Do Argentinians Use Their Dogs As Weapons In Ba?

[thorsten]

I'm talking about scientific studies that prove or disprove the claim that pitbulls are significantly more agressive than other breeds, e.g. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815911300292X.
Using the statistics you posted are useless to answer this questions. Just imagine every Chiwawa would bite a person always - so the most agressive dog one can imagine. Yet, it would most likely not to appear in these statistics due to the physiology of the dog.
Again, I don't claim that there are no agressive pitbulls, nor that a pitbull cannot be a very dangerous animal. I just say that the breed is not the relevant factor. I could train a German shepherd so it's a thread to other peoples life, yet this breed is not considered "dangerous". People just like to stick to common wisdom and mix correlation with causation, either due to lack of knowledge or because it fits their agenda.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

This thread is so sweet - reminds me of the saying "if you put a lot of kids with down syndrome in a room, there's a lot of hugging" :wub:

Perhaps, but does that room have to be in the Casa Rosada?

 

[mmoon]

I'll answer the original question with a resounding yes.

However, I find the snarly, yippy little dogs that lunge at my ankles (and are never reprimanded by their owners because they're just so little and cute) to be a more consistent problem than the big dogs.

 

[germano]

Using the statistics you posted are useless to answer this questions. Just imagine every Chiwawa would bite a person always - so the most agressive dog one can imagine.

Have you looked at the numbers? The report is not useless at all. Quite the opposite! It shows very clearly that that the percentage of pit pulls in fatal & disfiguring attacks is much higher than for other dog breeds - even if you take out the small dog breeds.

Totals of dogs attacking humans in fatal & disfiguring cases: 4444

Pit bulls and pit bull mixes (6%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 2990 (!)
vs.
Lab Retrieves & mixes (7.2%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 74
Germanshepherd (2.1%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases 102
Boxer (1.4%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 62
Doberman (1.4%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 18

Just to pick a few big breeds for comparison. The second dog breed that stands out in the statistics is the Rottweiler breed with 514 cases.

 

[thorsten]

OK, we have a scientific study versus a document from an organization which is against pitbulls - which one do we believe?

Even if we are not sure, let's look how those numbers are created:
- "Compiled by the editor of ANIMAL PEOPLE from press accounts since 1982" - so they take press articles as the source for their numbers. This is a huge bias. First, its not reliable, second, you have a selection bias. It's the same when you would use this kind of data to determine crime rates based on nationality. Most newspaper either print selectively (more likely a story is made if a pitbull bites someone compared to another "non-dangerous" dog), or leave the breed out in cases where its not one of the "dangerous" dogs.
- For many incidents, the dog escapes after the bite. Afterwards, asked for the race, the choice pitbull is probably more likely than others, which is another bias
- There are no reliable information about the breeds in the US, so the % of dogs numbers are just wild guesses. These are, however, pretty relevant to put any absolute figure into context.

So all in all, yes, I'd call this pretty much useless. Furthermore, a ban on a single breed based on these figures doesn't solve any problem. Assume you are a lowlife who wants to have a dog "as a weapon". Now you will probably pick a pitbull and train him to attack on command (which leads to high bite numbers). If its banned, well, just take another breed which has a strong bite and train this dog. So if one wants to regulate something, then one should identify the dogs who are physically capable to severely harm people and enforce that their owners are qualified to handle such a dog.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Have you looked at the numbers? The report is not useless at all. Quite the opposite! It shows very clearly that that the percentage of pit pulls in fatal & disfiguring attacks is much higher than for other dog breeds - even if you take out the small dog breeds.

Totals of dogs attacking humans in fatal & disfiguring cases: 4444

Pit bulls and pit bull mixes (6%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 2990 (!)
vs.
Lab Retrieves & mixes (7.2%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 74
Germanshepherd (2.1%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases 102
Boxer (1.4%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 62
Doberman (1.4%/dogs): fatal & disfiguring cases: 18

Just to pick a few big breeds for comparison. The second dog breed that stands out in the statistics is the Rottweiler breed with 514 cases.

Worth having a look at: http://dogbitelaw.com/

Sample item: "The most horrifying example of the lack of breed predictability is the October 2000 death of a 6-week-old baby, which was killed by her family's Pomeranian dog. The average weight of a Pomeranian is about 4 pounds, and they are not thought of as a dangerous breed. Note, however, that they were bred to be watchdogs! The baby's uncle left the infant and the dog on a bed while the uncle prepared her bottle in the kitchen. Upon his return, the dog was mauling the baby, who died shortly afterwards. ("Baby Girl Killed by Family Dog," Los Angeles Times, Monday, October 9, 2000, Home Edition, Metro Section, Page B-5.)"

 

[Toastedwaves]

ok so?

 

[ajoknoblauch]

ok so?

???

 

[Toastedwaves]

well what's your point?

 

[Girino]

I can't find any "reliable" news on the local newspapers, but I read on this group on FB that today a dog killed a baby.