Campaigners have welcomed the move to outlaw the breed they argue is "a clear and present threat to public health", but concerns have been raised it may not be practical and lead to other kinds of dogs being prohibited.
It’s becoming more common to see police departments ban Malligators. Less predictable than GSD.
Any dog can be aggressive, yes. Most pits have great personalities, sure. But I’ve known a few pits that weren’t aggressive towards people. Until they were.
The owner problem is a real factor (owners who are likely to raise aggressive dogs are more likely to get pits), but there’s an extra layer to pits. They are raised to be muscular with very strong jaws. If a Yorkie turns on it’s owner, someone’s getting bloody ankles. A pit (and chow, and Rottweiler) can really hurt people.
On top of this, there’s two types of aggression in dogs: performative aggression with barking and short charges, and prey drive which is quiet staring and sudden lunges towards the throat of another dog or animal. I was under the impression for a long time that dangerous dogs had terrible tempers and were “grouchy”. No, dangerous dogs are social creatures like most dogs and many show affection to other pets and humans, until something triggers their prey instinct. The website I cite below has a statement that pits are less likely to act aggressive before an attack.
There were a string of dog deaths in my city last year. All pits. Two were family pets that both attacked their toddler playing in the family’s yard. The mom ran to help and the dogs attacked her and their infant. Both children died and the mom was hospitalized. And a friend of mine had to mace a dog doing his job last year for the first time, it was a pit. Anecdotal, I know, but it’s changed my mind on pits.
One 2019 fatality was from 8 different breeds. This means that if you flip that statistic around to “percentage of fatal attacks involving pits”, that number is even higher.
Growing up a neighbor had three Rottweilers that they let run free.
They mostly stayed on their property, but every once and a while they’d come down to my house. Usually because they were following a deer’s trail, so their prey drive was in full gear by the time they’d see me and my sister playing outside.
Rotts get up to like 120lbs on average, but some are even bigger. So out of nowhere we’d have these three massive dogs that were bigger than us, sprinting at us barking their heads off.
We weren’t good tree climbers, so we got one of those wooden playhouse things you had to climb a ladder to get in.
I still don’t think we should ban them, but I think most people agree dogs shouldn’t be free roam.
Barking is a performative aggression. It’s meant to intimidate. Predatory attacks frequently don’t have warning barks. It’s quiet staring then a lunge.
The behavior you described sounds dangerous, but it’s a known thing (that doesn’t make it less dangerous, but does give opportunity to blame the owner that they should have known they had an aggressive dog). Terrible owners don’t correct this behavior and have dogs that are dangerous to people. But there are many dogs that show zero aggression before attacking. There’s a bunch of biased sources but I think there is some truth to it, nearly half of dogs that kill have not shown aggression towards humans before.
Side note: Rottweilers are the #2 killer dog breed in America. They average about 10% of all fatal attacks. Pits are the #1 killer dog breed. The past couple of years they’ve been 65%+ of fatal attacks.
Rottweilers are chill as fuck with a very high anger threshold but also have a very strong protective streak and the build to back it up. That can go haywire if the owner is an idiot, paranoid, or such. If she recognises you as pack leader and you’re not then there’s not really much to worry, though some German states require character tests for all Rottweilers or they have to wear muzzles. If something like that is available where you are I’d definitely recommend it, they’re a working breed consider it vocational training.
And they can growl like fucking Cerberus. Why bite when a little intimidation does the trick.
Because the only time breed is correlated for aggression is tiny terriers, but that was likely due to the same gene making legs shorter. It’s really hard to breed for/against aggression, but it’s easy to breed for stuff like stubby legs.
The difference is size. A 120lb aggressive dog is more dangerous than a 60lb aggressive dog
It won’t be.
People that want an aggressive dog, buy the dog with the reputation to be the most aggressive, then they raise them to be aggressive.
Ban pitbulls, and they’ll go back to buying rottweilers, which are usually bigger and stronger too.
Just wait till they get to Malinois…five years ago you never saw them outside of law enforcement and military…now im starting to see them in shelters…
It’s becoming more common to see police departments ban Malligators. Less predictable than GSD.
Any dog can be aggressive, yes. Most pits have great personalities, sure. But I’ve known a few pits that weren’t aggressive towards people. Until they were.
