Yeah, Dalmatians can be pretty mean. As a kid, we had a female who was very protective of her home turf and would growl and bark in an aggressive way at any strangers on our property. At the same time we had a male Dalmatian, and he was meaner in a really antisocial way. He didn’t like to be talked to, rarely sought human contact and preferred to be left alone. He did very little growling and threatening, but dick with him and he would bite you fast and hard. We had a dog boarding business, so I got to know many breeds of dogs. It was hard to predict which ones would be bitey. There didn’t seem to be any particular breed that was more aggressive than others, but most of our dogs came from good homes and were well socialized. And of course they liked us because we were bringing the food. Best dogs overall for being smart and likable were mutts. The stupidest dogs we boarded, without question, were Irish Setters. Apologies to any Irish Setter fans.
Dude, I’m a child of the seventies. When I say that there aren’t really packs of wild dogs roaming my neighborhoods, I mean it. Conceivably, if I found myself in a place with roaming wild dogs, I might be more cautious, but here in Ohio? Lol - no.
Now, back in the 70’s there were considerably more roaming dogs around than we have now. The stray dogs in my neighborhood are a thing of the past. But back then everyone let their dogs roam. One of them was a pit bull. Her name was Maggie. She was best friends with my sheltie, Mac. They used to sit and lean on each other. Often, he’d lift his leg on her. She didn’t seem to mind. She was the most chill dog in hood. She was a lovely dog and never offered violence to any of God’s creatures.
This nonsense that pitbulls are unstoppable killing machines is just bullshit. They’re just dogs. They’re no more or less likely to attack than any other dog. They haven’t been bred to be slavering death traps. What they’ve been bred for - what makes a dog, a dog - is to serve and protect humans.
They’re just dogs. They’re certainly less likely to start trouble than any two random *humans * approaching you. Treat the dogs like you would your own dogs. Always remember that you’re top of the food chain.
Yea and you might be their food, tonight. I don’t trust any dog I don’t know. But usually I can figure them given time. If one is charging I am assuming the worst. I don’t give a crap what breed it is. I got bit by my own injured Rat Terrier on the hand. It was a mess and was several weeks healing. She otoh, was fixed in seconds by the vet. Her knee was out of place ( or elbow) not sure what that joint is called. So size doesn’t really matter. And apparently being known by them, if they are injured.
(in reference to the phrase “Pit Bull” being used pretty damn imprecisely)
“Pit Bull” is not a breed of dog and, rather than using “other posts” as a citation, how about the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine? Even when applied by those with a great amount of experience dogs in shelters labelled as “Pit” are highly often not of a Pit breed heritage.
Yes, there are breeds that were bred to have fighting skills. Shar Peis for example. Bedlington Terriers mostly to hunt vermin but historically a fighting dog too, and “once involved in a fight, usually fought to the death.”
Like a Shar Pei and a Bedlington, a dog that is of one of the breeds that gets lumped as Pit can be abused or trained in such a way as to exploit their fighting skill sets and become aggressive animals. Or it can be raised to be a fantastic therapy dog and loyal gentle companion. And none of them will herd sheep as well as a Border Collie, a German Shepherd, or an Australian Shepherd. None of them will easily become great birders. But those actually of one of those breeds are by nature not more aggressive than other dogs. (Of course the consequences of an aggressive act by a powerful dog like one of these animals is more significant than that say by a Chihuahua.)
I had this exact situation, except it was with 2 kobalds. Turns out you can just snap their necks and loot their corpses for 1d4 copper pieces.
I never said they were more likely to attack, I said they were way down on the list of viscous dogs. I did say that when they were vicious they were more dangerous than most other dogs. And your statement that dogs are just dogs is way off. Pure bred dogs are selectively bred for very specialized exaggerated traits. Show dogs have usually lost a lot of this but in other cases the aggressive traits have been exaggerated or honed away from their original targets. Ghetto dogs have often been selectively bred for home defense and guard dogs for drugs and other illegal activities. A dog bred like this can usually be rehabilitated but I wouldn’t think it worth the risk.
- There’s no solid basis for either statement. There is no evidence of controlled studies that breed is a causal factor in dog aggression to humans. Many people believe either that actual American Pit Bull Terrier, or the (less logically) the vastly more genetically diverse range of dogs commonly called ‘pit bulls’ are less likely to be aggressive to humans than dogs on average. But that pro-‘pit bull’ point has no scientific basis either. Dogs classed as APBT’s score better on the ATTS temperament test than breeds on average, but that’s not a scientific result. It doesn’t correct for the possibility that people with APBT’s they know are sweethearts are more likely to have them tested to show other people. Shelters for example don’t pay to have ATTS done on obvious creampuff dogs of ‘nice’ breeds, but they often do for obvious creampuff APBT’s to dispel fear about them and get them homes (or mixed who knows-what-they-really-are, hugely genetically varying ‘pit bulls’ which are a lot more common).
