It is true that pit bulls make up a hugely disproportionate number of reported dog attacks, it's also true that they are especially dangerous and have caused the most deaths by dog bite.
What many of these statistics fail to account for are environmental factors (pit bulls tend to be the most abused and most regularly abandoned dogs because of dog fighting and also because they are just a handful to properly train and care for.), it is also very difficult to gather accurate data on breed specific attacks/aggression because while pit bulls are the highest reported in most dog bite statistics, they are also not a breed as much as a group of breeds that includes:
The American Pit Bull Terrier
The American Staffordshire Terrier
The Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and
The American Bully
A study found that dogs classified as Pit Bulls only had 43.5% DNA from Pit Bull-type ancestry.
The study, carried out in two shelters in California and Arizona, also found that 62% of dogs labeled as Pit Bulls had less than a 50% DNA concentration from Pit Bull-type ancestry, Pit Bull facts and statistics show.
Identifying the right breed of dog in attacks and death is incredibly difficult. This is why the CDC stopped collecting breed-specific data in dog bite-related fatalities (DBRF) in 1998.
The fact that there’s no official data to go by makes it even harder to separate myths from facts regarding Pit Bull attacks in the US.
Okay cool, so pits might make headlines more because of their strength and ability to inflict fatal wounds easier than other breeds but that goes for most large dogs.
German Shepherds had a similar stigma back when Americans were still xenophobic toward German immigrants and there were similar attitudes around that breed in the mid twentieth century. Prior to WWII Pit Bulls were a working class icon and were as much or more known for their reputation as great working dogs and loyal and loving family dogs as fighting dogs or vicious guard dogs.
Pit Bulls were bred for a wide variety of reasons and selected for many different traits but like most dogs they were foremost bread for physical traits and secondly for their temperament toward humans.
So what happened?
Racism it's always racism.
No new owner may settle in the area so long as they possess such a dog. Critics argue that these bans are not based on sound scientific or statistical evidence—that pit bulls pose no greater risk than any other breed of dog. Advocates of these laws urge that the bans are crucial to protect the public health and safety from dangerous dogs. Yet, perhaps these concerns have less to do with dogs and more to do with the individuals who own them. Breed-specific legislation may be being used as a new form of redlining to keep minorities out of majority-white neighborhoods.
“We don’t want those people here,” a city council member said of the bans. Strong cultural ties exist between pit bull dogs and the Black community. The same is true of the Latino community. Research undertaken here to investigate this claim suggests that people of color are perceived to be the most likely owner of this breed of dog. While at the present time, actual ownership data is not available, if true ownership resembles the perceived distribution measured here, such a finding may form the basis for a legal claim. Under new law, breed-specific legislation could be challenged under the Fair Housing Act if it can be shown that these laws are disproportionately excluding minority groups.
-The Black Man's Dog: The Social Context of Breed Specific Legislation, by Ann Linder
https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/32171-25-1-third-articlepdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6107223/
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/javma_000915_fatalattacks.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19644273/
https://twitter.com/GeeDee215/status/1338869829911146497
christ y'all, it's amazing how as a forum for marxists we are so hard-headed on seeing past propaganda and manufactured percpetions to understand the underlying truths and material conditions, yet so many people are failing to apply those basic principles here. even the CDC study which found that bully breeds make up a higher percentage of bites didnt recommend breed-specific legislation because their data sources were heavily skewed by inaccurate breed reporting and the over-reliance on media reports for data. and simply because BSL doesn't work to address the underlying problem!
"A 2014 peer-reviewed summary on dog bite risk and prevention by the American Veterinary Medical Association stated: "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."[33]
In 2014, new statistical evidence emerged regarding the province-wide ban on "pit bulls", more specifically the American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrier, in the Canadian province of Ontario. Since the ban had been implemented, dog bites involving pit bull types had dropped considerably as their populations decreased in the province's largest city Toronto,[35] yet overall dog bites hit their highest levels this century in 2013 and 2014.[36] Statistical evidence published in Global News implicates several other dog breeds had contributed to the rise, stating that "Toronto's reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014, reached their highest levels this century, even as pit bulls and similar dogs neared local extinction."
Full disclosure: I am the owner of Pitbull mutt who I got from the pound in a poor and heavily black part of atlanta. My dog was fantastic around other dogs for about a year and a half, then one day attacked my friend's dog out of nowhere. Her dog survived, I paid her bills, and now I have a good fence so my dog doesnt escape and she hasnt bit another dog for at least 6 years.
My dog is a puddle around humans and has never literally once harmed a human. she barks like hell at anyone passing by but as soon as she meets someone she licks them and demands pets. she is also fantastic on walks and never even barks at dogs passing by.
also. one person was trying to make the point that even a few dog bite attacks are worth banning breess because of the "small enjoyment" owners get. to which i say to you sir:
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i have severe depression and my dog makes me not to want to die most days. i would say that's more than small.
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dogs also enjoy life and have a right to live in it! if a person commits a crime should they be exterminated? it's absolute nonsense logic.
half of hexbear apparently be like:
news: "black people are prone to violence and theft"
fuck off I dont believe that shit
news: "and also their dogs are like that too"
:so-true:
I am the owner of Pitbull mutt who I got from the pound
:order-of-lenin:
People who rescue pits from the certain death of shelters (pits are the most euthanized dogs) are true heroes.
she barks like hell at anyone passing by but as soon as she meets someone she licks them and demands pets.
