Yet another Baby Mauled to Death by PIT BULL - Should they be Banned?

Originally posted by ignant
Yes its really easy to look at the starkness of the statistics (70%)

and realize the only challenge is to say they are totally wrong.

Again, look at the context of those statistics.

"In my experience as an expert on breed identification, various dog types have been erroneously misidentified as American Staffordshire Terriers or American Pit Bull Terriers, and when there is a mixed breed dog involved accurate identification becomes problematic. In my opinion, when percentages fall below approximately 75% for the American Pit Bull terrier or American Staffordshire terrier, I do not feel that it is possible to accurately assess the breed composition of a mixed breed dog based on appearance alone for the purpose of stating that the dog is partially American Pit Bull terrier or American Staffordshire terrier or a closely related breed."

-Richard H. Polsky, Ph.D, CAAB
Animal Behavior Counseling Services, Inc.
Certified applied animal behaviorist / Dog Bite Expert

Source

Misidentification leads to bad statistics. I personally know a couple with a Boxer. Everyone constantly asks if he's a Pit Bull.

According to Wikipedia, taking their stats from the AKC, The Staffordshire Bull Terrier (aka pitbull) comes in number 5 with 12,729 registered dogs in 2006. That doesn't account for all of those that go unregistered for fighting purposes.

RSPCA chief vet Mark Evans said: "Staffies have had a terrible press, but this is not of their own making - in fact they're wonderful dogs. If people think that Staffies have problems, they're looking at the wrong end of the dog lead! When well cared for and properly trained they can make brilliant companions. Our experience suggests that problems occur when bad owners exploit the Staffie's desire to please by training them to show aggression."

Couldn't have said it any better than he did.
Bad owners = poorly trained dogs. It's not the dogs fault they were trained to attack and show aggression. That's how they were taught and raised.

Teach a child it's okay to drink, smoke, do drugs, steal, and kill, that's exactly what they'll do because that's what they're taught. Same goes for a dog.
Teach a dog it's okay to attack people, other dogs, show aggression, and to generally be a threat, that's what they'll be because that's what they're taught.

I DO NOT blame the dog and never will in any of these situations. The blame lies solely on the owner. Its their animal and they should be responsible for it. I personally wouldn't let ANY animal near a baby let alone a small child that doesn't understand the power the animal has.

We have owned a rednosed pitbull for over the last two years and he has been nothing but loving and obedient, and we picked him up from the shelter when he was already almost 2 years old.

And there already is 'Breed specific' legislation passed in my state(Michigan) and we can't even walk him(our dog) in certain parks, or even at our lake house up north....

My PittBull sleeps with me every night..

My PitBull loves everyone..

My Pitbull is smarter than most people....

My PitBull saved a baby bird..Twice!

My PittBull is a damn good dog...

My PittBull loves his pet cat....

I say we Ban Babies......

Click here for more information.

reply to post by nightstalker78


You are full of # and have probably never even had friends with a pitbull. They are some of the sweetest dogs in the world. Its just the type of people who like them suck. Have fun with your cockerdoodle.

Originally posted by g146541
reply to post by mojo2012

 

Agreed, some folks should not own dogs, some folks should not own cars, some folks should not own phones, some folks should not own guns, some folks should not be allowed to reproduce, some people should not........
But in the US we have a long history of attending the school of hard knocks.
I made my family's living off of this school, no Yale or Harvard for me, yet I was able to buy 6 kids futures with it and am retired now!
My pits are one of my freedoms, take that away and do not worry about the dogs, worry about the humans "going red".

You're trying to compare living things with non-living. But i will humor you anyways...

Want to legally drive a car? It's called a driver's license.
Want to legally own a gun? It's called a FOID card.
Want to legally own a pet that can kill a human being and has done so before? Well you guessed it there should be some regulation to it.

A few bad apples will end up ruining your chance to legally own a pitbull if these instances of killing human beings keep adding up.

Heres my argumentative essay I promised...
Breed Specific Legislation

Hope you all enjoy.

This guy has a ticking bomb on his hands.

www.youtube.com...

The minute a dog with his abilities decides to challenge for the Alpha spot you are screwed.

Once again not the dogs fault, just a poor owner.

But that seems to be the point with the fighting breeds. For every caring skilled responsible owner there are 5 ghetto thugs and country bumpkins breeding aggression into theirs. And they don't have 1 or 2 well socialized well cared for dogs, they have many and they treat them like crap.

