Any big & powerful dog with a strong bite like the pit bull has the capacity to seriously harm & potentially kill a person, and since you can't count on every pit bull owner to responsibly train their pets, they do become a liability when in public. Pit bulls are also a popular breed in the illegal dogfighting scene, so violently dangerous dogs that have been bred to be violently dangerous are guaranteed to exist.

Even so, it's rather unfair to treat every single pit bull like a menace when non-aggressive pit bulls that are affectionate towards strangers are not uncommon. Laws requiring big dogs to be muzzled should suffice; banning the entire breed from public (or, in some places, from even existing) seems excessive to me.

Edit: ...well, at least in this comment, most of my points still stand. I should add that pit bulls are not only popular for dogfighting, but also a favorite of criminals in general, so much so that their demand is actively driving the breed to be even more violently dangerous than ever before. This has become such a serious problem that unaggressive pit bulls are nowadays unlikely to be purebred.

I guess it's still unfair to treat every single pit bull (or, rather, every dog that resembles a pit bull) like a menace, but it'd also be unfair to blame anyone for treating them as such, so long as breeders continue to select for stronger, more aggressive, more dangerous traits.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My friend's pit bull got attacked by a Chihuahua and had no idea what to do about it except sulk all day after it was over. To me, blaming pit bulls for violence is like blaming BMWs for not using turn signals

[–] strobel@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Exactly! Labradors and German shepherds, along with pit bulls, were responsible for more severe dog bites than other breeds, yet I don't see anyone demonizing labs & sheps like they do the pit bull. Its reputation is really undeserved.

[–] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think its undeserved at all. When it comes to fatal dog attacks, pit bulls are responsible for more than all the other breeds combined by a substantial margin. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/09/13/americas-most-dangerous-dog-breeds-infographic/

I've never known a pit bull that wasn't sweet but that doesn't dismiss the fact that a breed that was bred for violence can be dangerous. Many dogs may bite when upset or feel threatened. Pit bulls are known for continuing the attack in a frenzy and thus have a disproportionate number of deaths associated with them.

[–] strobel@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

As I've mentioned elsewhere, there is no shortage of data which refutes this, and that's not even mentioning the methodological errors that studies which both support & refute the perceived dangers of pit bulls tend to have.

As someone else mentioned, fatal dog attacks overall are rare, accounting for 30 to 50 deaths per year in the US. For comparison, lightning kills on average 28 people per year in the US. Even when making the contentious assumption that pit bulls are responsible for most fatal dog attacks, such fatal attacks are still unlikely to happen.

Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Pit bulls can certainly be dangerous as a breed, but when compared to other dog breeds of comparable size, strength, & temperament, their reputation for being exceptionally violent & attacking “in a frenzy” is not only undeserved, it obscures the real danger of a trait that is (afaik) unique to most (but not all) pit bulls: they don't make overtly threatening gestures before attacking like other dogs do, and the subtle cues they do show are often missed, giving the impression that the ensuing attack is sudden & impulsive. While this trait alone does make the breed more dangerous & requires special consideration from owners, all the ignorance & fearmongering about pit bulls only serves to needlessly multiply this danger more and further polarlizes the issue.

I'd say the continuing existence & tolerance (and, in some places, full legality & acceptance) of dogfighting is the real issue, as the people involved are the ones who train/torture dogs until they become the vicious monsters that make headlines. Sadly, it is far easier to blame & persecute all the dogs from a few irreputable breeds than it is to uproot the entrenched criminal & inhumane activity that actively strives to make those breeds as dangerous as they're reputed to be.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly! Labradors and German shepherds, along with pit bulls, were responsible for more severe dog bites than other breeds, yet I don’t see anyone demonizing labs & sheps like they do the pit bull. Its reputation is really undeserved.

This is factually wrong. I have a copy/paste from reddit I've already dumped... Here's a copy.

If that were the case, I'd expect that per capita pit bulls would then be equal to all other breeds or at the base minimum to represent their population, so if a pit population is 10% of all dogs, then they should account for 10% of all dog-related deaths. This is a little facetious though as little Pomeranians aren't going to kill anyone... So let's look at a number of breeds to determine what could be a valid number...
So how can we account for pitbulls accounting for 7.4% of all dogs and commiting ~66% of all dog-based fatalities when...
Rottweilers are 2.4% of dog population and commit about 10% of the murders recorded.
German Shepherd are 8.5% of the dog population accounting for ~5% murders. (beating population value even though they're large dogs)
Huskies are 2.3% of the population and account for 3% of the murders
How about a dog bred to kill bears??? Akitas... 0.4% of the population... doesn't even come up on the murder table... so less than 0.5%...
How can we account for this massive disparity? You really think that ONLY pitbulls are mistreated, untrained, and raised improperly? So all Rottweilers and German Shepherds are trained perfectly? Yes, I can agree with you that an abused dog will absolutely lash out and hurt humans... I cannot agree with you that this is the deciding or only factor. Otherwise we would have seen it with other breeds as bad owners are everywhere. Breeds like Akita's show that you can be breed for fighting and not be aggressive towards humans. Pit bulls simply were bred for aggression, you can't always train it out of them, and it only takes one slip.
Source for fatality rates:
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-multi-year-fatality-report-2005-2017.php
Source for population percentage rates:
https://www.animals24-7.org/2021/07/07/dog-breed-census-2021-labs-hounds-top-list-pit-bulls-come-in-third/

[–] strobel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The CDC had done a study once & gotten similar statistics to what you've quoted, but ultimately they concluded that the data was flawed & unreliable. However, as I learn more about what's going on, the big picture gets more depressing...

