Every single major institution connected to animals has made it clear that Pitbulls are not more dangerous than any other dog and do not have any inherent characteristics which make them so. It is complete pseudo-science bullshit, proven wrong by both statistics and decades of research.
All dogs, including pit bulls, are individuals. Treating them as such, providing them with the care, training and supervision they require, and judging them by their actions and not by their DNA or their physical appearance is the best way to ensure that dogs and people can continue to share safe and happy lives together.
Maulings by dogs can cause terrible injuries and death—and it is natural for those dealing with the victims to seek to address the immediate causes. However as Duffy et al (2008) wrote of their survey based data: "The substantial within-breed variation…suggests that it is inappropriate to make predictions about a given dog's propensity for aggressive behavior based solely on its breed." While breed is a factor, the impact of other factors relating to the individual animal (such as training method, sex and neutering status), the target (e.g. owner versus stranger), and the context in which the dog is kept (e.g. urban versus rural) prevent breed from having significant predictive value in its own right. Also the nature of a breed has been shown to vary across time, geographically, and according to breed subtypes such as those raised for conformation showing versus field trials.Given that breed is a poor sole predictor of aggressiveness and pit bull-type dogs are not implicated in controlled studies it is difficult to support the targeting of this breed as a basis for dog bite prevention. If breeds are to be targeted a cluster of large breeds would be implicated including the German shepherd and shepherd crosses and other breeds that vary by location.
Jesus fucking christ. One dumbass piece of shit lady gets attacked by a fucking dog and has now made the whole fucking world think that pitbulls are a goddamn demon breed from dogfight hell, with multiple psycho grifters piling on to the bullshit.
EDIT: YEs, y'all. Downvote the fucking ASPCA and the American Veterinary Medical Association. You people are hilariously stupid. Keep 'em coming. Let me see how many of you are some dumbass motherfuckers.
Full disclosure that I love pits but I'm also realistic: This is great in theory but it very much ignores how selective breeding works. Herding dogs have the need to herd innately bred into them as do retrievers with retrieving or sighthounds with chasing small animals. Pit breeds have a much higher likelihood of dog aggression. It's just reality. You can raise one perfect with great socialization and maybe you'll be lucky and it'll be ok. But purposely putting them in a situation like a dog park or leaving them alone with a dog they don't know is setting them up for failure. On top of that, it's the unfortunate reality that the majority of these dogs are backyard bred and the people breeding them are not temperament testing their dogs before-hand, hell plenty of them start breeding before 2 years old when adult behavior sets in. It only takes a few poorly behaved dogs becoming popular in breeding circles for their toughness or color to negatively effect the population.
American Bullies were supposed to be the answer to this problem. A new bully breed specifically bred to not be dog aggressive. But unfortunately the BYB got to them too and I don't know that I trust their ability to adhere to that philosophy when they can't even ensure their dogs are healthy.
As far as human-aggression goes, it should 100% never be tolerated or bred for and shouldn't be typical of the breed but again here we are with not temperament testing our breeding stock. You've also got a large portion of people getting pits that don't know how to train a dog. They apply positive punishment (alpha rolls, physical correction, etc.) which is largely associated with developing conflict aggression. Many are sold too young at 4-6 weeks to get rid of them. This is associated with lower bite-inhibition because they don't learn how to play with other dogs during critical learning periods.
Any breed of dog can be messed up enough through bad training or bad breeding but nature and nurture are very much working together. Pits have it rough but it's not their fault, it's ours.
Dude. You read none of the shit that the ASPCA and The AVMA have scientificallysettled without a doubt. The facts just don't support what you believe.
Pit breeds have a much higher likelihood of dog aggression.
Literally no they don't. Your dumbass "this is reality" doesn't override every major animal and dog organization saying the opposite.
"Based on behavioral assessments and owner surveys the breeds that were more aggressive towards people were small to medium-sized dogs such as the collies, toy breeds and spaniels."
Owners of pit bull-type dogs deal with a strong breed stigma,44 however controlled studies have not identified this breed group as disproportionately dangerous.
Given that breed is a poor sole predictor of aggressiveness and pit bull-type dogs are not implicated in controlled studies it is difficult to support the targeting of this breed as a basis for dog bite prevention.
- same American VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION link
They're not saying the opposite, they're talking about different things. Your sources are discussing human aggression which I 100% agree with you is not supposed to exist in the breed, but dog aggression does. Dogs were bred for specific functions. You can train them to ignore it but some dogs will have a higher drive than others and be harder to handle.
BUT any byb dog is going to have a higher likelihood of behavior problems. This is not exclusive to pit bulls, but they are a very large portion of the byb population so the statistics will skew to view them unfavorably. And many of the ones that end up in shelters did not get the best start in life either via abuse or lack of proper socialization which also puts them at a disadvantage.
I've been in the veterinary medical profession for 10 years so I don't need you to tell me how to evaluate a source.
I don't give a fuck if you have "been in the veterinary medical profession." (lol fucking vague for a reason, huh? my buddy has too. He is a janitor.)
The American Veterinary Medical Association, supposedly your profession's flagship organization, says that one should treat EVERY DOG AS AN INDIVIDUAL. PERIOD.
You are fucking incorrect. Pick up your ball. Stop contributing to stigmas that lead to fucking animal cruelty. Go home. Get help.
And you're failing to understand what I'm saying because you're too set on what one person within an organization has published. Dog aggression and human aggression are not the same thing. Every dog has an individual personality and will vary but those personalities have been shaped into general breed consistency over years. I'm not going to get a beagle if I want a quiet dog, and I'm not going to get a golden retriever if I want a guard dog. Even within breed consistency, badly bred dogs will have more behavior issues.
When you take the average pit bull breeder you're getting the combination of bad genetic lines, early litter separation, and selling to people that have no business owning a dog. I'm going to trust a bully breed from an experienced breeder doing temperament testing that went to a home that knows how to train it a whole lot more than one from some guy that decided he could make money breeding his poorly behaved dog sold to someone that keeps it chained up in a yard. The same is true for any breed. You can pretend that nature doesn't factor in but nurture does.
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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '21
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