She's just loudly demanding attention. Especially if she does the roo "bark" at them. That's another thing I think people don't realize, dogs have a language and their vocalizations can have a wide variety of motivators.
christ y’all, it’s amazing how as a forum for marxists we are so hard-headed on seeing past propaganda and manufactured percpetions to understand the underlying truths and material conditions, yet so many people are failing to apply those basic principles here.
this is off-topic but threads like this one do a lot to show how we're not nearly so good at seeing past propaganda or at understanding the material conditions that reveal truths about the world. these threads should lead to self-crit.
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There's no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners. Breed bans are dumb.
moralising dogs is silly. they have no higher order thinking
but the idea that any violence committed by an animal is necessarily a failure on their owners part is also silly
animals can and do commit acts of violence without any prior warning. they could be scared or traumatised or misunderstanding something as an act of aggression. or they could just be angry
the idea that you can reliably train the possibility for unwanted violence out of every animal is hubris
"they have no higher order of thinking."
Can you elaborate?
i actually sort of disagree with myself being so black and white about that having read it back, cause i do think smart animals like dogs have some moral instincts
but while they have some abstractive ability to understand fairness or whatever it's not on the same level as humans, and trying to imprint human morality on them is silly
e- please no-one try to engage me on the topic of free will, i don't want to play
Pit Bulls do not have special jaws and they do not have the highest bite strength.
I never claimed this. You invented it in your own mind. Think about that for a second. You are deliberately strawmanning my argument, and that is very bad form.
I said their jaws were very strong and capable of hurting or killing humans. Which is true.
If the dogs are favored by poorer minority communities to protect their children, it would make sense that they bite more to protect children, especially cops.
Didn't you say in another comment that there is no evidence of dog bites by breed?
the African race is also more violent and cruel with higher twitch muscle fiber counts to explain their unruly strength.
You are not arguing with anything I said. You are arguing with phantoms in your own mind. And you accuse others of having brain worms!
Nobody is strawmanning you. You claimed that pitbulls are exceptionally dangerous because they can "clamp down with jaws of steel." Making them massively more dangerous than other dog breeds. Hell, you even claimed you can train a dog to have a stronger bite force somehow.
Huskies have a stronger bite.
German shepherds have stronger bites, can run faster, jump higher, and are responsible for thousands and thousands of dog bites each year. Ostensibly making them theoretically the more dangerous dog. We just don't count it because they're police dogs.
It's not a strawman when someone disproves a foundational cornerstone of your argument.
Who said I'm not against putting them in the same basket with pit bulls? That would be fine. You're just inventing things you thought I might say. This is a strawman argument.
It's not a strawman when I accomplish my goal of getting you to agree that all dogs are just as dangerous.
You can finish him off by showing him some videos of those horrible golden retriever maulings.
Look I like pitties but you're delusional if think you proved to him that all dogs are just as dangerous
Nobody is saying all dogs are equally dangerous that is a straw man. I literally opened with that line for a fucking reason don't even try to pull this shit.
The guy I'm responding to literally said all dogs are just as dangerous.
Golden retrievers btw have definitely mauled people none of that is the point. This post was about predisposition to behavior you're getting into the weeds over things that are already thoroughly addressed in this thread.
Obviously I don't mean that a Yorkie has the same capacity for murder as a Mastiff.
It's also delusional to think that a pitt is more dangerous than a doberman or mastiff or german shepherd. I was being hyperbolic with the "all" in that post, fair.
I never claimed this. You invented it in your own mind. Think about that for a second. You are deliberately strawmanning my argument, and that is very bad form.
Is this a bit?
friendly reminder that that guy has posted some very nazi adjacent talking points about jewish people on this site and whole litany of dumbass reactionary-history-nerd level shit about wwii. I honestly dont know why they haven't been banned with how much chud shit they've posted but tbh their opinion on anything should just be disregarded
You said
Yeah, but some dogs with bad owners aren’t capable of clamping on with jaws of steel
which is a pretty common thing people trot out when talking about pit bulls, i think it's extremely clear that HexusBearington was referring to this statement when commenting on dog bites.
The strawman shit is absolute debate bro shit bc you dont have anything to actually respond with. A lot of this shit is deeply tied up in racism and absolutely parallels how media uses it against marginalized identities you saying a bunch of buzzwords and refusing to engage in their points isn't an argument. do some self crit
I posted this with as many of the best scientific sources I could find because in order to put this to rest we're gonna have to deworm a lot of brains.
This is such an incredibly reductive way of thinking though. A leopard "only" has a bite fore of 300psi, are we just going to let people keep leopards as pets though? Obviously not, because they're instinctively such good hunters and stalkers. They scare me much more than lions personally, and definitely way more than any dog breed, even with their comparatively "low" bite force. I always got really scared when I used to hike though an area where leopards could be present.
Judging animals by "bite force" is just foolish. This isn't me commenting on this post or pitbulls, just saying that deciding how lethal an animal's bite is by "bite force" is a fools erand.
But then your argument that pitbulls are less dangerous because they have a lower bite force doesn't follow, because the correlation between bite force and "lethality" is weak in general.
The racial context surrounding dogs is completely different in South Africa, just look at breed names like Rhodesian Ridgeback and Boerbull for example. Though I can definitely see how it's different in the USA, and the parallels to race science talking points. It's just completely different in South Africa.
Wouldn't force rather than pressure be the appropriate quality to compare?
Pounds is a measurement of force. Square inch is area. Pressure is force divided by area.
I actually haven’t commented anywhere else.
Sorry, you have the same shrill tone as OP.
