What Would You Say About This to the Management?

Oh boy, Peter, come to MY neck of the woods and I can show some of the most loving Pitties and Am Staffs on the planet. What do I know about these dogs?  I have owned them (both purebred and mixes) for a quarter of a century.  I train dogs as a sideline and volunteer at our local shelter.  Bar none, the nicest dogs in our shelter have ALWAYS been the Pitties.  The worst?  Labs and Lab/Shepherd mixes.  Would I own either of these dogs? Yes, if the right one came along.  I am not partial to Labs (there's nothing wrong with them, I just prefer other breeds) and honestly prefer the so-called dangerous breeds to the more mainstream ones.  I was NEVER one to follow fashon!

My Am Staff's bloodlines are some of the best in the country.  I am not boasting, just stating facts.  How good are her lines?  Two of her half brothers have taken Best of Breed at Westminster and her litter mate brother received and award of merit this year.  Ask Jamie, our moderator, about them.  She owns a dog of the same bloodlines.  These dogs are, bar none, tops in their field.  Are they aggressive?  ABSOLUTELY NOT. My bitch lives with two cats, two Guniea Pigs and two boys.  She is my able assistant in teaching dog safety classes.  We go into classrooms and have been around literally hundreds of kids over the years.  She has never, ever, once offered to hurt a child or any other person.

I hve a dog at the shelter irght now whom I am very, very careful with.  What is he?  Some sort of Shepherd mix.  He is fine with me, but he badly wants to grab bikes and the kids on them. I have another dog (Lab/Dobie mix) who is afraid of diesel trucks and men in baseball caps. I watch him like a hawk when he is out with me because I never know what he will do when he hears the throaty exhaust of a diesel engine. He is deathly afraid of heavy set men. Neither of these dogs have ever "snapped" but are MUCH more likely to than the Pitties (who came out of bad situations) we have.

Any dog is capable of hurting.  Heck, there was a little girl who was at the pet supply store I frequent last weekend who had just been bitten in the face by a Daschund.  Yes, it was a serious bite.  However, she was NOT afraid of Gypsy (my bitch) and knew Gypsy meant no harm.

I have been bitten by several dogs (it comes with the territory).  When you work with animals--even as a volunteer-- you WILL get bitten.  I have been bitten by many dogs, the latest being a Border Collie. Do I hold grudges against any of the breeds who have bitten me? NO.

You mention dog aggression.  Yes, it occurs in Pitties as well as nearly every other breed out there. Hoever, much of this can be managed.   Gypsy has several dog buddies she hangs out with and she is fine with each and every new dog she meets. Even when a dog (usually a little one with a "Napoleon complex") tries to bite her, she simply stands there and happily wags her tail, smiling the famous bully grin at me and everyone else. Some dogs (of every breed) are not good with other dogs and should not be at dog parks or out with other dogs EVER. Mine, OTOH, is well known in our town for her good manners and charm.

Just out of curiosity, what breed do you currently own? Usually, people who sneer at my chosen breed own dogs with a greater propensity for biting. I will defend my breed until the day I die and I WILL go to jail if it becomes illegal to own my breed.  I WILL NOT BACK DOWN FROM THIS and I am one of the most law-abiding people you will ever meet!

I once had a golden retriever when I was 11-12 who I had to rehome because he suddenly developed some bad aggression problems and my parents wouldn't let me keep him. We told the new owners to muzzle him in public... that's how bad it was.

A month later, they came back to us telling us they had let their SON walk him UN-MUZZLED in a heavily populated park, and that he had broken free, attacked a basset hound, ripping its ear clean off etc. and then attacking the OWNER, tearing her arm up severely to the point of there being permanent damage (of course he'd never done anything this severe in our family before or we probably would've had to put him to sleep).

Anyway, the point is he was a GOLDEN RETRIEVER, a breed which is supposed to be the stereotypical family pet. It of course did not make the front page.

The thing about the media is they're not going to publish stories about all the nice, well-socialized, well-trained pits. That doesn't make a good story. But if 1 poorly socialized, poorly trained, badly bred pit (out of say 1,000 GOOD-TEMPERED dogs) ends up biting the arm of a child who was most likely LEFT ALONE with the dog by an irresponsible parents, It makes EVERY front page of EVERY paper in the state - and in COLOR!

ANY dog can be dangerous. Any ANIMAL can be dangerous. If it has TEETH it can be dangerous! The two most vicious dogs I have ever met were not pit bulls. One was a badly-bred dalmatian... and the other was a CORGI... from a pet store.

I know people don't like Ceasar Millan, but just take a look at his facility. Look at all the bully breeds living together among many other breeds. And tell me that they can't be housed with other animals.
 
