this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024

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Wholesome community has heated argument over dog breed safety (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

67 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://lemmy.world/post/14769946

https://lemmy.world/post/14798866

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

In 2009, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia released a five-year review of dog-bite injuries. The review states that 51 percent of attacks were made by pit bulls.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19644273/

In 2009, another study was published by the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. The study ran for 15 years and it has concluded that pit bulls, German Shepherds, and Rottweilers are among the most common breeds that cause fatal dog attacks in Kentucky State.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19696575/

In 2011, the Annals of Surgery published a study, which concluded that Pitbull attacks lead to more expensive hospital bills, higher risk of death, and higher morbidity rates compared to other breeds of dogs.

https://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Abstract/2011/04000/Mortality,_Mauling,_and_Maiming_by_Vicious_Dogs.23.aspx

[–] Woht24 8 points 6 months ago

I love dogs, work with them and know a dogs behaviour like the back of my hand.

Pitbulls are bad but so are most of the bull breeds. The problem is all dog attacks come from working dogs and 95% of the time, people who have no fucking idea about dogs personify them and are completely naive about their capabilities are the problem.

But yeah, they probably need to be banned.

[–] Mango 5 points 6 months ago

Or maybe it's just the type of people who are drawn to this violent record are being terrible dog owners.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm a strong proponent that it's the owner, not the dog that is ultimately the reason pitty's get a bad rap. I've rarely come across a pit bull that isn't a big lovable goofball that just wants belly rubs and to play tug. But the one's that haven't been seem to have irresponsible owners that either don't know, or don't care about how to properly train their dog.

That said, it's hard not to look at the data and agree that a breed ban would be best.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Don't people say the same thing about guns?

[–] Mango 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Wanna go around deciding who should have them and who shouldn't? We can't keep criminals out of public office or innocent people out of prison. YOU figure out how to judge people where everyone else has failed. Until then, let everyone keep their claws.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They're dogs, not people.

[–] Mango 2 points 6 months ago

Guns. Pay attention.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

See i don't know. There was a lady in the news a couple years ago walking her dog and then her dog attacked her. Was she a bad owner, was the dog not trained or did the dog just snap for 30 seconds and kill her.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The first linked thread was just one user getting pissy in the comments.

The second thread was flamebait, plain and simple. Has no business being in Lemmy Be Wholesome. On Shitpost I could give it a pass, maybe.

It's already too late, but I would suggest in this case not using this thread as an extension to continue back and forth the argument highlighted in this drama.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Good suggestion

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If poodles went around ripping people apart, people would hate them too

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Wow, those posts got nasty fast

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Yeah. Some people aren’t happy unless they’re telling others how to live and what to own. I thought it’d be different here from Reddit, it the hive is the hive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Like all the fuck cars and urbanism boards? Society is looking to change.

Edit Imo You should need a license for a dog, same as anything else potentially dangerous

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

I see two cleaned out threads. Must have been nasty in there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

People started arguing about it here

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Indeed. Apparently lemmings have strong feelings on this topic. I myself do not feel informed enough to have a strong opinion.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Hey, don’t let a simple lack of knowledge get in the way of having an opinion - this is the internet.

[–] skeezix 9 points 6 months ago (12 children)

There's two types of people: those who hate pitbulls, and those who's pitbull hasn't mauled someone yet.

[–] Quetzalcutlass 53 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Pets are family, so people have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone badmouthing their pets even if the other person has a point.

My sister has a rescue pit. He's the sweetest dog ever - he was afraid of men for a while due to his previous owner, but gradually warmed up and now runs up to everyone he sees for cuddles.

However, when they took him to visit someone in a nursing home he ran off and bit one of the staff unprovoked. It turns out how a dog behaves around family versus around strangers are two completely different things, and dog owners rarely see the latter so judge their pet's personality based on the former.

A dog can be an absolute angel around people introduced to them by someone they love and trust, but if their little doggy brain registers someone as a threat (or even just an intruder in their space) things can go very wrong, very quickly.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This so much. I've had dogs snarling at me, and the owner is like "Oh, don't worry, he's friendly." Like no, he's friendly towards people he knows, not random strangers!

This got severely exacerbated by the pandemic too. A lot of people who had zero business having a dog found themselves with a bit too much free time and decided a new dog was the solution.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but if you get a dog as a quick fix to your own problems without putting a LOT of thought into it first, you might not be the best person to have a dog.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's why these discussions generally come down to understanding/misunderstanding 'instincts'. Certain breeds have at least broadly understood instincts when it comes to offensive/defensive postures, and those instincts may never be triggered in their day to day, even year to year, routine....but extrapolating that to mean 'my little Cuddles would never X if Y happened' is dangerous and selfish.

[–] Zanz 2 points 6 months ago

Lots of dogs are like that too, but most don't have tools to kill like a pit. You basically have all the aggression of a Yorkie and the bite of a bear. It doesn't help that are pack motivated too. God help anything that looks like food or a toy when 2 of them are out.

