this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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When 1 breed is per capita significantly higher represented... yes it is.
Little dogs can't kill you.
If we breed a dog to be the size of a hippo... Is that still okay to have? Even if it's only 6x as dangerous as the next breed?
it's higher because people use pitbulls for dog fights, etc... if you abuse an animal it's more likely to attack someone.
if you look at stats, getting killed by a rotweiler or a german Shepard isn't that far off.
which would be the next two "tough dude" cool pets...
not to mention, pitbulls aren't even a breed, really... there's plenty of pit cousins that would be the new pitbulls... plus half breeds and whatnot...
my solution is to just require all small children carry revolvers... super simple, and those dogs will think twice before attacking them.
We should just breed our toddlers to be vicious dog-killers machines, problem solved. I want my kid to be able to tear everything to shreds on the playground by the time he hits 6.
fuck yeah
They didn't just use pitbulls, they specifically bred pitbulls to fight and never give up. It's deep in their brain.
"Deep in their brain" is that a science term. I kid. I would like to know the science behind it, though.
This is correct. My argument isn't just that they top the lists... it's ALSO that the damage they do is much higher than any other breed as well. These concepts are inextricably linked.
When a pomeranian bites you, it's whatever... bleeds a little bit, you put a bandaid on it later, but punt the fucker now. If a pitbull bites you... You might be missing part of your fucking leg. Try punting a pitbull...
We have more known attacks that are pitbulls simply because the damage they do is so fucking much more that it can't just be handled in private. It's actually probably 100% probably that pitbulls on average strictly bite at the same rates as other dogs... But the sheer amount of damage done by pitbulls means those bites = more deaths and hospitalizations. I've never once claimed that pitbulls bite more or less than any other breed, simply that they cause more casualties (and often specify deaths).
This is called gameness and the trait is not inextricable for pit bull breeds. It was bred into them through selection, not too dissimilar to how those stubby faced breeds were bred to be that way (e.g. pugs).
If pit bull breeds were selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait it would change things. It’s almost like the root problem isn’t the dogs but the people and breeding practices.
Pits already are selectively bred to reduce/remove that trait. The only person who wants a pit suited for fighting is the exact person who should never own a dog anyways. Since there’s literally NO benefit to the trait, obviously breeders jump through a lot of hoops to not sell aggressive murder dogs.
People who casually imply that every pitbull is a fucking monster are so woefully illinformed, and usually completely unwilling to consider they don’t know all the facts.
If this was directed at me I wasn’t implying every pit bull breed type is a monster.
Certified, professional breeders might be breeding out the gameness but the backyard breeders and the accidental breeders aren’t.
The number of pit and pit mixes in shelters aren’t coming from professional breeders or their dogs. Our second adopted dog is a mutt but dominant breeds are Border Collie and Am. Pit Bull Terrier. We’ve got her pretty well trained now, but if another dog comes snapping and biting at her I have to jump in to get a hold of her because she’s still got enough game in her that, if provoked, she goes hard in the paint.
I will always believe that pit type breeds are not for inexperienced or lazy dog owners. They need work, structure and training consistently.
This is key, it's like they are bigger than they appear. We inherited one. Sweet nature, good with the cats, but weighs the same as the bigger dog in the household and strong as fuck.
I'm sorry, but this is a probably 100% probably on average strictly convincing sentence you've got, there.
Oh man... I said "probably" rather than "probable"! I better go get the noose and hang myself cause @daltotron can't understand what a typo is!
No, I get that people type on mobile, and that autocorrect is a bitch. The thing that struck me more was that you hedged your bets like 4 times in the same sentence, against someone calling you out for not having any evidence of what you were claiming, but then you still end up using your claim to extrapolate an argument with what seems like a relatively large amount of certainty.
