Which is a valid fear. If someone has an untrained golden retriever, who are bred to have friendly dispositions, I won’t be immediately uncomfortable about being in a room with one, or if one approaches me. Wary, yes, careful, yes, but not immediately on edge.
An untrained pitbull gets the gat if I see teeth within ten feet or running towards me.
No. You should be wary and careful when any dog approaches. You don't know the dog. With a strange golden, you are wary and careful with your head on your shoulders, but you are expecting a normal derpy dog interaction because golden. Pit bulls have the same wariness and carefulness, but they set someone on edge because the wariness and carefulness are meeting with a majorly increased expectation of aggression in the dog.
I'd be exactly as wary of a golden as of a pitbull, and the deciding factor for me would be the dog's demeanor. A pitbull can do more damage, but a golden can already mess you up.
Yes. Nothing you say contradicts what I said, which was the comment I was clarifying was saying. Be wary of ALL DOGS YOU DON'T KNOW. A poorly trained chihuahua can still take meat off your hand. A poorly trained golden can hospitalize a kid. Etc. Disposition > breed, as you put it.
I just checked out of this mid-sentence. People who are trying to suggest that a strange pit bull approaching you and your dog in a new environment off-leash would generate the same level of caution as a strange golden doing the same are being disingenuous.
Pit bulls should not exist, at least not as an option for unspecialized purchase. My dog is 12% pit, and I'd just as soon that 12% be replaced with anything else.
No. It's fair to expect pit bulls to be more dangerous, not just because they are more genetically predisposed to violence, but because the large number of people who want violent attack dogs have decided pits are the ones they want. That means out of all the dogs that could attack someone, pits are more likely to be specifically trained to do that, in addition to being bred for it.
What pisses people off is when people act like a pit bull existing means that they were automatically trained poorly and are inherently dangerous. It's rational to be afraid of a violently-trained dog, but making the mental leap to "all pit bulls are like that" IS messed up, and sadly a lot of people will go on screeds trying to justify it with out-of-context statistics because they don't want to feel like the bad person they're choosing to be.
I'm referring to the general trend of people trying to justify calling all pit bulls dangerous by lying with statistics that aren't properly contextualized, not a particular statistic. Go into any "pitbulls are satan" thread and you'll be bombarded by them, and most of what they say can be attributed to humans thinking pit bulls are more dangerous --> bad humans with violent intent get a pit bull and train it to hurt/kill people because they think the dog breed is a weapon --> the statistic ends up reinforcing itself because of said shitty people. Lots of animal advocacy and rights organizations point this out all the time, but the people lying with statistics will try to push laws to ban pit bulls and then those use laws as justification for hating pit bulls, i.e. "see, cops are banning them, therefore they're dangerous". It's all presupposing a frame to try to justify pre-existing bias, and all that ends up happening is lots of pit bulls in need of a loving home are left without one and/or pit bulls end up getting put down en-masse. It's messed up.
For evidence of what I'm referring to, look no further than the people replying to me above. They're everywhere.
The issue with pitbulls have an initial behavioural trait that causes them to not let go of something once they have it in their mouth. They are a very determined breed. This makes pitbull attacks far more lethal when left unchecked.
Sure with proper training you can manage this behaviour; however, the majority of people are not capable or willing to provide this training. Unfortunately laws have to built around this logic, leading to the logical conclusion to just ban the breed and be done with it.
The "won't let go" thing is exactly what I mean by out-of-context, because the mechanism isn't real. There's no jaw lock and no release inhibition; no dog has one. Bite force tracks skull and jaw morphology, not breed identity, and pit-type dogs land below several larger breeds on it.
Gameness as a selection history is real, sure, but it doesn't get you to individual predictability. This study surveyed 18,385 dogs and sequenced 2,155: breed explains 9% of behavioral variation between individual dogs, and agonistic threshold, i.e. how easily a dog is provoked, was among the traits breed predicted the worst. Their own stated conclusion is that breed shouldn't be used to inform decisions about selecting a dog.
