Actually dog BITES are extremely common. My homeowners insurance company rep told me it is the MOST COMMON reason for claims. The reasons for this are complex, but very simply, dogs use biting the way we would use shouting, or shoving – it is their natural way of communicating many different emotions and dealing with all kinds of stressors. Compounding this issue is that the vast majority of people are extremely ignorant about just about every aspect of dogs.
Dog attacks leading to maiming or death are uncommon. They make the news.
Legislation doesn’t and cannot effectively address the incidence of dog bites until after the dog has bitten someone. I think the garbage-in garbage-out nature of breed-specific legislation and also the circular discussions here and elsewhere are an illustration of this fact.
I would say that strong medium to large dogs with guardian/territorial traits, bred to have a specific way of biting (hanging on and chewing), bred to be impervious to pain (i.e. hard to dissuade to give up), are going to probably inflict more damage if they happen to attack someone, than some other types of dogs. I don’t have any evidence or cites for this, it just seems logical.
Yet humans in terms vice versa are the direct cause of over a 1,000 speices per century going extinct, humans slaughter animals for fun…for trophy hunting, for braging rights, for territory we dont even need, for ignorant purposes, and we dont even consume 80% of the animals we kill fully, yet 80% of the planet has socioty not capable of growing there own live stock, growing there own vegatation, poeple in general rely on slaughter houses that commercialy distribute food to fast food, restutaunts, stores, markets and so on…that is not sustaninable in any way or form, that is straight up eradication, also known as genocide.
Could we then nuter all the male humans then? How about dogs in pounds, why do they have a certain limit of time to live if no one claims them(killing hundred and thosunds per year, yet humans can grow old and die in jail, which theres more murderers, theives, molesters, rapist in jail serviving life sentences than there is any type of species on earth.
Why cant we just kill “All” of them? For one…they will need to be clothed, fed, pampered and housed which cost in the hundred billions (per year) something the average american cant even keep up with just there own bills.
You should worry about the real damage thats being done by humans (By the quintellions) per year, then worry about a few dogs that manage to do whats natrual to them and less then in the thousands world wide per year.
Humans world wide damage Per year=(Quintellions)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dogs biting people per year=(High end Hundreds)
= 0.00000000001 the damage of intra-specific relations with humans compared to dogs.
From the “Annal of Surgery” report in 2011, authored by 4 MD’s, one PhD, and 3 RN’s
"Objective: Maiming and death due to dog bites are uncommon but preventable tragedies. We postulated that patients admitted to a level I trauma center with dog bites would have severe injuries and that the gravest injuries would be those caused by pit bulls.
Design: We reviewed the medical records of patients admitted to our level I trauma center with dog bites during a 15-year period. We determined the demographic characteristics of the patients, their outcomes, and the breed and characteristics of the dogs that caused the injuries.
Results: Our Trauma and Emergency Surgery Services treated 228 patients with dog bite injuries; for 82 of those patients, the breed of dog involved was recorded (29 were injured by pit bulls). Compared with attacks by other breeds of dogs, attacks by pit bulls were associated with a higher median Injury Severity Scale score (4 vs. 1; P = 0.002), a higher risk of an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8 or lower (17.2% vs. 0%; P = 0.006), higher median hospital charges ($10,500 vs. $7200; P = 0.003), and a higher risk of death (10.3% vs. 0%; P = 0.041).
Conclusions: Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites."
“Fortunately, fatal dog attacks are rare, but there seems to be a distinct relationship between the severity and lethality of an attack and the breed responsible,” they wrote in an article published in the April issue of the medical journal Annals of Surgery. “These breeds should be regulated in the same way in which other dangerous species, such as leopards, are regulated.”
Pediatric dog bite injuries: a 5-year review of the experience at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia shows pit bulls responsible for more than half of the maulings
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The objective of this study was to characterize the nature of dog bite injuries treated over a 5-year period at a large tertiary pediatric hospital and to identify relevant parameters for public education and injury prevention.
METHODS:
Investigators performed a retrospective review of emergency room records of a single tertiary pediatric hospital. Records of all patients who were evaluated for dog bite injuries between April of 2001 and December of 2005 were reviewed. All demographic, patient, and injury details were recorded.
RESULTS:
Five hundred fifty-one patients aged 5 months to 18 years were treated in the emergency department after suffering dog bite injuries during the study period. The majority of injuries (62.8 percent) were sustained by male children. Dog bite injuries were most prevalent during the months of June and July (24.1 percent). Grade school-aged children (6 to 12 years) constituted the majority of victims (51 percent), followed by preschoolers (2 to 5 years; 24.0 percent), teenagers (13 to 18 years; 20.5 percent), and infants (birth to 1 year; 4.5 percent). Injuries sustained by infants and preschoolers often involved the face (53.5 percent), whereas older children sustained injuries to the extremities (60.7 percent). More than 30 different offending breeds were documented in the medical records. The most common breeds included pit bull terriers (50.9 percent), Rottweilers (8.9 percent), and mixed breeds of the two aforementioned breeds (6 percent).
