:rolleyes:
No, that’s what every dog owner says right before their dog eats some kids face.
Pitbulls aren’t dogs now? :smack:
Why am I obligated to acknowledge every piece of a persons post when my observation is only about one particular piece?
Like I said, I think twice now, I’m not saying any particular thing about cowgirl or her specific dog.
Having said that , with all the people accusing me of not acknowledging this or that, or chastising me for not using DOG in place of PITBULL, I’m suprised that no one is ACKNOWLEDGING that many communities have very special guidelines that must be met before they will let someone adopt a pitbull puppy (or other so called “trouble breeds”) from the pound. I know of several communities where they are BANNED outright. Why is that? Is it because they are less aggressive/dangerous than other large dogs and they don’t want the rest of the areas dogs being pussified by the pitbulls? No, it’s not.
I feel like I am being baited into hijacking this thread into a debate about why I hate pitbulls or why I THINK pitbulls are meaner than other dogs and I’m not going to do that. I’ve been around nice pits/rots/dobs that “wouldn’t harm a fly etc”. I don’t hate them but to act like there is no difference, tempermant and dangerousness (sp?) wise, between pits and labs in general is ridiculous.
StinkPalm, your problem is that breed-bans are worthless bullshit pieces of legislation based on fear-mongering and paranoia. You’ve bought into the media hype and paranoia; many people haven’t, including lots of Dopers, some of whom are posting here.
You’re getting called out because you are wrong. It’s been well-documented that most of the news stories you’re citing have misinformation regarding either the circumstances of the attack or the dog’s breed. Even when the news gets it right, people who’ve bought into the hype automatically assume that any dog-attack they hear about is a pitbull.
Many breeds of dog have been banned (or strong attempts made to do so) in various locations in the past - pitbulls are just the latest “bad breed” fad. But that’s an entirely different debate that’s been done here many times. Search GD for details.
So, as others have said, the “but he’s a harmless, lovey-dovey dog who never hurt anyone” is something that many (bad) dog owners say when their dog attacks. Fantasy and denial is not breed-related.
I don’t know about Baltimore County, but I know in Anne Arundel County, even if the dog’s shots are current, the dog gets placed under house arrest for 10 days. Our lab jumped excitedly on a neighbor, causing him no damage whatsoever, but he was nevertheless reported to Animal Control. So we had to quarantine him at home for 10 days; he couldn’t leave the house except to go into the yard, under supervision at all times, and the only place outside the house he was allowed to go was to the vet. So it’s probably similar to where you are, mhendo.
And if Baltimore County is like Anne Arundel County, after a second bite the dog can be confiscated and destroyed.
Your insurance company almost definitely won’t pay for your injuries if there’s a third party available to collect from with this kind of injury; the couple will have to pay the bill themselves. I seriously doubt their liability insurance would pay for a dog bite. (Our neighbor, however, didn’t even have a visible scratch or bruise, although he claimed he had an “abrasion.” The nice Animal Control officer couldn’t see it, either.)
I’m certainly not going to disagree with those that say that specific breeds are not ‘naturally’ more prone to attack than others, after all, I own the “Devil Dog” of the 70’and early 80’s, a Doberman. Moreover, as I wrote upthread, I’ve been friends with my vet* for over twenty years and he told me that over his long career most of the bites he’s gotten (and trust me he’s had a few) have come from none other than chihuahuas! As he explained to me, part of the reason being that – with apologies to toy-dog owners – since their bites are not all that ‘serious’ as compared to the larger breeds, some owners think it’s cute that their little rat-dogs can be so aggressive/valiant and thus don’t really work to correct the behavior.
Having said that, I will defend Stinkpalm to an obvious extent…and that is that the larger the dog, the more dangerous it can be if and when it attacks. Any breed over say, fifty/sixty pounds, has the potential to cause serious damage or even death to an adult. And I also think there’s no denying that many breeds were also genetically manipulated over centuries in order to produce a certain type of dog as was needed – a fact recognized by the AKC in the US and many other association world-wide. Thus a working dog, for instance, has different a different character than say, a sporting dog. So yeah, although one can fall into false generalizations, there’s no doubt that there are certain characteristics that are inbred. Doesn’t mean you can’t have a “Teddy Bear” of a Pitbull or a Dobie, nor that a Lab can’t be a ‘monster’, bu again, in general, the purer the breed the more it is expected to conform to its expected temperament.
Let’s face it, it is often said that there are “no bad dogs but bad owners,” and to a great extent I agree with that. But by the same token, not any dog is the right fit for any owner. I certainly wouldn’t recommend a Pit, a GDS or a Dobie to a first-time dog owner…
BTW, here’s a pretty good site for matching dogs and potential owners: Choosing a dog.
Just my $ .02.
*He’s one of the two top breeders of GSDs here and many of his dogs have won AKC awards. In fact, and rather ironically, my last dog prior to my Dobe, was a puppie from one of his Champions. And I say ‘ironically’ because as fine a dog specimen as he was (Tyson was his name) he only lived a bit over two years – died, as I recall, of something called pancreatic insufficiency. Damn! that hurts just remembering.
