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
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
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.
Wouldn't force rather than pressure be the appropriate quality to compare?
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.
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
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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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:
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
