They were bred to fight. They had generations of selective breeding by human being with intent toward that purpose. If you don’t think they’re more genetically inclined to violence than breeds who were not bred for that purpose, you need a lesson in evolution.
also lot of the owners… own them because of that purpose. they want a ‘tough’ dog because they themselves think they are really ‘badass’.
many pitbull owners are human beings would be way more likely to start a fight with another person. so naturally that carries over to the dog, as dogs mirror the behavior of their owners often.
When you look at annual statistics of dog bite fatalities, pit bulls aren’t just the #1 cause of dog bite deaths, they account for more deaths than all dog breeds COMBINED.
Repeat after me, correlation does not imply causation. Two things can be correlated without there being a cause/effect relationship.
What you’re saying is essentially: Pitbull-like races are around 14% of large dogs, but are responsible for 55.9% of fatalities, i.e. more than all other combined. Therefore Pitbulls are dangerous.
I bet you would agree with that logic… Except those are not dog numbers, that’s USA statistics on the African-American population. Congratulations on the racist argument.
Similarly to how there are multiple factors that explain the disparity for African-Americans there are also multiple factors at play for dogs, for example:
- People commonly miss identify pit bulls
- Assholes who abuse their dog tend to prefer breeds that are known for being aggressive. Abused dogs tend to react violently. Thus creating a cycle where dogs that are seen as aggressive are responsible for more aggressions.
I’m fairly confident that if you normalize for living conditions the numbers would not show any significant difference for breeds.
But I whole heartedly believe that pit bulls by nature were meant to be farm dogs. And if you get one and raise them from birth in a good and loving home than bites won’t happen. With this statistic did any owner say that yea I hurt my dog but only because he or she deserved it…etc etc etc. I didn’t think so. No one man or animal is inherently mean. That is a learned behavior. And with all avenues of information getting to people and children is more likely going to be people who are mean. But born that way. Fuck No. Anyone feel free to prove me wrong for this discussion.
the fuck you mean “by nature”? man made dogs.
I think your thinking of hot dogs.
I’m confused now. Do you genuinely think dogs are a natural species? Because… that might explain a lot about this entire post
It’s pretty well known they were bred to be fighting dogs for blood sports. It doesn’t mean they end up that way, but intervention is needed in places other breeds do not require it.
The real question is “why would you believe that?”
They were bred to kill bulls, bears, and rats, in pits so that none of the animals could escape.
Truly one of the worst takes I have ever read. What you “believe” means nothing.
Pitbulls were bred to be as aggressive and strong as possible. They are literally attack dogs made for fighting.
It’s a shit breed that should be made illegal, period.
I’ve been around dogs my whole life. Big dogs. Mastiffs, Labradoodles, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, German Shepherds, Dobermans… Along with some experience with little dogs. The only dog ever to bite me, or attack my dogs, were pitbulls. Two attacks, my whole life, all pitbulls.
I dunno, man. It’s just my personal experience, but shit. I know what kind of dog I don’t trust.
Same experience here, dogs of all sizes, shapes, breeds. The only dogs that ever bit me for real were mini poodles, two of them.
Well technically I suppose my pitbull - I stuck my fingers in her mouth to pull out whatever she had picked up off the street to eat, but one time she didn’t see and accidentally bit down a bit. She immediately released and was mortified she may have hurt me
It is a bigger, stronger breed. The damage it can cause when misbehaving is naturally way worse.
I visited America for a month last year, and I have never met that many ill-behaved dogs. Pit Bulls are fine if they are thoroughly trained, but most American dogs are definitely not. Why do Americans also always have more dogs? They never stop at one. Every time I met a dog owner, they had at least two.
Because when both adults work, it’s mean to leave a living creature home, alone, and enclosed for 9 hours. Pets are domesticated for companionship. It goes both ways
Yea. I’ve been tempted to this many times over the years. I’ve always had one dog at a time because that works for me, but I know they’ve suffered from lack of companionship when I’m not around. Getting a buddy would likely make my dog’s life better.
In particular my last dog never really adjusted to our family. Way too high energy level, way more need for attention than we were able to give. I specifically considered getting him a buddy but couldn’t risk one buddy’s life as the last ditch effort to save another. We did end up having to rehome that dog but at least didn’t affect another
they don’t. only 1/4 of dog owners have two or more dogs.
you just saw them more because they stood out to you.
We had a Pit & another mutt - yes the pit bull was good natured and polite, gentle under normal circumstances, easy to train to be obedient to me - but she was strong as fuck, and if another dog, including our other dog, wanted to fight, she was all in, I do think they are bred to fight. Thankfully she moved out when my daughter moved down the street from us, we would have kept her or the other dog but not both of them. We still get to see her & my kid gets to see the mutt, they are practically next door, but it’s better with them living in separate houses.
All that to say - yes they are just dogs, trainable and sweet. But so so strong and willing to fight, you have to be able to redirect them quickly if they see another dog get aggressive.
ETA: we never once saw her START a fight. She was a little anxious about men but not at all naturally aggressive, liked other dogs; and we trained her to accept people better. It was my other dog who would snap at her. But once it started both of them lost their damn minds. We didn’t plan for two dogs, one was left chained on our porch by I don’t even know who. One dog two cats is the ideal pet situation.
