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 (2 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.