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
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.
Dogs are so fuckin cool
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.
Or can they?
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?
https://twitter.com/GeeDee215/status/1338859678487310337
You're actually spot on, the shift in attitudes toward pits started about 70 years ago in the post WWII boom.
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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.
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.