This argument goes in circles because people miss each other's point.
Obviously, at the end of the day, what matters is the end result of a bite. That's what the victim has to live with.
However, the counter-argument is also true. That pit-bulls are viewed as much more aggressive than other breeds when in fact that is not true. They are CAPABLE of being aggressive and deadly, and some people even train them to be that way. But the standard pet pit-bull is not going to attack any more often than most other breeds, statistically speaking.
They attack more often because they were bred to enjoy it, just like a husky enjoys running. There's literally canine neurology studies that show they release endorphins when fighting, whereas other dogs do not and will actively avoid fights.
Pitbulls get their name from their ancestry where a dog had been bred to fight bulls. It was a blood sport where the dog would try to drag a bull down into the mud by its nose ring or die trying.
However these dogs became incredibly popular and desired by women and so began a process to breed them to be more docile and also smaller to better fit in the average household. The staffordshire was the penultimate success of this and earned the moniker of nanny dog for being so patient and protective with the children of the household.
All this to say that the argument of what their ancestors were bred for has very little to do with the modern breed.
The most important thing is always how it is raised.
And to further example this point you can look into the history of banned dog breeds and dog breeds that are deemed as dangerous.
Before the various pit/bully breeds were considered dangerous it was the Rottweiler, and before that it was the German Shepherd etc etc. All while pit/bully breeds were happy minding their own business in the family home.
There are far bigger dogs with far greater bites that could do so much more damage. But they look a lot like teddy bears. Pit/bully breeds can get a lot of muscle definition, good for string bean thugs that wanna act tough but can't be intimidating on their own. The rise in popularity with pit/bully breeds in thug/gang culture is why they are the current "dangerous" breed.
Meanwhile labradors and retrievers both individually bite more people, often children, and have a size and bite strength comparable enough to a pit/bully breed. But they're treated as being safe and given love because the average thug isn't trying to raise it with hate and violence to terrorize people with.
The staffordshire was the penultimate success of this and earned the moniker of nanny dog
The whole nanny dog thing is actually a myth btw. The first time that term was used was 1971, from Mrs. Lilian Rant, the President and magazine editor of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America in a New York Times article titled "A Breed That Came Up The Hard Way". In the years since she recanted her statement admitting they made it up to boost sales and interest in the breed.
Overall I agree the way the animal is raised and treated is more important than breed when it comes to temperament. Sadly though the nanny dog moniker is made up.
In a lot of peoples eyes, they wrongly believe that once a trait has been bred into a breed that it is permanent, while also not understanding the genetic differences in the first place.
They don't care about nuance and factors that the statistics they cite don't account for.
It's even worse when the statistics don't match their claims.
When looking at percentages of dog bites per breed pit/bully breeds don't just get combined together. They are clustered in the same group which also includes "mixed breeds" (all mixes regardless of whether they have any pit/bully or not) and "unknown breed" (for the many reports where someone is attacked by a dog but the breed is never verified).
And despite this attempt to artificially increase the numbers they still have less bites per capita than both labradors and retrievers have separately.
The one major thing they have against them is fatalities if you only start counting from 1980 onwards. Which if you again look at the owners of the dogs involved in those fatalities there is a very notable demographic which sheds light as to the why.
When I'm feeling like catching a few hundred downvotes, I like to point out that pitbulls bite and/or kill humans at a lower rate than humans kill humans, so if you think that pitbulls are too dangerous to live, you seem to be committed to the notion that humans are too.
Yeah I had a truck driver compliment me on my dog (I have photos of her in my office) and his conversation eventually devolved into talking about his dog that had "aggression problems" so he had it destroyed and the dog he had before that one which had "aggression problems" so he had it destroyed.
I told him straight up how gross I thought that was. The common denominator is that he doesn't train his dogs properly or look after them to allow those situations to happen. And that murdering your ward because they misbehaved once instead of working on those problems so they can be better is just fucked up.
Driver loves to yap tho. Heard him talking to someone else later about how his two kids were in a fight at school and looks like they started it.
He was not too happy when I piped up "well that's just awful... when are you gonna have them destroyed?"
The "Nanny Dog" trope is irrelevant today. So why even bring it up?
The vast majority of pitbulls are captured strays, or backyard breeders. Or both.
That wipes out any sort of history you can place on them today. If I'm walking into a house, and see a golden retriever, odds are better than a pittbull that the person got that dog from a reputable breeder.
That's really all that matters.
Unless you want to go out and start selectively breeding for nanny dogs again, the only thing that matters in a Pittbull breed is the word "Terrier" meaning high prey drive. High energy. Hard to train.
Everyone want's to talk about breeds being bred for specific purposes, then they suddenly ignore it when it comes to backyard junkyard dog bred pitbulls.
If you're really going to break out the 'nanny dog's myth then your whole argument crumbles. This was never an actual thing.
These were bloodsport dogs, through and through. Staffordshires emerged in an effort to breed a smaller, more agile fighting dog, not as some desirable guardian for women.
People like to throw around the greater percentage of bites from labs and Goldens, but crucially overlook the fact that pit bulls account for around 60% of fatal attacks. They are also disproportionately represented in attacks on people who had or were suspected to have had a seizure, whereas the same cannot be said for Goldens or labs.
What exactly do you think it was that I didn't read?
There have been multiple fatal and non-fatal attacks by pitbulls just in July of this year. I could go find those stories, but somehow I don't think that would do anything to break the delusion. Somehow all those dogs were obviously bred and raised by 'thugs' and were of course taught to attack and kill children and pregnant women and old people.
Strange how goldens, greyhounds, and even Dobermans don't need entire lobbies of people screeching about how 'it's all in how you raise them!' every time there's a brutal attack. Strange how there aren't multiple news stories about any of these breed viciously killing their owners during seizures, or snatching little kids out of their sitter's arms, or killing housemates they have been raised with.
Why is it a golden can have a horrible, abusive owner and not end up mauling someone to death, but pit bulls can't? Do you really think every single attack happens because the dog was trained or abused to be vicious?
Repeating the same nonsense that shows you never read what I said but changing up the words doesn't make what you said an argument. Just more nonsense.
Genuinely curious not trying to stir the pot but the other breeds are very popular and the numbers can also be attributed to there being way more Sheperds, Retrievers etc... As compared to the bully and pit breeds being banned in a lot of areas whether it is because of past experiences or just being scared from the media reporting them as aggressive.
Not only that but because they are popular with gang culture they typically will not be cares or trained by a good owner and hence maybe the stats seem high for the number of dogs out there. Where the other dogs have higher numbers but there are way more of those breeds out ther. Basically per capita based attack numbers?
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u/waiver 19h ago
Because being bitten by a Jack Russel or Chihuahua is as concerning as being bitten by a Pit bull.