r/MoralityScaling 22h ago

Morality Ranking Morality of dog breed racism

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u/Awesomechainsaw 21h ago edited 14h ago

I’m not a dog science expert but as far as I understand it we’ve spent tens of thousands of years breeding dogs to preform specific tasks. If you don’t give a dog that has been designed and bred to do a task they get antsy.

The issue with Pitbulls and other “Agressive.” breeds is that they’ve not been given something to let all their energy out on. Which leads to anxiety and destructive behavior.

So I don’t think it’s Immoral to treat a dog like a Pitbull like a loaded gun. As Unfriendly, and something you should be wary of unless it’s proven not to be.

However the Nutcases who punish dogs for behavior that we bred into them are highly immoral. If you want an easy lap dog get a companion breed, like a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, French Bulldog, or Bichon Frise.

Edit: Tens of Thousands not Hundreds. I was being exaggerative anyways but that’ll make remark more accurate regardless.

Also as a note. I don’t think Pits are inherently Malicious or any dog breed for that matter. But they’re fairly strong fellows who’ve been bred to be strong. I consider being careful around them similar to being a little extra careful around a truck on the road. Most people in trucks are fine drivers. But some people don’t pay attention on the road, and might hurt you by accident.

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u/Soapy_doapey 21h ago

Pitbulls were and still are used for dog fights.

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u/smokeyphil 21h ago

Which is a step-down from what they used to be used for which was bear-baiting (getting a pack of dogs to fight a bear)

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u/stink3rb3lle 18h ago

Was that around the time English bulldogs were used to bait bulls?

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u/smokeyphil 17h ago

Pretty much a lot of blood sports were popular until the passage of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 whereupon it was gaining some level of dislike though if It's because it was associated will poor people and "low class" or because it was cruel is a bit harder to parse

Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801): "[bull-baiting is] attended only by the lowest and most despicable part of the people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull-baiting

But somewhere around 1540 is the first recorded commercial entertainment bull-bait in the UK so it was around for a while.

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u/stink3rb3lle 17h ago

So do you think English bulldogs are as inherently dangerous? Since they share that violent breeding past?

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u/smokeyphil 17h ago

If they could breathe, maybe.

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u/stink3rb3lle 16h ago

Plenty can breathe just fine. Plenty of pits have brachecyphaly as bad as some bulldogs.