I agree with you here, gonzomax. Your point is spot-on. There’s a reason why Pitbulls are considered the “baddest” dogs around by many people who select them; they’re bred for fighting and for attack, and, contrary to what lots of people say, it’s not “just the owner”, but the dog itself. Pitbulls have both the means (the DNA and physique) and the motives (temperament) to inflict much heavier damage than most dogs, and they do.
Way to go, The Flying Dutchman!! This:
is spot-on!!
I disagree with you, NajaNivea. I know of at least two episodes, in which a pitbull had to be clubbed or shot to death, just to save their prey from being mauled or torn to death. One episode occurred in a workingclass section of Boston, in which a woman’s dog was attacked by an unmuzzled pitbull and severely mauled. A passing neighbor saved the victimized dog’s life by clubbing the marauding pitbull to death with a baseball bat. The victimized dog barely survived as it was.
Another episode occurred in the downtown section of Boston, in which a policeman was attacked and bitten in the leg by an unmuzzled, loose pitbull, which, as pitbulls do, clamped down upon the cop’s leg. Another cop had to pump a whole round of carbines into the pitbull just to make it let go. Most dogs don’t have to be clubbed or shot to death just to make them let go their grip on their prey. That being said, requiring their owners to muzzle their pitbulls while out in public, and to put warning signs about their pitbull’s presence in their place of residence or business isn’t a terrible restriction, but very moderate and reasonable, imho. Nobody’s asking pitbull owners to get rid of their dogs, but to take the responsibility that goes along with owning such a dog. I don’t think that pitbulls are meant to have as pets, but they should be restricted in densely populated urban and/or even suburban areas.
I agree, it doesn’t make much sense to use media reports as a definitive method to count all severe dog attacks, but Clifton himself believes it to be true. In his description of methodology he claims: “Due to the exclusion of dogs whose breed type may be uncertain, this is by no means a complete list of fatal and otherwise serious dog attacks. Attacks by police dogs, guard dogs, and dogs trained specifically to fight are also excluded.”
Also, of course such a sample is necessarily unrepresentative. Partly because the media will report absolutely anything as a “pit bull”, partly because “pit bull mauling” stories are way sexier than “mutt of indeterminate origin bite” stories, and partly because a list of severe dog attacks that includes breeds like “chox mix” and “buff mastiff” and three different names for a single breed, alleging that “experts” identified them as such is… let’s say, less than accurate.
According to Clifton, dogs of indeterminate breed origin, or dogs that have been trained to fight or attack in the line of duty. I agree… it doesn’t make much sense.
I did not compare one to the other, I said I had no desire to be bitten by any dog. YMMV but I like to keep all my blood on one side of my skin, if possible.
How much experience do you have with big-game hunting dogs in the performance of duty? Working military, personal protection, and police dogs? People have been breeding eastern European herding dogs to hang on to the bad guy in spite of clubbing and bullet wounds for more than a hundred years.
I don’t even necessarily disagree with the sentiments behind a statement like this, what boggles my mind is how pit bulls are singled out for this, over and above several much more “dangerous” breeds. I want people to take the responsibility that goes with owning such a dog any time the dog is a medium to large sized working breed capable of doing severe damage if involved in conflict–as I pointed out before, that includes a wide range of breeds. I want rottweilier owners to take just as much responsibility as pit bull owners, GSD, Chow, Akita, Malamute, Mastino and Presa owners, too. Many of these breeds I don’t really feel are appropriate for urban and/or even suburban areas, but the history is very clear: breed specific legislation has been tried and does not work. It’s hugely costly and entirely ineffective at reducing the number of dog bites or number of severe dog bites.