Likewise real APBT’s are 30-60 lb dogs. They aren’t so specially strong to have more potential to hurt people than much bigger dogs of which there are many. And ‘don’t feel pain’, ‘super strong jaws’ etc is wives tale level bullshit, straight up. All big strong dogs have more potential to hurt people than little weak dogs if they have a mind to. Lots of breeds of dogs were bred to fight/kill other animals, nothing remotely unusual about APBT’s there either. And again and again, the vast DNA melange of mixed breed dogs which ‘look like pit bulls’ don’t constitute a breed anyway.
- Here you are stumbling toward the truth: owner factors. For example, lone spayed female dogs of any kind have almost never killed anyone. 80-90% per most studies recording the sex of dogs which serious hurt/kill people, are unfixed males or them leading other dogs. Keeping unfixed male dogs combined with viewing dogs as protection against crime and having multiple dogs of these kinds or including them is a cultural phenomenon among certain people. It has nothing inherently to do with dogs. Even to the limited extent it’s breeding, it’s particular local breeding, not whole breeds in a dog show sense, and once again definitely not whole broad appearance categories.
I believe every point you make up there Corry, I truly do. But still, I am not gonna leave my grand kids any where near one. I think the ‘Pit’ type dogs will never be considered safe. Too much bad press, whether true or not. It is sad, too! The people I know who have had them cannot be more pleased with their temperament.
Stay in the car! Then lightly tap the gas and turn into the spin.
Corey, I have no idea what your experience with dogs are as you have no idea what my experience is. I have no problem with the pit bull breeds in general as I have stated. My only statement was that a vicious pit bull is a very dangerous animal and I stand by that. I also stand by the statement that traits are bred into dogs sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. As someone who trained and handled dogs for a few decades I can state that as fact. As for pit bulls I have been around them my entire life and I am still around them. They are great dogs. I have fostered any number of them while their owners were in jail. I have personally had one pit x? that was vicious and I had to put down and one sharpei and one brittany spaniel that I had to put down for viciousness but I have known of several that were absolute scary monsters just like their owners wanted them to be. They would tear a person to shreds if they had a chance. Generally speaking a pit bull on a mission is more determined than most breeds and less likely to be dissuaded by body language or even physical force. I doubt I will change your mind and I know you won’t change my mind so I am going to let it go at that.
Do you not think that the same puppy in different hands would not be so? That puts the blame/reason squarely in the hands of an irresponsible owner. It is not the dogs fault. That doesn’t mean I am not afraid of the poorly kept and trained beasties that are on the streets now. But I would feel the same way for any dog that was treated this way.
I like sharks, but I am not going swimming with them, I assure you.
Yup. And “pit bull” is the non sequitur there. A vicious big strong dog is a very dangerous animal. A bit tautological, eh. A vicious Saint Bernard is a very dangerous animal. Any vicious “large strong mixed breed of whatever heritage” is a very dangerous animal.
“A vicious big man is very dangerous.” “A vicious Indian man is very dangerous.” One statement is a trivial truth. One reinforces a stereotype.
I think you’re sort of right, and the pit bull thing in the media is truly tiresome, but it’s not just size, exactly - it’s size, build and musculature, which pretty much equates to ‘breed’.
A Saluki is bigger than a pit bull, but a pit bull probably has more powerful jaws and teeth - so whilst a vicious example of either would not be a good thing, they’re not exactly the same, and the bigger one is not necessarily the worst. It’s not racism to notice that dog breeds are different from each other.
The problem is not people having opinions for which they can provide no actual proof besides appeals to their own authority or ‘common knowledge’ (fortunately ‘pit bull’ discussions here tend at least to be free of links to pseudo-science BS websites in favor of Breed Specific Legislation against ‘pit bulls’).
The problem is laws and public policies based on ‘IME’ conclusions about hypotheticals. If the ‘pit bull’* is vicious. As was said that’s kind of tautological. And if the alternative weaker per pound dog isn’t much bigger, etc. But a lot of dog types are much bigger. And it’s proven fact for a simple think like jaw strength it is not nearly greatest for APBT’s*. Much bigger strong dog types have stronger jaws, what a surprise. And can’t be repeated too many times. The public policy debate, as every one of your posts also has, never distinguishes between ‘dogs which look like pit bulls’ and ‘learned’ discussions of ‘IME’ w/ dogs of actual breeds, presumably (or it’s again worthless).
The basic fact is no science behind any idea of predicting dog aggression toward people** , even with strong conditionals like ‘*if it’s vicious’ that exclude the great majority of dogs of all kinds, based on appearance. There just isn’t. If there was, you could give me the cites to the contrary.