I don't have time to type up a speach, but I'm with everyone.
 
You, Peter, remind me of my mother on this subject.  And that's not a good thing!

Yes I know perfectly well that every dog can bite; my freind's grandson's face was almost torn off by a Golden Retriever. But you really want to tell me that a Bloodhound, Saint Brenard, Corgi, Golden Retriever, et cetera, if left in the exact same untrained condition as a Pittie, is going to have the same likeleyhood of violence as a Pit Bull will? Sure they might not bite as much but again they certainly cause more deaths from the bites they are responsible for. Are you telling me that a Cocker Spaniel is going to attack and never let go once it starts as Pit Bulls have a known reputation of doing? You can bash me, call me ignorant, a troll, whatever, but in the end I only have to read the newspaper to dispute everything you are saying -- even with the fact in mind that these stories tend to be overblown and that it may not have even been a Pit Bull. There are far too many real cases of completely innocent people being attacked by these dogs like these tamer breeds could never do and in numbers like these tamer breeds could never produce to even dispute. One of my co-workers -- a very sweet and caring woman, who went through obedience school with all of her pets, owned a Pit Bull, always defending them when somebody would bring them up, one day it just spontaneously attacked her cat and mauled it to death. Wouldn't let go no matter how upset she got. I certainly know that due to her advocacy she certainly wouldn't have exaggerated that or made it up. After that she stopped defending them like she did.
Fine, you are a responsible Pit Bull owner who would make sure that they would be unable to do anything like this, but can we at least establish the fact that Pit Bulls have a strong and fundamental tendency towards unpredictably sporadic violence that any objective person would clearly see?

Someone once posted a link to some statistics concerning pit bull bites and deaths resulting from pit bull attacks and it showed that far more people drown in 5 gallon buckets of water every year than are killed by pit bulls.    Statistically, deaths from pitbulls are insignificant.    I don't have the link, but maybe someone else can post it.

Edit:   this isn't the link I was thinking of, but there's one post on this site that is very interesting.   It starts with "I have no particular affinity for ‘pit bulls#%92. I have expertise in a number of scientific and dog-related fields, including being an expert in dog bite statistics."

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/02/pit_bulls.html

Of course you seem to ignore the fact that most people are not anywhere near any Pit Bulls in the first place and therefore have no chance of being injured by one. Two doors down from me were four Pit Bulls with a dangerous Chihuaua and Spanish Mastiff-dominant mutt. They almost dug entirely under the fence in five minutes to reach my neighbor's Corgis. Should I have been worried for my neighbor's family and pets at that point? Is it possible to at least establish the simple fact that any objective person would see that Pit Bulls have strong tendencies of unpredictably sporadic violence?

Sorry, the statistics just don't support your assertion.   If 99.96% of pit bulls did not bite anyone in my city last year and if the vast majority of bites cause little or no harm and if we can assume that at least some of those dogs were provoked, mishandled and had previous histories of aggression, this does not indicate a strong tendancy of unpredictably sporadic violence.

Here is another article you may be interested in:

[linkhttp://www.goodpooch.com/BSL/dogbiteepidemic.htm]http://www.goodpooch.com/BSL/dogbiteepidemic.htm[/link]

Also - more people die from coconuts falling on their heads than are killed by pit bulls each year.  Most people are not anywhere near coconut trees either.

I found part of the list:

1. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]For every pit bull that kills or injures, there are hundreds of thousands that don't.
   
2. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]Although there are no accurate or even near accurate census records for dogs in the US, in some populations, pit bulls are estimated to comprise some 30 to 40 percent of the dog population. That makes it a very popular breed. Considering that there were an estimated 53,000,000 dogs in the US, and assuming that pit bulls make up 10 percent of that population, there would be 5.3 million pit bulls in our society. In 2000, 13 pit bulls were involved in 8 fatal attacks. That is roughly one dog out of 204,000, or .000385 percent of the pit bull population.
   
3. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]During a 37-year period (1965-2001) pit bulls have been blamed for an average of 2.48 human fatalities per year.
   
4. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]Each year, 350 people drown in their bathtubs. A person is 151 times more likely to be killed in their own bathtub than by a pit bull.
   
5. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]It is estimated that about 500 deaths per year are caused by aspirin. A person is more than 200 times more likely to die from taking aspirin than from a pit bull attack.
   
6. [font="trebuchet ms, geneva, arial, helvetica, sunsans-regular, sans-serif"]Approximately 150 people are killed every year by falling coconuts. A person is more than 60 times more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than by a pit bull.

