Pitbulls. Do they have a bad rep?

[Furcifer]

Even if they don't go for people, as you claim, the exmple I linked to is enough to have them banned. They go for other dogs. People walk their dogs.

What will that accomplish? Do you think I can't teach a Chow, a Doberman, a Shepard, a Poodle,a Collie, a Rottie, a Preso, a Corso, or any other dog to eat your dog on site?

Ban them, I'll cross bulldogs with terriers and train them to fight.

Ban them, I'll cross them with Rotties and teach them how to fight.

Ban them, I'll cross them with American Bulldogs and teach them to fight.

Ban them, I'll cross them with Boxers and teach them to fight.

Ban them and I will always be 1 step ahead of you teaching dogs to fight.

(not me, I friggin love dogs but I think I made my point)

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Ok,but explain this: ..
Any way you slice it Glen, you are about 10 times more likely to get killed by a horse. 18 times more likely to get killed by a horse than a pit bull.
..................................
Now you tell me what's dangerous? I saw 3 Pitbulls today, not a single horse. There isn't a horse within 15 KM of me right now, yet I am 18 times more likely to get killed by one!

Uhh, probability doesn't work that way ..

If you never encounter a horse, then there is zero chance you will be killed by one ...
You need to come up with something else ...

 

[Furcifer]

Uhh, probability doesn't work that way ..
If you never encounter a horse, then there is zero chance you will be killed by one ...
You need to come up with something else ...

If you don't encounter a pitbull you won't be bit by one either. (or especially killed)

If you don't fly on a plane you won't die in one.

Don't drive, you won't be in a head on collision with a drunk driver.

Don't go on the internet, you won't see kiddie porn.

If you don't encounter people you won't be murdered by one.

Legalize murder in the hood! Just stay out of the hood.

Um, this "bubble" theory you have may work for you, but not for the rest of us??? No offense, but this seems kinda paranoid. Please explain.

 

[GlennB]

Ok,but explain this: from here (first stat that came up on google)

Human Deaths Caused By Animals (1991, it's dropped for dogs since then)

Horses
219

Dogs
14

There is something wrong with those figures. For example:
"From 1979 through 1990, there were 1882 animal-related deaths in the United States", from a PubMed journal article here.
That's about 180 in total per year, all animals included, with 39% of those from attacks by venomous animals ( here )

I also strongly suspect that the horse figures also include people who fall off horses and have horses land on them , i.e. accidents and rodeo-related incidents. As oppposed to attacks, which is what we're discussing.

 

[Furcifer]

I also strongly suspect that the horse figures also include people who fall off horses and have horses land on them , i.e. accidents and rodeo-related incidents. As oppposed to attacks, which is what we're discussing.

edit: yes they do include riding injuries
Say it's even. 20 horse attacks resulting in death and 20 dog (13 pitbull).

They still have the same traits that make pitbulls "dangerous".

What about TV's? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30686493/

Almost the same number of children die due to TV's falling on them each year. They're dangerous. Flat screens are better because it looks like the number of deaths will go down, but the injuries are up.

Ban em'.

 

[GlennB]

edit: yes they do include riding injuries
Say it's even. 20 horse attacks resulting in death and 20 dog (13 pitbull).

They still have the same traits that make pitbulls "dangerous".

What about TV's? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30686493/

Almost the same number of children die due to TV's falling on them each year. They're dangerous. Flat screens are better because it looks like the number of deaths will go down, but the injuries are up.

Ban em'.

If we assume TV ownership is worthwhile then those accidents are a risk we consider worth taking. Same with cars. And in any case you can easily make a TV safe. And if you're neglectful about placing a heavy TV where it can be tipped over by a visiting child then you're probably facing legal action. And TVs rarely hurdle the fence to find themselves among people who are not familiar with their quirks and who lack TV handling skills.

Meanwhile there are perfectly good alternatives to pit bulls, namely dogs that weren't specifically bred to be relentlessly tenacious when attacking.

If pit bulls were a make of car then they'd be recalled for fault correction by the manufacturers.

 

[GreNME]

Cute cartoon.. I'ts getting old..

Not in this thread it isn't. Seems like all you guys making assertions against my statements can do is build strawmen (or post fraudulent data). I've not seen a single one of you retract the citation of the Clifton report... you just stop posting it after I've pointed out the fraud that it is.

I didn't respond to what I thought was a prescription for making the dog a better pet, I was responding to your suggestion to stay calm while breaking the bite of a powerful fighting dog, doing what it does best .. [/quote]

Oh bullcrap, and you know it's bullcrap. I made a statement about breaking a bite, and you post: "Yeah, right ...

That's all we need to know to make the Pit Bull the preferred breed for the family pet ...

Remain calm, while the dog has your three year old's face in it's mouth ..."