There are two basic reasons for this: one, because you cannot identify a dangerous dog by the label “pit bull”. Plenty of other breeds are responsible for severe attacks, even if we are to assume it’s true that pits are responsible for a plurality of attacks. Even going by Clifton’s ridiculous numbers, it’s less than half. Secondly, when you start legislating against a medium-sized, very temperamentally pliable breed like a pit bull, the “bad guys” who want a four-footed canine weapon simply turn to much bigger, much badder breeds, as we’re seeing with the “exotic” molossers now entering the “bad dog arena”. Even a “moderate” plan like the one you propose has flaws: muzzled pit bulls don’t help when the stray dog mauling you is a chow mix (or even a “chox” mix, whatever that is), nor does a “dangerous pit bull” sign on a premises help you if the poorly-socialized and untrained dog is a GSD. Furthermore, freak dog attacks are exceedingly rare. Most dog bites happen by the family dog or a friend’s dog, most happen at home or in a familiar place, and most times the victim is a child. Pit bulls muzzled in public don’t stop the chained boxer mix from mauling the unattended toddler that wanders within range.
It is for these reasons that the CDC, AVMA, and ASPCA recommend comprehensive, behavior-based legislation which applies to all “dangerous dogs” regardless of breed or type, as well as extensive good dog-ownership education and dog bite prevention education. Unlike breed-specific legislation, these methods* do* work.
I’m curious: how does their DNA and physique compare to these dogs, all much larger than pit bulls, and all bred to fight much larger, much more dangerous animals (with much better weapons at their disposal) to the death?
Sure, now we are supposed to DNA dogs that attack you.
We know St. Bernards could do a lot of damage but because of that fact, the breeders bred for a docile temperament. But since pits are used in dog fighting ,they have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Why are you in such a state of denial? Pit bulls are bred to fight. Does that mean the next pit born will be a killer? No ,but the probability is a lot higher. Dog bites are one thing, but a dog that kills is another. A dog would have to be rabid to match the determination of a pit.
A little blood doesn’t bother me. A month never goes by that I don’t get a little break in the skin, mostly on my hands. It is the tearing flesh and the prospect of death that concerns me.
Lots of dogs are used to fight animals much larger and much more dangerous than other medium-sized dogs, they have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Lots of dogs are used to fight and kill human beings. They have been bred for an aggressive demeanor. Why are you in such a state of denial?
That’s an interesting take on the subject. Experts disagree.
Sorry, but I’m going to go with the AVMA and my own extensive personal and professional experience, instead of your gut feeling on this one. I’m not “afraid” of any dog, regardless of the size of their teeth, but I will handle all dogs of unknown background with equal caution. Yes, cocker spaniels, too.
Sure thing, the news is full of stories about poodles being killed by cops because they would not quit attacking a mail man. Those poodles are just so dangerous. It is amazing what people can convince themselves of.
I don’t deny the next pit I run into may be a sweet doggie. It could happen. But if you have any respect for statistics , you have to admit I would be a fool not to be wary of a loose pit. I am more likely to be in trouble encountering a pit than any other dog. And the degree of trouble is much higher. If I get attacked by a poodle , I can kick it away. That is not effective on a pit. They will eat your foot.
Who brought up poodles as an example?
A small toy or mini poodle, maybe. I doubt you could shake a standard poodle off if it really wanted to attack you.
Checking back in.
NajaNivea, although you continue to condemn Clifton, and offer a blog in support, others have repeatedly pointed out your error. Clifton is not, and does not purport to be, a *comprehensive and exhaustive *compilation. It is instead a *representative *compilation. So when you try to calculate some absolute number of fatal dog attacks and/or hospital admissions using Clifton’s 24 year data span and then show that this does not comport with actual fatal dog attacks and/or hospital admissions, you have not demonstrated any error in Clifton, but only an error in your own methodology. Clifton is more like a Nielson rating or a political telephone poll than a survey in which 100% of all possible participants are included. There are problems with this, but not the ones you point to.
Clifton does indeed rely on media reports, and these can certainly be slanted toward sensationalized accounts. There will surely be under-reporting of incidents that do not fit the media “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy. So I would expect nips that do not draw blood as well as bites not requiring hospitalization to be under-represented in Clifton. It seems acceptable to me to ignore this bias, since we are actually discussing serious danger, not how often Grandma’s Chihuahua nips family members who have the temerity to sit on the couch. Perhaps we should read Clifton’s “totals” as “totals of medium and large breeds” instead of “totals of all breeds” since small dogs are unlikely to cause enough harm to attract media attention.