[linkhttp://www.endangeredbreedsassociation.org/stoplegislation.html]http://www.endangeredbreedsassociation.org/stoplegislation.html[/link]

Again you aren't even using accurate statitionship. The reason people are less likely to die from a Pit Bull is because everybody doesn't have one around like they would a bathtub or aspirin, or coconuts in some regions. Some of those even sound suicidally self-inflicted. And again, that's eight people dead that didn't need to be and eight more than a typical Cocker Spaniel could even dream of killing. Imagine all of the Bulls capable of doing that, as well. You are stretching these statistics so much and being so exclusive that they are far from being an accurate representation of the situation.

News reporters are just trying to find the best storys that people will react to the best and when they look at two stories one about lets say poodle biting someone compare to a pit bull. Will they post both stories? No and they will post the pit bull story because they just trying to add the hype over pit bulls due to they know most people think pits are all dangerous. So yeah you hear more storys about pit bulls because that is what most people been brained washed into believing.
 
A few years back I found an intresting story about a pom attacking a baby sadly the baby was killed by the dog. So does that make me scared of little pom no because any dog can harm anyone. You treat any dog mean, fight it, or abuse it then your chances of being bit are high. With time and years it can be bred out of the dog with proper breeding lus blood lines.
 
With proper socilization, breeding, and the enviorment your going to end up with a nice dog that is friendly as can be.
 
Yeah I grew up next to a pit bull who had awful owners that abuse it because it wouldn't listen to them or it came home dirty since they let it run around the neighborhood. It did become several aggressive to anyone that had anything in it's hand due to the fact it thought it was going to be beaten. Yes it did attack two people and was finally put down, but more do you exspect from being beaten all the time. If this dog was never experience that kind of life it would have been a wonderful loving dog.
 
My cousin that is the most wonderful dog to him it loves him and has a great attitude to both him and his wife. Yet if I try to touch him he will try to bite you and it's a chihuahua. So should I tell everyone that chihuahuas are mean and we should get rid of them. No because not all dogs act the same and been treated the same.
 
I have been bitten by several dogs most of them have been small dogs compared to the large breeds. It comes with the job grooming dogs there is no way getting around grooming a dog that bites because their owner hasn't worked with their dog. I have been bitten by so many shih tzus I have lost count, pugs, cocker spaniels, poodles, lasa, and mixed breeds. The list goes on..
 
Point said the word is slowly starting to become over runned with stupid people that don't know nothing about dogs. That they should either fight pit bulls or banish them from the earth. Sadly people that trying to show that these dogs are just as nice as others are not getting a chance. Due to brainwashed people don't want to hear anything else about them then put them down since they heard so many horror stories.
 
Enough said.
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You can look up the coconut statistic yourself.  It comes from the National Safety Council.    While it is true that more people use asprin that come into contact with pit bulls, the fact remains that even in a very high year of pit bull fatalities (, only .000385 percent (a high estimate) of pit bulls are involved in fatal attacks.   This absolutely does not suggest a strong tendancy towards unpredictable and sporadic violence.     8 deaths, while certainly not insigificant to those affected personally, are statistically insignificant and most are not unprovoked.  You are making generalizations about the breed that very few pitbulls actually demonstrate.   The vast majority of pitbulls are not involved in any biting instances at all.

I know tamer breeds sometimes attack but again this is much rarer and much less serious when it does happen. I know the press overdoes the stories but a fair percentage are rock-hard true. Pit Bulls have a history of and certainly the capability to do a lot of damage so why is it so unbelievable that a relatively high amount would? And eight deaths? Is a death not more serious than a bite? Does your Cocker Spaniel statistic not utterly fail there? How many Cockers have caused deaths? And as I asked earlier, how many more Pitties are have the personality capable of causing death right now? And no unprovoked causes? Read the newspaper. Check the news. Do a search. Virtually every story tells of an unprovoked death of an innocent person.

ORIGINAL: peter_89
Pit Bulls have a history of and certainly the capability to do a lot of damage so why is it so unbelievable that a relatively high amount would?

Because the statistics show that only an extremely small fraction of pit bulls do.

If you look at the first link I provided, you will find an extensive list of  quite serious biting instances caused by breeds you consider to be more tame than pit bulls.

I promise you they are isolated incidences and possibly streched for the purpose of the biased author. And once again, what percent of Pits have the personality to cause a death right now?

Wait, so if other breeds attack, harm and kill, they are isolated incidents, but if a pit bull does it it is a comment on the breed as a whole?   Hmmm...

Anyway, no one knows what percentage of pit bulls have the personality to cause a death right now.   The only real predictors we have are the statistics of past performance and those statistics show that extremely few do.

Edit:  I will add that you can take a look at the American Temperament Testing Society website and find that APBT and American Staffordshire terriers fare better than many of the breeds you consider to be more tame.

http://www.atts.org/statistics.html