The owner problem is a real factor (owners who are likely to raise aggressive dogs are more likely to get pits), but there’s an extra layer to pits. They are raised to be muscular with very strong jaws. If a Yorkie turns on it’s owner, someone’s getting bloody ankles. A pit (and chow, and Rottweiler) can really hurt people.
On top of this, there’s two types of aggression in dogs: performative aggression with barking and short charges, and prey drive which is quiet staring and sudden lunges towards the throat of another dog or animal. I was under the impression for a long time that dangerous dogs had terrible tempers and were “grouchy”. No, dangerous dogs are social creatures like most dogs and many show affection to other pets and humans, until something triggers their prey instinct. The website I cite below has a statement that pits are less likely to act aggressive before an attack.
There were a string of dog deaths in my city last year. All pits. Two were family pets that both attacked their toddler playing in the family’s yard. The mom ran to help and the dogs attacked her and their infant. Both children died and the mom was hospitalized. And a friend of mine had to mace a dog doing his job last year for the first time, it was a pit. Anecdotal, I know, but it’s changed my mind on pits.
This group says 69% of dogs involved in fatal attacks in 2019 were pits: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2019.php
One 2019 fatality was from 8 different breeds. This means that if you flip that statistic around to “percentage of fatal attacks involving pits”, that number is even higher.
Pits are estimated to be 6.5% of American dogs.
If you lumped every retriver into a single group, they’d have a lot more bites.
As a pitbull owner, I may take my chances trying to subdue an aggressive PB. An agressive Rot, I’m climbing trees.
Growing up a neighbor had three Rottweilers that they let run free.
They mostly stayed on their property, but every once and a while they’d come down to my house. Usually because they were following a deer’s trail, so their prey drive was in full gear by the time they’d see me and my sister playing outside.
Rotts get up to like 120lbs on average, but some are even bigger. So out of nowhere we’d have these three massive dogs that were bigger than us, sprinting at us barking their heads off.
We weren’t good tree climbers, so we got one of those wooden playhouse things you had to climb a ladder to get in.
I still don’t think we should ban them, but I think most people agree dogs shouldn’t be free roam.
Barking is a performative aggression. It’s meant to intimidate. Predatory attacks frequently don’t have warning barks. It’s quiet staring then a lunge.
The behavior you described sounds dangerous, but it’s a known thing (that doesn’t make it less dangerous, but does give opportunity to blame the owner that they should have known they had an aggressive dog). Terrible owners don’t correct this behavior and have dogs that are dangerous to people. But there are many dogs that show zero aggression before attacking. There’s a bunch of biased sources but I think there is some truth to it, nearly half of dogs that kill have not shown aggression towards humans before.
Side note: Rottweilers are the #2 killer dog breed in America. They average about 10% of all fatal attacks. Pits are the #1 killer dog breed. The past couple of years they’ve been 65%+ of fatal attacks.
My dream is everyone eventually learns what “per capital” means and how important it is compared to total numbers…
I have a rottie. If someone told me she bit them, I’d want to know what the hell they did to make her bite them. She’s never shown any aggression.
Rottweilers are chill as fuck with a very high anger threshold but also have a very strong protective streak and the build to back it up. That can go haywire if the owner is an idiot, paranoid, or such. If she recognises you as pack leader and you’re not then there’s not really much to worry, though some German states require character tests for all Rottweilers or they have to wear muzzles. If something like that is available where you are I’d definitely recommend it, they’re a working breed consider it vocational training.
And they can growl like fucking Cerberus. Why bite when a little intimidation does the trick.
Because the only time breed is correlated for aggression is tiny terriers, but that was likely due to the same gene making legs shorter. It’s really hard to breed for/against aggression, but it’s easy to breed for stuff like stubby legs.
The difference is size. A 120lb aggressive dog is more dangerous than a 60lb aggressive dog
Not knocking Rots, as a breed. Beautiful animals with a lot of love to give.
My old doggo mastiff/ unknow race mix doesnt like to be patted upon i earned peiple not doing that b4 getting closer to my doggo
She doesnt bite but give some kind of soft bite to warn
I wont tell the amount of people thinking my doggo is petable whose beeen bitten off including careless childrens at dog park
To each their behavior
Surelly blast me but my doggo is my bodyguard for some reason
Idiot
If rottweilers were better fighters, they would have the reputation pitbulls have.