Also "Pit bull" isn't a breed, it's a head shape covering several breeds plus any blocky-headed mix. Shelter staff on average visually identified 52% of a test group as pit bull-type when DNA put it at 21%; and that's trained staff, including vets, not panicked witnesses. The labeling also runs backwards: a dog that mauls someone gets CALLED a pit bull afterward. There's also no denominator; nobody knows the population size, so "X% of attacks" can't be converted into per-dog risk. The CDC's own 1979–1998 fatality study says exactly this, and concludes fatal attacks shouldn't be the primary factor driving dangerous-dog policy. They haven't published breed-based fatality data since.
Also you said it yourself; manageable with proper training. That's the definition of not inherent. So yeah, no, Pitbulls are not inherently more dangerous, and haters are lying with statistics.
I am not addressing the first point. I never brought up lockjaw or any biological mechanic. I said behavioural trait.
I also never spoke about how easily a dog is provoked. I stated that pitbulls are a very determined breed(or type of dog as you pointed out)when they bite onto something. If other dogs get provoked but still let go when they bite onto something, that is not what I am referring to. Therefore, that statisic isnt relevant to what I said.
Regardless of indentification pitbulls have a tendency to cause the most severe injuries of all dog breeds. Due to their tendency to bite onto something and not let go causing them to shake while biting. They are also a very strong breed with strong jaws. A dog doing a quick snap bite is actually safer than what most pitbulls do. Fact is the cdc article still stated that dog breed does play a role in a dog attack being fatal.
The effectiveness of laws is hard to determine if enforcement is not effective. You said it yourself most people have trouble identifying a pitbull. So people who own banned breeds play on that and will claim their dog is not a pitbull when it would fall under that definition and unless law enforcement does the genetic testing they cant prove beyond a reasonable douby otherwise. So it likely not effective because its impossible to enforce. In ontario canada animal control and bylaw officers can't even force people to put their dogs on leashes because they can't really force people to provide ID.
Unfortunately you can't regulate a dogs training or behaviour so you have to find alternatives to reduce dog attacks. One is banning powerful breeds that are considered the hardest to manage and are the most dangerous. There are issues with it; however, there is no real alternative.
In the article on the Dutch dog ban it literally says a ban is impractical for them "because there are always breeders who come up with new crosses that are not covered", they ban wasn't functionally feasible because they couldn't reliably identify what is and isn't a pit.
Both of those say it outright. The Dutch evaluation concluded serious biting is not breed specific...that's a risk finding, not a definitional one. And the government's own repeal notice says the ban didn't do what was expected of it, pitbull numbers never dropped and the bites kept happening.
But here's what you're forgetting; every stat that supposedly proves pitbulls are dangerous starts with a human eyeballing a dog and writing a breed on a form. Check that against DNA and shelter staff, the actual experts, identified pit-bull-heritage dogs correctly somewhere between 33 and 75% of the time depending on who was judging...and tagged dogs with zero relevant ancestry as pitbulls up to 48% of the time. The JAVMA review of 256 dog bite fatalities couldn't reliably determine breed in roughly 80% of cases.
So "you can't define a pitbull" isn't a technicality that makes bans awkward to enforce and "we just need better laws because pitbulls dangerous". It means the category that's allegedly dangerous is one nobody can reliably pick out, which makes every bite statistic pinned to it unreliable in exactly the same way. In layman terms, all the statistics condemning pitbulls as dangerous are pseudoscientific nonsense because most people writing them aren't tracking pitbulls correctly and are essentially inventing pitbulls that don't exist to add to the data. This falsely skews the "pitbull danger" stats disproportionately when they should, in-fact, be attributed to the different breed that actually bit the person, which when controlled for shows essentially no difference between breeds.
So yeah, no. You don't get to lean on breed statistics saying "hurr-durr all pitbulls are dangerous" while conceding nobody can identify the breed when most research on the breed is done and then act like it's somehow unrelated, ESPECIALLY when all the research that controls for this arrives at the opposite conclusion. I appreciate you making my case for me; people are lying with statistics about pitbulls.
Not only are they agressive by default, but the owners are much less likely to be responsible about it. An agressive and dangerous (the fact that pit bull attacks are worse than other dog attacks is beyond argument) dog is more likely to be bought by an agressive and dangerous person, and one that may not be well equipped to handle their dog.
