1y ago

Dog breed bans are about human prejudice — not the dogs

www.vox.com Dog breed bans are about human prejudice — not the dogs

Why the UK is banning the American XL bully.

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?

140 comments

Pitbulls are responsible for more human attacks than any other breed.
https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2019-06/new-study-identifies-most-damaging-dog-bites-by-breed/
- Yeah frankly the statistics are pretty conclusive. You can argue about bad owners all you'd like, and theres probably at least some truth there (if you're an asshole who wants a violent dog, you're of course going to choose a breed with a reputation for violence), but it's clear to any unbiased observer that pit bulls have a high tendency towards violence.
  No one is advocating that we round up all the pit bulls and euthenize them (no sane person anyways), but that we stop breeding new ones. Frankly there needs to be a lot more regulation on dog breeding, besides violent breeds, there's no reason we should be breeding more (as an example) pugs, who are doomed to spend their whole lives suffocating just because some people like their squashed faces
  
  I'm not trying to nitpick and start an argument with you but the guy you're replying to has conflated two very different things. Likelihood to bite and ability to damage with bite. You are most likely to be bitten by a Labrador retriever. You are most likely to be fucked up by a Pitbull. I will not deny that pit bulls have the ability to fuck you up. Just like I won't deny the ability of a German Shepherd to rip a fist-sized chunk out of your leg.
  Furthermore he is pretending to quote with a sense of authority however reading his own linked article will disprove his claim. The number one identified breed with the ability to cause damage was "unidentified". The article claims the number two breed was "Pit Bull" which is not a singular breed and encompasses many subreads. The third was "mixed" fourth was German Shepherd.
  I have owned many pits over the years. We currently own one that is 25 percent husky and 75 percent pitt that looks nothing like a pit he came out looking like a hound everybody loves him always asked to come up and pet. At the same time they are afraid and scared of our smaller mutt dog with a blocky head and call it a pit, but he's just a mix of retrekver shepherd and terrier.
  
  Yeah frankly the statistics are pretty conclusive.
  From the article:
  Pit bulls were responsible for the highest percentage of reported bites across all the studies (22.5%), followed by mixed breeds (21.2%), and German shepherds (17.8%).
  "Mixed breeds" are just barely behind pit bulls. That's hardly conclusive.
  
  The statistics aren't conclusive at all.
  In over half of dog related injuries the breed is not reporter.
  Add to that, even vet staff cannot visually identify dog breed with any level of accuracy.
  And when you talk about banning dog breeds, yes you are talking about rounding them up in euthanizing them. Period.
- A pitbull isn't even a breed of dog. Grouping them all together as a breed is like grouping together all dogs considered hounds. It's an umbrella term for the American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terrier, American bulldog, Boston terrier, Boxer, Bull terrier, Bullmastiff, English bulldog, French bulldog, and Staffordshire bull terrier.
  So essentially statistics on pitbull bites are either completely flawed, or just flat out wrong.
  Vox did a very nice piece on pitbull stigma that changed my mind about them.
  
  They're all intentionally flawed because the people that spew this horseshit always conveniently leave out per capita statistics and the fact that pit bull breeds, as far as they're typically defined with APBT's and Staffordshire terriers, are far more populous than any other breed.
  When you actually look at the numbers per capita bullies are not even as "dangerous" as things like German shephers, rottweilers, dobermans, or several other breeds nobody wants to ban.
- That is simply not true. More injuries are attributed to “pit bull type” breeds but that is far different from “more human attacks.” It’s also wildly tainted since it’s based on self reporting and any time it’s not an obvious German shepherd, husky or golden (etc) if someone can’t quite guess what it is most people are predisposed to assuming pit bull because of bigots like you that just hate the breed.
  Small dogs like chihuahuas are far more likely to attack humans than pit bulls, although serious injury is less likely for smaller breeds. Even that is skewed based on human factors and handling since small dogs like chihuahuas are often carted around and over handled with complete disregard for their comfort or tolerance level because they’re “pocket sized” and too many assholes have no problem just picking them up whether they want it or not.
  The only thing your link shows is that the majority of unknown large dogs that caused injuries were assumed to be pit bulls by one person or another.
  
  The only thing your link shows is that the majority of unknown large dogs that caused injuries were assumed to be pit bulls by one person or another.
  FTA:
  Essig also explained why “unknown” tops the list of breeds: “We often didn’t know what type of dog was involved in these incidents, [so] we looked at additional factors that may help predict bite tendency when breed is unknown.” Those additional factors included weight and head shape. The findings showed that dogs with short, wide heads who weighed between 66 and 100 pounds were the most likely to bite.
- I'm glad you took time to take a nuanced opinion on the article that you don't seem to have read. To be honest it sounds like you didn't read your own article. "unknown” tops the list. This is because dog breeds aren't identified by genetics a cop shows up says oh it looked like a pitbull it had a blocky head and it's automatically a pit until DNA tests prove otherwise.
  
