Campaigners have welcomed the move to outlaw the breed they argue is "a clear and present threat to public health", but concerns have been raised it may not be practical and lead to other kinds of dogs being prohibited.
They’re just gonna keep playing whack a mole with whatever breed is popular among people who like to abuse dogs until they’re aggressive. You can breed for temperament but you can’t eliminate bad temperament by banning breeds. The bully xl is itself a hybrid of a breed that was already banned in the UK for aggression.
They’re just gonna keep playing whack a mole with whatever breed is popular among people who like to abuse dogs until they’re aggressive. You can breed for temperament but you can’t eliminate bad temperament by banning breeds.
It’s becoming more common to see police departments ban Malligators. Less predictable than GSD.
Any dog can be aggressive, yes. Most pits have great personalities, sure. But I’ve known a few pits that weren’t aggressive towards people. Until they were.
The owner problem is a real factor (owners who are likely to raise aggressive dogs are more likely to get pits), but there’s an extra layer to pits. They are raised to be muscular with very strong jaws. If a Yorkie turns on it’s owner, someone’s getting bloody ankles. A pit (and chow, and Rottweiler) can really hurt people.
On top of this, there’s two types of aggression in dogs: performative aggression with barking and short charges, and prey drive which is quiet staring and sudden lunges towards the throat of another dog or animal. I was under the impression for a long time that dangerous dogs had terrible tempers and were “grouchy”. No, dangerous dogs are social creatures like most dogs and many show affection to other pets and humans, until something triggers their prey instinct. The website I cite below has a statement that pits are less likely to act aggressive before an attack.
There were a string of dog deaths in my city last year. All pits. Two were family pets that both attacked their toddler playing in the family’s yard. The mom ran to help and the dogs attacked her and their infant. Both children died and the mom was hospitalized. And a friend of mine had to mace a dog doing his job last year for the first time, it was a pit. Anecdotal, I know, but it’s changed my mind on pits.
One 2019 fatality was from 8 different breeds. This means that if you flip that statistic around to “percentage of fatal attacks involving pits”, that number is even higher.
Growing up a neighbor had three Rottweilers that they let run free.
They mostly stayed on their property, but every once and a while they’d come down to my house. Usually because they were following a deer’s trail, so their prey drive was in full gear by the time they’d see me and my sister playing outside.
Rotts get up to like 120lbs on average, but some are even bigger. So out of nowhere we’d have these three massive dogs that were bigger than us, sprinting at us barking their heads off.
We weren’t good tree climbers, so we got one of those wooden playhouse things you had to climb a ladder to get in.
I still don’t think we should ban them, but I think most people agree dogs shouldn’t be free roam.
Barking is a performative aggression. It’s meant to intimidate. Predatory attacks frequently don’t have warning barks. It’s quiet staring then a lunge.
The behavior you described sounds dangerous, but it’s a known thing (that doesn’t make it less dangerous, but does give opportunity to blame the owner that they should have known they had an aggressive dog). Terrible owners don’t correct this behavior and have dogs that are dangerous to people. But there are many dogs that show zero aggression before attacking. There’s a bunch of biased sources but I think there is some truth to it, nearly half of dogs that kill have not shown aggression towards humans before.
Side note: Rottweilers are the #2 killer dog breed in America. They average about 10% of all fatal attacks. Pits are the #1 killer dog breed. The past couple of years they’ve been 65%+ of fatal attacks.
Rottweilers are chill as fuck with a very high anger threshold but also have a very strong protective streak and the build to back it up. That can go haywire if the owner is an idiot, paranoid, or such. If she recognises you as pack leader and you’re not then there’s not really much to worry, though some German states require character tests for all Rottweilers or they have to wear muzzles. If something like that is available where you are I’d definitely recommend it, they’re a working breed consider it vocational training.
And they can growl like fucking Cerberus. Why bite when a little intimidation does the trick.
Because the only time breed is correlated for aggression is tiny terriers, but that was likely due to the same gene making legs shorter. It’s really hard to breed for/against aggression, but it’s easy to breed for stuff like stubby legs.
The difference is size. A 120lb aggressive dog is more dangerous than a 60lb aggressive dog
Part of the order (request? whatever it is) is to define the breed first. Which makes the rest seem pretty reactionary. Not far off from saying “ban dogs I find scary”.
