I just want to note that Bull Terriers are not the same type of dog as Staffordshire Bull Terriers or American Staffordshire Terriers. Bull Terriers look nothing like the pitbull type breeds and no one would mistake one for the other.
The topic is “What is the absolute worst dog for a family to own?”, not “What kinds of people shouldn’t train dogs”.
But Jennyrosity’s post is a common sense and correct answer to the thread question. Is it part of your job as a moderator to determine what are the best answers to the question being asked?
You also chastized her for her post on Staffies but not, for example, Gonzomax’s illuminating post on St. Bernards, why is that?
Your bias is showing and it’s not attractive. While it’s obviously too much to ask for reason and intelligence from at least one moderator, it would be nice if said moderator were mature enough to treat each thread as a level playing thread.
That’s certainly not been the experience we’ve had with ours. He can be rambunctious, sure, but nothing like what you describe. At his worst, he runs back and forth down the hallway, shaking his rope toy. And that’s pretty rare. He’s chewed stuff up, but I don’t think more so than any puppy would. Of course, we deliberately picked the most mellow of the litter, and all dogs are different, but he hasn’t been anywhere near that bad for us.
Discussed this thread with a friend who is quite into dogs - I believe he currently has 3. Says his current min-dachs goes from sweet to batshit insane quicker and with less warning than any other dog he’s known.
And - at the risk of incurring mod-rath - he said a friend of his extensively researched “best dog for family with small kids”, and ended up with a mastiff.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
As people mentioned before, border collies.
Despite being smart, sweet dogs, they get bored really, really easily. We had one border collie and one collie/lab mix… the only reason the house’s still standing is because they kept each other amused.
What? :rolleyes: She posted good information about how pitbulls (and bull terriers) are NOT AUTOMATICALLY TEH EVIL and then, when asked by you, answered your question with a good response.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
Okay, I am going to weigh in - with the understanding that there are exceptions to every rule but this is my experience:
Chows, Akitas and Shar-pei - They are aggressive, dominant dogs, and Shar-peis can be prone to skin problems if not cared for properly
Chihuahua - bitey, yappy dogs
Border Collies and Aussies - LOVE THEM, but they are herding dogs and sometimes try and herd small children. This can be scary for kids unfamiliar with the concept and can escalate to “nipping” if the “herd” isn’t listening.
Mastiff/Bull Terrier cross - personal issue, that’s what bit me
The problem is that the question is unanswerable as stated. Many more facts need to be known before any intelligent answer can be given. But, if an owner is unwilling to properly train and socialize it, *every *breed is the worst breed.
But this topic is basically bait for exactly that debate. What did people THINK the answer would be in this heated media climate? In WWII the popular answer would have been German Shepherd, Rottweiler, and Doberman Pinscher, because those were German breeds. In WWI Americans attacked and killed Dachshunds in the street, because propaganda posters depicted them as a symbol of the Kaiser’s Germany. After the publication of The Andromeda Strain, which featured a scary (fictional) passage about Dobermans with their voiceboxes removed so that they would attack without warning, Dobermans again went through the wringer. During the Salem witch trials, it was cats that suffered from our fears and prejudices. The state of California recently killed pet birds during panic about a supposed outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease. “What kind is worst” is a litmus test of our current fears.
That’s every breed, as mentioned. Also horses, birds, cats, hamsters, rabbits, and blond human children have bitten me. And a garter snake.
True, as others have also said.
Gonzomax has praised his beagle for scaring a lab, told a funny story about his beagle biting his wife, and told a tale of his German Shepherd winning a dog fight, but has it in for other breeds in threads like this.
Yes.
Breed prejudice is a dangerous force, it kills dogs and imposes agonizing disruption on happy families.
If I may be permitted to draw some deliberately harsh analogies, saying that we must stick to answering with our opinion of “which breed is worst?” is equivalent to a thread appearing which says “Which minority is the laziest?” and a moderator instructing people not to differ with the OP but merely to name lazy minorities. Or a thread appearing that says “What age of child should pedophiles have sex with?” and a moderator instructing people not to differ with the OP but merely to pick a nice tender age.
The question is essentially wrong, it stems from uninformed assumptions. Furthermore, it (like my examples) will offend thoughtful, right-minded people if left unanswered.
The replies that have differed with the thread’s purpose (replies which the moderator has repeatedly tried to stifle, sometimes with ill-disguised negative feelings) have all been politely phrased and germane to the question. No one has called the OP any names. Why are these responders the bad guys?
Exactly right.
One of my favorite English teachers was also a professional dog trainer. She told us the worst family dog is a dalmation, followed closely by chows and shar pei: of the 100 damations she worked with, she said she’d trust 3 of them around children, and the chows and shar pei were nearly as bad.
I’m not saying that hasn’t happened at least once, but that really demands a cite.