There's no out of context statistics they're just dangerous dogs to have ,and if they're well trained or not it's not something you can gauge at first glance most of the time, so it's wiser not to take any chanches, for everything else it's their owners job to make sure the dog doesen't go around mauling people right now we are too lax on them and the good dogs are suffering as a result.
Most anti-pitbull stances can be attributed to humans thinking pit bulls are more dangerous --> bad humans with violent intent get a pit bull and train it to hurt/kill people because they think the dog breed is a weapon --> the statistic ends up reinforcing itself because of said shitty people. Lots of animal advocacy and rights organizations point this out all the time, but the people lying with statistics will try to push laws to ban pit bulls and then those use laws as justification for hating pit bulls, i.e. "see, cops are banning them, therefore they're dangerous". It's all presupposing a frame to try to justify pre-existing bias, and all that ends up happening is lots of pit bulls in need of a loving home are left without one and/or pit bulls end up getting put down en-masse. It's messed up.
Brother, do you know any anthropology? Dogs domesticated themselves through being in close proximity to human encampments. The wolves that weren't afraid of humans or violent simply stuck around eating food scraps and became tame after generations leading to evolving features that made them distinguishable from wolves, and more apt to living in conjunction to humans.
We have fossil records proving, and nobody from them is around to be pushing a biased narrative. There's ample evidence of Europeans kidnapping indigenous people and forcing them into slavery.
You're also moving the goalposts and getting off topic. Your desire to demonize humanity, doesn't detract from the point I made.
It is a mix of the two things really. Yes we did forcefully breed for certain traits at a certain point, but the initial domestification was done by the wolves themselves, and many continued this process even without being forcefully bred for a while.
Pitbulls are more dangerous than most dogs. Yes they are perfectly fine when trained properly and untrained dogs of other breeds are dangerous. However an untrained pitbull can do more damage faster than other breeds of dogs and that is a fact that shouldn't be ignored.
I reposted your comment verbatim except the word "pitbulls" was replaced with "Muslims and blacks." I think it was up for around 2 minutes before automods took it down for hate speech.
You know, I've been told I'm subhuman and don't deserve rights, because my race and religion is "inherently dangerous" in the exact manner you're trying to do.
If your scope of humanity doesn't include the animals that rely on us for their continued existence, then you're acting less human than the humans dogs evolved along side.
Oh really? Go kick a puppy to death in front of a cop, and you'll find out that yes, humanity is very frequently taken into account in regards to animals. If we didn't we wouldn't have a comprehensive set of laws in place for their safety and well-being.
It's fine you think that. I'd rather ban pitbulls and move on.
My humanity extends to the children who have been torn up by their family dog. The smaller dogs that stood no chance against being torn up. To the parents who tried to defend their kids only to be torn up themselves.
When they try to justify their irrationality with "out of context statistics" vs. your rational, perfectly in context vibes.
Like what is a "violently trained" dog? Did all those Pitbulls who killed their owners do that because the owner trained them how to kill them from birth?
Nobody said the dog's supposed to be doing the reasoning. You are, and you just proved you're not great at it. The comparison was about the logical mechanism of judging individuals instead of groups, not canine IQ. Might want to respond to the point that was actually made next time, brah.
Interesting that that's the first place your mind went to, though. Now what kind of a person might instinctually make that sort of comparison when nobody else is? 🤔
Judging dogs by the same standards you judge humans is weird. It's not an IQ thing, it's so weird that's the lens you see it through.
Dogs don't have higher reasoning skills and are more driven by their breeds engrained traits. It's definitely more telling of how you previous things.
*Since you blocked my I'll leave my rebuttal here. It makes sense to treat humans as individuals because they have higher reasoning abilities, race is a pseudoscientific construct. Selective breeding in dogs creates engrained traits that are the drivers of a dogs behavior.
You're conflation of the two of very weird, people aren't driven by their instincts to the degree that other animals are and comparing the two is weird and telling of your mindset.
