What it distills down to is that people who should not have dogs gravitate toward pits. I am sure a pit kept by responsible people are pretty safe. But those are not the dogs we run into. The ones we encounter are loose and poorly trained, perhaps trained to fight.
I have personally had 6 encounters with loose pits while I was walking my beagle. One time I dropped my dog into a trash can to keep him from a pit. Each and every time ,the owner ran up and said "he never did that before’. It is only big dogs that people let run loose in the park. No body opens their car door and lets their Peke run loose. They are always on leashes. If it means that the owners are at fault and pits are pure as the driven snow, it does not matter. The fact is pits we encounter in life are apt to be dangerous. They are always scary. They are not under control. That is the fact I deal with.
I guess the next time a loose pit comes running up to me .I will just scratch it on the head. After all, they are just like any other dog. I have to assume it just a sweet little puppy.
Well, pulling an imaginary rule of thumb out of your ass is one way to go. Especially if you can’t be bothered to evaluate the posts for what they actually say, and weigh the evidence accordingly.
A couple of things. Well, three.
- This topic doesn’t mean quite a bit to me. My experiences, coupled with my research, have led me to certain conclusions, but I don’t have much invested in these conclusion. The debate is basically a form of entertainment for me; when it stops being entertaining, I step away.
- I do truly believe you’re arguing from a stance of bias. Hey, you said you’d like to know. I think you’re operating from ignorance only to the extent that you’re reinterpreting everything you read to be favorable toward your preconceived notions.
- I do not think the CDC and AVMA are nearly as much on your side as you believe they are. I think you’ve vastly overstated the degrees to which they agree with you.
That said, if you really want me to continue the debate, here are some things you’ll need to do.
- Knock it off with the poisoning-the-well tactics by declaring (with a faintly martyred sigh) that you’re carrying on the good fight against ignorance. If you’re going to start off by assuming that your opponents are simply ignorant, there’s little chance you’ll give their positions a fair hearing, and I see no reason to waste my leisure time.
- Knock it off with assuming that you’ve won a point that’s not been conceded. You keep calling dogbitelaw a shyster site, but I haven’t seen convincing evidence that it is. That point is in contention. This is just one example of your doing this obnoxious behavior.
- Limit yourself to a maximum of one response per post; keep your responses short and to the point (a good rule of thumb is that on average you shouldn’t be exceeding the length of the post you’re responding to); don’t do that line-by-line refutation thing. Remember, this debate is in my leisure time, and I have no interest in wading through a sea of words because you couldn’t be bothered to trim away the excess verbiage. Take the time to make your point concisely.
Note that I’m not asking you to refrain from misinterpreting both your cites and mine. That behavior can be annoying, but I think it’s the crux of the debate. Similarly, I’m not asking you to refrain from misinterpreting my point–although I will ask you, if I tell you you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying, to take me at my word on this and seek clarification.
I don’t expect these conditions to be acceptable to you, and that’s just ducky. I’ve got other things to do. But if they are, I’ll participate to a limited extent in this thread.
I do not know why I’m bothering to enter this discussion, since I’m not really invested in these issues. Also, I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to keep it up. If my post is merely a drive-by, well, so be it, my apology in advance. But the subject is interesting on its own merits, despite the shitstorm.
First I’ll say that I do not support breed bans. But not because I believe all breeds to be equal; rather, I think bans are ineffective because they fail to address the root problem, which is people who desire and/or glorify “macho” (i.e., aggressive) dog behavior and are irresponsible in the socialization and control of their dogs. The specific breed that is the currently fashionable “big bad boy” changes with time, as do all fads. Further, some breeds, especially certain small ones, appear to appeal to owners who reward behaviors that would be completely unacceptable in larger animals (“Oh, isn’t little Killer cute when he snaps and growls like that?! Such a funny baby!!”) and to breed dogs that exhibit those behaviors.
Still, while I agree with NajaNivea’s position on bans, I find your arguments to be unsatisfying. You rely in large measure on a statement from AVMA to the effect that “Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite.7”. You repeatedly link to that paper and that statement as if that was, as Mark Twain might remark, “a settler”. It isn’t.