It's like you guys don't even realize (or don't care, or just plain don't understand) how ridiculous your strawmen are, and I'd be willing to bet at least half of you would jump down a Truther's throat for making such asinine assertions.

Do you have reason to believe this technique is fairly common knowledge among Pit bull owners ?

What technique? See what you're doing right there? That's the process of building a strawman. Since I never explained a technique of breaking a bite, it just seems like this is a diversion from the conversation.

I missed the context about breaking up a dog fight .. Could you point me in that direction ?

Reading isn't just fun, it's fundamental! The context is found in the discussion of the specific subject being discussed, namely breaking a pit bull from a bite. MikeMagnum was the one to bring up break sticks (link), to which I responded 9link) stating that break sticks were a convenience tool that were not necessary and that I've broken up pit bulls from fights myself. To that, GlennB makes a comment about my somehow posessing "special expertise" (link), and in my response to GlennB (link) on my earlier comment about breaking up dogs that were fighting I state that there's nothing special about what to do, but that one does have to remain calm while they do it just like when breaking up any other breed of dog from a fight. Then you post (link) about how my response to GlennB somehow explained "all we need to know to make the Pit Bull the preferred breed for the family pet" even though that has jack and squat to do with anything I said.

If you're going to continue to claim there was no strawman then you're obviously not even bothering to approach this subject with any measure of intellectual honesty.

 

[slingblade]

(my bolding)

Unprovoked according to whom?

According to the articles I read, which used that phrase, and probably according to people, who may not know what they did that provoked the dog. Who may have seen nothing provoking about their behavior.

That does not mean the dog didn't feel provoked. But we can't ask them, now can we? The person who was bitten might say, "But I did nothing to that dog, and it bit me!" They may not be at all aware what kind of behavior makes a given dog feel the need to bite. Maybe simply getting closer to the owner is behavior the dog doesn't like, and they bite out of protectiveness. But the individual doesn't see that simple act as provoking.

 

[Furcifer]

If we assume TV ownership is worthwhile then those accidents are a risk we consider worth taking. Same with cars. And in any case you can easily make a TV safe.

Same with pitbulls. Train them, don't leave them chained up and have them fixed (these are the biggest factors cited in fatal incidents. 97% of the dogs involved in fatalities weren't fixed according to the Humane Society. 1 in 4 were chained up. And finally find a reputable breeder, any dog can be bred to be aggressive.

And if you're neglectful about placing a heavy TV where it can be tipped over by a visiting child then you're probably facing legal action. And TVs rarely hurdle the fence to find themselves among people who are not familiar with their quirks and who lack TV handling skills.

Unlike TV's that attack without reason or forewarning, dogs make their intentions known. TV's don't need to hurdle fences, they already inhabit every home in America.

Meanwhile there are perfectly good alternatives to pit bulls, namely dogs that weren't specifically bred to be relentlessly tenacious when attacking.
If pit bulls were a make of car then they'd be recalled for fault correction by the manufacturers.

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of TV related deaths. American children are becoming obese due to inactivity at an alarming rate. Diabetes, heart disease, the health risks go on and on. The duration and quality of life for these children is severely affected by watching too much TV. Doctors recommend children get some activity every day to avoid these health complications in later life.

Like getting out and playing with a their family dog

 

[GreNME]

Dr Hugh Wirth is head of the RSPCA in Australia, and a vet with many years experience.

Ingrid Newkirk is the head of PETA in the United States, and was the head of animal shelters in in United States before that with many years of experience. Do you believe that Ingrid Newkirk should be considered an expert on how dogs and cats should be taken care of?

I have a jack russel/maltese cross who is very placid, except if you try to clip his nails. Don't try it without putting a muzzle on him, you will be bitten.

Anecdotes != data. Honestly, all I can say is you're doing it wrong. I could offer you suggestions in getting your dog less bitey (and possibly not bitey at all), but I'm not going to derail the thread for your anecdote.

Even if they don't go for people, as you claim, the exmple I linked to is enough to have them banned. They go for other dogs. People walk their dogs.

I haven't claimed that "they don't go for people," and I really wish you guys would actually read what I'm actually saying instead of what you seem to prefer I've been saying.

Dogs-- any dogs, not just pit bulls-- who attack with dangerous aggression and with disastrous and tragic results are the exception, and by that I mean that the numbers are literally in the hundredths of a percent in terms of dog populations. Furthermore, you guys are trying to attribute the majority of these attacks to pit bulls despite there being no data being collected regarding the breeds involved in attacks, and several of you have used the fraudulent Clifton Report as a basis for this claim despite its having been shown as being a sham. And when challenged on this, you come back with links to tragic stories where reactionary folks (like Dr. Wirth) are making completely overblown statements and demanding that those be taken as a rational basis for the opinion that a certain breed of dogs be banned despite the cases involved being the exception rather than the rule. You keep making false claims that this breed is meant to fight when that is very much not the case, and then the continued circular game of citing faulty or fraudulent claims, myths about the breed itself, and individual cases where the exception happens becomes an ideological echo chamber where pit bulls are trumped up as some type of menace to society at large and the elimination of the breed is the only solution.