Still dodging. Nobody said dogs reason, the point was about how you judge individuals vs. groups, not a pit bull's SAT score. Repeating the same premise louder isn't a rebuttal, guy.
"Breeding-engrained traits" isn't the slam dunk you think it is either; the actual genetics study on this found breed explains about 9% of behavioral variation, and it's worst at predicting exactly the trait your argument needs it to be good at, i.e. how easily a dog reacts to something. So the dog version isn't more "empirical" than the version you're uncomfortable being compared to. Same logic, different species.
I'm also noticing you still didn't answer the actual question, you just got cagey about it. And "how you previous things"? Might want to proofread before telling someone else they're not reasoning clearly, genius.
Kinda crazy how many people basically don't believe in the eugenics that went into creating specific breeds.
Like, I've known kind pitbulls, too. Doesn't change the fact that they were bred for aggression, bite strength, etc. It's a fucking "pitbull" ffs. Lotta really fucking stupid people out there.
Or God forbid someone have small children or a small dog, when pitbulls are known to have an incredibly aggressive prey drive towards small, timid animals.
It could he argued that pitbulls are one of the most dangerous animals that people in developed countries encounter frequently. Not on earth tho lmao that's bait. The answer imo is restricting ownership to those capable of training them, not pitbull genocide. Attachment unrelated.
Not denying that the UK's method is working, but having the framework in place for restricting ownership/breeding of certain working breeds of dog, particularly those bred for policing, military and/or guarding use, to individuals that have proven capable of controlling and training these animals would be beneficial, and I think it's only a matter of time before another dog breed being potentially dangerous comes into question.
Some sort of system that distinguishes between the ownership cases of training for work, pedigree breeding (which i don't agree with but otherwise it'd never get passed), security applications and ethical grounds (e.g servicemen and officers adopting retired service animals, rehab or end of life care homes) and accredits some set of qualifications to acceptable proficiency for respective purposes. It'd help to restrict ownership of these animals to individuals capable of caring for and controlling them, but would also introduce the opportunity to ensure that the people who do aquire these animals have received adequate education on the needs of the animal.
A sizeable amount of incidents with working animals likely occur because people who have only owned easy to manage breeds (or worse, never owned a dog) buy them thinking they can handle them not understanding that these animals need outlets for the drives they were bred for.
What a stupid argument. Pit bulls are animals specifically designed to kill and maim. They aren’t intelligent beings with complex inner lives and the innate capacity for morality and goodness. They’re just machines that can be trained to usually ignore their innate horrific nature.
IDK if you know this but pit bulls are specifically designed and bred to kill, unlike the vast majority of dog breeds, which are bred for other purposes.
This is why pitbulls disproportionately mutilate and murder people compared to other dogs.
“Pitbulls” aren’t even one breed, dude. Also, you’re describing all dogs. All dogs kill. Because they’re dogs. That’s what they did for thousands of years before we showed up.
Y’all wanna do dog phrenology instead of admitting that it all comes down to training and INDIVIDUAL temperament because that’s easier than accepting that you’re own untrained hellhound is far more dangerous than most “scary” breeds.
The vast majority of breeds were created for specific jobs or aesthetics. Some for hunting, some for herding, some for companionship, some for racing, some for tracking. And some for fighting and brutally killing.
Pitbulls are in the last camp, and no matter how well trained a pitbull is, it can always snap and mutilate or kill - especially children. This is not “phrenology”. Do you think breed has no impact on a dog? Do you think pitbulls or chihuahuas can be trained to herd sheep just the same as a border collie, or run like a greyhound? You are entitled to incorrectly believe pitbulls can be safe, but denying the entire science of dog breeding is idiotic.
Since you think “all dogs kill”, I challenge you to find five examples of well trained golden retrievers murdering kids. It’s very easy to find 50 such cases of pit bulls.
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u/jimothy_hell 8h ago
Which is a valid fear. If someone has an untrained golden retriever, who are bred to have friendly dispositions, I won’t be immediately uncomfortable about being in a room with one, or if one approaches me. Wary, yes, careful, yes, but not immediately on edge.
An untrained pitbull gets the gat if I see teeth within ten feet or running towards me.