What are the differences? Can you provide cites?
If you’ve got a dog that bites just because they don’t like someone running up behind them, then you’ve got a dangerous dog on your hands. They may not have intended for it to happen, but that’s small consolation when someone’s been attacked.
Count me among the apparent majority of people who say, if you can’t control your own dog, that’s 100% your own responsibility. If you’re 95 and feeble, get a persian cat and stay home. If you have a large, strong dog, and you’re not able to control it 100%, walk it around your back yard.
You are all right. There are no cites. I made it all up. Pitbulls only make up a tiny tiny percentage of fatal/debilitating dog attacks. Pitbulls are the sweetest most loving, and most importantly safest dogs around.
Hopefully Disney will make a heartwarming feature film about a group of misunderstood pitbulls that is befriended by a family in need of some loving new pets after having to put their golden retriever down for mauling the quirky 3 year old brother who wears glasses.
Having written what I’ve written right before your post, I feel I should be able to back my claims as well. I mean, I know that you are a dog lover like myself – or even more – but surely you can’t be saying all breeds have the same expected temperament (and again, there are obviously exceptions to any rule, added to the fact of the type of training the dog gets – or lack thereof).
So beyond the link I posted above, here’s a few more:
Breeds Apart: Purebred dogs defined by DNA differences
I see they’re relying on CDC stats. AFAIK, the CDC has never done a study on pit bull attacks but rather rely on media and police accounts of such attacks, which often misidentify the breed.
All pitbulls are dogs, but not all dogs are pitbulls. Sorry the misleading bolding threw you off.
One of the reasons why Pit Bulls are the “evil dogs” right now is because they’re popular among people who shouldn’t be dog owners. Many times, one of these people buy a Pit Bull (or other related breed) and go out of their way to enforce a mean, agressive, attack-prone demeanor as possible. This includes fighting it against other dogs, smacking it and otherwise abusing it to have the dog equate aggressive behavior as the appropriate manner in which to deal with all living creatures, including the owner. It’s not typical of most Pit owners, and it’s especially uncommon of those owners who give enough of a shit to do some research on the pets that they buy.
Sure, you see plenty of aggressive Pit owners, but look at who their role models are most of the time: people who aren’t famous for anything significant who feature aggressive, dangerous and mutilated* dogs as part of their persona.
*Ear cutting and tail lopping is pretty barbaric, IMO.
Cite?
Once, I took 4 big dogs for a walk all at the same time. I am not a large person. Along came a neighbor, walking his tiny little shrimpy dog, and the dogs I had on lead went BERZERK. They lunged, I fell down entangled in leashes, I’m trying desperately to keep the dogs from going over and killing the little pom or whatever it was, and the guy with the pom just STARED at me like I should be doing more than I was doing to control 4 dogs that outweighed me by at least 80 lbs total. I was screaming “PICK UP YOUR DOG! GET HIM OUT OF HERE!” and the guy just stared at me. Eventually he did take the little dog away though. And I never tried walking 4 big dogs again.
My family poodle once bit the sheriff in the pant-leg. The sheriff shook him off and laughed. He said “That isn’t even a dog.”
Pete the Pup in the Little Rascals shorts was a Pit Bull. If that isn’t the best argument that all this hype about pit bulls is a media invention, I don’t know what is.
Not even people who’ve worked in animal rescue for years can reliably identify breeds, especially mixed breeds. Pit bulls are notoriously over-identified. I wouldn’t trust the average police officer to make a breed identification.
http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html
http://www.pbrc.net/poppysplace/games/AdultFindabull/findpitbull_v4.html
So you think a breed cannot be significantly altered through selective (or careless backyard) breeding in…(1939-1944)…over 60 years? Seriously?
Aw Mhendo, that’s a awful bite. I totally understand you cussing the dog owners out. I was a letter carrier for 12 years. My worst dog attack was a German Shepherd that ran at me, leapt into the air right at my face. I put my arm in front of my face and he clamped down hard on that. He knocked me down. If it weren’t for the fact that it happened to be winter and I had a big parka on, I would have had a really bad bite. I did have a wound that bled even under all that padding, just from the bite pressure on my arm. Now, at the time, I was a reasonably polite woman who was at work, so I didn’t usually swear, and especially not on the job at customers that I would continue to see every day, but boy did that owner get an earful. I didn’t even get bit that bad, but the experience of getting bitten leaves a person really rattled. It’s the adrenaline that kicks in. Then to have the owner dismiss it or blame you for their dogs behavior, well, you get what you get for stupid comments like that, and I don’t care what age you are.
I agree, that looks like something that’s going to hurt a lot more over the next couple of days and will take a long time to heal. I can picture the owners perhaps not realizing how much damage to the skin there was under the blood at the time of the bite. I think they should be shown the photos you posted.