CONCLUSIONS:
Pediatric dog bites are preventable injuries, yet they persist as a prevalent public health problem. Evaluation of data from high-volume tertiary pediatric health care institutions identifies predictable patterns of injury with respect to patient age and gender, animal breed, provocation, and seasonality
a man in Harleyville, SC, in a wheel chair, was just mauled to death by 4 dogs. Police have 3 of the 4 dogs in custody, and have a woman who admits owning them.
Police are not releasing the breed of dog.
Given that 13 of the 14 fatal dog attacks in the USA so far in 2013 were by pit bulls, does anyone really think these will not turn out to be pit bulls?
If you’ve at all bothered to read he thread then you will already know the answer to your question: quite likely they’ll be “pit bulls” as LOHD, and quite a few other people, use the phrase - sloppily (IMHO) referring to any nasty muscular junkyard dog of indeterminate breed - and not particularly likely that they are “Pit Bulls” - referring to the actual breed.
You see LOHD where the acceptance of “pit bull” and its use to describe any violent muscular junkyard dog leads - to incorrect conclusions about the breed “Pit Bull” and proposed action against that breed.
No, that’s not how I’m using the term. I think there are many different ways people actually use the term, and it’s more interesting to look at how it’s actually used than to pass judgments on folks who use it differently.
A quick pass at some definitions:
A particular phenotype of dog bred for “game,” i.e., aggression toward other dogs and a willingness to fight past the point of injury.
A particular phenotype of dog bred for conformity to club standards, whether AKC, UKC, or others. These dogs appear similar to the dogs in #1, but are bred for different behavioral characteristics
Dogs containing features matching either #1 or #2, but not the product of deliberate breeding in the past generation or two.
3a) Like #3, but bred for other traits (e.g., aggression toward non-pack-members, including other humans).
American bulldogs.
Large muscular aggressive dogs with clear bull terrier features.
Large muscular aggressive dogs without clear bull terrier features. (Note: this definition is the weakest, and the only one I’d discourage).
Since people use the words in this fashion, it’s helpful to talk to them to clarify which definition they’re using. For example, I strongly doubt cougar is using definitions 1-3. Definition 4 seems likely, possibly with some 3a thrown in.
The problem with breed-specific legislation is that laws need to have clear definitions, and the clearest definition is #2, but it’s also the definition that presents the fewest public safety problems. The other definitions either cast too narrow or too wide a net. If someone is breeding a dog to be aggressive toward other dogs or toward all non-pack-members, who gives a crap whether it’s a pit bull, a rottweiler, or a frickin’ poodle? If a dog is large and muscular and aggressive, why does it matter whether its head is shaped like a peanut or like a toaster?
The problem is with the aggression. You can’t rid yourself of that aggression by targeting AKC-certified dogs or by targeting dogs with pit bull physical characteristics. You have to target the behavior.
Ok everyone…act totally surprised. They just confirmed yesterday’s fatal mauling of a man in a wheelchair, was done by…drum roll…hand me the envelope…pit bulls! They still had his blood on them, just like the pit bulls that kill the female jogger 5 days prior.
Stay tuned for next weeks confirmed fatal shit bull mauling.
In the case of technical terms, especially ones used for controversial issues, I think it’s more useful to establish unambiguous conventions of nomenclature than to encourage confusion and misunderstanding spreading unhindered while we go on happily playing in our descriptivist sandbox.
To invent an analogous case, many people refer to motorcycles as “bikes”, which in general is fine with me despite the possible confusion with the use of “bike” to mean bicycle. Such confusion is typically harmless and easily cleared up.
However, if some anti-noise-pollution group upset about loud motorcycle engines starts handing out flyers that say “BAN BIKES FROM OUR STREETS”, I’d think they were being somewhat careless and irresponsible in potentially causing some needless hassle for bicyclists by their use of an ambiguous term. That’s a case where linguistic ambiguity becomes less harmless.
When you’re deliberately dissing something, you ought to make the effort to be as clear and precise in your language as you possibly can, so that your audience can easily grasp exactly what it is you’re dissing.
By the same token, it makes sense to encourage some kind of clear linguistic differentiation between terms for (a) the aggressive and dangerous unknown-breed so-called “pit bulls” that people are rightly concerned about, and (b) the specific molosser breed officially designated the American Pit Bull Terrier, which is not the same thing.
I don’t particularly care which way that differentiation goes: maybe we should promote a term like “illegal fighting dogs” or “weapon dogs” for the so-called “pit bulls”, or maybe the dog-breeders’ associations should officially rename the APBT the “Greater Staffordshire” or something.
But I do think there’s merit in using clear and unambiguous terminology for controversial and emotionally charged topics. And I think it would be silly to act as though there was some kind of linguistic Prime Directive that prohibited us from “interfering” with ambiguous and confusing terms just because they evolved in the natural development of language.
There are times and places when linguistic prescriptivism is reasonable, and applying a little prescriptivism to deter confusion and misunderstanding is not the same thing as “passing judgment” on anybody else’s language use.
Your link above describes a stray pit bull in a city playground in Port Charlotte that attacked a bad man with a knife, scaring him away from the mother with a child.