You left off the reference to the citation on which this statement is based (“7”) which tracks to this link !PDF! 1991 article by J.C. Wright, PhD, an animal behaviorist. Interestingly, at that time the poster child “bad boy” of the dog world was apparently the German Shepherd. But the thrust of the article relates little to breed identification, for good or for ill, but rather to the problem of dog bites in general, the complexity of the problem, and the need for a comprehensive approach to its solution. Wright himself cites a multitude of studies identifying one breed as the leader in bite cases (the GSD) and makes no attempt to refute breed specific factors as having a role. He notes that “aggressive behavior is not a unitary phenomenon” and concludes that “canine aggression toward people is a complex, multivariate phenomenon” and solving the problem of dog aggression will “necessitate more than simplistic statements regarding breed”. Indeed, he mentions pit bulls only once, and that to apparently accept a breed related aggressive behavior. In regard to dogs releasing their victim when the victim does not struggle, he says “…dogs release their grip and discontinue the attack. There may be exceptions to this ‘rule’ for certain dogs (e.g., ‘pit bulls’)”. From this, it seems difficult to conclude that Wright supports your contention that breed specific aggressive behaviors are totally unsupportable by statistics.
The table from here !PDF!, Gershman, Sacks and Wright also from 1991, again identifies GSD as the number one threat. This study, by the way, used a random pair analysis to produce its conclusions. Without belaboring the point, this seems a reasonably valid methodology. At any rate, here Wright (et al) does offer objections to statistical identifiers for bad breeds, primarily citing misidentification as a factor. Further, it is correct that the more populous breeds should show a correlation to involvement in all associated phenomena, biting included. (The more Dalmations in the general dog population mix, the more Dalmation shit deposited in the local park, compared to less popular breeds.) So as pit types increase in popularity, they should also increase in statistical representation in all dog related occurrences. And you are correct that many breeds and breed mixes are phenotypically similar to pit type dogs, and pit types may therefore be over-represented in offhand identifications. So you toss aside all statistical evidence, and conclude that Wright gives you leave to do so.
But this is not sufficient for you to hand wave away the fact that Wright himself (et al) offers a table of Predominant Breed Distribution (with GSD and Chow at the statistical top) and offers the following statement in conclusion:
The emphasis is mine, and it shows that this study and these authors conclude that there are indeed breed specific factors involved in dog bites. These are not to the exclusion of other factors, especially issues related to gender and its expression, but are breed specific nonetheless. Note, by the way, that pit bull types are not represented in this study, apparently because at that time possession of the breed had been outlawed in the study area for two years.
Your entire argument requires the invalidation of all statistical studies, including those above. You say:
But all the hand waving in the world cannot discount Sacks, Sinclair, Gilchrist, Golab, and Lockwood here. !PDF! Their data includes both HSUS database and media accounts, and I’ll accept some issues with hysteria, media hype, and other factors having an influence on breed identification. You reject Clifton !PDF! as a “steaming pile of fly-ridden nonsense” but offer no specific refutation. It appears that Sacks et al supports Clifton, not you.
To accept your conclusion (that there is either no link or no proven link between breed and biting) it would be necessary for there to have been as recently as 1991 a wholesale country-wide misidentification of everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors, as GSD-type dogs, and today everything from Poodles to Collies, Beagles to Komondors are being misidentified as “medium-sized, short-coated dog with a broad skull and semi-prick ears” instead. Either that, or such dogs now represent an overwhelming majority of all dogs kept as pets. Or both. For those would be the only ways to explain “pit type dogs” jutting Everest-like out of the statistical background of dog-breed molehills in bite reports.
Either that, or there really IS something about the breed.
Your lack of interest in the topic doesn’t make it any more right for you to assert (or agree with an assertion) that my professional experience causing me to feel strongly about refuting urban legends as they relate to dog-breed hysteria makes me a nutcase… and your accusation of bias is unsupported by any evidence yet offered, by you or anyone else.
As to your point #3, fine, then let’s see some evidence for this case. I’ve already provided the link to the AVMA’s report several dozen times, so it should be easy to find.
I did not start off by assuming that my opponents are simply ignorant. I came to that conclusion after a lengthy discussion four weeks ago, and two pages worth of discussion this time, wherein my opponents’ sole debate platforms were “because I think so” and “because everyone knows it’s true”. I tried very hard to give your position a fair hearing, even asking repeatedly for clarification, which you declined repeatedly to provide. I will not deny I’ve gotten snarky here and there, but honestly, it’s like being in the middle of an anti-vax thread, where people keep popping in to tell me how many kids they know who have autism because of their vaccination history, and who cite Jenny McCarthy’s attorney as “evidence”. Eventually it gets awfully tiresome–how many times, and in how many ways can I link to the CDC and AVMA before just calling bullshit seems like the best possible option?
If the CDC and AVMA’s direct quotes refuting the Clifton report don’t convince you, then you and Ms. McCarthy really are two peas in a pod. The point is not in contention by any reputable expert. A dog bite attorney trolling for plaintiffs is not so objective and unbiased as you might imagine.