[–] Woht24 3 points 6 months ago

The third type is idiots like you.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

The statistics about 90% dog attacks being pitbulls is because cops can call any dog a pitbull.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Pit bull is a large category which many, completely unrelated breeds can be classified as too. Entirely different genetics, from entirely different regions, with entirely different temperaments.

Sure, if a person lumps together any dog that kinda looks like it belongs in the bully classification, you'll get pretty high statistics. Especially when you compare against singular breeds like a rottweiler.

If you look at the graphic (which states 67% not 90) "pitbull" makes up atleast 8 breeds, though like many others I've read my assumption is that they're still classifying many breeds as a singular breed.

You need to look at per-capita data by the way, even if you didn't need to separate the breeds. With simply this data, there could simply be more pitbulls in existance than other breeds.

[–] Brunbrun6766 32 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Also, there is no dotted line on the police report for "Dog Breed". It's just a dog bite/attack/fight etc. No police department is out here compiling and retaining data on what dogs are involved in what fights, let alone doing a fucking DNA test to make sure that was a pitbull or not involved

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That is true, which is why most of the reports have to have some meta-analysis on them to be useful, but where dog breed and injury type/circumstances are broadly available within the report, breeds like labrador, spaniel, chihuahua, poodle, etc (and other, reasonably recognizable breeds) the injures are almost overwhelmingly related to non-life-threatening injuries and/or unusual circumstances (feral dogs, part of packs, extreme neglect or abuse) while deaths or serious, life-threatening instances where breeds seem reasonably documented, 60%+ are from the three commonly expected breed/types, which very heavily outweighs the percent of those breeds in the population.

If type of dog commonly labeled 'pitbulls' made up 60% of the population and were involved in 60% of attacks, that would basically mean they posed no more threat than any other breed....if they only make up 1% of the population and are involved in 60% of life-threatening attacks, it's fair to say that 'breed' is extremely dangerous. It's much closer to the second example than that first. If you wanted to make a good argument, if you could identify some specific breed that is commonly identified as 'pitbull' but which arguably are 'not' involved in life-threatening attacks, that might be worth highlighting, but unfortunately, just like everyone 'calling everything that looks vaguely like a pitbull, a pitbull'....the instincts that earn then the poor reputation are just as spread out across the group as the physically recognizable traits.

Basically, the response to your comment is 'yeah, but.....' because even though you're right that we probably will never know exactly what breed caused which injury, there is an obvious enough pattern that pretending there isn't a pretty heavy relationship between dogs 'significantly mixed' with pitbull and rottweilers and serious attacks is either intentionally deceiving or ignorant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

The stats about cops being bastards is because Americans being arrested form the bulk of interaction stories.

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[–] Brunbrun6766 7 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Those posts, holy fuck Fediverse, be better...

Somehow you posting a picture of your dogs in a wholesome sub REQUIRES them to comment something shitty when they could, idk, mind their own fucking business?

[–] drislands 34 points 6 months ago

The person posting the picture explicitly said in their post they were doing so "in response to pit bull haters". They were already stirring up shit.

[–] Maalus 33 points 6 months ago

OP was there to start shit. It wasn't "just posting" pics of dogs. It was literally "pitbulls are a great dog that is 100% safe fuck the haters".

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

When you post, you name a topic someone else's business. This site is for browsing content, and commenting on it

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It wasn't a neutral post though was it? The title is "In retaliation to the Pit bull haters,". That's not a "wholesome" post to begin with, and if you call someone out, don't be surprised when they answer back

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[–] STRIKINGdebate2 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

My stance is on this is simple. Why don't people just move on when they see a pitbull instead of feeling the need to copy paste statistics about them.

I doubt they would walk up to someone waking their pitbull and read out their copy pastas lol.

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[–] obelix 5 points 6 months ago

I’d just like to see a sensible discussion that doesn’t involve the falsified statistics presented by the Dogsbite blog and its offshoots.

The so-called academic behind their “statistics” was outed for multiple frauds, the blogs are all set up by shadowy anonymous individuals with opaque funding.

It’s all just so janky, like there’s a big movement intent on muddying the water of actual useful conversation.

Large terriers are undoubtedly a potential problem in the hands of inexperienced or irresponsible owners, but to over simplify the argument to “pitbull dogs bad” is irresponsible.

Any dog over ~15kg can do great harm, and when you take into account the breed traits of terriers, it’s easy to understand the importance of proper debate.

But the crusaders need to be ranked out in favour of proper discussion.

[–] Mango 3 points 6 months ago

Who wants to talk about why it's 90% black people in city jails and see how well your pitbull argument holds water against rational thinkers with larger scale ethics to consider.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Meanwhile, I just want to play tugs of war with those two goofballs

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