You are praising a stray pit bull in a city playground? And praising the fact that of 3 potential targets, it went after a man with a knife?
FYI = even a broken clock gets it right twice a day.
A pit bull in chicago just this week had to be shot by police after mauling a child at a school bus stop. By chance, the cop happened to be nearby, because…he was on yet another pit bull mauling call.
also this week, an animal control officer praises a good samaritan neighbor who saved his life from a mauling pit bull…but it took 8, count 'em, 8, point blank shots to get the shit bull to stop mauling.
because a stray pit bull in a city park occasionally mauls a bad guy, is nothing to brag about. They maul far more innocent adults and children in parks, school bus stops, neighborhoods, and in their owner homes, than they maul bad guys. In fact, I would speculate pit bulls view bad guys as nothing more than collateral damage.
It is easy to find lots of anedotes about Pit Bulls and pit bulls that have saved lives. Thing is they are no more informative than the articles that call any muscular dog that mauled a pit bull. What did the editor decide would titilate viewers or readers that day? Heartwarming story of dog saving lives, or scary attack story? Fear usually sells better. Exceeded only by sex. Mix sex and fear together and you have a real winner! Argument by dueling anecdotes makes for good press copy but is not quite up to GD worthiness.
BTW DrDeth, your reference to the “no true Scotsman” fallacy merely reveals your ignorance of that fallacy means. What is going on here is actually quite the opposite: by common usage in the press and in police and ER reports any and almost all random muscular dogs that attack are defined as a “pit bull” without any appreciation by them or the general public that those dogs have only minimal overlap with the breed “Pit Bull” and thereby motivating attempts to go after the breed, rather than the dangerous dogs and more importantly the negligent and dangerous owners.
Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.”
Person B: “Seamus over there is Scottish, and he puts sugar in his porridge.”
Person A: “Um no. Seamus and all his family for generations as far as is known lives in Ireland. No Scottish heritage at all.”
is not a “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
The claim: “Pit Bulls are dangerous” justified by studies that classify as “pit bull” as any muscular dog involved in an attack even if it has only the most superficial passing resemblance to the breed, OTOH, is correctly dismissed by the tautological nature of the definition used and correctly dismissed as grounds for any action regarding the breed.
What is happening is declaring that anyone who puts sugar in their porridge is a Scotsman and defending that statement by saying that the people who say that mean “people who put sugar in their porridge” when they say “Scotsman”, not people of Scottish descent or people who live in Scotsland, what right have to claim over how that term should be used?! It means what people who use it says it means buddy. And then making some broad pronouncemnt against Scotsmen on the basis of how much sugar they use.
I propose using the term “muscle dog” for the sort of undetermined-breed aggressive muscular molossoid-looking dog that we’re talking about here, and reserving the term “Pit Bull” (always capitalized) for the actual breed American Pit Bull Terrier.
I think you’re overstating the case here. The lack of a hard-and-fast criterion for what comprises a breed isn’t the same as “anything goes.” Indeed most language lacks hard-and-fast rules: the most famous example is that there’s no single criterion for what a chair is. That doesn’t mean anyone is in danger of mistaking a bench for a chair.
The research that shows disproportionate numbers of dog attacks are pit bulls doesn’t indicate that AKC-registered pit bulls are dangerous, certainly not–but to say it’s only looking at muscular dogs involved in an attack is an overstatement unsupported by the evidence. The truth is likely in between.
Sorry, this dog won’t hunt. Look, spend any time volunteering at the local shelter (I have) and you know it’s full of:
1.the current fad dog (Chihuahua’s right now)
2.Pit Bull mixes, most seized.
3.more or less unadoptable dogs- too old, etc.
The Pit Bulls were often seized “in relation to” a Dog fighting investigation, or a drug raid, or just due to bad treatment.
Dog breeds are not species, there are no hard & fast lines (and even species lines are sometime fuzzy, note that dogs are now generally considered a wolf subspecies).
Muscular, solidly built short coats, broad flattish skull, wide deep muzzle. The head, coat and build are unmistakable. Now sure, most of these are “pit bull mixes’ no doubt (and the line between American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire terrier is rather thin). But the PB traits dominate. And, there are millions of them. They are very very common. These are not Golden retrievers or Labradors or German shepherds They are Pit Bulls, even if you call them “St. Francis Terriers"
Look, when raised right by a loving family these “pit bulls’ are wonderful family pets- a loving energetic doggie, which is usually quite healthy. I am not in favor of Breed specific legislation. I am in favor of spaying all dogs and outlawing all breeding without a permit.
But let’s not delude ourselves. Far too many Pit Bulls are raised and trained to be fighting dogs. Those dogs are dangerous.
Trying to say "Pit Bull attacks aren’t common as we can’t define Pit Bulls” is silly.
Might be interesting for folks to visit Petfinder.com and look at dogs identified as pit bulls in their region by SPCAs and other animal shelters. Granting that most dogs coming in to shelters aren’t AKC-registered purebreds, do the results really look that inaccurate to you?