“Pit Bulls do not have special jaws and they do not have the highest bite strength.”
What is your deal with strawmanning my comments? I said their jaws were very strong and capable of hurting or killing humans. This is true. From the harm that these dogs are capable of causing, I do not think they should be allowed to run around in society. Even if they have good owners. It's a simple harm reduction argument: balance the harm caused vs. the tiny amount of pleasure pit bull owners get.
German shepherds are more dangerous. They bite more people, can run faster, jump higher, and bite harder. It's simple harm reduction: balance the harm done by German shepherds vs the tiny amount of pleasure German Shepherd owners get.
Why shouldn't they be included in the same basket of deplorables as pit bulls? I swear, people just make up things they think I might have said and then attack me for what they made up. Very bad strawman arguments.
Uh pal, all anyone wanted you to do was admit that your criteria was bunk and pits are no worse than any other dog. Thank you for finally arriving where everyone wanted you in the first place. I don't care if we ban every single dog, all I wanted you to do was admit that the physical attributes you claimed as justification for the banning of pits also applied to essentially every dog.
Yeah I would love to dig a little deeper as to why it was a post about Pitts being the target of racism that inspired them to jump in and "um askuchually" everyone.
I've only been actually bit by border collies. German shepherds are the only dogs that have really scared me. Good points. There are countless popular breeds where the dogs are typically strong enough to do the exact same damage as a pitbull, and other than the toy breeds, they've almost all been breed to do violence in some particular circumstance.
Pit bulls are not different from any other medium sized, well-muscled dogs. They have strong jaw muscles, but they are not Pokémon with a special clamp ability or anything.
clamping on with jaws of steel
This is another myth. Pit Bulls are strong but they don't have uniquely powerful "jaws of steel" they're just dogs and are no more dangerous than mastiffs, Rottweilers, or any other bully breed.
Mastiffs and Rottweilers are also famous for being dangerous to humans.
Cool so you agree that the stigmatization of pit bulls is rooted not in anything scientific but because of racial stereotypes and sensationalized headlines?
All the posts trying to refute the actual point of this post are actually reinforcing it.
Stop doing race science on dogs
100% do not trust any dog until they are proven to be friendly - regardless of breed. People will walk their aggressive dogs off leash and be like "no it's ok they're friendly" as they run you down in the park.
That's totally reasonable, this post was in response to a shitty meme posted last night.
Yeah, I saw that. :yea:
Racist :brainworms: like that unfortunately dig in pretty deep in society.
the racism could definitely be one of the reasons it happened in the us but there are pit bull bans in a lot of countries where the dogs don't have strong cultural ties to minority groups.
is it not more likely that people assume they are dangerous because they were bred to fight? whether that is true or not it seems understandable.
As I already addressed they were bred for a variety of reasons and even the "fighting dog" trope is a misrepresentation of a behavioral trait - gameness - that isn't actually inherently aggression. In fact, even fighting dogs that showed aggression toward their handlers were almost always put down.
Dogs aren't bred to fight they're abused and conditioned into being aggressive toward other specific animals.
Gameness plus powerful jaw equals bad times. The arguments pit owners make are the same as open carry people - it's just the owner, it's environmental, etc. They're dangerous animals and should be regulated as such.
Most dogs greater than 40 lbs have the capacity to severely injure adults and children despite not having the jaw strength of Pitbulls.
I've seen a lot of housing providers put weight restrictions on dogs. That policy seems like a reasonable and less biased compromise.
i don't really feel like there is a real difference in the differentiation you made there
Game is the dog that won't quit fighting, the dog that'll die in the ring, the dog that'll fight with two broken legs
if that is a breedable trait it seems fair to me to say they have been bred for fighting (not exclusively)
There are plenty of factors that can contribute to this though. A trait that makes them more resilient in the ring doesn't necessarily mean they are more naturally aggressive.
If we are to apply the same standards of materialism to all beings (which, to an extent, I believe we should) we should acknowledge that it is easier to manipulate someone into violence than it is to select for physical genetic traits. Therefore, it follows that the aggression is trained, and the capability to inflict damage is bred.
Most mammals tend to have complex social bonds especially pack animals like the ancestors of domestic dogs. Selective breeding has only occurred for a tiny fraction of the evolution of the bond between humans and canines.
A trait that makes them more resilient in the ring doesn’t necessarily mean they are more naturally aggressive.
i never said it did. i was just responding to you saying they aren't bred to fight
if we split it into propensity for violence & capacity to inflict violence then there is no doubt pits have a lot more of the latter than most dogs and the former is basically unprovable either way
we should acknowledge that it is easier to manipulate someone into violence than it is to select for physical genetic traits.
doesn't mean you can't do both though, people have definitely bred dogs with the intention of making them better pit fighters
Idk probably shouldn't have got into this cause i don't have strong feelings either way about dangerous dog bans
Okay so what you should take away from this is that pit bulls are used as a dog whistle and a propaganda tool and they're no more dangerous than huskies or german shepherds or even standard poodles (who are actually severely prone to random aggression because of inbreeding and selecting purely for aesthetics over all else).
https://canineperspectivechicago.com/poodle-training-profile/
These dogs are known for being extremely intelligent, which makes them easy to train. But, owners must be careful not to encourage mischievous behaviors, as they will stick.
Poodles are not typically aggressive animals, but they can develop anxiety that may lead to aggressive behaviors.
When these dogs get anxious, they may also get fearful, which can cause them to look at everyone as an enemy. They can also suffer from separation anxiety if they are apart from their owners for too long.