Pit bulls are dogs, and they act like dogs-- not inherently-bred killers just waiting to snap. There's nothing instinctual within a pit bull that isn't present in dozens of other breeds, many of whom are larger and could do much more damage in a quicker fashion, but other breeds don't have the unfortunate stigma that comes with having been a breed used in illicit dog fighting or the hyperbolic use of their name in news media when it comes to dog attacks (whether it was actually a pit bull or not), so those other breeds don't have the "kill em all" meme attached to them (yet). However, other breeds have been stigmatized as being "dangerous" over the decades by the same echo chamber effect (media and "conventional wisdom") where people simply assumed the dogs were dangerous and needed to be put down, and that the current breed-du-jour is the pit bull does not in reality make the pit bull breed stand out in any remarkable manner in comparison. It's just another breed who has become the target of sensationalist media and irrational fear and scapegoating by a population that continues to have a large (enough) segment of individuals who neither understand nor have inclination to understand that dogs are not cartoon and movie characters who behave in ways we want them to just because we want them to. They're dogs, not little four-legged people, and that's the biggest source of the problems we see with regard to the tragic incidents that happen with attacks.

 

[GreNME]

If we assume TV ownership is worthwhile then those accidents are a risk we consider worth taking. Same with cars. And in any case you can easily make a TV safe. And if you're neglectful about placing a heavy TV where it can be tipped over by a visiting child then you're probably facing legal action. And TVs rarely hurdle the fence to find themselves among people who are not familiar with their quirks and who lack TV handling skills.

Meanwhile there are perfectly good alternatives to pit bulls, namely dogs that weren't specifically bred to be relentlessly tenacious when attacking.

If pit bulls were a make of car then they'd be recalled for fault correction by the manufacturers.

Complete BS. Sports cars are by intentional design (lighter and faster) more dangerous than other cars, yet you don't see groups of individuals demanding that all sports cars be banned and removed from our roadways.

 

[GreNME]

According to the articles I read, which used that phrase, and probably according to people, who may not know what they did that provoked the dog. Who may have seen nothing provoking about their behavior.

That does not mean the dog didn't feel provoked. But we can't ask them, now can we? The person who was bitten might say, "But I did nothing to that dog, and it bit me!" They may not be at all aware what kind of behavior makes a given dog feel the need to bite. Maybe simply getting closer to the owner is behavior the dog doesn't like, and they bite out of protectiveness. But the individual doesn't see that simple act as provoking.

You're touching on something that's key to the conversation at hand here. This is actually something I would love to have a whole thread dedicated to covering-- misperceptions in communication between humans and dogs, and the growing body of knowledge that exists in bridging the gap of communication. I opine that many people who might feel that there's little to know (with human-dog communication) but who are also curious to learn what more might be possible (with understanding dogs) would find such a thread very interesting, and it might very well offer a greater source of information on dog behavior than just the one-off posts or the argumentative discussion going on here. I do know for a fact that it is relevant to this thread, but I also know that it's a big subject that would derail the thread. If interested maybe I'll see if a few other users here who I know are also pretty well-versed in the subject of human-dog communication and behaviorism (DogDoctor is one, I think Roger is another) are into maybe having a thread where we can answer questions and point to resources, online or in books or elsewhere, that offer elaboration on what we point out.

Apropos to this thread, I recommend "Culture Clash: A Revolutionary New Way to Understanding the Relationship Between Humans and Domestic Dogs" by Jean Donaldson or even "How Dogs Think" by Stanley Coren as good primer books for dog behavior.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Anecdotes != data

Ironic, given how many personal anecdotes you've used to build your argument.
.

you guys are trying to attribute the majority of these attacks to pit bulls despite there being no data being collected regarding the breeds involved in attacks,

Well I don't share your pessimism about the accuracy of media analyses. It's usually the investigating officer that identifies the breed for the media, rather than the victim, and so I imagine this would reduce some of the inability of teh report to properly identify the breed.

Here's one such media analysis of dog fatalities in the US:
http://www.dogsbite.org/reports/dogsbite-report-us-dog-bite-fatalities-2006-2008.pdf

It says pitbulls were responsible for more than half of the fatal attacks reported between 2006 and 2008.

Now, even if 75% of those pitbulls were actually german shepherds and were misidentified by the victims and the investigating officers, you'd still have pitbulls responsible for a disproportionate number of fatal dog attacks in the US.

