Ask Lemmy

I don't own a pitbull, but I have friends that own them, and they're the silliest, goofiest, most loving dogs. I have a Doberman though, and he's incredibly well behaved and polite. He will only get rowdy with me, and no one else. He obeys on command, and is very gentle and sweet. He's definitely higher energy than most people can handle, and strong as fuck, so training is important, as is being strong yourself. I did a year's worth of research on breeds before deciding a Doberman is the right breed for us. He's the perfect amount of independent, watchful, intelligent, inquisitive, energetic, and adventurous for my lifestyle. We go for a 3 mile hike in the mountains every day where he gets the exercise he needs, and we work on mental stimulation like nose work and obedience training often. He goes everywhere with me and is the perfect gentleman. But he's a powerful, high-energy, intelligent dog, so definitely not the right choice for most people.

Edit: pitbulls are prone towards dog aggression though, which is in their nature. That's why it's critical to socialize them extensively when they're young. It's very easy to cure them of that if you are intentional about introducing them to lots of other dogs, cats, kids, and people when they're still puppies. They're a lot harder to train into trustworthy dogs if they don't get early socialization, and most dog owners are not very good about ensuring their dog gets proper socialization at the proper age.

There are always exceptions, there are also Labradors or whatever race you want to name that were raised properly and attacked anyways. But as a general rule the life that a dog led is the deciding factor, a Labrador mistreated and made to fight others will have a lot more chance of attacking someone than a pitbull who's been raised in an apartment chilling on the sofa with kids.

I've had almost every races considered dangerous, and never ever have one of my dogs attacked anyone. I have home movies of me as a kid using a great dane as a horse, wrestling a German shepherd, and sleeping in the same bed as a doberman, and the only time in my life I was bit by a dog it was a miniature pinscher.

Dogs are rational beings, they can be taught, claiming a race is more aggressive than others because it's responsible for more bites to humans, without considering that it's also more popular by the people who are assholes to their dogs and mistreat them until they become aggressive is akin to claiming that black humans are more aggressive than white humans because statistically more violent crime is committed by blacks without taking into consideration the social and historical differences that created a scenario in which a disproportionate amount of the marginalized society is black. Just like how it's not a race problem with humans it's the same for dogs, you're completely ignoring the environment in which each individual being was brought up, which has a lot more influence in the aggressiveness outcome, and trying to cast judgement on the race as a whole, in short you're being racist. Put on any other individual of any other race through the same ordeal and you're likely to get the same outcome in average.