Disliking my style and winging that you just don’t have the time is still no refutation of my argument. I’ve done a line-by-line refutation exactly once in this thread, and that was in response to a poster who spewed a post written directly from the Pit Bull Urban Legend handbook. He deserved it. You will too, if you resort to the same nonsense. It’s not typically my style, but sometimes nothing else seems to work.
Now, you want to provide some support or an apology for your name-calling as it referred to the allegedly vicious way I maligned and slandered you before? Or is this to be taken as a concession?
Either way, I look forward to exploring the nuances of your argument.
I don’t accept the misidentification argument either. people know what a Pit looks like. If it is mixed .it won’t be with a Peke. They usually go for bigger and stronger. Many select Pits because they figure it is the baddest dog around. It is not generally the choice for people who want a lap dog.
…But this is exactly what I’ve been trying to argue all along. That there are quite a few breeds with higher-than-average tendencies to use their teeth on human flesh… that these breeds are not by any means all of the “pit dog” phenotype, and that a dog looking vaguely like a pit bull is by no means the best identifier of such risks. Dog aggression is an extremely complex topic and an enormous social problem… and myopic focus on one minor piece of the puzzle is no way to solve it.
But again, this study, as all others, rely on only half-complete statistics. There are plenty of other breeds (some of which you mention below) which are much harder, more volatile dogs, much more inclined toward human aggression. That a Chow is ranked right on up there, but, say, a Presa Canario doesn’t show up at all in a study that didn’t survey less-common breeds doesn’t mean that a Chow is more inherently dangerous than a Presa, and that’s my biggest problem with using these sorts of stats as evidence to support breed bans and the like… or even with using such reports to decide which dogs are “safe” to leave unattended with your children. I said, as did the CDC and the AVMA, that there are several problems with the methodology used previously to collect such statistics, and that there are several problems why such stats don’t really tell us what we think they do, when we see such lists which purport to rank breed aggression.
Well, to be fair, my specific refutation pretty much lies solely in the AVMA report, as well as the CDC commentary that:
(emphasis mine)
Because of these problems with census and so on, these numbers are meaningless as far as compiling useful statistics. That doesn’t mean GSDs and other protection breeds aren’t more potentially risky in terms of human-targeted aggression, simply that we don’t have good enough statistics at this time to make the conclusions that those referring continually to Clifton would like.
I think you’ve missed a third option: that at the time of the earlier report, the “bad dog du jour” for the shitty dog owners was the GSD, just as today, the “bad dog du jour” for shitty dog owners is the pit dog. Shitty owners make for shitty dogs, so that ill-tempered and uncontrolled GSDs were predominant in bite reports then, and ill-tempered and uncontrolled pit dogs are predominant in bite reports now makes perfect sense to me.
Furthermore, I absolutely do agree that back then every random mutt would have been misidentified as a GSD. After all, the default dog, product of any random population breeding randomly results in a phenotype just about like this. At the time, any random mutt would have fit the same vague profile of “shepherd type”, just as today’s random mutt fits the same vague “pit dog” profile. Look at those dogs, and imagine the general features… almond-shaped eyes, muscular chest, kinda thick around the muzzle… and now imagine a healthy push in the general direction of “bulldog type” with a glut of pit dogs entering the breeding population, about twenty years ago.
I have handled too many dogs to make any sort of claim that no breed is more potentially human-aggressive than any other, or that there are some breeds that should not be handled by novices or the general dog-owning public. My problem lies primarily in the willingness of such folks like Magiver to cheerfully ignore that a much larger percentage of fatal dog attacks were perpetrated by unrestrained or unattended dogs than by pit bulls.
That’s easy, what I don’t undestand is why you would post a link titled:** A community approach to dog bite prevention** as a link titled Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite after admitting this: **Oh, so you were talking about dog aggression… which as a trait of pit dogs has never at any point been under contention. **
Pit bulls are an aggressive breed, and when combined with an ability to do great damage pose a greater threat than other breeds. It is the combination that makes it so. I don’t worry about yappy dachshunds because I can stomp them into the ground if they were to bite me and latch on. I don’t worry about Labradors because getting licked to death is extremely rare.
You are right to be concerned about an unattended pit dog, but again the most concerning factor there is not breed… else there’d be no concern over a stray chow, GSD, Rottweiler, Dobie, or Perro de Presa Canario, would there?
The biggest concerning factor you’re describing is that an unattended dog is significantly concerning evidence that there is no “good dog owner” behind the training and socializing of that unattended animal. A loose husky mix should be no less concerning. If you’re inclined to walk up and pat a stray *anything *on the head, you’re looking for trouble.
