quite the same as being racist or antisemitic but the process* is the same*: one group has had an extant name/word associated with them that has a defined meaning; others use the same word to mean something derogatory based on some stereotype about the other group. Each has potential harm risked to the first group because of the way in which others are now using the word.
Your Humpty approach is a recipe for miscommunication at best. In this case Pit Bulls are not “pit bulls” a.k.a. any dang ole muscular mean mangy mixed mutt of a junkyard dog and any defense of using the word in that way would equally apply to any of a host of racial and ethnic epithets. If you mean to discuss junkyard dogs then use that word; don’t call them “pit bulls” and then be shocked that owners and fans and friends of Pit Bulls take offense. Or object because such a usage motivates actual harmful action against those dogs by others. The innocent smilie face notwithstanding.
I still don’t go by your approach, but if I did I’d reserve “pit bull” for dogs raised to fight, given the original purpose of the breed.
However, I think the real miscommunication occurs when people insist there’s only one correct definition and then tell other people they’re factually incorrect, when in reality the other people are using a different definition. We’re much better off acknowledging and understanding the different definitions in play, and it’s only when we do so that we can understand what other folks are saying.
Hey! Hold on there, it was a joke! The smiley face means its a joke!
The pictures were old, black and white, so I’m pretty sure those babies are dead now because of old age. That was the joke. Still hilarious, by the way
As has been noted, over 90% of dog bites are from male dogs that have not been neutered. It should be legislated in America that all dogs have an identification chip implanted and that all male dogs who are not registered breeder males be neutered. That would go a long way to solving the problem, and it would not be prejudicial to any specific breed.
As has been noted, over 90% of dog bites are from male dogs that have not been neutered. It should be legislated in America that all dogs have an identification chip implanted and that all male dogs who are not registered breeder males be neutered. That would go a long way to solving the problem, and it would not be prejudicial to any specific breed. Men don’t like to neuter male dogs, but dogs are not men and neutering them is not the same as neutering a man. However, if we did neuter men, our prison population would probably 1/4 of what it is, and we would mostly likely nearly eliminate terrorism. I am making a tongue in cheeck point. The thing is that these acts of aggression on the part of male mammals are often due to the amount of testerone; most of the men in prison are under 45, or their crimes were done at under 45, when testerone levels are highest. Same goes with terrorists. Reality.