Another potential behavioral issue for Poodles is that they tend to assert dominance over both people and other dogs. They need to be heavily socialized so they recognize others as companions.
When they’re being trained, poodles need a firm hand. They need an owner who’s willing to strictly correct unacceptable behaviors. But they also need kindness and fairness. Being cruel or physically punishing your Poodle will only exacerbate existing problems and possibly cause them to develop anxiety or aggression.
The whole point of this post is that pit bull hysteria is rooted in racism and classism.
telling someone you're talking to what they need to takeaway from a conversation is great craic. going to start doing that. I will stick with the opinion i have formed in my own brain for now though
im sure there are cultural and racist reasons behind the way certain dogs are targeted as dangerous but i also think people are just scared of the high capacity for violence of certain breeds, and that's understandable
other dog breeds not thought of as dangerous definitely have high levels of aggression but if they're not as physically capable at inflicting violence it's not as worrisome
maybe it should be tho
All dogs are worrisome for their violent impulses, pits just add an extra layer of danger because they're bred to be especially violent plus they are strong. A violent poodle doesn't pack the same oomph if it bites you.
So this post is for you then, there is nothing unique about pits. The reason they have the reputation they do is because of racial stereotypes and sensationalized headlines. I listed several sources you can dig into if you want to kill that brainworm.
telling someone you’re talking to what they need to takeaway from a conversation is great craic. going to start doing that. I will stick with the opinion i have formed in my own brain for now though
But the point of the post was that there is probably more behind the scenes racism/classism regarding opinions on what dogs are considered violent than physical attributes. I don't think the OP was trying to start a struggle session about exactly which dogs are more capable of doing violence or the severity of the damage they could do, just that there is a fair amount of "panic" voiced about one thing openly that might be more about something else.
the second para in the post youre responding to covers that i think, I'm not discounting it as a reasoning. i think the main reason there is more panic around pit bulls than other breeds is because
pit bulls make up a hugely disproportionate number of dog attacks, it’s also true that they are especially dangerous and have caused the most deaths by dog bite.
They make up a disproportionate amount of reported dog attacks. The whole post then goes on to show why that's a bullshit metric.
are you agreeing with the second clause in that quote? cause that seems like a legitimate thing to be concerned about
I'm not sure how much stock to put into the reasons you've put forward for pitbull attacks being over reported
that pit bulls are a handful to care for and train doesn't seem like a good mitigation at all, neither does the fact that they are a group of breeds rather than a single breed. if that group of breeds is over represented in attacks vs it's population size then that seems irrelevant
I don't understand the relevance of the DNA bit
misidentifying a random dog that attacks someone and runs off is a reasonable problem to bring up and it's definitely likely that people could just make the assumption that a dog was a pit because they have a bad reputation. but from the little research I've just done dog breeds aren't recorded in cases where they can't make a positive identification & pits make up two thirds of positively identified dog attack fatalities
that pits are abused is also a fair thing to bring up, but i have no way of knowing to what extent pit attacks are made by previously abused dogs. that'd just be pure guessing
i don't think the post shows anything concretely but i think staffies are cute
positively identified
Positively identified by whom? I provided sources that already refute this.
by the family who owned the dogs.
can you quote where your source disproves that please
by the family who owned the dogs.
Burden of proof is on existence. I already demonstrated that the reporting is skewed by misidentification. What family are you referring to? Just look at the damn source material.
Why are you so determined to argue that pit bulls are uniquely dangerous?
Identifying the right breed of dog in attacks and death is incredibly difficult. This is why the CDC stopped collecting breed-specific data in dog bite-related fatalities (DBRF) in 1998.
I listed several sources to back this up. Go ahead and dig into those if you want to learn more. I'm not going to respond to this anymore because you're giving off big concern troll vibes.
I'm not an expert on it i just googled some shit and what came up was that it's easier to make positive identification on fatal attacks because 1 they're taken more seriously by people investigating and 2 they almost always happen to people inside the same household as the dog. the owners of the dog probably know what breed it is imo
i don't think you've demonstrated anything concretely about misidentification, at least not to the point that it mitigates the pit bulls over representation in attacks satisfactorily
I've not argued that at any point
"read the sources" isn't a good response for a specific question and you know it, if you're making a claim that you've proved something and then say that no one is going to take it seriously.
not concern trolling, just carried on responding to people who have responded to me. probably for the best to stop now though. I agree
I’m not an expert on it i just googled some shit
Read the sources I provided then.
More than 30 different offending breeds were documented in the medical records. The most common breeds included pit bull terriers (50.9 percent)
this bit or another bit?
Okay we've worked through the very first paragraph here. Literally read the rest of the post jfc I already addressed all of this and if you doubt my statements you can actually read the sources instead of cherry picking shit I already debunked. Why do you hate pit bulls so much? Think about this.
Dude you give me the strongest "Though only making up 13% of the population, black people are responsible for 52% of the reported violent crime" vibes. Like holy shit
guy who turns up at the end of an argument and claims someone has vibes is one of the coolest guys to be online
Pal, we've already had our argument. I'm just here for the show now.
how about they make up a significant portion of the dog attacks that are significant enough to be reported?
telling someone you’re talking to what they need to takeaway from a conversation is great craic. going to start doing that. I will stick with the opinion i have formed in my own brain for now though
Maybe I misread this as being sarcastic?
they’re no more dangerous than huskies or german shepherds or even standard poodles
How do you square this with your argument that there is no good data available? This seems to me like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You're making an assertion (with no data) while dismissing all of the best data that's actually available for being imperfect.
