50 Interesting Historical Pictures That Might Teach You Something New About Our World

The dog that bit my throat when I was 8 was "sweet and loving" too, until it wasn't. The breed should be illegal and allowed to go extinct.

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Loving until one day they snap. These dogs are NOT safe.

Rebecca O’Donnell

Rebecca O’Donnell

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Anton Gully, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary took in 22 dogs from Vick’s Bad News Kennels. Many earned their Canine Good Citizen certificate and some went on to become service dogs. Only 2 were ordered by the court to remain at Best Friends.

What?? German shepherd have been bred for cattle driving, and are not particularly aggressive. They are smart and easily trained, and for this they are a favorite among police and service dogs. Dobermanns have originally been selectively bred for protective attitude and intelligence, and while some genetic lineages have a high aggressiveness on average is a much less dangerous dog than other similar -or even larger breeds- considered safer such as the Dalmatian. The Italian Corso was bred as a war dog, and is quite aggressive in temperament, independently of training. There are multiple peer-reviewed studies that correlate dog's breed and genetics with innate aggressiveness, and it is naive to play it down and blame by default abuse or training.

Innate aggressiveness can be countered with proper training. Abuse can exacerbate this. What part do you not understand? It is naive of you to assume otherwise.

You are the one who is naive. There are some strains of pitbulls who have been bred to be vicious and aggressive to fight in the dogfighting arena. And they can be quite insane. That doesn't mean all pitbulls. I had one who was a gentle soul and had great dignity. I had him for thirteen years and still miss him.

Judith, I agree completely. Some pit bull type dogs are aggressive, some are gentle giants, some are afraid of their own shadows. They are all different, but judging them all to be inherently aggressive is asinine. If you said the same about a race of humans, you would be called a racist. But some posters here think that is acceptable as long as they are demonizing a dog.

Seriously Jrog, what part is escaping you? It doesn't matter what the dog was bred for, abuse and lack of training will make it more aggressive. The most pampered, untrained Pomeranian can become extremely aggressive. All dogs can show innate aggressiveness irrelevant of breed and your "peer reviewed" studies should have shown this if they were in fact legitimate studies.

One final point. Innate aggression is only a behavioral TENDENCY of that dog breed. It in no way is the final, absolute word in how an individual dog will behave. If every GSD was smart and easily trained then the police departments could just choose any GSD and presto...it's a police dog. All dogs of a breed are not built the same. There is a selection process. They weed out the aggressive ones, the ones not responding well to training. BTW where EXACTLY in my comment did I play it down? READ my comment again.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8819838/ correlation between eight specific markers and breed-relate aggressiveness. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1289339/ treatment method for sudden onset rage syndrome, correlating it with genetic predisposition and inheritability. https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-016-2936-3 genetic mapping of aggressiveness stmming from two distinct specific genes, correlated to breed. There is a TON of scientific evidence about aggressiveness being related to genetics in dogs. You writing dozens of misinformed comments and downvoting evidence won't change facts.

Those "facts" are about as reliable as any other stereotype about genetics absolutely determining behavior in animals. Do you not understand that those are just "tendencies" and not absolutes? I thought you were more intelligent than that, but if you think every single individual in a species will behave in the exact same manner, then you are just as badly misinformed and prejudiced as racists who use similar arguments in their inane hatred of entire races.

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You know absolutely NOTHING about these dogs or any dogs for that matter. You know the exact particulars of every single dog attack? How those dogs were treated, trained and socialized (assuming there was any training/socialization at all)? Plus all the circumstances surrounding the event? Because all too often, people will bend the details and outright lie (imagine that) to place blame all on the dog. BTW inherent traits do NOT necessarily dictate behavior. Educate yourself BEFORE you attempt to spread this misinformation...or just maybe STFU.

BTW kate h, read my whole comment next time. I said "love and proper training/socialization" It takes all of that. I have rehabbed many abused/neglected dogs of all breeds. You really need to watch what you say.

kate and jorge both have extremely skewed ideas about these dogs. kate is so amusingly vehement, and clearly one of those people who think theirs is the only valid opinion

My only hope is that they stay far far away from pit bulls, well all dogs in general. They have little to no understanding of canines in general.

I call BS. Research papers are not written in crayon so how in the world can you claim to have read them?

Scott J, yet another stupid lie about pit bulls.

Read your comment again. You wrote "So let me get this straight. This dog has the most attacks on humans per year, worldwide" The answer is chihuahuas. Maybe you should do some research and think BEFORE you comment. And maybe just maybe proofread what you wrote. Go ahead and edit it if you want, I took a screenshot. And yes, Pit Bulls have the most fatal attacks, but Pit Bulls also have the most bad owners who abuse and torture their dogs compared to other breeds due to the "tough, macho" image that has been placed on them.

You can drop kick a chihuahua into next week and laugh about it. A toddler can't do that with a pit bull actively gnawing it's head off.

Scott J, I knew you were the type of person who would kick a dog and laugh about it. Just stay away from all dogs. You are not a good person.

My advice to you is stay far away from dogs. It appears you have glanced at some statistics you don't fully grasp and skimmed some hysterical news/propaganda and accepted it as the gospel truth. You do not understand dogs at all in any way, shape or form. period. edit*took out some really bad words*

It appears that the only "statistics" you read are from pit bull propagandists. Do you really think people want pit bulls banned because they're misinformed? They're just not blind like you.

To be fair it's all about what source you're using for information. There are plenty of biased sources of research, and also plenty of biased persons ready to read reliably sourced information in whatever skewed way they want to. Reliable sources that actually delve beyond the suface present plenty of data that can easily disprove the argument that being of any breed is the cause of disproportionate generation of bites. In case you didn't see my comment from an hour ago, check out this particular evaluation of the arguments (p. 406 to 419): https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/32163-24-2-lowreypdf

Ladedah, great read, thanks for citing that

Scott J, pit bull breeds are banned because there are too many inane, misinformed, judgmental people on this planet...like you.