You also condemn Clifton for reporting multiple names for the same breed. Why is this a problem? Clifton is only repeating the identifications provided to him, and is making no assumptions himself of the “actual” breeds involved. He is relying on supposedly authoritative sources for these identifications. You, if you wish, can add together whatever Clifton’s sources incorrectly parse out and place them into whatever you consider to be a correct breed. This in no way changes the percentage representation of Pit-like dogs in the total sample.
Earlier in the thread you made much of the supposed mis-identification of breed by visible appearance versus genotype. I’m sure you know that genotyping of dog breeds is fraught with problems-- differences in methodologies such as the specific genetic markers chosen for comparison, differences in databases used for comparison, even differences in the “representative specimens” chosen for inclusion in those databases in the first place. Dog genotype results frequently come back with the greatest percentage of “breed” of less than 25%, and with half a dozen or more other breeds making up the remaining 75+%. This is seen even in supposed purebred dogs! Dog breeds are too recent, too plastic, and too subject to outcrossing even in supposed purebred lines for genetic typing to be highly reliable in defining breed. So to declare as you do that genetic results demonstrate that animal control workers and other associated people are completely unreliable in their identifications, or systemically unreliable, is not supported by fact.
I will accept that there is some level of misidentification in Clifton. After all, we are talking about media accounts here. But come on-- when the media interviews the AC officer on site of an attack who says the dog looks like a GSD, or a Collie, or even a Bulldog, and asks the owner what kind of dog and the owner replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, and asks the shelter worker what kind of dog and the shelter worker replies GSD or Collie or Bulldog, the media doesn’t just call it a Pitbull because that sounds scary. And they don’t just dump a good bloody story because it wasn’t a Pit.
I accept that some rare breeds, and some rare breed mixes, and even some individuals of common breeds are surely misreported as Pits in Clifton. I am also quite sure that there are some AC workers and some shelter workers who cannot tell a Pit from a Catahoula, or even from a Pomeranian. But by the very nature of Clifton’s survey, any such person will likely contribute only a single misidentification, as it is most unlikely that this same person will be involved in any larger number of media-reported maulings. To claim that such people are actually the majority of ACs and shelter workers, this being necessary if you wish to reject all identifications in Clifton, seems quite a stretch, and is not supported by evidence (although this is *asserted *repeatedly).
Clifton also does not take into account the relative populations, or popularity levels, of dog breeds. All other factors being equal, we should expect the most populous breed to produce the highest incidence of – well, anything, including bites. But in order to discount Clifton on this basis, at least half and approaching three quarters of all dogs owned (or of all medium and large dogs, see paragraph above regarding small breeds) would have to be Pit-types. While I might accept such a dominance of market share in certain areas or neighborhoods, I do not believe it to be true nationwide.
Clifton is by no means perfect, and I do not cite it as evidence that breed specific regulations or breed specific bans are appropriate or useful in reducing dangerous dog problems. I do not believe that Clifton makes any conclusive case for such regulation. And I’ll repeat that I do not support bans or similar breed specific regulation. As has been pointed out repeatedly by NajaNivea (credit where it is due) and many others, dog attacks are a complex problem whether they be fatal or only painful, inflicted upon humans, dogs, or other animals. Solutions will need to be equal to the complexity of the problem, and bans are a simplistic and ineffective palliative that should be avoided. To start, I believe that people should be held strictly accountable for the actions of their pets, whatever the breed, indeed whatever the species.
Abusive owners and failures in or deliberate avoidance of socialization certainly contribute to the dog bite problem, especially during the current fad for “bad” Pits. However, even given the problems noted above, Clifton does demonstrate that “Pit-type dogs” (in a rather flexible non-definition that includes at least some representatives of other defined breeds and crosses by way of definition) are a statistical supernova to the universal background noise of dog attacks. To refuse to accept this is to play the ostrich game.