My understanding is that pits have a different style of biting. They clamp down and don't let go for minutes, while thrashing from side to side to rip flesh. It's inherited from their history as bull-baiting dogs. This makes them more dangerous than dogs of even a similar size and strength.Dangerousness and aggressiveness are not the same thing. A rubber band gun is more likely to accidentally discharge than a firearm, but that doesn't make it more dangerous. It doesn't mean you can't love your guns or your dogs, just respect their danger.
My understanding is that pits have a different style of biting. They clamp down and don’t let go for minutes, while thrashing from side to side to rip flesh.
When dogs attack something to kill it, they all do this. Every breed.
Maybe my understanding was wrong then. I thought other dogs preferred to inflict several bites or something. It looks like I could have accidentally absorbed a myth about pit bulls.
Do pit bulls have stronger jaws than huskies or poodles?
I don't know the stats but just from looking at pictures of pit bulls, they look like they tend to have wider heads/jaws in general. And the one that I had on the farm loved to chew on things like balls and sticks. We had to take away all the tennis balls the other dogs used to play with because he would just chew on them until the split in half. So he had some serious jaw strength and stamina but also was more obsessive about chewing on things than the other dogs so :shrug-outta-hecks:
Just giving a quick and sloppy look through Google search results, the numbers are all over the place. First entry for pit bulls was like 240 pounds of force, husky was 320 and poodle was 260. But all these numbers came from wildly different sources (one of which was a law firm :awooga:) and I don't have time to find some source that is more... academic/objective right now.
So if the instinct (or whatever we want to call it) to chew on things is higher in pit bulls then they could develop stronger jaw muscles and I'd imagine that a wider head/jaw would make it easier for them to bite and hold for longer periods of time.
The several bites thing is possibly that the animal is trying to warn or fight something to the point that it runs away rather than kill. (living on a farm and having lots of dogs, this has kinda been my experience).
I could have accidentally absorbed a myth about pit bulls.
That's why I had to make this post. Remember none of us are immune to propaganda and it's most effective when we don't realize it's being done. All the hysteria around pit bulls that really took off in the 90s is a result of many overlapping factors from sensationalized headlines to racist stereotypes.
My understanding is that pits have a different style of biting. They clamp down and don’t let go for minutes, while thrashing from side to side to rip flesh. It’s inherited from their history as bull-baiting dogs. This makes them more dangerous than dogs of even a similar size and strength.
this is just how dogs kill prey - they clamp on and thrash to try and break their necks. every single breed does this, even during play, except where the behavior has been trained out. hell, you can get most dogs to do this by just playing tug-of-war with them, with a rope.
pits are just not unique. any well-founded fears people have of them apply to dogs as a whole. there's no excuse for wholesale slaughter.
Yes, I was mistaken on that part. I learn something new every day from fellow comrades.
It’s a trait that comes from the terrier side, and is most often naturally directed towards prey. If your thing is catching rodents with your face, you want to be able to take some bites to the face without immediately giving up going home. Even with selective breeding for dog-dog aggression, most dogs bred for fighting aren’t willing to fight another dog to the death and are culled or sold after being tested.
I have a dog that was seized from a huge fighting ring, is pretty scarred up, and is the undisputed wrestling champion whenever she plays with her dog friends, but her bloodlust is mostly reserved for the neighborhood rats these days.
Anecdotes aren't data, but my personal experience with pitties is that they're super sweet with friendly humans, but super aggressive with other animals. One of my good friends had two pitties, both sweet dogs. They chased squirrels, but that was never a problem. But one of my other friends went out of town and left her goats with my friend to take care of. They were in a separately fenced area of her yard from the dogs. The dogs jumped the fence and killed both of the goats. I also had a neighbor's pit bull get off leash, get into my yard, and chase my chickens, killing one of them before we could get him under control.
I'm sure the aggression towards other animals can be trained out of them, but I don't think most owners do it. I agree with the effort post, though; I don't think pitties are more dangerous than other large dogs on the whole, and that the moral panic over them is associated with racism. I also tend to think most dog owners (of all breeds) are pretty negligent, and that dog ownership is mostly not a great thing.
. I also tend to think most dog owners (of all breeds) are pretty negligent, and that dog ownership is mostly not a great thing.
Not something you can say very loud these days (at least in places I've lived).... But kinda sorta yeah....
Dogs should not be kept as an accesoire, but that is what most people have them for. as a lifestyle "object". People have owned Dog since we started walking on two feet, but I think the modern culture of owning dogs, is very different than it used to be even 15 years ago. at least where I live.
I grew up rural. Our successive family dogs always had lots of space to run around.
I can hardly understand having a dog in an urban area now. Even cats are sometimes a bit of a yikes.
I knew urban dogs, they could use the Metro and pedestrian crossings. Back when it was common to have dogs walk around by themselves. Dogs are far smarter than people give them credit for.
I don't think environment is the biggest issue, as long as the owner is willing to put in the work to train, socialize, and enrich their dog. Realistically though, it's much more effort in urban areas than others, and very very few owners are up to the task
I agree mostly, but I say fuck you to anyone that owns a large dog in a tiny appartment near the top of building.
Also, I think most dogs would go out far more than twice a day if they could choose. Two full half hour walks is barely anything for an animal like that.
I personally don't think it is possible for me to care for a dog and hold a fulltime job, provided the dog can't go on walks by itself or come with me to work. So I am probably never going to own a Dog again. As much as I like them.
