I don't write off a whole breed, but I will say that my niece got her face seriously ripped up by a pit bull, and I have a friend who raised a pit bull from a puppy, devoted thousands of dollars and professional hours into her training and socialization, and she still bit someone simply for entering her house. I am leery of the breed.
If you will not write off a whole breed of dogs, you have not spent enough time around dogs.
Shepherds do not need to be taught to herd. Retrievers do not need to be taught to retrieve. Pointers do not need to be taught to point. Fighters do not need to be taught to fight.
These are innate behaviors. You can't stop them.
There's a reason pit bulls account for such a large fraction a dog related injuries.
And don't let the pitbull defenders get to you with their "but it's a mutt" or "they're such sweet dogs" BS.
Of course they're going to be nice to their owner. People who train and breed dogs to kill each other for entertainment are going to have no problem immediately bringing the dog that pisses them off out back and shooting them.
Everyone I know who has been bit by a dog it was either a pitbull, pit mix, or chihuahua. And I'm not exactly worried about the severity of a chihuahua bite.
I was bitten by an English bull terrier puppy. So now you know someone else.
Bull terrier
You mean the breed that pitbulls were made out of?
Also puppies are a lot less of a worry than grown dogs.
If I were to be attacked by a dog the last one I'd choose is a pitbull or any muscular mastiff. They're dangerous because they have the highest potential for damage.
What's there to be leery about? These dog breeds were bred for one thing and it sure wasn't to be the perfect family dog.
I don’t write off a whole breed,
I can. They are a non-natural breed created by people for cruel purposes and should be eradicated.
Yeah. They were literally bred to be as vicious as possible.
We can write them off. I don't blame the dogs, I blame the people who made them this way.
In the US, Pit Bulls caused 65% of dog bite deaths between 2005 and 2016.
About 15 years ago I volunteered with a pitbull rescue, then did a bunch of research on pitbull attacks in grad school. The problem then was that most statistics like this were unreliable once you saw what they labeled a pitbull. In most cases it was just any "mutt" was considered a pitbull. I don't know if things have changed, never really looked into it since then, but I'm still a bit wary of stats like this without knowing their data is accurate.
My little dog doesn't have an ounce of pitbull in her. Her mom was a border collie/lab mix, and the Father was the Neighbor's boston terrier/english pointer mix. The only thing remotely pitbull like about her is her underbite. That said, I've lost count of the times somebody at the dog park, usually someone with a little ankle biter dog of the teacup persuasion, has gotten uppity about me having a "pitbull" off leash. People are dumb.
People are dumb
That about sums it up
And it's probably worse if you do rate by breed.
But I suspect that it's mostly due to a combination of breed and neglect/non-training. The kind of people who want a pit bull in particular, and the kind of people who just chain up their dog outside and never train or socialize it, probably have significant overlap.
Pitbull isn't a breed, it's a colloquialism that is used as a catch-all for any breed with a certain look. They're either American bullys, American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers, American bulldogs, or a mix of these breeds. If you aren't collecting separate data for each of these breeds individually, then the best we can do is divide the total number of bites between those breeds by 5.
Dog breeds are defined separately for a reason, you can't just lump them together, ban 5(6 if you include mixes) breeds of dog, then think the dog bite issue is solved. Assholes who buy dogs only to isolate and ignore and/or mistreat them, will just choose the next most aggressive breed, then treat them the same. Statistically, that will mean that German shepherds will be the next banned breed, as they routinely come up as the second most deadly specific breed of dog. Say goodbye to your GS.
Every owner thinks their dog is a "good one" until it's too late. They should be required to be neutered and not allowed to breed.
I can see an argument for the proposition that maybe we don't need dogs that are big and powerful enough to injure or kill people.
But, I take claims about how a breed "is gentle" with an entire ocean of salt- individual dogs might be calm and well-trained or socialized, it's the ones churned out of puppy mills to be sold at top dollar to shitty people who want a tough, scary dog that seem to be sketchy.
I've been around lots of well-adjusted big dogs that are just big hunks of love and slobbery affection, but really I hate seeing stories about how some dog that "is a good boy" mauled a child and if I had my druthers, dog owners would be required to carry liability insurance proportionate to the dog's size or bite force or some factor correlating to its breed, and to the dog owner's income or wealth. Oh, that would make big, dangerous dogs too expensive to own? Maybe they should be.
IMO, the issue is purely down to their strength and ability to kill a person.
I don’t doubt their temperament is fine, but when an animal has that much power they’re a serious danger in the rare situation that they’re out of control.
I like Jack Russells, I’ve got two, if they were strong dogs and someone said they’re being banned because of it then I wouldn’t mind. Just don’t let them breed any more.
A dog’s a dog. While I have a preference, ultimately I don’t really care what breed I have.
Pugs should be banned as well. A dog’s a dog, not a fashion accessory.
I don’t doubt their temperament is fine
Pits have an incredibly strong prey drive, and once they decide to attack something they almost never stop. So no, they don;t have the best temperament.
Pugs should be banned as well
There's at least a retro-pug movement now that is working to breed the overly shortened snout out of pugs, and make them a healthier breed.
It's so frustrating people don't seem to understand that pit bulls are just terriers. If you've ever seen videos of small terriers working in fields and doing what they're bred to do, you absolutely see the same behaviours in bully breeds, just magnified ten-fold.
The problem is now you've bred a 30lb+ dog that is pure muscle, has been specially bred from breeds with already high prey drive to be more aggressive/protective and are trying to treat it like a family dog.
I love pitties, I think they're cute and sweet (I've also never met a "mean" one), but they have long passed being an "average" household breed at this rate. Years of bad/selective breeding need to be undone before they should be reevaluated and gl with that.
Thank God they're focusing on the worst hardships that are being inflicted on the British people.
if governments weren’t capable of doing more than one thing at a time, all of global civilization would collapse.
I'm just curious, when the UK banned pit bulls, did the government just go around and round up everyone's suddenly illegal dogs and put them all down?
On no, my sweet velvet hippo wouldn’t hurt a fly! Says the pitbull owner as it eats what is left of grandma.
Edit: different terminology… but bullyism is a thing so I’m gonna leave it up.
Bullies are a genetic anomaly that aren’t just pitbulls. For example, Wendy is a somewhat famous bully whippet:
Most responsible breeders don’t allow for pairings that would create it. Mostly because if they get too excited they have heart attacks- their heart can’t keep up.
It should be banned, but not because it makes dogs more violent than they otherwise would be.
Basically it comes from over breeding for muscle mass. It crops up in racing breeds mostly- whippets and greyhounds. But also, apparently, in beef cattle:
How many breeds does the UK propose to ban?
I mean it sounds like just the one, American XL bully. Seems perfectly reasonable to me given how ridiculously powerful these dogs are makes them extremely dangerous when they’re being aggressive.
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