I'm a dog lover, I volunteer at the humane society and have 2 dogs, a boxer and a little terrier. I've only come across a handfull of dogs in my life that I was afraid of. One was a 90 pound Akita that got loose after a large hoarder seizure I was involved with, one a doberman a friend had and treated poorly, the rest were the pit types. I've met some sweatheart Pits and Staffies, I know they are out there.

But that isn't the issue as much as the way these breeds came into being, they've been selectively bred for hundreds of years to be killing machines. You can't ignore the fact that these dogs possess the ability to do much more damage than the average dog. Once that clamp is established poking their eyes won't even work to get them to release. The only way to decrease the innate aggression is to breed it out of them.

One sad reality with dog rescues is that overly aggressive dogs need to be put down. I was so against it on my first rescue that I almost quit in protest. That was 15 years ago, and between fostering dogs, working at the shelter and going on hoarder rescues (we have far too many, one every 2 years) I've come to realize that these dogs can never be placed with a family. They are the canine versions of sociopaths, and while it possible that a skilled trainer could fix the dog with enough training, there are just too many dogs and not enough trainers. We are talking about a major effort here, not just a few dog obedience classes.

Once a fighting breed, or any dog for that matter, shows aggression over anything you have a problem. You should be able to reach down and take their dish away while they are eating. Same with toys and beds, if they snap or growl at all you have a problem.

So what do we do with dogs that are naturally aggressive when the shelters are already at capacity with adoptable dogs? There just aren't enough rescue groups to take the dogs.

reply to post by mojo2012


You are quite right there with me comparing inanimate objects with living things.
However they all do have something in common, they require a human to screw things up where someone would be killed.
A bad owner of a car may hit people with it, a bad owner of a gun may accidentally shoot someone, a bad owner of a dog may not understand leadership.
In any case it is the human component that ends up messing things up.
As someone above stated, "we should ban babies".
All babies grow up to do something bad.
Honest question though, what is a foid card? is this something outside of the US?

And again you are right about some moron wanting to screw with my rights, but there are methods for dealing with tyrants.

reply to post by AGWskeptic


Agreed, the idiot in this video does not understand alot about dogs.
First off, I AM ALPHA!
Second, do not taunt your wife, friends, or your best buddy.
Third, all things that you see, (speaking as if I were speaking to my dogs) belong to ME, you may play with them but you must understand I am master and all things are mine!
Lastly, a dog never snaps at me without correction, master is not punished.
But I wll give him points for giving his buddy the good stuff!

reply to post by Believer101


Get over yourself, You're not that important to me. You take the whole dog thing way too seriously. ~SheopleNation

reply to post by AGWskeptic


Ya, the guy in that video is a moron, and that dog will eventually bite him or someone else! These are the types of dogs and dog owners that give all the rest a bad name!

If that was my dog, and it even thought about curling that lip back over a bone, I would beat it half to death with the bone, and then lie in the floor and chew on the bone myself and bite that dog every time it looked at me! That is exactly what I did the one time my Pit decided to take a bite of my food when I walked away to get some salt. I saw him eating out of my plate and I dove from the kitchen to the living room tackling him, growling and chewing on his ear! Then, I sat there leaning up against him and ate the rest of my dinner and every time he looked at me I bit him again.

In all seriousness, even small dogs will get protective over food and it is VERY important to give them food, take it away, give it back, mess with the bowl while they eat, mess with their face while they eat, etc. I have always tested all of my dogs in this manner to make sure they are safe to be around kids, because kids don't know any better and they might crawl right up to a food bowl. I even put my face in the bowl and eat with the dog just to be 100% certain they will not get defensive over food.

When I was a kid, we adopted a stray Norwegian Elkhound, and the worst possible scenario happened. My little brother was still crawling around in diapers, the dog was huge and brand new, my Mom had just fed the dog and then stepped outside to holler at me and the door locked behind her. The baby was locked inside, on the floor, with the dog, and a fresh bowl of food! Mom broke a window to get in quickly, and luckily the dog turned out to be extremely tame and obedient, and she was a GREAT dog, but dam that was scary.

Originally posted by SheopleNation
reply to post by Believer101

 

Get over yourself, You're not that important to me. You take the whole dog thing way too seriously. ~SheopleNation

Oh I'm sorry, I'm not the one who personally attacked someone over U2U for no reason.
And yes, I do. There is NO reason for a dog to be punished for doing something their owner taught them. Nor should other dogs of the same breed suffer because some people don't know how to properly train a dog.