The home secretary is seeking "urgent advice" about banning American XL Bully dogs as footage shows one of the animals attacking an 11-year-old girl and a man in Birmingham. Suella Braverman has said the animals are a "clear and lethal" danger after the video of the attack in Bordesley Green emerged on the social media platform TikTok. West Midlands Police are investigating after two men, who were bitten and left with injuries to their shoulders and arms, were taken to hospital to be treated for their injuries after the incident on Saturday.
Every dog is a reflection of it’s owner. Every time this debate comes up I just think how incredibly dumb these people are. Punish the dog fighters and abusers. People can make any breed aggressive and dangerous.
There are still differences between breeds. Some are naturally less aggressive than others (or a physically incapable of causing much harm) even when not properly trained. Statistics show that pitbulls are extremely overrepresented in unprovoked attacks with major consequences.
Are they perhaps also over-represented in ownership by dipshits tending toward incredibly aggressive behavior and/or other scumminess?
An overrepresentation highlights nothing more than an anomaly we should seek to understand; on its own it’s nowhere near sufficient for a conclusion.
Possible but unlikely. Shepherds do not need to be taught to herd. Pointers do not need to be taught to point. Retrievers do not need to be taught to retrieve. It just lays in their nature.
And even if that was the case, banning a strong breed physically capable of causing lifelong disfigurement or even death could still help reducing the amount of incidents.
I’m obviously not asking for all pitbulls to be euthanized. I’m just asking for them not being allowed to reproduce.
Do you have any actual science to support such an assertion, or is it just the infinite wisdom of anecdote? By way of anecdote, I’ve had far nastier experiences with retrievers than pitbulls or bulldogs.
You seem to be sliding right past the previous commenter’s point regarding assholes moving to the next trainable big scary and perpetuating the problem with German Shepherds.
I’d accept a reproduction restriction on pitbulls if it also applied to everyone participating in this wedge issue from some undeserved high horse.
No need to get personal. I don’t know what anecdotes you are talking about. Are you disagreeing with my assertion that certain breeds of dogs naturally exhibit certain traits? If not, then wouldn’t it be much more of an anomaly if a breed that was bred for fighting didn’t also possess appropriate traits? I do not have any studies to back up my statements, so I have not completely ruled out the possibility that there is no genetic basis, just found it unlikely.
Moreover, the same is true, of course, for any other dog breed that becomes a systematic problem.
I’m calling out your use of it just lays in their nature as some sort of objective truth, yes. Feel free to support the notion. I suspect you’ll at best be able to highlight a minor correlation between some breeds and certain behaviors, if that.
I’m not sure how “bred for X” is particularly relevant to your assertion that “X will Y”. The motivation for seeking to bring about a given change does not lend any validity to whether or not that change exists.
That aside, feel free to highlight traits unique to the conflated amalgamation of breeds known as pitbull.
Don’t you think you should?
Has it become a “systematic problem”? I’m curious as to how you’ve drawn that conclusion. Media sensationalism does not a problem make.
I never claimed it was an objective truth, I just believe it to be likely. Breeding is used to reinforce desired traits and I see no reason to believe that ‘inherent aggressiveness’ can’t be bred.
Again, likelihood. It’s possible that humans were ineffective at achieving their goal of breeding an aggressive dog for fighting but reality gives me no reason to doubt it.
There is neither concrete evidence for or against it. Again, I came to my conclusion by applying the same logic I apply to other bred traits.
Judging by the statistics, it has. Pitbulls are responsible for 65.6% of reported attacks in the US, yet only make up 6% of all dogs. Whether that’s the fault of the dog or poor training from the owner doesn’t change the fact that it is a systematic problem.
“Shepherds do not need to be taught to herd. Pointers do not need to be taught to point. Retrievers do not need to be taught to retrieve. It just lays in their nature.” These are assertions with no room for ambiguity or compromise… unsupported assertions, at that. You use them as if they’re some sort of objective truth - you do not state you think shepherds do not need to be taught to herd.
Unfortunately, “likelihood” really cut it in rendering a motivation for a thing relevant. A reminder, the criticism wasn’t that humans are ineffective but rather that I’m not sure how “bred for X” is particularly relevant to your assertion that “X will Y”. - that intent is irrelevant to the action and its impact or validity.
Sweeping generalizations born out of explicit ignorance… nifty.
Of note, you still ignore the criticism of the validity of bred traits as relates to actual behavior, particularly relevant as the previous commenter’s point regarding assholes moving to the next-best breed still applies. You do nothing about the behavior of shitheads in seeking to develop insert dog breed into an aggressive fighter suitable to the same tasks.
Firstly, I’ve already highlighted the issues with the over-representation in stats, a thing you just kind of seem to keep ignoring -
"Are they perhaps also over-represented in ownership by dipshits tending toward incredibly aggressive behavior and/or other scumminess?
An overrepresentation highlights nothing more than an anomaly we should seek to understand; on its own it’s nowhere near sufficient for a conclusion."
Secondly, I’m curious as to what system you believe this problem is related to, along with how the fault of … poor training from the owner would somehow uniquely reflect on the dog.
No, Pitbulls are specifically bred to be aggressive.
You cannot train a pitbull out of being a pitbull.
How about we talk of things in our control first.