One, because it wasn’t a title, it was a quote. Two, because dog aggression* is not *human aggression. They are two different things, with vastly different genetic roots. That both may *also *stem from poor socialization and mishandling doesn’t mean they’re both a consequence of a breeding for pit fighting.
That a poorly socialized and mishandled pit dog might bite someone I have no doubt. My big problem is with the contention that this is somehow a result of their breeding for* dog aggression*.
Looks to me like you don’t agree to those rules of debate I suggest. Fine. Take it as a concession, as a blow-off, or as a clown blowing balloons out of his ass, I don’t give a shit.
How so, punkin? You keep launching accusations and making spurious *ad hoc *claims, and then acting like I’m a nutcase when I respond. This isn’t *my *failing. I asked you twice for proof that I had done the things you accused me of in that thread. The next time you launch a spurious ad hoc attack against me, my response won’t be nearly so mannerly.
In any case, you don’t get to make the rules. That’s kinda how this whole “debate” thing works. You make claims, then provide evidence (or don’t, as the case my be), and I respond. Sorry if that sticks in your craw, but I’m not going to let you get away with tossing off all sort of spurious nonsense without some sort of response.
Well, I’d say that even by the most “generous” statistics, a half-dozen out of 4.7 million incidents, .00001% or so, makes getting mauled to death by a pit bull extremely rare, too. Even including all dog bite related fatalities, you’re several times more likely to get struck by lightning than killed by a dog.
I’m not sure what statistic you’re quoting. Of 4.7 million dog bite incidents, only 6 were pit bulls who killed someone?
Rotts, Dobermans, and Presa Canarios are also breeds with a reputation of being dangerous. I would be concerned about them every bit as much as a pit bull, and substantially less so than an escaped golden retriever or cocker spaniel.
ETA: the only difference is that Doberman owners don’t pretend their dog isn’t dangerous. Doberman owners seem to be more likely to handle their dogs appropriately than Pitt Owners, and Doberman owners tend to have a more realistic view of their dogs. Nobody who owns a pit bull thinks their dog is dangerous.
Right. Which doesn’t explain the continued fervent insistence by several folks in this thread that pit dogs are astronomically more likely to be dangerous to people than any other breed of dog.
My point is not that no dog is more dangerous than any other, just that pit bulls are not the demonic hellspawn some would like to make them out to be, any more than German Shepherd Dogs were in the 70’s.
No, what you’ve been doing all along is defending pit bull dogs.
That is indeed your assertion, but I do not accept it as correct. There are likely identification and population-mix issues with these data, but by no means are they sufficient to cast the entire database out. Look, when the balance beam dips this far to one side, no reasonable amount of confusion about the genetic identity of pit-like dogs is enough to undermine the reality that agression has some basis in breed. And pit-types are to be included in “breeds with aggressive tendencies”.
Nor is it reasonable for you to insist upon some complete separation between dog-directed aggression and human-directed aggression. Admittedly I work primarily with wild animals, not domestic breeds, but I know of no such inviolable delimitation. Aggressive animals are aggressive animals, and humans are merely other animals of a size that may or may not be subject to attack. Although this is exactly what “domestication” attempts to inhibit, and even given the fact that dogs including pits are “domestic animals”, a tendency to inhibit aggression against humans can still be overcome by baser instincts. Some species, and certain individuals of many species, reach (for a large variety of reasons, some relevant to this discussion, some not) a mental state wherin an attack will occur with either more or less stimulus. At that point, the animal in question makes little distinction between humans and other creatures. Pits are not exempt from this.
Again, I do not support breed bans. Nor do I condemn pits for being what they are (whatever that is) any more than I condemn my rattlesnakes for striking at me. But I think you do a disservice by failing to admit that there are some breed specific tendencies for aggression in a number of breeds, and working to get all dog owners, regardless of breed, to be more proactive in proper socialization and proper control.
Ahh, on preview I see that your latest post offers a more nuanced approach. Congratulations! I find it much more agreeable than your previous efforts.
Of course I’m not discounting your personal experiences. Mine however are opposite.
It’s odd, because I live right outside Philadelphia where there are tons of dogs, and a high percentage of Pits and bull breeds, as well as a large dog fighting I have dogs myself and walk them daily where we encounter many neighborhood dogs, as well as making many trips to our local dog park. I am also active in the rescue community, most of my friends have dogs, and all in all I have fairly close contact with many dogs and multiple pit bulls… daily. Although I don’t own one myself.