Sure they can, but they aren't allowed anymore.
I was once in Tiblisi, and there they don't kill their street dogs, they neuter and vaccinate them, and also put feed places out for them. And there seems to be no problem there with the dogs, and it was nice walking through a city and seeing dogs without people again.
Oh yeah I wasn't saying this was a thing that anyone can or should do, just to demonstrate that dogs have a lot more going on than we often realize. If anything this post is also an argument for veganism and non-human personhood as well.
Yeah. I used to have a dog who every morning by herself visited an old man and had breakfast and walks with him. I did not know the old man, but my dog did. I am kinda sad at the lack of autonomy given to dogs now. And I just don't think it is right to chain an animal to myself. That was only 15 years ago.
When I was like 3 or 4 years old my parents yellow lab/golden retriever mix saved me from falling into a river. All dogs are comrades. We have coevolved for tens of thousands of years. Any specific human directed breeding has only existed for a tiny fraction of that time.
The history of dog breeds as a concept epuld be interesting, because I bet that the normal person 70 years ago would have never bought some of the pure bred dogs sold now. Too many health problems. Like puppy mills, how did they start? When did Dogs become a commodity?
how did they start?
https://twitter.com/GeeDee215/status/1338859678487310337
In the 1930s, Pitbulls — which, as Bronwen pointed out to me over and over, don’t constitute a dog breed but a shape — used to be seen as the trusty sidekick of the proletariat, the Honda Civic of canines. (Think of “the Little Rascals” dog.)
That began changing in the postwar years and the rise of the suburbs. A pedigreed dog became a status symbol for the burgeoning white middle class. And pitbulls got left behind in the cities.
You're actually spot on, the shift in attitudes toward pits started about 70 years ago in the post WWII boom.
Used to be that there was no contradiction here. But how people keep dogs has changed a lot in thr last few years. But as someone in the thread said, can't do that in places where they destroy the environment, like new zealand for example.
I don’t think environment is the biggest issue
You do realize you're on a communist website and that material conditions doesn't just apply to humans right?
Let me clarify that i think it's possible for a human to create reasonable material conditions for a dog to live in within an urban environment, although the effort level to do so is usually going to be high, and your average pet owner will fall short of it.
This is absolutely the elephant in the room, and the sources I cited go to great lengths to stress that what gets reported and what gets called a pit bull heavily skews the data.
They were bred for gameness, which is the willingness to push past pain to continue the attack.
I've seen one be kicked by a horse multiple times, only for it to get back up and continue the attack before dying of it's wounds after several minutes of this.
Normal dog breeds retreat when injured. That's not normal behavior. People blaming that on racism are deluded.
I don't see those in the statistics killing people that often. If that changed, yes I would suggest banning them.
Noone questions other large predators like Tigers being banned. Turn it around- why do you defend this particular variety?
I trust my own eyes. Read the post about the horse.
Not sure how it's a racist dog whistle when the owners are mostly white people.
Holy shit, please do some self-crit and stop trying to die on this weird hill. The racist origins of anti-pittie attitudes have been explained to you multiple times.
Yawn.
Your attitude is racist. See how easy it is to be a dismissive fool?
Explain why the breed is banned in countries worldwide if its a racist issue? Believe it or not, American culture is not worldwide.American centrism is a form of brainworms and you have it in spades.
Are you actually trying to say racism only exists in America? :michael-laugh:
Racist connotations are different in other cultures, believe it or not.
Way to tell on yourself
This is incredibly reductive and ultimately just an embarrassment to the Left. Literally the meme of "everyone I disagree with is racist".
My pekingese was killed by a white guys loose pitbull. But apparently my ideas came from a racist origin lmfao.
I also mentioned my dog was killed by one. And I've seen a horse attacked.
But go off, you know my life super well mate.
It was enough to get me to pay attention. The rest is statistics you can only attack on the ground of unreliability, even though multiple nations agreed enough to enact bans.
At that point, I chose to believe them.
There are tons of dog breeds. Pick literally any others. Jeez.
Fine, I will not speak about Pitbulls again.
My opposition started with personal bad experiences. But I accept that my views were probably colored by at least some bad actors, if it's so widespread as a racist concept.
I can't say it's not true, so I won't take the risk.
You've convinced me that BSL is bad, but I'm still pretty sure that there are differences between dog breeds, and that acknowledging such is not the same as doing race science on people. There is a much larger genetic variation between dog breeds than there are human races---that's the crucial fact that the Nazis choose to ignore. Darwinism has similarly been abused by Nazis to promote race science and eugenics but that doesn't mean that evolution is wrong.
That’s more a consequence of selective and restrictive breeding.
Yes. Dogs exist because we breed them. I wasn't arguing otherwise.
Why focus on pitbulls?
I don't think we should. That's why I said I'm against BSL. Even though I believe that differences between breeds do exist, creating any public policy specific to breeds is ineffective and fraught for the reasons you stated. They become a conduit for our prejudices.
Not saying that there can’t be any difference in behavior
It seems like we're in total agreement then. :hexbear-chapochat:
I found some sources supporting my perspective that breeds are real but races aren't.
Human races are not like dog breeds: refuting a racist analogy
I'm largely in your corner here, but try to have a bit more empathy for someone whose dog was killed.
The sensationalized news around pit bulls is to blame for this perception. Many of the stories about "pit bulls" mauling people are from mutts that bare resemblance to pit bulls. There is no AKC representative going and inspecting to make sure when someone says they were attacked by a pit bull that it wasn't just a similar looking bully breed or as is often the case mixes that resemble Pit Bulls in shape.