A lot of that is selective breeding. Humans add a ton of extra stuff to breed, but groups of breeds are not as arbitrary. Pointers have been bred for bird hunting, shepherds for livestock, retrievers for waterfowl, terriers for small game hunting. Bulldogs were bred for 150+ years to attack bulls, bears, and other dogs (until animal welfare laws banned dog fighting). Further division of breeds (like rat terrier vs feist) is arbitrary and doesn’t represent anything meaningful genetically.
My opinion is that bulldog / terrier mixes (like the pit) represent a greater risk to humans than the average dog. I don’t think it’s anything unique to the pit, which has a lot of media hysteria. The data look so bad for pits because they are so popular. If Staffordshires were more popular in America, they’d show up in the stars more.
The name “pit bull terrier” did originate from bull terriers used in professional dog fighting. Dogs would fight in a pit. Until animal cruelty laws became a thing.
Just being upfront: I wouldn’t own a pit due to the number of instances of friends having a pit that is the “nicest dog ever” and it randomly attacked them one day. I also extend this to Persian cats, btw. But we can’t ban particular breeds. Punish bad owners, continue selectively breeding dogs to reduce aggression.
Extreme example: Adults who were abused as children are more likely to be child abusers themselves. Should we ban people who were beaten by their parents from being teachers? They are statistically more likely to abuse children.
I think we agree? Breeds have tenancies towards certain behaviors and pits tend to be singled out in part because they’re popular, so there are more incidents, and in part because they’re strong, so the incidents tend to be more serious.
But that doesn’t make the order less arbitrary.
If Huskies/Akitas/Malamutes were more common and in the news a lot and they decided to ban “wolf-like dogs” or somesuch that would also be questionable.
This probably wont be the last breed they ban…
They’re just gonna keep playing whack a mole with whatever breed is popular among people who like to abuse dogs until they’re aggressive. You can breed for temperament but you can’t eliminate bad temperament by banning breeds. The bully xl is itself a hybrid of a breed that was already banned in the UK for aggression.
True,
It won’t be.
People that want an aggressive dog, buy the dog with the reputation to be the most aggressive, then they raise them to be aggressive.
Ban pitbulls, and they’ll go back to buying rottweilers, which are usually bigger and stronger too.
Just wait till they get to Malinois…five years ago you never saw them outside of law enforcement and military…now im starting to see them in shelters…
It’s becoming more common to see police departments ban Malligators. Less predictable than GSD.
Any dog can be aggressive, yes. Most pits have great personalities, sure. But I’ve known a few pits that weren’t aggressive towards people. Until they were.
The owner problem is a real factor (owners who are likely to raise aggressive dogs are more likely to get pits), but there’s an extra layer to pits. They are raised to be muscular with very strong jaws. If a Yorkie turns on it’s owner, someone’s getting bloody ankles. A pit (and chow, and Rottweiler) can really hurt people.
On top of this, there’s two types of aggression in dogs: performative aggression with barking and short charges, and prey drive which is quiet staring and sudden lunges towards the throat of another dog or animal. I was under the impression for a long time that dangerous dogs had terrible tempers and were “grouchy”. No, dangerous dogs are social creatures like most dogs and many show affection to other pets and humans, until something triggers their prey instinct. The website I cite below has a statement that pits are less likely to act aggressive before an attack.
There were a string of dog deaths in my city last year. All pits. Two were family pets that both attacked their toddler playing in the family’s yard. The mom ran to help and the dogs attacked her and their infant. Both children died and the mom was hospitalized. And a friend of mine had to mace a dog doing his job last year for the first time, it was a pit. Anecdotal, I know, but it’s changed my mind on pits.
This group says 69% of dogs involved in fatal attacks in 2019 were pits: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2019.php
One 2019 fatality was from 8 different breeds. This means that if you flip that statistic around to “percentage of fatal attacks involving pits”, that number is even higher.
Pits are estimated to be 6.5% of American dogs.
If you lumped every retriver into a single group, they’d have a lot more bites.
As a pitbull owner, I may take my chances trying to subdue an aggressive PB. An agressive Rot, I’m climbing trees.
Growing up a neighbor had three Rottweilers that they let run free.
They mostly stayed on their property, but every once and a while they’d come down to my house. Usually because they were following a deer’s trail, so their prey drive was in full gear by the time they’d see me and my sister playing outside.
Rotts get up to like 120lbs on average, but some are even bigger. So out of nowhere we’d have these three massive dogs that were bigger than us, sprinting at us barking their heads off.