Time for the Twelve Step Program. Step One:
“My name is NajaNivea, and I admit that Pits are a problem…” 
He actually does make such a claim, as quoted above. He does not state “this is a proportional representation, the media only reports on a very small number of severe dog attacks”, he claims to be making a comprehensive report, excluding only all “dogs of indeterminate breed background and dogs trained to fight or attack”.
Why is this a problem? Because Clifton is relying on sources purported to be “expert” who identify dogs as breeds which do not exist. I’m not going to sort through Clifton’s report and make arbitrary changes based on what I think those experts meant, after all, he’s the one who claims “expert” authority, and I fail to see why the same experts who identified a “buff mastiff” as perpetrating an attack not to call any random boxer mix a “pit bull”.
We also have no way whatsoever to verify these accounts, because there is no record of the reports he used to make his list, nor is there any record of independent verification.
Really? Never? These examples of media misidentification were dismissed as “anecdotes” earlier, yet these were only the ones caught due either to photos of obviously non-pit-type dogs included with the report, or caught due to later retractions which, as you might imagine are… rare.
Why do you think the AVMA includes the following quote on the *very first page * of their report?
Why do you suppose neither the CDC nor the AVMA cite Clifton as reliable? Why, again, should I accept your recommendation that I do so?
I’m still waiting for some reason why I should accept your layman’s assessment of these statistics, above the CDC and AVMA?
Emphasis mine.
You may believe pits to be a specific and “supernova like” problem, but according to all relevant experts, unsocialized, intact, free-roaming or chained dogs are a much bigger problem.
How many times would you have to see it before it would be enough to satisfy you? “More than what we see now” is pretty undefined. In my personal experience, every case of serious dog aggression I’ve seen in my life involved a pit bull aggressor.
Clifton only says that if you think he’s claiming that every single dog bite that requires hospitalization is reported in the media. The nonsense is in the blog you quoted, which applies an incredibly unsophisticated statistical butchery to the analysis in an attempt to discredit Clifton. my joke about 98.5% of dog bites not being from dogs shows the error in the blog, not in Clifton.
Please. By noting certain information as specifically excluded, he does not make a claim that other included info is comprehensive. It is explained to be a media survey. Nobody, not even Clifton, believes a media survey is comprehensive.
Because the citation relied upon when they make that statement does not support your use of the sentence you underline. The little “7” references this article. As I explained upthread, in this Wright presents a case for complexity of the dogbite phenomenon, but he himself clearly accepts breed as one factor among many in dog aggression cases. The rest of the paragraph following your underline also speaks to the complexity of the issue. In fact, it speaks to the same caveats I discussed just above. But nowhere does it entirely repudiate Clifton’s data.
Wright in the cited paper, and CDC and AVMA in their use of his article as background for their own policy statements, are all making similar generic arguments to emphasize an important point-- that dog aggression is not simply a matter of breed, and blaming a specific breed is dangerous because it allows the public to overlook the fact that other breeds can be dangerous as well. And so they exercise a bit of artistic (not quite poetic) license in their assertions ("…statistics are not really statistics… …do not give an accurate picture… no accurate way to identify… …no measure to determine… etc.) by way of emphasis. They do not though perform any actual analysis, let alone present any actual refutation, of Clifton’s data. So these assertions are at best generally descriptive, not strictly accurate.
Your dogged ( 
) insistence on totally rejecting any breed specific component to dog aggression is not supported by your own cites, and it only serves to undermine your (and their) more generalized and quite correct argument for a complex issue requiring complex answers.
In my personal experience, NONE have.
Agreed with this. The most human aggressive dog I’ve ever met was a German Shepherd. The most dog aggressive dog I’ve ever met was a Labrador Retriever. And in the general category, the nastiest, most mean-spirited dog (who did some damage to a child and had to be put down) was a lhasa apso. The pit bulls have all been great.