Here's a paper (argues against BSL, though I disagree with how this conclusion is reached) which cites data from Calgary, which the authors say actually has pretty good data on attacks and incidents by breed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2834488/pdf/16187720.pdf

"In 2003, Calgary reported
that 0.84% of German shepherds and their crosses
bit a human, compared with 1.14% of rottweilers
and their crosses, and 3.86% of pit bulls. When
considering total aggressive incidents (bites, chase/
threats, damage to property, damage to other animals,
human injury), 1.9% of German shepherd dogs
and their crosses were involved, compared with 4.8%
of rottweiler and their crosses, and 14.88% of the pit
bulls (7)"


There are other statistics in there and some arguments against BSL and its effectiveness. If you wish to defend any of the arguments the paper makes, please feel free to- I am just using the article as a source of some figures and do not fully agree with its conclusions (though it's interesting to me to see that the article refers to pitbulls as 'fighting breed'.)

 

[Captain.Sassy]

I would say that JRs weren't "bred to bite things" and that's an inaccurate description.

k so how else were they supposed to kill whatever it was they were bred to kill?

Your attempt to bring offense into the mix

'
You're clearly getting offended, or were. Maybe you've calmed down a bit since, but I know the biggest insult you can level at someone on here is 'truther', and you've thrown that one around a couple of times

and when faced with actual authoritative sources on the dog breed you ignore them and make up strawmen to attack

What 'authoritative sources'... the UKC history of the APBT? The one that didn't specifically say the APBT was bred for fighting, but merely implied it and glossed it over? You DO know the UKC was set up because the AKC wouldn't recognise the APBT because of its association with dogfighting? Do you think this might in any way influence their official standard for the breed?

If anything, I'm amused at how you're following the Truther Method of Logic to maintain your insistence about pit bulls.

here we go again...

No they weren't, and we've already been over this. Just because you refuse to accept what's been shown plainly to you does not make your assertions any more factual. Your insistence at this is just as funny as Truthers claiming the WTC towers fell at "freefall speeds."

and again...

You're arguing from incredulity (and ignorance). You can't provide evidence about your assumption, but no matter how many times the breed standard is pointed out to you then you can always back into this "I'm not convinced" wall of incredulity.

once again with the UKC breed standard... pretty flimsy rickshaw there.

Anyways, I'll get to the rest of your novel later.

Try to refrain from all the personal attacks; you're better than that.

 

[Furcifer]

Something's not right here.

From the Calagary article: "Secondly, Sacks
and Sinclair (5) reported that of the 56 human
deaths caused by dogs off their owners’ property,
55 of these were off-leash."

Human Society: "One out of every four fatal dog attacks involves a chained dog" source: AVMA http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf

 

[Toke]

Those two could be combined, providing a lot of fatal attacks happen on the owners property.

Not that unlikely with chained dogs, they don't get out much.


ETA: "The pitbull placebo" have several examples of kids walking up to a starved beaten pitbull chained in the backyard or basement.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Something's not right here.

From the Calagary article: "Secondly, Sacks
and Sinclair (5) reported that of the 56 human
deaths caused by dogs off their owners’ property,
55 of these were off-leash."

Human Society: "One out of every four fatal dog attacks involves a chained dog" source: AVMA http://www.avma.org/public_health/dogbite/dogbite.pdf

I think the Humane Society is referring to dogs that spend some time chained up, i.e. that this is an inhumane practice. It may not mean a dog that is actually chained down at the time.

 

[Furcifer]

Oh wait, I see. Of the ones that happened "off the property" only 1 was on a leash.

So if you combine all the stats, if you have a fixed pitbull, in proper health, that you walk on a leash and don't leave chained up in your yard there's almost no chance of something happening.

Oddly enough that's proper care for a dog. Go figure

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Oh wait, I see. Of the ones that happened "off the property" only 1 was on a leash.

So if you combine all the stats, if you have a fixed pitbull, in proper health, that you walk on a leash and don't leave chained up in your yard there's almost no chance of something happening.

Oddly enough that's proper care for a dog. Go figure

The paper I linked cited research on dog breeds that showed differences in inherent aggression between dog breeds. Didn't look at pitbulls though. Still, I take this as evidence that certain dog breeds can be inherently more aggressive and dangerous.

So yes, if you have a properly cared for pitbull the chances of it actually attacking a kid are lower than if you abuse the pitbull and don't give it exercise etc. Just like with any dog the individual circumstances of that dog's life matter greatly in whether or not that dog will be dangerous, sure. None of this counters the argument that a) some breeds are inherently more dangerous than others or b) pitbulls are one of these breeds.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I found this amusing .. ( While following some links from the " Pit Bull Placebo " sales pitch ...

http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/dog-bites/

Corresponding with other dog bite data from throughout the nation, the number of mail carriers bitten by dogs over the past three decades has significantly decreased:

No shhhh !

Think that could have anything to do with the declining number of mail carriers who actually walk their routes ?

Some real science going on there ...