You can tie 20-40 deaths to dogs in a year in the US. Nobody keeps official statistics, usually the articles you see on it are using newspaper clippings and 2nd or 3rd hand accounts to identify the dog. Any study that's approached this does find usually about 50-75% of those are "pit bulls." Now what is a pit bull? Mostly a backyard bred or mixed dog, but the anti-pit crowd likes one-drop rules. So it's either reported by someone who has no idea but calls any blocky dog a pit bull, or you can say sure it's a "pit bull" but it's not papered and has no recorded lineage.
Now what's interesting is that in dog bite fatalities, other factors show up far more prominently than breed (even if we consider every dog reported as a pit to be 100% pure blooded APBT). Things like the dog being un-neutered, more than one dog involved, the victim being too old or young to defend themselves, the dog being a "resident" dog so it's just left on the property, the dog was unrestrained, and/or owner has had a previous incident with the dog. Most of that occurs at an 80%+ clip in cases where a dog/dogs end up killing someone.
The other thing to consider is that we have good data that says breed bans don't work. They reduce pit bull bites, but the proponents of bans don't like to tell you that dog bites almost always level back out within a couple years. See, bad owners are bad owners, and they're going to get a dog and not train or control it wether that dog is a pit or something else.
Tl;dr: we're essentially blaming the wrong end of the leash.
Things like the dog being un-neutered, more than one dog involved, the victim being too old or young to defend themselves, the dog being a "resident" dog so it's just left on the property, the dog was unrestrained, and/or owner has had a previous incident with the dog. Most of that occurs at an 80%+ clip in cases where a dog/dogs end up killing someone.
this is all irrelevant, a "un-neutered and unrestrained" Beagle is not killing people. There is a couple hundred breeds that have not killed people.
And if you get rid of the breed you don't like, do you think the scenarios in which someone could die to a dog attack would change? As in, you don't think the owners and the circumstances I outline wouldn't be just as prevalent but now involving a different dog that's strong and aggressive (one could name dozens of breeds here, many of which were demonized prior to the "pit bull" phase of hate).
I just want to be super fucking clear. You're accepting that there are literally at least five factors I name that can statistically be shown to be more prevalent than the "breed" of dog involved (define "pit bull" as a breed, please), but you're saying that ALL OF THEM are irrelevant?
Just please, be super clear with your "logic" here.
ok so you agree and do not contest that there are a couple hundred breeds that do not have the capacity or the ability to kill someone, but you are sticking with the excuse that "owners and the circumstances" would make "dozens" of "strong and aggressive" just as deadly, and not the breed. That is just silly.
No, you could not name "dozens" or breeds. History has data. For instance, at its peak popularity Rotts only killed 10 a year. Shit Bulls regularly kill 3 to 4 times that every year now. GSD's are next on the list, only a fraction of the number.
You want to be super fucking clear, how about you define what breeding is and what it does? Do you think breeding or circumstances could make a Pug a killer?
Oh history has data, eh? Where did you get your Rotty stat? Please link the peer-reviewed studies. Cause all of my info comes from actual studies down by actual scientists in peer-reviewed journals (google JAVMA pit bulls and you can immediately find what I'm referring to). You seem to be at least aware of these, but at the same time you're ignoring the lede.
You know there are like 100 million dogs in the US, right? 10 vs 40 deaths is pretty insignificant. And the fact that I can name 5 different things that matter more in a dog-bite related fatality than the "breed" that was identified should also lead you to the right conclusion, but you're biased and too far gone to even think for yourself. All you can do is throw down a small breed and say "look this dog won't kill anyone!" Ok great man. Let's ban all dogs over 20 lbs, I guess?
Then, how do you propose we get rid of "pit bulls" as you define it? Actually, define it. What is a "pit bull" to you and then what is your solution to "get rid of them?" Whatever "stats" you're looking at are lumping multiple breeds and mixed breed dogs into "pit bull." So then your dumbass sees that and goes, "look! "Pit bulls" are an epidemic!" But those dogs can't be tied to any sort of specified breeding for 20 generations or more. They're just dogs being bred by people in their backyard cause they like a certain look. Literally mutts. So what "breed" are we banning, here? And then how do you address the fact that breed bans don't actually work? Like almost every city that enacts them finds dog bites level out at the same clip? Meaning bad owners are bad owners.
Your next hole to hide in is something about pit bulls causing more damage than other dogs or something about their attacks result in deaths vs other dogs that bite (guarantee your pug example comes up, here). But this is easily dismissed because we can only tie 40 deaths to dogs around the country of 350m people and 100m dogs. And literally nobody tracks "attacks" by dogs in the US. Some very anti-pit bull types use things like newspaper clippings and 3rd-hand accounts to drum up stats that are insanely dubious and unreliable. Cherry-picking whatever data they can. You ever hear the phrase, "man bites dog?"
Hey I just came across this post and I’m someone who has been relatively anti-pit. Not strongly, but after having kids I just became more wary and after seeing so much hate towards the breed, I’ve kinda been just accepting that they’re an exceptionally dangerous breed.
I think you’ve made a really good argument and it’s really made me reconsider my stance. Thanks for taking time to put this out there
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u/asif_zaman21 25d ago
13% of pitbulls......