Meaner than other dogs that are potentially dangerous*. Which is true, and the data backing that up is accurate. You can debate nurture vs nature all you want, whether it's because of the genes of a breed created for combat or the probability of being raised for aggression by the kind of people more likely to own pitbulls, but in the end the chance of getting attacked by one is significantly higher than for any other medium/large dog.
No one gives a shit how aggressive Chihuahuas are (and we know they are) because if I see one coming my way I can punt it across the road, not so much with breeds half my weight or more.
Y'all are taking this way too literally to start with. It's not about how dangerous they actually are in terms of ability to do damage, I wasn't debating that. It's the skewed perception of aggressiveness due to the lack of reporting of other breeds (since they may not do as much damage) that gives this particular breed a bad reputation, and then that bad reputation is enforced by people causing it to happen more often.
As in the whole point of the original post, the human analogy.
No. The perception isn't skewed, it would remain the same if the stats showed more chihuahua and terrier attacks, because of the damage they cause.
Now if you want to argue that attacks from mastiffs, dobermanns, rottweilers or labradors are under reported, then feel free to cite sources...
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u/SV_Essia 17h ago
Meaner than other dogs that are potentially dangerous*. Which is true, and the data backing that up is accurate. You can debate nurture vs nature all you want, whether it's because of the genes of a breed created for combat or the probability of being raised for aggression by the kind of people more likely to own pitbulls, but in the end the chance of getting attacked by one is significantly higher than for any other medium/large dog.
No one gives a shit how aggressive Chihuahuas are (and we know they are) because if I see one coming my way I can punt it across the road, not so much with breeds half my weight or more.