  I read the article. It’s the same old excuses about “It’s the owner not the breed.” And “Breed is not a reliable predictor of aggressive behavior in dogs.”
  Those statements just aren’t true. Dogs are specifically bred for certain physical and behavioral traits.
  There was also a study done that proved breeding aggressive animal lines made their progeny even more aggressive. And docile more docile.
  https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/whos-a-good-fox-soviet-experiment-reveals-genetic-roots-of-behavior
  
  It's better than empty sarcasm.
  Edit: Note that they edited their comment after I called them out for it.
- For the data to be useful it needs to be normalized.
  What's the rate of bites per number of that breed in the country?
  The problem is that breed ownership numbers are only drawn from voluntary club registrations, which isn't particularly representative and going to be biased against low income owners and rescues.
  Did pit bulls bite the most often because they are the most violent, or just because they are very common? Are there environmental factors, such as pit bulls being more commonly a rescue dog and rescue dogs being more likely to bite?
  Are there breeds that are much more prone to biting that just aren't as popular in ownership such that absolute numbers on bites doesn't reveal them?
  The article is 1,000% right that the existing numbers and studies suck and are next to worthless.
  Edit: Apparently 84% of fatal bites are from dogs that aren't spayed or neutered, and 76% are by dogs that aren't kept as a family pet which are the types of environmental factors that might be quite a bit more relevant than breed, especially given that only 20% of dogs aren't spayed or neutered and yet represent 84% of fatal bites. Also, glossed over in the link I was responding to is that 82% of the fatal bites are an "Unknown" breed, which is wildly higher than one might have expected.
  Edit 2: Additional resources - apparently the data point from the commenter below is from a poor 2000 study that relied on tenuous breed identification and the research world has been trying to correct ever since, with the 2012 study cited above being by one of the same authors of the 2000 study and presenting a very different picture, and more recent research such as:
  Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes (2022) from a joint Broad Institute and MIT research project
  Comparison of behavioural tendencies between “dangerous dogs” and other domestic dog breeds – Evolutionary context and practical implications (2022)
  
  Pit bulls are estimated to only be about 6% of the dog popualtion, and account for 70% of fatal bites.
  By your logic pitbulls would have to be 70% of owned dogs, and let me tell you walking around 7 in 10 dogs are not pitbulls.
- Their population is also several times that of the next most common breed.
  They're also responsible for fewer attacks and deaths PER CAPITA than German shepherds, dobermans, cane corsos, Belgian malinois, chows, rottweilers, and a number of other breeds that nobody gives a shit about because they're not typically owned by poor people.
  They also consistently pass temperament tests at a higher rate than those breeds.
  But your feelings don't care about facts.
  
  Sources?

If you don't think that dog breed is a good predictor of behavior, you have not spent enough time around dogs.
For thousands of years dogs have been bred for specific purposes. These behaviors are innate. They do not need to be taught. Sure, you can train them to be better, but the behaviors are written all over their genes
My grandparents had shepherds. The dogs had never seen sheep or been taught anything about herding, but they would attempt to herd all my cousins when they were children, then get agitated when the children wouldn't herd. Here's some puppies doing it
Here's some pointers pointing. They have not been taught this (and frankly I can't imagine even training most dog breeds to do that)
Here's a boxer dog boxing. Here's one spinning. They aren't taught this, and they all do it.
There's hounds rolling in stink. There's sight hounds and smell hounds. There's retrievers retrieving, being irresistibly drawn to water, and carrying around things very gently. There's huskies being extremely energetic and vocal.
I could go on.
Do you really think that dogs that have been bred to fight other dogs to the death and bear enormous amounts of pain (game) before giving up are not dangerous? You're mental.
Sure they're sweet to their owners. That's because people who breed animals for blood sports are not the kind of people who would have trouble immediately removing from the gene pool any of their animals that are disloyal.
It's not like it's just pitbulls. Dobermans are implicated too. They're guard dogs but for humans rather than predator animals.
People with agendas can play all kinds of statistical games to show what they want to show. In the scientific world, these kinds of tricks stand out. That's why any non-trivial summary statistic is useless without a large text explaining the methodology.
This is one of those things that is so obvious it boggles my mind that people even question it.
Of course dogs that are bred to murder are dangerous.
- It's not just the genetic predisposition (which is arguably made worse with bully XLs due to so many of the lineage being bred from a small number of very aggressive specimens). It's the size of them. They are orders of magnitude more dangerous than most other breeds when they go feral.
  There is also definitely a factor at play where the sort of person to want a scary looking dog is also the sort of person who's less likely to properly socialise and train them. But it's mental to argue that say, a 7-foot tall gladiator is no more dangerous than a 5-foot tall gardener. Size and bite strength matters.
  I do think there are more humane options available than just destroying them all. Muzzles in public; all dogs should really be on a lead in a public space, but especially v strong breeds; mandated training and chipping as a prerequisite of owning a dog; tougher laws that reflect if you own a deadly weapon on 4 legs that causes harm or death, you are responsible as if you carried out the attack yourself.
  
