buster the show dog
Posted : 8/14/2007 12:53:55 PM
ORIGINAL: FourIsCompany
Let's educate ourselves, shall we? [sm=happy.gif]
Excellent idea!
ORIGINAL: buster the show dog
... 1) they have a greater tendency to be aggressive toward other dogs than most breeds, and are more likely to inflict serious damage when they express that aggression, 2) pit bulls and pit mixes often make up the largest portion of shelter dog populations, with it not being unusual for them to exceed 50 % of the total in large urban areas.
ORIGINAL: FourIsCompany
Can you show me your sources that support these data?
Well for one example of a pro-pit bull site that discusses the large portion of shelter populations that are made up of pit bulls, go here [link
http://www.happypitbull.com/overpop.htm]pit bulls in shelters[/link].
Pit bulls were historically rigorously bred to have exceptional drive to fight other dogs, were extremely strongly selected to not quit a fight once it had started (indeed this was the single most highly prized trait in a pit bull), and were bred to be extraordinarily powerful. Add to that a few decades of being the breed of choice of drug dealers and to bolster the manhood of street thugs. And you need statistics to demonstrate that this would produce a population of dogs that is more likely to be dog aggressive and more likely to inflict serious damage when they express that aggression than a snappy ill-tempered cocker? Seriously?
ORIGINAL: FourIsCompany
Pit bull attack stats may surprise you
...
In 37 years, 342 children were killed by dogs, an average of about nine children a year. Shockingly, approximately three children are killed each day, or 1,100 per year, by their parents. Delise notes that "A child in the United States is over 100 times more likely to be killed by his or her parent or caretaker than by a dog."
Source: [link>http://www.la-spca.org/dedication/talk/t_judge.htm]http://www.la-spca.org/dedication/talk/t_judge.htm
Now, I ask you... What's to be done about PARENTS?
Well a discussion of abusive parents is sort of off topic for this forum. But, you will notice that no where in my original post did I define the pit bull problem as one of them being a principle cause of human death. I defined the problem as being one of there being far to many of them, causing them being a leading contributor to shelter populations and of them being more likely to be dog aggressive and to inflict serious damage when they express that aggression. So, lets address those problems, shall we?
ORIGINAL: FourIsCompany
And remember, there are several breeds that the public calls Pit Bulls. .... It's very likely that many vicious dogs reported as "Pit Bulls" are actually several other breeds.
Quite often dogs that attack are identified as pit bulls when they are not. ... The worst part of this identity problem is that the initial attack has frontpage coverage with PIT BULL all over it. Then several day's later when they properly identify the dog as a mix breed or another breed that story is a line or two on page 30 buried.
Source: [linkhttp://www.understand-a-bull.com/BSL/MistakenIdentity/WrongId.htm]http://www.understand-a-bull.com/BSL/MistakenIdentity/WrongId.htm[/link]
In fact... Take this test. Can you, a dog saavy person,
Spot the Pit Bull? [linkhttp://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html]http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html[/link]
How accurately do you think the general public can indentify one?
Which is one of the several reasons I alluded to that I don't favor breed specific
bans. But this thread, and my post were about breed specific requirements for pit bull
owners. So, lets address that. Since irresponsibly owned pit bulls vastly outnumber irresponsibly owned clumber spaniels, Belgian sheepdogs, Polish lowland sheepdogs etc etc., and since irresponsibly owned pit bulls pose greater threats to the safety of other dogs than the smaller number of irresponsibly owned chihuahuas and Greater Swiss Mountain dogs and Scottish deerhounds, why not target regulations to the population that is causing the greatest problem? Why not decrease the degree of irresponsible ownership of pit bulls even if it does nothing to prevent the plague of irresponsibly owned Tibetan terriers?
Who exactly would be harmed if owners of intact pit bulls were required to get a CGC on those dogs by the time they reached adult hood?
Here's how I think this would be beneficial. Any serious responsible owner of a pit bull with proper temperament would have no difficulty passing a Mickey Mouse CGC test. Indeed this would be a ridiculously simple requirement compared to the health screening and more rigorous temperament testing that any marginally responsible breeder would do. So, no even marginally responsible breeder of pit bulls would be even inconvenienced by this requirement. On the other hand, the street thug who owns pit bulls to bolster his sagging sense of manhood is unlikely to neuter or enter his dog in a CGC test. So, now, rather than having to wait to be invited to witness the dog fight in the alley tonight, the animal control officer merely has to ask to see the spay certificate (or lack of testicles) or the CGC certificate before confiscating the dog. Yeah, sadly, shelter populations may initially go up as these dogs are removed from their chains in back yards and from the pathetic individuals that breed them to fight them. But, now that law enforcement no longer has to wait for the extremely rare opportunity to break up a fight in progress there is a chance to break the cycle of breeding more and more tougher and tougher fighters. And the casual back yard breeder that just produces a litter for a bit of profit, or because they like raising puppies or whatever may decide that it isn't worth the effort if they have to actually demonstrate a minimal amount of training on their dog. Or, if they do actually get the CGC certificate, at least they've now been forced to interact with their dog enough to train it to some minimal standard. And they may enroll in a class to do so, and they may learn a bit about responsible dog ownership in the process. As a major component of the shelter population decreases (perhaps after an initial spike), there is less pressure to pass restrictive legislation like that recently proposed in CA that treats all breeders (except the puppy millers who are mysteriously always exempt) the same. Breeders of Gordon setters, working cattle dogs, guide dogs, and border terriers are no longer subject to additional licensing fees, breeder permits and the uncertainty of what the requirements will be next year because of a problem that is largely caused by irresponsible owners of pit bulls.
Who loses?
ORIGINAL: FourIsCompany
[font="book antiqua"]The American Canine Temperament Testing Association, which sponsors tests for temperament titles for dogs, reported that 95% of all APBTs that take the test pass, compared with a 77% passing rate for all breeds on average. The APBT's passing rate was the fourth highest of all the breeds tested.[/font]
Source: [linkhttp://www.valleyofthesundogrescue.com/apbt_fact_page.htm]http://www.valleyofthesundogrescue.com/apbt_fact_page.htm[/link]
Comparing the meaningless passing rate of a minute non-random sample of pit bulls to the meaningless pass rate of a minute non-random sample of other breeds is, well, meaningless. If you want to discuss why the numbers of passes and failures on the ATTS test is meaningless feel free to start a thread on that topic, and I'll happily chime in. But that's really off topic for this thread.