*again what exact type of dog? All dogs with blockish heads, short coats and muscular bodies, which have little more in common DNA wise compared to different looking mixed dogs? That’s a major stumbling stock to your argument on every point, besides ‘to each his own opinion’. The contention that ‘pit bull’ looking implies relatively uniform behavior traits is a much more ridiculous position than maintaining it about the actual breed APBT. But BSL is based on the more ridiculous version.
**again numerous breeds of all appearances have been bred to combat or kill other animals. ‘But pit bulls are bred to fight’…other dogs. Wolfhounds are bred to fight wolves. The difference is supposed to be what? in a discussion of aggression toward humans. If somebody wants to have a secondary debate about pet dogs which present more or less risk to other pet dogs, there would be some reasonable basis to point to the historic breeding of APBT’s. But it’s just illogical to make that point as it regards humans v. APBT’s, but not humans v all kinds of hunting dogs also bred to attack animals.
You want to talk selective breeding? Tens of *thousands *of years of selective breeding went into making today’s dogs. A few generations with shitty owners isn’t going to erase that. Street dogs from India with generations of feral breeding are more dangerous than anything you’re going to encounter in the neighborhoods of middle-class America. And even Dingos, feral dogs so wild and remote that they’ve become their own class of genuine wild dog, are no large threat to humanity. (And for the record, I wouldn’t approach a Dingo or other wild animal the way I’d approach a random stray dog).
Dogs are dogs. We made them and they made us.
The kind of person who kicks and abuses a dog until it turns vicious is more dangerous than the dog itself. But even if individual dogs can be abused thusly, that doesn’t mean that they constitute an actual dog breed, that you can point to as a uniquely dangerous. Certainly pit bulls, as a breed, don’t qualify as uniquely dangerous by any scientific standard.
Saint Bernard are big, serious, dogs. BTW. I wouldn’t approach one without an introduction, if it was guarding its own house. But if I saw one roaming around, I would call him over and try to find its owner. They’re not vicious and I would not be concerned about them randomly attacking me.
This is one of many ratings of dog jaw strength. I’m not saying it’s 100% take to the bank reliable down to the psi but every such rating shows actual APBT’s less than top. In part it gets back to what ‘pit bull’ means, one of the higher rated dogs in this list is American Bulldog many people would call a ‘pit bull’. But they are bigger. But some breeds above AB’s look nothing like ‘pit bulls’. And obviously it depends on the individual dog too, what’s the jaw strength of humans?
So no the biggest dog isn’t always the strongest, and you could weight it by how common breeds are, though then again you’d been back to lots or most of the vast number of ‘pit bulls’ being mixed breed dogs w/ not necessarily much APBT in their heritage. But many dogs are much larger than APBT’s or most dogs called ‘pit bulls’, enough to overwhelm any strength to weight ratio advantage of APBT’s/‘pit bulls’.
Biting people that is. This is another point like ‘bred to fight’ (so why doesn’t that apply to hounds?) where unconscious confusion between aggression toward humans and other dogs seems to enter in. A 60 lb fighting dog might defeat much larger stronger dogs. Per some opinions that’s about optimum size for fighting dogs. Because a skilled fighter that size may be strong enough, but too quick for bigger dogs even if the bigger one is stronger. But people are very slow reacting and moving compared to dogs. People are at more and more a disadvantage the less size advantage they have over a vicious dog. A 60 lb hostile dog has to be much stronger (absolutely) and much more determined to harm to pose as much threat to a person as a 120 lb hostile dog.
Post on a message board for advice. If necessary, add “Need answer fast!” to the thread title. Follow the consensus opinion. If none emerges, follow the least-flamed advice. If none emerges, add a poll.
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Tell one the other made fun of his mother?
Well …
One - you really make the point: What pretty much equates to the “breed” of “Pit Bill” to most is being a scary looking dog (by size, build, and musculature). It really has nothing to do with having any of the actual it breeds in its genetic line.
Two - Pits are the current scary dog in the public consciousness. Mainly, I think because they are considered “ghetto dogs” and because a few have been raised by some not as loved family pets but abused to become aggressive. The perceived big powerful jaw was not what gave that status in the past, and being big and having a powerful build with a strong jaw does not push one into being a feared animal.
Dobermans (especially solid black ones) and German Shepherds, previous demon dogs when scary dog was wanted to be invoked, have pretty average looking jaw structures. Yeah they actually bite hard but their jaws look pretty normal. English Mastiffs have bite strength that puts any Pit to shame and are not demonized. Same with Akitas and Huskies.
I can state with certainty that I would be much more scared if attacked by two vicious Akitas or Huskies than by two vicious American Staffordshire Terriers. And a single vicious English Mastiff would scare me just as much. But none of those are dogs of “the hood.” Scary looking dogs that get called Pits OTOH?
Anyway, if the op wanted to discuss how to handle a possible attack by scary looking big dogs then they should have just said that.
OK - with that clarification, I think we are in complete agreement on this actually.