From personal experience I had a friend who raised a pit bull from a puppy and his dog was well behaved and trained well. Then when the dog was about 5 years old, it just snapped one day and attacked my friend mauling my friends arm in his bedroom. When he got the dog into the back yard it started ramming the glass door with his head and then ran and scaled a six foot wall and took off never to be seen again. I knew this dog as a puppy and how it was raised so this was a a shock to everyone. This was also in Arizona, where the vet said they have cases of pit bulls “going crazy” from the heat but ever since I have been wary of pit bulls.
Training and control is essential, but instincts are hard to eliminate permanently.
What has four legs and an arm?
A Pit Bull in a playground.
Pitbulls are the hollow points of the dog world. There is nothing wrong with them per se but the consequences of one being misused are so much worse.
Get bitten by a lab or a Yorkie and it’s not so bad. Pits have the bite strength of an alligator and the instinct to hold on, so if you try to pull free or shake loose you are losing muscle or maybe a limb.
The conversation is nuanced and long, but TLDR is that it is a breed which requires more training than other breeds. It’s also important to note that many owners’ version of training is ineffective or counter productive.
Pitbulls are highly energetic and much like great Danes, grow up physically much faster than mentally. They end up being an extremely powerful dog, chalk full of muscles, who crave constant attention and behave like a puppy. Well, puppies bite, and when a dog bites you, you tend to address it (give it attention). Compounding this, they’re also not very smart and it takes a while to train them. Compounding this further, they have instincts like all dogs where pushing is met with resistance (something Cesar talks about a lot with food etiquette around dogs), and basically everything they do is exaggerated with their enormous energy.
Comparing them to a breed like a Labrador, the obliviousness, energy, strength, and attention needs are not the same.
They can be very good dogs, but effort was made to achieve that. There are dogs who have been bred to be home bodies and they much more naturally fall into a “good dog” category. Pitbulls were bred for dog fighting and blood sports. This is not a good start for family’s first dog.
To put this into other terms. There are chickens who have been bred for cock fights. They can be good roosters, but watch your back and be ready to remove them if they attack your hens. That being said, predators beware. Different breeds have different specialties, if you want one for the look be very deliberate about what actions you are going to take to change the “natural outcome” of their behavior being the behavior you don’t want.
I imagine this may become a contentious thread, but one book I’ve partially read and enjoyed (and now remember I need to go back and finish) is Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon by Bronwen Dickey.
Generally, it comes down to which statistics a “hater” believes. I’ll refer to twain here about lies, damn lies and statistics, since numbers always seem so certain, but can be cooked.
It doesn’t help that “pit bull” isn’t a breed, it’s a “type”, which is vague as fuck all. There’s something like a dozen breeds that get called pit bull, each with their own range of traits. What they have in common is an origin as fighting dogs, including those bred to fight bigger animals.
But if a dog just looks similar to any of those breeds, it’s a pit bull, including mutts with no known ancestry in fighting breeds.
So, folks see a scary looking dog and that’s that, they hate scary looking dogs.
Is the hate justified? IDGAF tbh. Assuming any of the statistics are accurate and applicable, I can understand wanting to limit breeding more, as well as the strict side of enforced euthanasia once a dog turns aggro. But with the vagueness of what gets counted as a pit bull in those stats, and the cherry picking that goes on in such debates, I can’t work up any emotional response to the subject.
But that’s why the hate. They’re scary looking dogs, and when a dog that looks like they tend to look attacks, it’ll fuck its target up worse than something like a Chihuahua or poodle. That much is fact, a big muscular dog with strong jaws can fuck shit up.
Holy shit we’re actually starting the doggie eugenics on lemmy now, this comment section is a fucking travesty.
Ill die on the hill that no matter the breed the dog will always be as good as their owner but I also have enough empirical knowledge of seeing what pitbulls and other similar breeds are capable of. DONT ADOPT DOGSCUZ YOU WANNA RESCUE THEM! I know every leading heart dog lover will call me crazy but duck that. If you wanna be a good owner to your dog than the time it takes to be a good owner for a puppy you had from birth should be where you start. Then after raising 5 generations, THEN YOU FUCKING IDIOT AND ONLY FICKING THEN you should entertain he idea of helping at your pound with canines who need rehabilitation. All youre doing adopting is talking yourself out of getting another dog. I have seen more people than i can count growing up who go to the dog store, see the posters to rescue, get their dog and either never see it thru its full recovery before getting rid of it or it was the last dog that person pr couple ever got.
They get joy from killing other animals. The stats don’t account for what they do to little critters. There is probably some survivorship bias in the stats too, the owners know who they are and treat them accordingly. Well the responsible owners.
They get joy from killing other animals.
You seem to be psychic; or you can talk to them. Which is it?
My family has vet hospital people and spca people in it, and they don’t have your level of certainty.
Personal observations and stories all over.
Your family are all psychic vet hospital and spca people that can talk to animals? That’s wild.
I had a pit that was a scary-looking but sweet doofus. We lived in the middle of nowhere across the street from a cemetery, and during a burial he got out and went across the street to play with people.
Downside is his version of initiating play was to try and tug on pants with his mouth. That didn’t go well for a lady in pantyhose. Her ankle got scratched. Luckily, she came over and just asked about vaccine records and said she could tell he was just wanting to play. He dodged a needle that day.
He learned that play habit from when we had a 3 wheel ATV which he was afraid of, and he would try to pull the human off the scary machine by their pants. We accidentally taught him that was good by trying to calm him down. Whoops.
Otherwise we never had any issue out of him. Cats and kids could crawl all over him and he’d just wag his tail cuz all attention was good attention.
