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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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It's really disheartening to see Reddit's irrational pit bull venom is just as present here. Notice how rarely you see comments from animal industry professionals chiming in with these opinions. It's not because professionals don't have their own breed biases, and they don't typically keep quiet about them, either. It's that most people with a lot of day-to-day experience with dogs don't share this opinion. Their experiences don't match public perception.
Bite statistics and behavioral euthanasias both in private and public spheres are anything but transparent. They also often rely upon witness statement accuracy, which is not reliable nor scientific. There simply isn't enough accurate information available to support such a vitriolic, knee-jerk reaction to a dog's breed in and of itself. There are too many variables to consider to accept that mindset as rational.
I encourage anyone who cares about these issues and who loves animals and people to consider volunteering. There are a lot of opportunities out there that you might be surprised are available. It's not just shelters who need volunteers, either, and you can find opportunities in an array of different settings and ways of helping. You might find that experience will give you a broader understanding of how complex these problems are, and how we can work to solve them.
Of course there is. Not a week goes by in the UK without an attack by this breed. Some survive, many do not.
Can you please link some statistics on this?
The only source I could find says:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/15/why-are-american-xl-bullies-being-banned-and-how-will-it-work
That's too many deaths, of course, but hardly one a week.
Saturday: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-66256193
Wednesday: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12522011/Shocking-moment-dog-mauls-boy-football.html
Thursday: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/15/man-dies-after-dog-attack-in-west-midlands
That's 3 in 6 days.
That one is a Staffordshire bull terrier, not the breed being banned for these attacks.
You didn't actually respond to my comment about a request for statistics, rather posting some individual stories. So since I posted I found this article from the BBC. It states that:
So that's actually 24 dog attacks per day, so the problem is even more severe than you suggest, though the claim of only "some survive" then is misleading at best.
Out of all those hospital admissions, there's 24 attacks a day being deemed criminal by our justice system. That data suggests that this problem is by no means limited to the XL bully breed.
Two attacks in six days rather than three then. Does this somehow make it acceptable?
They're a dangerous breed and should be banned. No amount of pedantry or weasel words can change that.
Mostly cause we, y'know, ban the dangerous breeds, so we have a lot fewer dangerous dogs attacking people.
482 dog attacks in 2022 resulting in criminal action but a fraction are caused by this particular breed.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/11/banning-some-dog-breeds-in-the-uk-wont-stop-attacks-on-humans
That’s 6 of 10 fatal dog attacks. Though it surely disappoints them, not all attacks by pit bulls are fatal.
Apparently requesting to have a fact based discussion is offensive. I merely asked for actual data for some rather extraordinary claims.
I don’t think I seemed offended. I pointed out that the fact you refuted wasn’t what the person you replied to was asserting.
I see the statistics you cite come up as the first result on searches. Did you look at anything else? “Dog attacks in UK annually” has a lot of results for me.
Here’s a BBC article for example:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64798162
which states
as far as info on which breeds are involved, I’m sure it’s out there.
There were two claims asserted:
(Emphasis mine) The first is not something I can find evidence for as there seems to be no break down easily availably by breed. And as for the second, most survive , 0.1% do not.
The down votes being given for asking for data seems like I'm offending some. 🤷
Does not seem to be as you have also failed to find it. There is aggregate data for all dogs, which yes, is easily found actually refused some of the assertions that the person made.
Banning based on breed seems like a knee jerk reaction based on anecdotes.
True, “many” seems to be an overstatement. Being mauled by a dog isn’t great, either.
That’s a function of how much time I spent looking. You seem to be more engaged in this topic than I am, so perhaps you could find the data.
These stats are American, and only the ones that got in the news:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
The statistics are unequivocal. There is a reason we don’t usually allow people to own lions and leopards as house pets. No amount of obedience training is going to make them safe. Here is a list of all fatal dog attacks in the UK. Pit bull breeds are far over-represented. I just don’t see how you can look at this data and think, “everything is fine!”
I genuinely can’t grasp why anyone would die on the hill of defending pit bulls. There are countless other dog breeds to choose from, why can’t we just ban pit bulls entirely when they’re demonstrably dangerous?
In some old reddit threads this was talked about a lot, some interesting ideas came up. Of course many people keep these because they are assholes and enjoy scaring others (e.g. drug dealers, gangsta wannabes), but those are also not the ones arguing about statistics online.
The most interesting view in my opinion: these owners are having some kind of victim/martyr complex, enjoy picking the hated breed, so they can be a pit mamma, and show the world, etc. It becomes a part of their personality, so they are special and not like others. When they feel attacked, they are very defensive about it - I used to get abusive “suicide reports” many times I posted or commented smg anti-shitbull.
One reason is that many people see these arguments against the breed as arguments against their own pet. It's easy to see why someone would ignore the statistics when they've had pit bulls that were all sweeter than any other dog they've owned. When you start bombarding people like that with statistics and news stories it doesn't convince them that good old Velma is actually a ticking time bomb, it convinces them that people on the internet just hate their dog for no reason. After all, while pit bulls do attack people and animals disproportionately often, Velma has lived with a chihuahua and a cat for ten years without ever so much as growling, as do the majority of pits.
Then there are comments like "garbage dogs for garbage owners," and arguments against the breed become arguments against the owner. Do you expect someone to just not say anything when someone insults them?
Because shitheads are just going to move on to the next breed. That's already effectively what happened with the XL Bully. The dogs are nowhere near the hardest to train and socialize. They just have the street rep.
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying if we ban pit bulls people will choose other violent dog breeds, and those people are shitheads? Or are you saying people who want to ban pit bulls are shitheads and banning pits will open the door to banning more violent breeds?
The owners who buy these animals specifically because of their street rep will just choose another breed. We need laws about breeding and training.
As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I'm sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That's my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.
yawn
Here ya go. I spent 7 years in the military as a dog handler with two different malinois during that time.
I then got out and worked for a government agency investigating dog attacks.
One of the first jobs across my desk was… an American Bully XL. Almost killed another dog and sent a male person to the hospital. The dog was from an upper class family and was around little children daily.
We had 7 dogs that we had confiscated, pending court hearing regarding attacks.
7 out of 7 dogs were bully breed dogs.
In my experience I will not trust a bully breed dog in any circumstance. I’d take a malinois any day over a bully breed dog.
It’s not really about reddit, unless you think the UK government also got their attitude from reddit. Personally while I have not been attacked by a Pitt, and have known people with some that are nice and some that are insane, I have been threatened by Pitts in public and I did not enjoy it.