Pit bulls are indeed disproportionately mistreated & improperly trained, far more than any other breed of dog. They're the breed of choice for drug dealers and gangsters in the US, and account for the vast majority of dogs seized by police at dogfighting operations. This isn't by coincidence, as pit bulls have always had a variety of traits that make them ideal for dogfighting.

Originally pit bulls weren't bred to be overly aggressive (even in dogfighting, indiscriminate aggression isn't a desirable trait), but modern pit bulls absolutely are, and this trend is only getting worse as breeders continue to select for increased strength & aggression, traits considered desirable by the criminals & lowlifes that now drive the demand for purebred pit bulls. The CDC suspects that there is a gross misattribution of fatal dog attacks to pit bulls, but now this seems unlikely. In fact, pit bulls that have a reputation for being unaggressive, including the ones that I've personally met, are unlikely to be purebred, and are most probably mutts that merely resemble the breed, if not the descendants of an ever-shrinking lineage that has avoided the vile trends that now plague the modern pit bull.

For me, this has all been very disheartening to discover. When I see the face of a pit bull, I'm reminded of the jolly dogs I used to play with as a kid, not the modern monsters responsible for a growing body count. It was very easy for me to disbelieve, and I'm sure many of the folks who are quick to defend the breed feel the same way...

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pit bulls are indeed disproportionately mistreated & improperly trained, far more than any other breed of dog. They’re the breed of choice for drug dealers and gangsters in the US, and account for the vast majority of dogs seized by police at dogfighting operations.

So your response.. is that Pitbulls make up 66% of attacks... out of TENS OF MILLIONS of dogs (encompassing hundreds of thousands of attacks)... is that they're all drug dealers dogs?

Here... let's try this again...

Pick any month you want... But I'll link 2 examples...

https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/tuyivl/april_2022_list_of_pit_bull_attacksfatalities/
https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/102buat/january_2023_list_of_pit_bull_attacksfatalities/

Let me know how many attacks you had to scroll by in order to find even one that was "drug related". If you get anything higher than 1:9 ratio (10% that they're drug related)... I'll back off my argument and completely support you that it must be the owners.

In fact, pit bulls that have a reputation for being unaggressive

This isn't a fact... it's a well known fact that they were trained to fight... period. Definitionally that's "aggressive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_bull

The start of the whole breed is literally to fight.

The term has been used since at least early 20th century.[17][3] It is believed all dogs that are now classified as pit bulls descend from the British bull and terrier, which were first imported into North America in the 1870s.[6][7] The bull-and-terrier was a breed of dog developed in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century for the blood sports of dog fighting and rat baiting, it was created by crossing the ferocious, thickly muscled Old English Bulldog with the agile, lithe, feisty Black and Tan Terrier.[6][7] The aggressive Old English Bulldog, which was bred for bear and bull baiting, was often also pitted against its own kind in organised dog fights, but it was found that lighter, faster dogs were better suited to dogfighting than the heavier Bulldog.[6][7][8] To produce a lighter, faster more agile dog that retained the courage and tenacity of the Bulldog, outcrosses from local terriers were tried, and ultimately found to be successful.[6][7][8]

Now I'll admit that Wikipedia isn't the end all be all... But this is well cited... and well known.

Also... adding this study in because I can and because it really doesn't jive with your statements. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34100808/

I don't know of a lot of 6-12 year olds that hang out with drug dealers. But even given that "some" might have... The study DID control for demographics.

[–] strobel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I wasn't implying that they're all drug dealers' dogs... the point I was making is that the breed is heavily favored by criminals & associated groups that desire an aggressive dog. These groups influence pit bull breeders, who in turn select for aggression, but these same breeders also sell to people who don't associate with such groups and might be unaware of these breeders' practices.

When I say aggression, I usually mean aggression specifically towards people, which seems to be peculiarly intense in pit bulls. Aggression towards other dogs is a given for any dogfighting breed.

I didn't say pit bulls have a reputation for being unaggressive... did you even bother to read what I actually said? I said ‘pit bulls’ that have such a reputation are unlikely to actually be purebred pitbulls, since one would expect modern purebreds to be aggressive, and this might include the dogs I've met that I assumed were pit bulls.

I'm not sure what the point is of the last study you linked.