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@Doctor-Phibes said in So sweet:

@LuFins-Dad said in So sweet:

Every Pit Breed needs castrated. Breed them out of existence.

To be doubly sure, maybe do the same to the owners.

Get ready to castrate a lot of black guys. That's who primarily owns the breed down here.

Sanger would smile...

In the UK the stereotypical pit-bull owner is a skin-head type low-life.

When we adopted our first rescue dog here, we went to a meet-and-greet place where all the rescues were. About 2/3 of them were pit-bulls. As friendly and happy to see us as they were, I'd never risk adopting one. I found it really very sad.

George K · "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

I remember the graph you shared illustrating the danger of the breed. Where's the line, though? Is it just pit bulls? Get rid of them and all's fine?

taiwan_girl

@George Eek!

There was a recent video about a pitbull attacking a police horse in London and biting its leg pretty severely. Afterward, the owner was like, "it is such a nice dog". etc.

If I see a pitbull, I always make sure to move far away

Aqua Letifer

@George-K said in So sweet:

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

I remember the graph you shared illustrating the danger of the breed. Where's the line, though? Is it just pit bulls? Get rid of them and all's fine?

Yep, that's the one, thanks.

So what's the acceptable number? And is it fatalities we should be worried about, or injuries? Regarding either, do we care about how the dogs were raised prior to the attack, or are we going to assume that it's the breed itself that's dangerous?

George K · "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

re we going to assume that it's the breed itself that's dangerous?

I'm profoundly ignorant when it comes to dog breeds.

However, my ignorance has never stopped me from opining.

Border collies have very different behavioral traits from Shelties, from Poodles.

I think it's fair to say that various dog breeds have developed because of selective breeding for various traits. The fact that pit bulls have more than 10X the fatal attacks in the US than German Shepherds and 40 times more likely than a Doberman says something about the breed.

Aqua Letifer

@George-K said in So sweet:

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

re we going to assume that it's the breed itself that's dangerous?

I'm profoundly ignorant when it comes to dog breeds.

However, my ignorance has never stopped me from opining.

Border collies have very different behavioral traits from Shelties, from Poodles.

I think it's fair to say that various dog breeds have developed because of selective breeding for various traits. The fact that pit bulls have more than 10X the fatal attacks in the US than German Shepherds and 40 times more likely than a Doberman says something about the breed.

Right, and I'm on board with that. But when we (social "we") start discussing the relative safety of dog breeds, all I hear is "Pitties bad." Why? Because Pitties bad. Where should the line be? Pitties bad.

Seems a crap answer to me. Should be, "Pitt bulls are bad because here's the threshold I'm comfortable with, this number right here. Here's why this number is most important to me. And so here's the number associated with Pitt bulls. This is why I have a problem with this breed and only this breed. If other breeds crossed this threshold, I'd have a problem with them, too. If Pitt bulls stopped crossing this threshold, I'd no longer have a problem with them."

That seems far more reasonable to me but I don't really hear that.

For me, attacks are more important than fatal attacks because if my kid loses an eye from one, I'm not going to say, "well it wasn't fatal so it's not a matter of grave concern."

LuFins Dad

Well, I’m not going to make you any happier. Whether Pitbulls are more or less likely to attack than other dogs raised in similar circumstances is not adequately determined.
But here’s the thing, any dog can have a bad moment, even the best trained and most well behaved breeds. They are animals, after all. Per capita, I believe labs have the highest number of incidents. The difference is scope. A lab having his worst day may bite somebody. A pit having a bad day.. That’s a very bad day.

Horace

If there's a huge gap between pits and other breeds in the statistics, then there's plenty of room to draw a line between them.

Aqua Letifer

@Horace said in So sweet:

If there's a huge gap between pits and other breeds in the statistics, then there's plenty of room to draw a line between them.

Okay then what it is it for you? Do you look only at fatal attacks or attacks more generally? And what would be your comfortable threshold?

I'm not making a point about asking those, I'm genuinely curious. (Pretty much the only point I'm making is that it's been difficult to find others who are willing to articulate this.)

Horace

@Aqua-Letifer I don’t think there’s any value in codifying statistical thresholds and all that. After you notice pitbulls are outliers in the statistics, you name them in whatever controlling legislation. You never have to draw any lines other than the line around pit bulls. Of course in theory a line was crossed by pit bulls at some point, but you never need to be specific about where that line is. Maybe you’re arguing that it’s incoherent to believe a line has been crossed, unless you can define exactly where that line is. I would disagree with that.

Aqua Letifer

@Horace said in So sweet:

Maybe you’re arguing that it’s incoherent to believe a line has been crossed, unless you can define exactly where that line is. I would disagree with that.

If someone's certain a line has been crossed, but can't explain even roughly what the line is or where it is, then yes, it's incoherent.

I don't expect people to be able to say, "okay, my line is 48 fatal attacks from 2005 to 2017 and if pit bulls had 47 then I'd not consider them a problem."

If someone who has a problem with the breed can say something like, "roughly, the rottweiler number I'm okay with but not the pitt bull number" or "roughly speaking I think pitt bulls and rottweilers are both dangerous because they're kind of outliers with fatal attacks," that at least suggests some understanding of their own threshold. But if someone can't articulate at all, even roughly, where that line is for them, but know for a fact pit bulls and only pit bulls crossed it, then the only coherent conclusion to draw is that they hate pit bulls because of t3h fere.

Doctor Phibes

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

If someone who has a problem with the breed can say something like, "roughly, the rottweiler number I'm okay with but not the pitt bull number" or "roughly speaking I think pitt bulls and rottweilers are both dangerous because they're kind of outliers with fatal attacks," that at least suggests some understanding of their own threshold. But if someone can't articulate at all, even roughly, where that line is for them, but know for a fact pit bulls and only pit bulls crossed it, then the only coherent conclusion to draw is that they hate pit bulls because of t3h fere.

Pit bulls are an order of magnitude more likely to kill than all other breeds except one. In engineering terms, that's like normal people saying 'Holy shit, that's fucked up'.

jon-nyc

@George-K said in So sweet:

However, my ignorance has never stopped me from opining.

This should be TNCR’s official motto.

Aqua Letifer

@Doctor-Phibes said in So sweet:

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

If someone who has a problem with the breed can say something like, "roughly, the rottweiler number I'm okay with but not the pitt bull number" or "roughly speaking I think pitt bulls and rottweilers are both dangerous because they're kind of outliers with fatal attacks," that at least suggests some understanding of their own threshold. But if someone can't articulate at all, even roughly, where that line is for them, but know for a fact pit bulls and only pit bulls crossed it, then the only coherent conclusion to draw is that they hate pit bulls because of t3h fere.

Pit bulls are an order of magnitude more likely to kill than all other breeds except one. In engineering terms, that's like normal people saying 'Holy shit, that's fucked up'.

George shared the fatal attack data above. After I mentioned it.

I didn't say I was unaware of the stats or that I disagreed with them.

Doctor Phibes

@Aqua-Letifer said in So sweet:

George shared the fatal attack data above. After I mentioned it.

OK, sorry.

I was PWI. (Posting with Insomnia)

The New Coffee Room

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