We weren’t good tree climbers, so we got one of those wooden playhouse things you had to climb a ladder to get in.
I still don’t think we should ban them, but I think most people agree dogs shouldn’t be free roam.
Barking is a performative aggression. It’s meant to intimidate. Predatory attacks frequently don’t have warning barks. It’s quiet staring then a lunge.
The behavior you described sounds dangerous, but it’s a known thing (that doesn’t make it less dangerous, but does give opportunity to blame the owner that they should have known they had an aggressive dog). Terrible owners don’t correct this behavior and have dogs that are dangerous to people. But there are many dogs that show zero aggression before attacking. There’s a bunch of biased sources but I think there is some truth to it, nearly half of dogs that kill have not shown aggression towards humans before.
Side note: Rottweilers are the #2 killer dog breed in America. They average about 10% of all fatal attacks. Pits are the #1 killer dog breed. The past couple of years they’ve been 65%+ of fatal attacks.
My dream is everyone eventually learns what “per capital” means and how important it is compared to total numbers…
I have a rottie. If someone told me she bit them, I’d want to know what the hell they did to make her bite them. She’s never shown any aggression.
Rottweilers are chill as fuck with a very high anger threshold but also have a very strong protective streak and the build to back it up. That can go haywire if the owner is an idiot, paranoid, or such. If she recognises you as pack leader and you’re not then there’s not really much to worry, though some German states require character tests for all Rottweilers or they have to wear muzzles. If something like that is available where you are I’d definitely recommend it, they’re a working breed consider it vocational training.
And they can growl like fucking Cerberus. Why bite when a little intimidation does the trick.
Because the only time breed is correlated for aggression is tiny terriers, but that was likely due to the same gene making legs shorter. It’s really hard to breed for/against aggression, but it’s easy to breed for stuff like stubby legs.
The difference is size. A 120lb aggressive dog is more dangerous than a 60lb aggressive dog
Not knocking Rots, as a breed. Beautiful animals with a lot of love to give.
My old doggo mastiff/ unknow race mix doesnt like to be patted upon i earned peiple not doing that b4 getting closer to my doggo
She doesnt bite but give some kind of soft bite to warn
I wont tell the amount of people thinking my doggo is petable whose beeen bitten off including careless childrens at dog park
To each their behavior
Surelly blast me but my doggo is my bodyguard for some reason
Idiot
If rottweilers were better fighters, they would have the reputation pitbulls have.
Part of the problem is it isn’t a breed.
Part of the order (request? whatever it is) is to define the breed first. Which makes the rest seem pretty reactionary. Not far off from saying “ban dogs I find scary”.
A lot of that is selective breeding. Humans add a ton of extra stuff to breed, but groups of breeds are not as arbitrary. Pointers have been bred for bird hunting, shepherds for livestock, retrievers for waterfowl, terriers for small game hunting. Bulldogs were bred for 150+ years to attack bulls, bears, and other dogs (until animal welfare laws banned dog fighting). Further division of breeds (like rat terrier vs feist) is arbitrary and doesn’t represent anything meaningful genetically.
My opinion is that bulldog / terrier mixes (like the pit) represent a greater risk to humans than the average dog. I don’t think it’s anything unique to the pit, which has a lot of media hysteria. The data look so bad for pits because they are so popular. If Staffordshires were more popular in America, they’d show up in the stars more.
The name “pit bull terrier” did originate from bull terriers used in professional dog fighting. Dogs would fight in a pit. Until animal cruelty laws became a thing.
Just being upfront: I wouldn’t own a pit due to the number of instances of friends having a pit that is the “nicest dog ever” and it randomly attacked them one day. I also extend this to Persian cats, btw. But we can’t ban particular breeds. Punish bad owners, continue selectively breeding dogs to reduce aggression.
Extreme example: Adults who were abused as children are more likely to be child abusers themselves. Should we ban people who were beaten by their parents from being teachers? They are statistically more likely to abuse children.
I think we agree? Breeds have tenancies towards certain behaviors and pits tend to be singled out in part because they’re popular, so there are more incidents, and in part because they’re strong, so the incidents tend to be more serious.
But that doesn’t make the order less arbitrary.
If Huskies/Akitas/Malamutes were more common and in the news a lot and they decided to ban “wolf-like dogs” or somesuch that would also be questionable.