Yet I have never had an aggressive incident with a pit or bull breed, involving myself or any of my three dogs. Any visit to the dog park, half of the dogs there are ‘pits bulls’ and nary a conflict. There are 5 living on my block alone and they are all well-behaved, personable dogs.
My three hated dogs in my canine social circle neighborhood are a Standard Poodle (high-energy with an ineffectual owner who considers bringing him to our dog park to harass the other dogs his ‘exercise’ when he clearly needs to have all that energy run off before he comes anywhere near other dogs), an enormous Golden Retriever (the only dog my Shepherd has ever fought - he pulled his leash out of his owners hands and pinned my poor Ferdy to the sidewalk, thankfully neither was badly hurt), and a very scary 200-lb Mastiff mix whose dumbass owners always let him off lead in a public field.
Referencing my above post: when I encounter a pitbull, loose or leashed, I am no more concerned than when I see any other breed of dog, loose or leashed - I have no reason to be, since I haven’t had any problems with them being aggressive towards me or my dogs in the past.
If you have, then it only makes sense that you would be cautious when you are around pits or bull breeds.
Well… I guess that’s just a fundamental difference between you and me. When the CDC says it and the AVMA fully backs it up, then I guess I just take that as factual gospel for the purposes of this discussion. If you want to keep contending that these two organizations meant something else when they said
…or that your opinion should matter more than theirs, then, well, like I said, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
Not true. I, too, work with wild animals, and aggressive wild animals have no real connection to a discussion about selectively emphasized behavioral traits. The root factors behind a propensity to enjoy fighting with other dogs are very different than the root factors behind a propensity to view people with suspicion and to carry a low threshold for attacking human beings. While it is true that a highly reactive, highly aggressive animal can be aggressive indiscriminately, this is a different conversation than a discussion about the root genetics and socialization factors that cause dog aggressive traits, and the genetics and socialization factors that cause human-aggressive traits. Even “human targeted aggression” comes in a lot of different flavors, and what one breed, type, or individual is prone to is not necessarily the same as others. It’s a very complex topic, and the line isn’t hard and fast, but the differences are there all the same. It’s one reason why pit dogs make such terrible personal protection or sportwork or police dogs.
In any case, there are lots of reasons why dogs bite, and most of them aren’t due to “aggression” per se as you keep describing it.
You’re right that pits are not exempt from untoward aggression issues, no breed of dog is. This is true across the board for all breeds and is no support for a contention that pit dogs are drastically more dangerous than any other dog. However, pit dogs have been heavily selected against this propensity with a culling program for human aggression more rigid and more lengthy than any other breed. Consider that a pit dog by necessity was tested for human aggression in the heat of battle and the consequence for failure on this matter was a swift bullet in the head. Very few other breeds have received anything even remotely like this specific and heavy directed pressure against human aggression. Having been tested and selected for this trait does not mean pits are magically non-dangerous, just that as a broad generalization I trust a pit to keep sensible in stressful situations far… far more than I trust most other breeds.
I’ve been saying for months on this board that there are many, many breeds which carry traits with far more significant potential for translation to human-targeted aggression. That’s been one of my biggest points of contention for the frothy “pits are eeeeeevil” POV that floats around. That large, high-drive working breeds, and in particular guardian and personal protection breeds, carry more potential risk than small, sedentary dogs is not a point under contention. The point under contention has always been that pits are somehow drastically more dangerous than any of these other dogs. Personally, I think it has a whole lot more to do with the types of people that get a dog wanting a four-footed weapon than the breed itself, but maybe that gives too much credit to the average dog-owning public. To my mind, its a little bit like blaming guns for homicide. Sure, a gun is potentially lethal, and a semi-automatic rifle is more potentially lethal than an air rifle, but it still requires mismanagement on the part of a human being for it to kill someone. I blame bad dog owners across the board when their dogs misbehave, regardless of breed. I blame them even more when it’s clear they’ve gotten themselves more dog than they can handle.
Again, maybe that’s giving too much credit to the average dog-owning public.
That my efforts in this thread have mostly been about debunking the urban legends doesn’t mean I don’t firmly believe in “working to get all dog owners, regardless of breed, to be more proactive in proper socialization and proper control.” In fact, that’s been my one insistence from the start of the initial thread, last month–that breed-specific prejudices are useless for increasing public safety as it relates to dog bite incidents… that the one consistent factor is mismanagement of the dog, and that comprehensive, behavioral based legislation along with widespread “dog bite prevention” education is what’s needed.
I think we see pretty well eye-to-eye on that one.
I do want to thank you for your participation in this thread. It’s a breath of fresh air.