Highlights: In a bizarre turn of events last month, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that he would ban American XL bullies, a type of pit bull-shaped dog that had recently been implicated in a number of violent and sometimes deadly attacks.
XL bullies are perceived to be dangerous — but is that really rooted in reality?
https://atts.org/breed-statistics/statistics-page1/
From an organization that does temperament tests.
This is the percentage of tested animals that pass their temperament tests.
AMERICAN PIT BULL TERRIER - 87.6%
AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER - 85.7%
OH NOES! 15% don’t pass! How horrific are these beasts?
AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG - 80.2%
AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD - 82.5%
CHOW CHOW - 71.7%
COCKER SPANIEL - 82.4%
DOBERMAN PINSCHER - 80.1%
GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG - 85.7%
GOLDEN RETRIEVER - 85.9%
GREAT DANE - 82.7%
MIXED BREED - 86.6%
ROTTWEILER - 85.0%
WEIMARANER - 80.8%
This is a selection of fairly common dogs and the Weimaraner because I did NOT expect to see that kind of failure rate from those guys. Every one of them I’ve met has been incredibly patient. I include the chow chow to show an extreme outlier. That’s the lowest score I found with around a hundred or more animals tested. In that case it was 99, but that’s close enough for comparison.
So what does this show? Clearly, Aussie dogs all need to be destroyed. They’re far more temperamental and dangerous than pit bulls. Chow chow? Burn them in cleansing fire.
Incidentally, I included the cocker spaniel because that narrative of them being more dangerous than pit bulls follows my personal biases from my own anecdotal experiences. I’ve been bitten by three dogs, all cocker spaniels, all injured me to some extent. But nobody reports the cocker spaniel bite, no matter how bloody it is. You just clean it up and get on with your life because you got bit by a cocker spaniel you fucking pussy. On the other hand, I’ve been aggressively run at by numerous pit bulls and have thus far escaped with only considerable amounts of drool on me after a seriously violent request for pets ended in a belly rub massacre.
Anecdote, however, is not the singular form of data.
Temperament does not equate to ability and preponderance to cause severe injury or death.
That’s literally what it fucking is.
https://atts.org/about-temperament/
“the sum total of all inborn and acquired physical and mental traits and talents which determines, forms and regulates behavior in the environment”
And again, if you’re ACTUALLY worried about severe injury or death then you’ll be focused on significantly more dangerous breeds such as chows and shar-peis. But you’re likely not and just want to say “PIT BULL BAD” because you don’t understand how statistics work.
Also, no your link does not say temperament is propensity to attack. A dog can fail the temperament test because it is shy or nervous, as per your own link.
Both of which are indicators that a dog may be fearful and prone to attack if it feels threatened. If you know nothing about dog behavior, why are you here?
You are really stretching the words may be a lot here. Most fearful dogs are more likely to run away, and will only attack if cornered with no other way out. Seems you’re the one who doesn’t know about dog behavior, would explain why your a pitbull apologist.
That’s patently untrue. A fearful dog is very likely to be reactive, and that reaction will vary based on many different things, both personal to the dog and to the context of the situation. Fight or flight is a common way of remembering that.
And a dog (or any creature) in a reactive mode is dangerous.
You sound out of your depth here bud…almost reactionary.
Nope, spent my whole life around dogs. Fearful dogs are very unlikely to attack, they’re nothing like aggressive dogs.
My guy, you are nowhere near as smart as your mother told you all those years ago.
Live with it.
My guy, I really am very smart. 99th percentile or so through my PhD, and into my well published scientific career.
Pitbulls suck and we need to stop breeding them, live with it.
Let’s see, 1 person has been killed by a Chow-chow, and none by shar-peis in recent years, yet dozens killed by Pits. Yes, I see how chows and shar-peis are what I should be worried about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks
Okay, now learn to divide.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7236a6.htm
CDC, the people that actually track this shit, states 468 deaths from dog attacks in the US between 2011-2021.
So about 45 on average per year. The exact number is about to be irrelevant.
You want to lump all pit bull breeds together? Okay, let’s say they’re responsible for that TERRIFYING 70% of all attacks you pulled out of your ass elsewhere.
70% of 468 is 327.6. OMG SO DANGEROUS! Until you learn to fucking divide.
https://humanesocietytampa.org/pit-bulls-are-2023s-1-breed-in-the-united-states/
“In 2023, pit bulls are the number one breed in the United States, and it is estimated that there are about 18 million pit bulls across the country.”
327.6 divided by 18,000,000 means that you have a 0.0000182 chance of a given pit bull being responsible for a fatal attack.
And that’s if you’re a disingenuous twat and smash all pit bull breeds together, which you would absolutely never do for all breeds with “shepherd” or “retriever” in their name.
There is literally no reason for anyone to fear any dog that is properly trained and not raised by shitheads, and every reason to fear ANY dog that is not.
It’s not by coincidence that the only dogs that have ever bitten me were all cocker spaniels. They’re almost universally owned by people that see them as cute and fluffy lap dogs despite them being considerable size and ill tempered when not trained properly. Do I like them? No. Would I ever want to ban them? Also no, because I’m not a fucking idiot.
Pitbulls dominate the list of fatal dog attacks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks
And yet they only account for about 6% of owned dogs. They are more dangerous than other breeds, vastly more so in fact. And just because dogs only kill a few dozen people each year, there is no reason not to eliminate the majority of that source of deaths.
And I’ve had friends attacked by “well-trained” and friendly pitbulls. Really nice neck scars they got from that super duper lovely little pibble. Don’t know anyone injured by any other breed.
And how many cocker spaniels have killed people? I;m seeing zero on the list of attacks.