  Absolutely.
  My cat regularly draws blood. Cats are much less human bred than dogs, but, in any case he can't really maul a child. Same with chihuahuas and plenty of other small dogs.
  Your last paragraph seems pretty extreme to me. I agree in principle and do advocate for trying to remove these genes from the gene pool, which may involve careful breeding and/or letting them go extinct.
  I'm curious if there's a story behind that paragraph?
- What a load. Most ppl (including you) don't even know which dogs were breed for fighting. Anita's (yes doge dog) were breed for bear hunting and fighting in the 1600s. Same for shar-peis.
  Practically every dog breed at one point was breed for fighting.
  Esit: I stand corrected
  
  I think you meant Akitas, but it autocorrected. The doge dog is actually a Shiba Inu, which are much smaller than Akitas
  
  Doge is not an akita, she's a shiba inu.
  
  That's quite the non sequitur.

Statistically pit bulls and closely related breeds are responsible for the most attacks. Anyone bringing human race into this is silly.
- I don't think the occurrence of attacks are more, just the severity. It's probably less likely a chihuahua attack causes enough damage to warrant a report. Pitbulls are dangerous, not because they're more prone to attack, but because when they do, they cause a lot more physical damage.
  
  I think the occurrence is somewhat more. While some smaller dogs may be aggressive and are aggressive, they also tend to learn rapidly they do not have the size to be aggressive. Thus that trait becomes less common overall.
  
  I think that people should be able to own them, but they need to be put in the same class as foxes, wolves, hyenas and wild dogs. I met a sweet pit bull at a friend's house but the first thing she did was jump on me and scratch my stomach, which drew blood.

people who cannot control their dog when outside, should rethink owning said dog.
- It's more complicated than that. If your can't stop your lab from licking a stranger to death, that's completely different from not being able to stop your pitbull or doberman from mauling a toddler.
  Yes, people should be responsible dog owners, but only certain breeds regularly snap and kill or maim.
  
  Nah either way it's just negligence. It's up to the dog owner to take appropriate steps, or face liability.

When you may not be able to get homeowners insurance because of the dog you own, it's not likely to be an issue is prejudice. They do everything by statistics.

the thing about prejudice in the title is absolutely, deeply, fantastically true. I, too, think that it's a prejudice to believe that is possible to control animals bred with the precise intent to maul.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
That came shortly after videos emerged of a dog attack that injured an 11-year-old girl named Ana Paun in Birmingham, England.
Noel King, host of Vox’s daily news podcast Today, Explained, wanted to know more about why this dog breed is so controversial.
It was all kind of folklore, myth, and media sensationalism — and that gave me a window to talk about a lot of other different subjects, using the pit bull as a lens.
Because they were popular and they were associated with these social changes, people believed that they bit more and that they were kind of poisonous and they transmitted rabies.
In the early ’90s in Boston, there was a pilot program where ownership of a pit bull was used as kind of an excuse for a stop and frisk with law enforcement.
The original article contains 1,944 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 91%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

One thing that bears mention is that dogs are humankind's best friend. They have a special and sacrosanct relationship to humans; in our evolution, in our history, in our law, in our communities, in our homes, and daily in our families. I'm skeptical of any government action intended to interfere with a person's right to keep whatever dog as they fit, absent inhumane treatment. I view breed bans the same way I view bans on oral or anal sex,, homosexual sex, gay marriage, interracial marraige, and abortion: so central to family decisionmaking, and private, and personal as to be beyond the government's reach. In other words, don't come talking about banning breeds and then say any hypocritical bullshit about how you love small government, freedom, or liberty. Like if you have ever said "Don't Tread on Me!" and you want to ban people having dog they want, you need to stfu because you sound so obviously stupid.

Is it animal cruelty if i simply do not get a pitbull? If a group of people dont get one? At what point does it become cruel to breed less and less pitbulls?
- Pretty sure that's the opposite of cruelty mate. Dogs need a loving home and if you can't take care of it then we shouldn't make more. More people should spay and neuter but they don't.
  
  So lets stop breeding them

The audacity of the people in these comments is just 👨‍🍳🤌 Mamma mia. I mean it's a real grab bag of crazy in here. You got tankies trying to equate black people to dogs, galaxy brains who think banning pits is a solution, and the rest of us just stuck in the middle asking ‘wtf?’.
- The race thing is explained in the article

140 comments