Also that the sentence was kind of repetitive, which struck me as funny. "probably 100% probable" is just saying the same thing twice, saying that something is "probably" the case is the same thing as saying it's "100% probable", and the "100%" part of that strikes me as completely superfluous. "on average strictly" is kind of contradictory, you usually wouldn't claim something to be "on average" but then also say that it is "strictly" that way, because an average is, you know, an average, it's an aggregate of numbers, including outliers. So it can't really "strictly" conform to whatever you're wanting it to conform to, unless it's an exact match of the average, or unless you don't actually mean "strictly" in the strictest sense. I dunno, I give it a C-.
The argument also strikes me as wrong, I would think pitbulls probably do just attack people more ,and with more aggressiveness, than other dog breeds. Maybe not that much more, relative to, say, german shepards, but say, compared to irish wolfhounds, I would think so, yeah. I think if an irish wolfhoud was attacking someone at the same rates, with the same aggression, as pitbulls, we would see them kill a lot more people than pitbulls do. Pitbulls aren't actually that big, relative to other dogs.
It's absolutely not "deep in their brain" breed doesn't really impact behavior
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D84642491739088231094049347991384876828%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1651162390&_ga=2.218466969.1066386900.1651162373-689641651.1609118629
How you raise a dog does. If you see an aggressive dog, blame the owner.
Yes, owner surveys over tens of thousands of individuals regardless of breed meaning no implicit bias. The survey finds the same result across all breeds, the survey isn't specific to pits.
You really thought you did something there didn't you? Please learn to trust science over inflammatory media
Like if everyone claimed they had a perfect puppy, your critique would hold water, but flaws were reported across all breeds...
Why then pick pits? I get emergency calls about dog attacks all the time. It's always pits. Assholes want asshole dogs. People use them to fight because they're monsters and will fight till the death.
I picked my pit because that's what the shelter had and she's incredibly sweet. Even with kids, they can pull her face meats and it doesn't even bother her.
if an asshole dog fighting abusive owner can't get a pit, they'll get a rottweiler... which will also attack people if raised like that.
or german shepards...
see also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_warfare
It's more represented because morons buy that breed more than others. When they get banned it's other breeds that start attacking people.
You don't understand what "per capita" means do you?
Cool... I'll take being attacked by a pomeranian any day. I can at least punt those little fuckers over a fence.
Yeah the statistics on this are incredibly clear.
For the US this year it's overwhelming staffy / Pitbulls causing human deaths.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
You don't really understand how statistics work do you? Per capita can still get artificially skewed in favor of one breed or another. For an example, let's say we have red Legos and blue Legos and statistics say that murderers are more likely to pick red Legos. As a result, more people pick blue Legos because they don't want to be perceived as murderers, leaving the red Legos for murderers and people who are skeptical or ignorant of the statistics. The result will be that there's a much higher number of murderers per-captia with red Legos than with blue Legos.
The same can be applied to pitbulls. Create the story that pitbulls are man-killers, and the stats will get skewed as people looking for man-killers buy more pitbulls and people looking for companions intentionally avoid them. The result will be that there are more man-killer pitbulls per capita because that's what they're being trained for. It's called a self-fullfilling prophecy. Maybe pitbulls truly do have a disposition for being man-killers, however their reputation means that the stats will be skewed in favor of the man-killers trait, as more people will buy them to make them man-killers.
Loved your comment, just wanted to chime in that what you’re referring to in the quoted portion above is commonly called gameness. Generally speaking it’s not that pit bulls are more prone to attack by default but their attacks are more unrelenting.
Do you really think these people go for Pomeranians instead? Not an American bulldog or a rottweiler or a doberman... No... They can't buy a Pitbull so they get a Chihuahua instead!
If a higher percentage of pitbull owners are morons then no shit there will be more attacks per capita, it doesn't mean that the breed is the issue!
Also the problem with these stats is that they're based on victim reports, victims that very often don't know dogs and will call any big dog with short hair a Pitbull. The stats are extremely unreliable and in most places there's just no actual tracking of the breeds that committed the attack. In places where there is, as I previously mentioned, attacks don't go down it's just other breeds that are reported and the attacks cause just as much damage because the dogs aren't any smaller.