Purely anecdotal, but my vote would have to go to Chows. I’ve met Dobermans and Rottweilers and Pitbulls and all other kinds of dogs that have been good with kids, but never a Chow. It really doesn’t help that they are just way too cute, because if you didn’t know any better you wouldn’t necessarily expect such a sweet-looking fluffy dog to be that aggressive. And I could imagine that being a real problem when you have kids, especially when they start bringing their friends home.
I’m pretty sure Perciful meant that statement to be read “Any dog, of any breed, that bites should probably be put down,” not as “Any dog (of any breed that bites) should probably be put down.”
It’s surprising to me to hear so many people say Dalmatians are one of the worst. I wonder if that has to do with the fact that when the live action movie came out in the mid-1990s, many parents suddenly purchased Dalmatian puppies for their kids, without doing any real research into what that specific breed needs (lots of running, etc.) and then were shocked when the dogs grew up to be more than they could handle.
My family got our Dalmatian in 1993, before the film. He was a purebred show dog, and so was used to being handled by many people and dealing with other dogs (though he stopped being shown when he was maybe a year or two because his tail curled, and was from then on simply a family pet.) My parents would walk him to the elementary school along with myself & my sister every day, and every day there would be mobs of little kids who would run up and pet him (and the attention he received increased incredibly after the film. *Everyone *he walked past then wanted to pet him and he loved it all.)
The problem with questions like these is that there is always exceptions - so basically you are making a comment on the predisposition of the breed. When I worked at a pet store, I would not recommend, for example, a Chow, for a family with young kids.
It never failed, there was always someone nearby that would chime in, “I had a Chow and it was the best dog ever.”
My response was always the same, “I am not saying that the Chow is a bad dog, there are no ‘bad dogs’, there are just dogs that I do not recommend for a home with young children, or for first time dog owners. A Chow is one of them because they have a tendency towards dominance and that can become aggression.”
Like it or not, every dog does not lend itself towards happy home life with young kids - but that does not mean there are no exceptions.
My sister had a Newfie. A giant hairy drooling slob of a dog. It was good-natured enough IIRC, but what a mess.
I think that the flip side of this debate is too often ignored: Just as dogs must be properly socialized to learn to live with a human “pack,” children must be trained on how to interact with dogs. IMHO, ignoring that side of the issue all too often leads to this very debate.
In my experience, too many small children act in ways that dogs will naturally interpret as “aggressive.” Kids jump and scream and rush at critters, and dogs react instinctively in a potentially harmful way. That doesn’t, to me, mean “bad dog” so much as “untrained child” and/or “child who has never been around dog.”
To offer an anecdote or two: My own children have always had dogs. Naturally, I haven’t/wouldn’t have dogs around them if I knew those animals to be aggressive. (Just the opposite, in fact: Both of the main family pets I’ve had since the eldest was a baby were chosen specifically for their gentle demeanors.) Not only did I teach the kids, in an age-appropriate way, not to climb on/chew on/jump on/pinch/otherwise harass the dogs, THE DOGS THEMSELVES taught the kids how to behave. While never so much as mouthing one of his two-legged “puppies,” the oldest dog effectively used growling, herding, and avoidance to teach the kids not to overstep their behavioral boundaries when they were learning to crawl and walk. The younger dog, a lab/shepherd mix, was more tolerant of their rough-housing, but he would walk away and ruin their games when overwhelmed by too much. I also made sure the kids knew that they weren’t allowed to do things that would hurt the dogs (even when the dogs would have allowed it, which was far too often with the younger dog. He absolutely loved his babies!)
As a result, my children (a) have never been afraid of dogs, because (b) they know how to behave in ways that won’t antagonize dogs. Between rescues and exposure to pets belonging to immediate and extended family, friends, and neighbors, the short people living in my house have lived with or spent time with all kinds of dogs: German shepherd at home now, Newfies, American bulldogs, basset hounds, boxers, Jack Russell terriers, chihuahuas, Bernese mountain dogs, chows, Dalmatians, Rottweilers, Pekingese, Labradors, and all-American mutts. Neither kid has ever been bitten. And neither has ever intentionally hurt a dog.
My own background as a child was similar, so I’m not apt to name a best/worst dog. There are lousy owners, poorly-trained dogs, badly-bred dogs, and ignorant people. There doesn’t really seem to be a “bad breed” of dog…
(That said, though, I have found that larger breeds are more tolerant of smaller people. They don’t seem to feel as threatened by the potential for clumsy handling. That could be bias on my part, though, because I tend to gravitate more toward large dogs than small ones.)
Here’s a smorgasbord of cites, although they cover more than my claim: WWI, WWII, America, and England.
What kind of dog would you say is the easiest to train to be a family dog. If you have a perfect, accredited dog whisperer working with the family and also lovingly training the dog himself…is there any dog that you think would be the very best choice for those perfect conditions?