The only pit bull I hate shouts about "Cuba Libre!" to concert audiences in Miami.
Excellent post!
Not directed at the OP and some other people have touched on these things but I wanted to follow them up:
no bad dogs just bad owners
“pitties aren’t bad, just those people who don’t know how to train them”
If there is such a racialized view toward pit bull ownership, be careful not continue it without blaming the dog. Certain breeds are harder than others to have as pets for sure, and unprepared owners exist in all demographic corners of society. But it’s usually not one or the other, and to be honest sometimes a dog, especially a traumatized rescue, really just cannot be handled by a person, regardless of the effort or time they put in. What do you do then, keep it anyway or back to the kill shelter? Especially in this hyperdrive no-hobby economy, we don’t just have a billion Cesar Milan protégés able to adopt every difficult dog. IDK just something that caught my attention.
they’re great toward people but have very strong gameness/prey drives.
time is a flat circle, welcome back to the outdoor cat struggle session.
This is not specific to pits, but when I think about large untrained dogs I think about their effect on other species. Dogs represent the third most destructive mammal behind rodents and cats, and one documented case showed that a single German shepherd in New Zealand killed over 500 endangered kiwis. They’re even driving out other predators like foxes, hunting in feral packs. We are going through what has been identified as a mass extinction event, fueled by climate change, industrial agriculture, and habitat destruction by invasive species.
So beyond dog bites, large dogs with high prey drives have to be considered in the greater context. It’s hard to grapple with because we love our pets - I have two large dogs, one a pit mix (and indoor cats). But I never let them off leash unless it’s a fully contained dog park that I can watch them constantly. I don’t know what I’ll do after they’re gone in terms of adopting more, but I’m still looking/hoping for good ways to help combat pet effects on biodiversity short of banning more destructive breeds… or dispatching feral dogs in the wild 😕
I spoilered to keep the post manageable, but happy to discuss. I’m not saying these are right or even good takes but I figured I’d contribute at least.
Good post and I appreciate this addendum. This effort post was specifically because someone posted a meme yesterday that could just as easily come from a Nazi chan board.
Oh the pit bull burning house one? I scroll-voted that one it was so ridiculous I thought it was parody. but in hindsight maybe that was not the case, not a good look on my part 😓 ___
It's okay, that's how fascists work, especially the smart ones. Take something seemingly innocuous and inject a bit of race science and boom you've got a dogwhistle (in this case quite literally).
But I never let them off leash unless it’s a fully contained dog park that I can watch them constantly
i have a pure border collie but she has trauma from being extremely neglected for 4 years before we got her (rescue). Unfortunately she's very reactive to unknown people/dogs and bizarrely choosey about when that is with people. A lot of the time she loves people and loves attention but certain individuals she gets snappy with. She doesn't really bite full on but she's warning nibbled on me and her vet a couple times. She's good with small dogs but dogs her size and bigger make her extremely nervous but she will play with them once she's gotten to be around them a bit.
Bc of all that we don't take her anywhere we dont have control of the environment. For the last two years since we've had her we've been socializing her and trying to work with her to feel safe and she's made a lot of progress but I still wouldn't trust her around strange dogs and people without keeping an eye on her and I never take her leash and harness off her. Everyone is always like "oh you can take her leash off" but I need to know i can control her, it's most likely just being over cautious but i'd rather be that than let her run around and get triggered by something.
neglected for 4 years before we got her (rescue)
:rat-salute: People who rescue dogs from shelters are comrades
It was super fucked uo tbh. They left her in a back yard unattended for years. she will probably forever have food security issues bc of that. A lot of her issues she’s gotten better about in the last couple years but that one idk what to do about lol she’s holding strong on it
I have a friend who spent time in prison, he always eats with his elbows out in front of his plate like he's hugging it. Instincts like that become super ingrained through trauma. You're a good person for rehabilitating her.
Staffies are the loveliest dogs on the planet and I will personally maul anyone who disagrees
My friend had a blue pit that he got a couple months after I got my cat (RIP to both of them Edit: the cat and the dog my human friend is still very much alive) so he was still a kitten and she was a tiny ball of wrinkles. They grew up together and she was the first dog my cat ever knew and he and my friend's cats were the first animals she ever knew. As she outgrew my cat (who was by no means small and had an even bigger attitude) I don't think she ever fully realized their new size disparity because my dude would bully the fuck out of her and she was always the most gentle and submissive and loving dog I've ever met.
That said, if anyone showed aggression toward my friend, myself (or probably even my cat given how dominant he was in their relationship) she probably would have fucked them up real good.
Pits are good dogs, and if you own any dog socializing and training them is your responsibility.
That last bit is all of it tbh. The owner has waaay more influence than any supposed genetic predisposition.
And that is where the ties to race science bullshit come into play. Not only has ownership of these wonderful animals been stigmatized, all of the bullshit statistical manipulation has been used to also justify racist eugenicist shit.
This whole post was a response to what that godawful pit bull meme that got removed was alluding to. I'm seriously disappointed in all 30-something people here that upvoted that post.
Oh I didn't see that sorry.
Dog phrenology, what will they think of next?
Dog based redlining. If you really want to dive in to it I linked most of the comprehensive and data driven research along with a twitter thread recapping an interview on the subject.