The CDC and humane society disagree with you, you know, based on expert opinion. You’re not an expert, so I’ll ignore your comment.
Edit: I’ll also add the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the Animal Behavior Society, the National Animal Care and Control Association, etc. also oppose breed specific legislation.
So, yeah I’ll take their opinion over some silly comment on the internet.
While I'm on the side of pitbulls, don't go waving around an appeal to authority fallacy like that.
I’m not appealing to an irrelevant authority. I’m appealing to experts on the matter. I personally don’t have the time nor interest to do all the research myself, so trusting their expert opinion is what I’ll have to do. I hope you’ll do the same, as you do in other areas of your life.
I think as normal ass individuals without all the time in the world to do our own research on every topic, it’s okay to trust an authority that is at least trying to follow the scientific method.
I don’t know why on the subject of dog breeds everyone thinks their own anecdotes and personal opinions should some how win out…. And I know people will try to wave around some studies with stats pulled from newspaper articles, but the fact is the CDC, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, American Veterinary Medical Association, and Humane society have access to those studies too and came to a different conclusion: they oppose BSL.
And you know for sure they're not serving their own interest?
Imagine a statistics agency said any particular human race was more dangerous.
I don’t follow… basically you’re making an argument never to trust experts, which is absurd and dangerous. If we learned anything from Covid and the Trump years, it’s that “doing your own research,” misinformation and distrust of experts are real issues that can cause serious damage to a society. I hope you’re not fanning the flames here.
Oh? Feel free to drop a link proving me wrong then since they've weighed in on the matter. In the meantime...
https://www.dogsbite.org/
Feel free to peruse here... including medical studies like https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf as an example showing that pit bulls historically occur more often and cause SIGNIFICANTLY more damage.
But right... The CDC and humane society disagree with me!
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7236a6.htm Which doesn't break out by breed. But the numbers line up with other sources that HAVE broken out the breed. Showing that it's 71% during this time period pitbull.
And I couldn't give a fuck what the humane society says. They're not statisticians nor do they have they ever published any statistics on attacks. Feel free to put up though. I'll wait patiently.
So I'm not the other user but I'll go ahead and help you out.
AVMA quick summary of all the problems with trying to blame a set of breeds: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/literature-reviews/dog-bite-risk-and-prevention-role-breed
Study that shows breed doesn't impact behavior in any substantial way: https://www.aaas.org/news/dogs-breed-doesnt-determine-its-behavior#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20findings%2C%20breed,exclusive%20to%20any%20one%20breed. Basically a dog is a dog is a dog and the main indicator of how a dog is going to act is how it was raised.
Study shows that BSL doesn't work: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208393
Meaning if you remove pitbulls and other "aggressive" dogs, people still end up in the hospital at the same rate from dog bites.
All this points to the simple fact that if you give an asshole a dog, that dog will be dangerous.
Also as an aside any claim to "per capita" with regards to dogs is baseless. There has not ever been a dog census nor would we reasonably be able to do one, so we can't make any claims about "this breed has a higher percentage of biters" or anything to that effect.
Are you shitting me? https://financesonline.com/number-of-dogs-in-the-us/
You don't need to have a census to have a pretty damn good idea of how many there are. And you all keep telling me that I'm disingenuous.
This is a persons representation of a study. Not the study. but it links to here (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639) So if breed has nothing to do with anything. How come there's qualities organized by breed by the study? You can't claim that behaviors aren't affected by breed, then show me a study that shows a bunch of behaviors organized by breed. And you all keep telling me that I'm disingenuous.
Except this misses one big premise... Amount of cases can be exactly the same, but severity of each case can go down severely. Also amount of cases can be the same, but have less fatalities! Almost like your link and my link can co-exist.https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/level-1-trauma-center-studies-dog-bite-injuries-2011-2022.pdf and no offense, but I'm okay with a world where there's less harm and death done.
Okay, because I saw you're a fan of banpitbull subreddit.
I need to ask a very simple question. Do you care about actual safety, or do you just want pitbulls banned? Like what is your goal?
Because all science in the last 5 years states people, not pitbulls, are the problem. Globally. That's the issue.
If you actually want "less harm and death done" then you need to listen to the scientific experts and stop pushing for BSL, and instead push for things that move towards the goal of less harm and death.
But okay let's address the rest now
You say that and then the link you provided did not give me a very good idea about per capita of the breeds... I have no idea how many of any breed there are.
You are being disingenuous... Less than 9% difference across all breeds. A dog is a dog is a dog. Some howl, some don't. Some are more active. A dog is a dog is a dog.
Well it was counting hospitalizations... So it's safe to say we're only talking about severe ones..
Oh I would be okay with all large breeds (let's say over 50lbs. as being a start) being required licensing. But considering the specific damage caused by pitbulls I would love to see them go first if there's got to be a first. And "banned" in my case would be force spay/neuter and legalize breeding of them. I'm not a monster that wants to see a witch hunt to murder all currently existing pit bulls. I just want to see a breed that was bred for causing as much damage as possible in a fight not... Other large dogs being kept in a city apartment should also be illegalized as well IMO... but other breeds don't have the predilection to bite the way pit bulls do.
Because I was specifically addressing your "census" comment. I have no issue providing more information to a point if required. There's a few ways to infer population stats... https://www.pitbullinfo.org/pit-bulls-population.html has some for instance (DNA sites or veterinary data). Or you can grab stats from any number of dog rescues/pounds/etc... These stats won't ever be perfect singularly. But certainly good enough.
So in your mind... pitbulls are fine because there's only a 9% difference in breeds even though they make up 71% of all dog related deaths since 2011? You realize this isn't just a case of strictly bite numbers. You even pointed it out. Even if pitbulls are LESS likely to bite, but each instance of a bite causes significantly more damage that causes hospitalization/death... This is STILL A PROBLEM. I'd still like to point out that your own source STILL managed to organize the breeds even though it's only "9%"...
So instead of addressing the article I posted you ignore it? Again?
Well your article isn't a study, it's a literary review from a very biased source of a Colleen Lynn
In fact if you want to read up on your source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogsbite.org
You can see that she complains about science and ignores expert opinions in the field because they disagree with her.
It's very telling when her literary review comes to very different conclusions than actual scientists performing studies in the field.
Science whores? And people take her seriously?
Rarely have I seen a hole so deeply dug before
I’m not going to get into it with you, but I would recommend reading a book called “Pitbull: Battle over an American Icon” by Browne Dickey. She does have an entire section on dogsbite.org.
dogsbite.org is run by a Colleen Lynn. Colleen’s only real experience with the matter is that she successfully sued someone over a dog bite. She has no statistics or veterinary credentials, yet on her page, she tries to cite studies from the experts that do in order to appear more reputable… kind of like you’re doing. However, she draws very different conclusions than those experts indicating she’s cherry-picking the data to suit her own biases… kind of like you’re doing.
I’m sorry but when the CDC, American Veterinary Medical Association, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, etc, etc all draw different conclusions and oppose breed-specific legislation, it’s hard to give much weight to a site like dogsbite.org, who’s owner has a bias based on her personal experience and has financially benefited from the dog bite issue in the courts.
If you want more, go ahead and read the book, but that’s it from me. Have a nice day, you won’t hear from me again on the matter.
Even a little dog can bite you right in the throat, breaking your carotid artery so you to bleed to death. Don't underestimate the strength of their bite just because they are smaller than a cat.
If a little dog can jump ~5.5 foot to reach my throat, then it deserves the kill. But this is very much not represented by the statistics at all. Little dogs simply don't kill people. I looked at the stats a bunch of months ago before the reddit exodus... It's like one "little dog breed" every 4-5 years (which is representative of a fraction of a fraction of a percent)... where 65+% of all dog related deaths are from a pit bull breed.
Hahahahahaha! I have never had my life threatened by anything but a pit. People i know who own them always end up covered in wounds. And those who deal with family that has them know just how awful they are.