I don't know if it still exists, but when I was like 12 or 14 I found a forum entirely dedicated to hating pitbulls. Even at the time as a somewhat unlearned and naive kid I was like "bro this is some secret racist shit"
it was just filled with tons of scientific dog racism, it was like :jesse-wtf:
Yeah it's all over reddit. Just go look at any picture of a cute pittie on r/aww the comments are always a complete shit show.
We hate our pitties but we sure do love our german shepherds, dobermans, ridgebacks, danes,
To be clear though, all dogs are comrades. They are the only(?) non human animal that understands the human gesture of pointing or will follow our gaze solely because of our own behavioral context cues absent any other stimuli.
dogs are incredibly BASED creatures who honestly deserve better than humans
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D
Big agree. The stereotypes are crafted, not ingrained. Man's best friend for thousands of years, despite our best efforts sometimes. Idk if K9 & combat dogs could be rehabilitated, but the rest of them (as with us) largely just want a loving home.
They are the only(?) non human animal that understands the human gesture of pointing or will follow our gaze solely because of our own behavioral context cues absent any other stimuli.
I'm not sure this is true. I don't know about pointing in particular but I'm living with a parrot right now and he's learned how to laugh at contextually appropriate moments in a conversation. he can't understand the whole conversation and he sure af doesn't understand the subtleties of jokes but he does understand that statements delivered with a particular tone of voice are followed by people laughing in response. in fact, even when he's the only one to laugh at something, I've found that if I play the conversation back in my head, it turns out that someone just said something sardonic or sarcastic pretty much every time - it just didn't warrant a laugh to us. but the animal is definitely paying very close attention to a purely human behavioral context and picking out just one element - tone of voice in a conversation between people - responding to it in a socially appropriate way.
unlike dogs, he hasn't been specifically bred to care about humans, in particular. were he raised among parrots, he would have instead learned the complex social behavior of his flock. but, like dogs, he is a highly social animal that's been raised to regard humans as his social environment and so he spends a remarkable amount of time and energy devoted to trying to understand the behavior of the people with whom he shares his company, especially our verbal rituals.
He also goes where I point him to go. Like half the time sure he ignores me or talks back but he knows what I mean.
Against their will. Cop dogs are literally slaves abused and broken to the point they can be made to attack other people on command. Something that tens of thousands of years of coevolution has weeded out.
To make a dog attack a person means that you have severely traumatized the dog.
I promised a more extensive response and now I can give a proper effort post since the other thread got nuked
@Hoodoo Here's your sources asshole.
Look, I'm sorry about your dog. This post wasn't aimed at you or anyone else that have had bad experiences. I get it, I was scared of dogs too as a kid because of some traumatic experiences as well, in this case a Queensland heeler a doberman and a mastiff in different instances. I was only responding in kind to the way you replied to my comments in that shitty meme thread. I didn't take into account your personal experience and I was more focused on how I see the pitbull trope used to justify racist legislation and justify internet nazi shit about race science. I meant no harm and have no ill will toward you. We're all comrades here I was just trying to shed light on a trope that often goes under the radar even in leftist spaces apparently.
Thank you.
I got too heated without taking your side into account as well. I apologize the way I treated you.
Great post, and while I totally get how there's so much racist and classist propaganda in anti-pit bull legislation and rhetoric... I've personally experienced enough close calls with pit bulls that I'm still gonna keep my distance. However, one thing I've learned from the discourse here is if I wasn't comfortable with my kid petting a pit bull before, I should also be just as cautious with most other dog breeds, too.
You should apply the same logic to all unfamiliar dogs. I certainly do.
Again the overall point of this thread is that there is nothing special about pits except that they are goofy loveable dorks.
This. A poorly trained dog is bad no matter the breed. A friend of my dad owned a pitbull mix that was trained very indepth and the thing was gentle as a cat, contrast this to my aunt who's got 5 big dogs, all not trained, and they will run you ragged and bite you.
I know this is mostly wrapped up at this point but good post.
I've lived with or personally fostered 3 pit mutts (Pit/Black Labrador, Pit/Boxer, Blue Pit runt) and they were all the sweetest most loyal dogs who even got along with the half-dozen cats that also lived in the house. Being fosters from negligent homes they took a while to adjust to (human) strangers, which was annoying because we were 6 young people living in a party house; but the only bite we ever had was from getting to close to a mouth while playing tug-o-war. The Labrador mix especially was a massive muscly sweetheart who would let the cats lay on her like puppies.
spoiler
E: one of my favorite memories of Cadence (the black lab/pit) was when one of the housemates had their toddler niece over. The niece kept taking her little socks off and throwing them around the house and Cadence kept picking them up for her. The whole time the niece was visiting you'd see her trundle through the room barefoot with Cadie just over her shoulder carrying the two teeny socks sticking out of her mouth.
The racial context between dogs, dog breeds and their owners is completely different in South Africa. Which makes this post really weird to digest.
Though I can definitely see how in an American/British and/or Anglo context what you are saying is true and the parallels between that and race "science" nonsense.
Ok someone informed the that this effortpost by the OP is in response to some cryprofash meme involving pitbulls that has since been removed, this makes a ton more sense then.
Yeah this is mostly US-centric but as some have stated it's bled over into the rest of the west because American propaganda is as ubiquitous as our world hegemony.
Also now that someone informed me that this post is in response to a cryprofash meme to do with pitbulls everything makes a ton more sense now
Check out the first link at the bottom, it's a pdf a report titled The Black Man's Dog: The Social Context of Breed Specific Legislation
Well I hope it doesn't arrive here. We have enough brainworms as is.
But looking at the past, and how much American propaganda bleeds over here, uhhh :yea:
