EDITORIAL: Mauled dachshund proof why Aurora should leave alone city pit-bull ban

I really don’t care when pit bulls kill other dogs and in this case, the Dachshund should not have been “inside the store” because if the owner was going shopping, she should have left the animal at home. However, if the owner of this Dachshund and other pet owners were truly concerned about their pets — or parents about their children, or livestock owners about their animals — they would be emailing, calling, faxing and writing the city council and demanding they refuse to give in to the pit bull advocates and keep the ban remain in place. Pit bulls are a menace to people, livestock/wildlife animals and pets and until these monsters are banned — and the ban strictly enforced — the carnage will continue.

KENNETH PHILLIPS, Attorney for dog bite victims dogbitelaw dot com
In 2013, there have been 18 canine homicides of which 17 were committed by pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Our dogs are not killing us. Pit bulls are killing us.

And although pit bulls attack and kill strangers like Claudia Gallardo, 38 (killed by a pit bull in the front yard of its owner’s house in Stockton, California) and Pamela Devitt, 63 (killed by 4 pit bulls running at large as she took a walk in Antelope Valley, California), the usual victims are our children, parents and guests.

I have come to believe that the modern pit bull should not be thought of as a dog at all. A dog is man’s best friend, but this is an animal that will kill the man, his wife, his children, his parents and the guests in his home. Clearly this is not man’s best friend; clearly it is not a “dog” in the sense that we think of a dog.

Charles Manson was anatomically a man, sociologically a neighbor, and legally a citizen, but he is spending his life behind bars because he was a deranged individual who orchestrated mayhem and murder. Just because pit bulls look like dogs, they do not have to be thought of like we think about dogs such as golden retrievers and Yorkshire terriers.

In almost all homicides carried out by pit bulls, the owners and neighbors express shock and disbelief because the animal never gave a sign that it wanted to kill anyone.

But to me, this is like a drunk driver expressing shock and disbelief that his car could kill. In both types of cases, a person made a choice to do something incredibly reckless, either by getting drunk or by getting the animal that makes headlines because of the frequency and brutality of its killing. We need to stop people from doing these reckless things.

Lawmakers have to stop listening to the nonsense about breed specific laws which is spouted by the owners of bully dogs like pit bulls. Since 2006 there have been 3 psychological studies which focused on the personality and behavioral traits of the owners of pit bulls and other high-risk breeds of dog.

A study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence showed a link between ownership of high-risk dog breeds and deviant behaviors, crimes against children and domestic violence. Another study concluded that “vicious dog ownership may be a simple marker of broader social deviance.”

A third study established that the owners of high-risk breeds of dog displayed more antisocial thinking styles, have an arrest history significantly higher than owners of other dogs, and engage in fighting to a significantly greater degree than other dog owners.

They also had higher levels of overall criminal thinking patterns to go with the actual criminal behavior. These people, who are fixated on the animals that kill, maim and terrorize, are not the people that a lawmaker needs in his camp. Reasonable people want fair laws that provide a solution to the obvious problems caused by pit bulls.
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KENNETH BAKER, Home Secretary, UK

“The intention of the Dangerous Dogs Act was to eliminate breeds like pit bulls in this country. For the first five years it worked very well, but as soon as the Government gave in to animal charities the whole thing was doomed.

There is no need for anyone to have these dogs, and to suggest that you can somehow educate the owners – well, I just don’t think that’s realistic if you look at who the owners are.”
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DAVID PREMACK, PhD Psychology –
comparative understanding of cognition and its understanding of the nature of animal and human minds
In my view, the first time a breed kills a child — without extreme provocation — the breed should be eliminated.

After all, there is no difficulty producing breeds that do not kill children. Indeed, breeds that do not kill children despite extreme provocation can be readily produced.
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PILAR WAGNAR, Allstate spokeswoman, Clearwater, FL

Allstate Insurance Co., one of the country’s largest insurers won’t insure new customers who own pit bulls.

Pit bulls have a higher-than-average tendency to be unpredictable and cause unprovoked attacks with serious injuries. They’re basically lethal weapons. The liability exposure is unbelievable.

Owners of dobermans, German Shepherds, Rottweilers and other potentially dangerous dogs are not turned away by Allstate.
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KATE RINDY, co-author Pit Bulls Are Different, former HSUS employee and assistant to Randall Lockwood, former executive director of Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society

“Dog owners are naive about the dogs strength and stubborn character.”
“People have Pits and do not understand the potential risk factor.”
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PEGGY E. WARFLE, Manager Wake Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animal Shelters, Raleigh, NC.

“All Pit Bulls should be spayed and neutered” …”That way we could do away with the breed, couldn’t we? It wouldn’t be a great loss to dogdom.”
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BENJAMIN HART, professor emeritus at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and animal behaviorist

“It’s quite common for a pit bull to show no signs of aggression. People will call it a nice dog, a sweet dog, even the neighbors – and then all of a sudden something triggers the dog, and it attacks a human in a characteristic way of biting and hanging on until a lot of damage is done.”

Hart said pit bulls are responsible for about 60 percent of dog attack fatalities each year, which is “way out of proportion” compared with other breeds. Pit bulls make up less than 5 percent of the American dog population.

“It’s very poor policy to allow any child around a pit bull, in my mind, let alone climb on a dog.”

What about this do you not understand.???????????
over 45,000 killings last year is NOT acceptable, get it.!!

If 45,000 cars were killing a person or pet or livestock a piece then that car would be banned even if there were 5 million more of them that harmed no one.!!!!!

If there were 30,000 drunk drivers involved in incidents with over 17 million not involved
(over 1.5 million drunk drivers arrested every year in the US) as over 30,000 pit bull type dogs were involved with attacks last year, with 3,170,000 pit bull type dogs that WEREN’T involved in attacks?

Would there still be a BAN on drunk Drivers?

Oh wait………………Hummmmmmmmmm there is one isn’t there, Ooops you be so busted.!!!

More then 70,000 attacks by pit bull type dogs last year against people, pets and livestock of which resulted in over 45,000 deaths of Human Beings, pets, livestock etc. by over 30,000 pit bull type dogs in those attacks with the number likely double this year that Kill, Maul, Maim, Disfigure, Dismember, cause Life Flights or trips to the Intensive Care Unit.

With a human being usually am child killed every 7 days this year, what about those numbers do you NOT understand??????

Springfield, MO

In April 2008, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department released data to a local TV station – following the City of Springfield’s adoption of a 2006 pit bull ban:

“The Springfield-Greene County Health Department reports that dog bites and vicious dog complaints are declining since the implementation of the Pit Bull Ordinance in the City of Springfield two years ago. In 2005 the health department fielded 18 vicious dog complaints, but only eight in 2007. Bites were down from 102 in 2005 to 87 in 2007.”

“The ordinance, which requires pit bull owners to register their dogs annually, has also resulted in fewer pit bull dogs being impounded at the Springfield Animal Shelter.

In 2005 there were 502 pit bull and pit bull mixes impounded, compared to only 252 in 2007.

According to statistics taken from the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, as reported in the News-Leader March 12, for the three-year period beginning in 2004, there were 42 “vicious” animal attacks recorded in the jurisdiction covered.

After passing the local ordinance banning or strictly controlling the ownership of pit bull or pit bull types, the number of attacks has dropped dramatically.

For the five-year period from 2007-2011, there was a total of 14.

“Because we are impounding fewer pit bulls, we’ve also seen overcrowding in our shelter subside,” says assistant director Clay Goddard. “It is the natural tendency of pit bulls to fight, so our animal control staff are forced to segregate them in individual pens.

When we have several pit bulls in the shelter simultaneously, this severely limits space for other dogs.”
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Washington

In 2008, the City of Wapato passed an ordinance that bans new pit bulls, rottweilers and mastiffs. Nine months after its adoption, in March 2009, Wapato Police Chief Richard Sanchez reported successful results:

“Nine months into the ban and police calls about vicious dogs have been cut in half. The Wapato Police tell Action News they’ve gone from 18 reports in January, February and March of last year to seven so far in ’09. “Seven calls in three months… that’s nothing,” says Chief Richard Sanchez, Wapato Police Department.

Chief Sanchez credits local cooperation for the decline of dangerous dogs.”
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Rhode Island

When the City of Woonsocket was debating a pit bull ordinance in June 2009, the animal control supervisor in Pawtucket, John Holmes, spoke about the enormous success of Pawtucket’s 2003 pit bull ban:

“Holmes says he predicted that it would take two years for Pawtucket to experience the full benefit of the law after it was passed, but the results were actually apparent in half the time.

“It’s working absolutely fantastic,” said Holmes. “We have not had a pit bull maiming in the city since December of 2004.”

Holmes says the law also capped the number of legal pit bulls in Pawtucket to about 70 animals.”

In July 2013, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien and City Council President David Moran sent a joint letter to Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee asking that he reject a statewide anti-BSL measure before him.

While they agree that some pit bulls can make good pets, said Moran and Grebien, “the number and severity of pit bull attacks against people and other animals in the early 2000s required us to take the action we did.”

Prior to the 2004 city ordinance, Pawtucket Animal Control officers responded to many calls about serious pit bull attacks against people and animals, according to the letter. Two of the worst cases involved a nine-month pregnant woman and a child.

While proponents of the bill argue that breed-specific bans don’t work, said Grebien and Moran, “the results in Pawtucket dramatically prove that they do work.”

In 2003, the year before the local ban on pit bulls went into effect, 135 pit bulls, all from Pawtucket, were taken in at the Pawtucket Animal Control Shelter for a variety of health and safety reasons, with 48 of those dogs needing to be put down.

In 2012, 72 pit bulls were taken in, only 41 from Pawtucket, with only six needing to be euthanized, according to the two officials.
“That’s a tremendous improvement,” they state in their letter.
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Per section 8-55 of Denvers pit bull ban:

A pit bull, is defined as any dog that is an APBT, Am Staf Terrier, Staff Bull Terrier, or any dog displaying the majority of physical traits of anyone (1) or more of the above breeds, or any dog exhibiting those distinguishing characteristics which substantially conform to the standards set by the AKC or UKC for any of the above breed.

Over the course of 22 years, the Denver ban has withstood numerous battles in state and federal courts. It has been used as a model for over 600 USA cities that legislate pit bulls, as well as US Navy, Air Force, Marine and Army bases ( so much for Sgt Stubby).

without it, we’d see just what we see in Miss E’s lame replies. Every pit owner would claim their land shark was anything but a pit bull.

Miami Dade county voted 66% to keep their pit bull ban, just as it is worded, last year.

Wichita, Kansas

In January 2009, the Wichita Department of Environmental Services released a number of pit bull statistics. The figures are based upon the Wichita Animal Control department’s investigation of 733 dog bites in 2008.

Included in the data are pit bulls encountered by the Wichita Police Department. In the 1-year period, 95% of police encounters with aggressive dogs were pit bulls.

The report also showed that the percentage of pit bull encounters had increased from 66% in 2004 to 95% in 2008. Subsequently, four months after the release of this data, the City of Wichita enacted a mandatory pit bull sterilization law.

55% of all dogs deemed dangerous were pit bulls (41 pit bull dogs deemed dangerous).

34% of attacks and bites involved pit bull dogs (246 pit bull attacks/bites).

28% of dogs found running at large were pit bulls (1,279 pit bulls found running loose).

25% of dogs impounded were pit bulls dogs (1,575 pit bulls impounded).

37% of all dogs euthanized were pit bull dogs (1,255 pit bulls euthanized).

23% of dog complaints involved pit bull dogs (2,523 complaints involved pit bull dogs).

I am not agree with that because https://bit.ly/1nkrjUe

ANIMAL RIGHTS
UK: Your Dog Kills Someone, You Get A Life Sentence
By Pat Dunaway, Wed, August 07, 2013

With 16 people dead by dogs since 2005, the UK now has a proposal that
can give the owner of a killing dog, a life sentence. Currently the law
can only give two years imprisonment for the act but the Ministers don’t
fee that is enough for the deed. If your dog attacks, the sentence will be 10 years.

The union representing postmen and telecoms engineers welcomed the
proposal. Their membership sees 5,000 attacks a year and some owners are
fined a small amount. This proposal will match sentencing to the
serious nature of the offense. The proposal was launched yesterday by
the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The
UK wants to protect their citizens from vicious dogs and has had BSL in
force for awhile. This proposal broadens the original scope so that
owners can be prosecuted for attacks on private property and will give
the police more effective powers.

The UK is experiencing an all
time high for attacks on guide dogs. In addition a total of 240 attacks
were reported between March 2011 and February 2013.

Let’s
compare with the USA. Since 2005, the USA has had 167 deaths by pit
bulls alone, Total deaths from all breeds since 2005 are 251. How are we
protecting our citizens from these deadly attacks? Instead of passing
laws, our society has decided to save these attacking killers.

It’s not unusual for the dog, especially the pit bulls, to be “saved”
and sent to sanctuaries such as Spindletop or Olympic Animal Sanctuary.
These are ‘sanctuaries’ for those dogs unable to function in or unfit
for society. Why are we saving these dogs, taking space for them,
investing money in them, when so many are dying in shelter for lack of
space and money?

There are over 400 breeds of dogs, breeds that
were specifically and selectively breed for certain traits. Yet, one
breed type is doing the majority of severe attacks and fatalities – the
pit bull or gripping dogs.

Gripping dogs include the Presa
Canario, the Dogo Argentino, the Tosa Inu, the Fila Brasileiro, the Cane
Corso, and the Presa Mallorquin, all fighting dogs, bred for fighting.
And these gripping dogs/Pit Bulls account for the vast majority of
severe attacks and deaths. These breeds were never meant to be pets.

This country is moving much too slowly in protecting citizens and
beloved pets from these breeds. The backlash from the No Kill movement
and the pit bull advocates hinders moving ahead to prevent these attacks
and deaths.

Myths have evolved to make the pit bull look more
appealing as a pet, myths such as the nanny dog. Never was the pit
referred to as a nanny dog until a breeder called them that in the
1980’s. Even the group in the forefront of protecting pit bulls admitted
that the nanny dog is a myth on their facebook page recently.

The pit community insists that the attacks are from abused pits,
although the evidence does show otherwise. If that is the case, then why
is this community fighting the one thing that can keep pits from the
hands of those abusers?

Could it be that they don’t want to
change, they want to keep the “game” in the pit bull? It is estimated
that only 25% of pit bulls are neutered in comparison to the national
average of 87% for all canines. Again, the pit community fights BSL that
would dictate mandatory spay/neuter.

With all the evidence to
show why we need BSL for pit bulls, the writing is on the wall. It’s
time we stepped up to the plate about this issue like the UK has done.
Too many mothers and fathers have endured closed casket funerals.

This father has endured it and now speaks out about it. He believed the
myth. Demand changes, demand that legislators protect us with laws that
try to prevent victims, rather than the current laws that require a
victim first.

You aren’t safe even in your own home when it
comes to pit bulls. This is a serious matter unless you are a hermit. If
you function in society, take walks in your neighborhood, go to dog
parks, or even your own backyard, then you need to be concerned.

The TRUTH About Pit Bulls

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our
inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the
state of facts and evidence. John Adams, U.S. president 1797-1801
7.18.2013

The science of how behavior is inherited in aggressive dogs by
Alexandra Alexandra SemyonovaFrom ANIMAL PEOPLE, July-August 2013:

Probably most people recognize that every dog breed results from human manipulation of inherited physical traits.

Until recently, most people probably also recognized that much dog
behavior is also a result of manipulating inheritance: if you want to do
sheep trials, you get a border collie. If you get a beagle, he will
likely become instantly deaf to your calls if he picks up a scent to
track.

But after discussion started about perhaps banning
breeds who often attack and kill, defenders of these breeds began to
dispute the heritability of any kind of dog behavior.

Conformation

Only when behavioral inheritance is understood, beginning with basic
biological concepts, can we have a clear and honest discussion about
aggression in domestic dogs. First we must understand the relationship
between “physical conformation” and “behavioral conformation,” which may
be seen as opposite sides of the same coin.

“Physical
conformation” describes how a dog has been bred to become physically
shaped specifically for the task we want him to perform. The
purpose-bred dog’s body––brain, skeleton, muscles, and metabolism––will
be different from those of other dogs. The dog will feel physically
comfortable doing the job, whatever it is.

The border collie is
physically designed for the stalking stance and for switching easily
and often from standing to lying down to standing again. A greyhound
enjoys sprinting, with a deep chest that easily provides enough oxygen
to the dog’s muscles to fuel a burst of high speed. The same deep chest
means the greyhound cannot run marathons because the deep chest prevents
a greyhound from losing heat efficiently.

The greyhound’s
brain has been shaped by selective breeding to steer the legs in a gait
that provides maximum speed in a sprint. The unique composition of a
husky’s skeleton, muscles and brain enables a husky to pull a sled with a
different gait, and to sustain a brisk pace for long distances.

The greyhound runs by leaping, the husky by pushing, always with one
foot on the ground. Each dog is genetically wired to use the specific
body the dog has.

Dog breeders have for centuries selected for
particular traits by simply watching how a dog performs. They have bred
dogs for specific tasks by removing the dogs who perform less well from
their breeding stock. Sometimes they will cross in a dog breed they
think will add traits to perform the task better.

Breeders
select for performance without always knowing exactly which traits they
are breeding for. For example, until recently no one realized the husky
was being bred for a particular heat economy; they just chose the dogs
who kept running the longest. Eventually, successful breeders produce
dogs who are physically shaped to do the dog’s task better than any
other dog, no matter how well the other dog is trained.

“Physical conformation” leads to “behavioral conformation.” First of
all, each dog’s brain is genetically predisposed to grow to efficiently
direct the body it is born in. Then the dog’s brain adapts itself
further to the body it is in as it grows in the developing puppy.

There is no gene for running or stalking, but there are genes that give
a dog four legs and make those legs longer, shorter, more or less
flexible, and so forth. It is because of the action of the genes that
confer differently shaped bodies and brains that the pointer enjoys
pointing, the border collie stalks and stares, the Newfoundland floats
in cold water, and so on.

Selecting for aggression

Just as we cannot make a dog into something the dog has no genetic
capacity to be, we cannot prevent a dog from being what the dog is
genetically predisposed to be. Because inherited postures and behaviors
are suitable for the body and brain the dog was born with, they are
internally motivated and internally rewarded: they feel good. This means
that inherited behaviorial traits are practically impossible to
extinguish by manipulating external environmental stimuli.

In
breeding dogs to perform certain tasks or have a certain look, humans
often select (sometimes inadvertently) for abnormalities in body and
behavior. We do this by looking for mutations and then breeding for
them, or by crossing breeds to get combinations of traits.

To
speed the process up. A clear case of this is the old English bull dog,
who can hardly walk, hardly breathe, and cannot be born except by
Caesarean section. The bull dog has also been crossed into other breeds
by people who wanted to increase aggression in a breed without waiting
for mutations to appear.

There is such a thing as normal
aggression in dogs, as in all animals. Maternal defensiveness,
territorial defense, and predatory behavior and depend on different
neuronal and hormonal mechanisms, and are all normal coping responses.
These dog behaviors have been accepted by humans in the process of
domestication, as long as the behaviors can be foreseen.

But
abnormal disinhibited behavior is not functional, and it is
unpredictable. Although high arousal and sudden attack can be functional
in certain environments, this behavior is pathological in a safer
environment, where a high level of arousal and aggressivity are not
necessary and only lead to unnecessary attacks and injuries.

Research implicates the frontal cortex, subcortical structures, and
lowered activity of the serotonergic system in impulsive aggression in
both dogs and humans. Impulsive aggressive behavior in dogs seems to
have a different biological basis than appropriate aggressive behavior.

Kathelijne Peremans, DVM discovered this by studying two different
populations of impulsively aggressive dogs. Each dog had executed one or
more attacks without the classical preceding warnings, and the severity
of the attacks was out of all proportion to environmental stimuli.
Peremans found a significant difference in the frontal and temporal
cortices of these dogs, but not in the subcortical areas, compared to
normal dogs.

Peremans also found significant dysfunctions of
the serotonergic systems among these dogs. Serotonergic dysfunction has
been widely shown in many different species to be connected to abnormal,
impulsive aggression.

Peremans studied dogs of various breeds,
selected purely on the basis of their behavior. Peremans was not
interested in implicating any particular breed, but rather in finding
the mechanism behind the behavior in any dog it occurred in.

She found that all of the dogs with a history of abnormal impulsive
aggression shared the same physical abnormalities in the brain. The
gender of the dog made no difference. Neither did whether the dog was
castrated or spayed.

Peremans left open the possibility that we
will later find other physical factors that contribute to abnormal
impulsive aggression. For example, the adrenergic system may also play
an important role.

Heritability of behavior

Another
researcher, Linda Van Den Berg, investigated specifically the
heritability of impulsive aggression among golden retriever, a breed
rarely involved in fatal and disfiguring attacks. The goal was find out
whether impulsive aggressive behavior was inherited in those few golden
retrievers who exhibit it, and if so, to isolate the gene responsible
for the behavior. Van Den Berg found high heritability of impulsive
aggression, but did not succeed in isolating the responsible gene(s).

The heritability of abnormal aggression in certain breeds of dogs can
no longer be denied. The bodies of these dogs have been selected to
execute a killing bite more efficiently than other breeds. These dogs
share physical conformation to the task of killing, including
exaggerated jaw muscles, heavy necks and shoulders, and body mass that
makes defense against an attack much more difficult. Among people who
want dogs who can kill, these are the breeds of choice because they are
physically more fit for it than other breeds.

But breeders also
selected for behavioral conformation. To perform well, a fighting dog
had to attack without provocation or warning, and to continue attacking
regardless of the response of the other animal. Bull and bear-baiting
dogs had to be willing to attack in the absence of the species-specific
signs that normally provoke aggression, responding to the mere presence
of another animals, and not stopping in response to external stimuli.

The Dogues du Bordeaux used to guard extended farmlands in France, the
Boerbulls used similarly in South Africa, and the fugitive slave-chasing
dogs of Latin America, such as the Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasiliero,
all were selected to specifically for a propensity to kill.

As
they selected for performance, breeders could not know exactly which
physical changes they were selecting for. But research now shows that
selection for aggressive performance includes consistently selecting for
very specific abnormalities in the brain. These abnormalities appear in
many breeds of dog as an accident or anomaly, which breeders then
attempt to breed out of the dogs.

In the case of the aggressive
breeds, the opposite occurred. Rather than excluding abnormally
aggressive dogs from their breeding stock, breeders focused on creating
lineages in which all the dogs would carry the genes causing them to
reliably exhibit the desired impulsive aggressive behavior.

Now
that we know exactly which brain abnormalities the breeders of fighting
dogs have been selecting, the assertion that this aggression is not
heritable is no longer tenable. It is also not tenable to assert that
not all the dogs of these breeds will carry the genes that make them
dangerous.

These genes may occasionally drop out through random
accident, just as golden retriever may acquire the genes to be
impulsively aggressive. But the failure to have these gene, in the
aggressive breeds, is just that––a failure. It is therefore misleading
to assert that the aggressive breeds will only have the selected genes
as a matter of accident, or that most of them will be fit to interact
safely with other animals and humans.

As in the pointer, the
husky, the greyhound, and the border collie, the genes of aggressive
breeds have been selected so that certain postures and behaviors just
simply feel good. These dogs will seek opportunities to execute the
behaviors they have been bred for. Because these behaviors are
internally motivated and rewarded, they are not subject to extinction.
Learning and socialization do not prevent these dogs’ innate behaviors
from appearing.

Environments such as the fighting pit,
confrontations with tethered bulls and bears, and the pursuit of
escaping slaves, for which these behaviors were selected as an adaptive
response, are so extreme that there is no appropriate context for these
behaviors in normal life. Functional in the pit or facing the bull or
bear, these behaviors must, in all other contexts, be called
pathological. Because the behavior selected for was impulsive
aggression, by definition this behavior will always emerge suddenly and
unpredictably.

Speculating in favor of the aggressive breeds,
suppose that human artificial selection will fail as infrequently in the
aggressive breeds as it does in the golden retriever. Van Den Berg
found impulsive aggression in approximately one out of a hundred golden
retrievers. If behavioral selection fails comparably often in fighting
breeds, there is only a 1% chance that their keepers will not endanger
others in their surroundings.

Can aggression be bred out?

Can impulsive aggressive behavior be bred out of fighting breeds?

The fiction that, for example, the American Staffordshire terrier is a
different dog from the pit bull, just because the breeding has (also
fictionally, by the way) been going on separately for several decades is
just that: a fiction.

The Russian researcher Dmitry
Kontanovich Belyaev reported that he had bred fear out of foxes in only
eighteen generations, but impulsive aggression is a more complex
response and much more dangerous to live with while you try to breed it
out. Further, Belyaev’s foxes were bred under laboratory conditions,
where there was absolute control over not having the wrong genes creep
back in again.

As Belyaev bred his foxes into the pettable
creatures he wanted, they began to have an increasingly floppy-eared
mutt exterior. Belyaev’s discoveries suggest that the interface of
physical and behavioral conformation mean it is not possible to breed
out the impulsive aggressive behavior of fighting dogs while retaining
their shape and appearance.

Form follows function: one cannot
have a dog whose entire body and brain are adapted to executing the
killing bite, without having a dog who will execute the killing bite.

[Alexandra Semyonova, a dog behaviorist and former Dutch SPCA
inspector, is author of The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs
(Hastings Press, 2009.)]

Barbara Kay: Dog bites man — again and again
Barbara Kay | 13/08/22

Thanks to (literally) thick skin, a Calgary-resident beagle named Arlo
will recover from a recent unprovoked attack by two neighbouring pit
bulls. The vet bill for stitching up Arlo’s neck and shoulder — $3600 —
tells us that what will be officially recorded as “bites” were in fact
the mauling typically associated with pit-bull-type dogs.

If Arlo had been the family’s thin-skinned child, one shudders to think
of the likely outcome. Here is yet another reminder that the vaunted
“Calgary model” for containing dangerous-dog harm isn’t working.

Because of the disproportionate damage they cause to other animals and
humans, especially children, some 600 communities across North America
have chosen breed selective legislation to ban pit-bull-type dogs. But
Calgary opted for “responsible pet ownership”: strict licencing, public
education and owner accountability.

So the (unlicenced) pit
bulls’ owner is paying the vet bill. Which is no solace to Arlo and his
owners, or other neighbours, now understandably fearful in their
instantly-devalued homes.

Arlo’s assailants should be
euthanized. Instead they will be “assessed,” after which they may get a
second chance, as juvenile first (human) offenders usually do. Trouble
is, dogs are not humans.

The purpose-bred fighting breed
cluster pit bulls represent, genetically programmed for impulsive
aggression, cannot be trained into reliable sociability, any more than
greyhounds can be trained to adopt the running gait of a sled dog.

If this strikes you as mere common sense, reader, you are out of the
canine-correctness loop. Most dog-industry spokespeople — veterinarians,
humane shelters, animal charities — have bought into the sentimental,
but anti-scientific tropes promoted by pit bull advocates. Ignoring hard
evidence, they piously invoke common mantras like “all dogs bite” and
“it’s bad owners, not bad dogs.”

Both statements are
misleading. Unlike pit-bull-type dogs, non-fighting dogs usually only
bite defensively. When they do, they grab and release; they don’t maul
in the grip-and-rend style of fighting dogs. Explosive, unpredictable
aggression can emerge in pit bulls as young as four months. Bad owners
may exacerbate pit bulls’ inherited traits, but even ideal owners cannot
eliminate or reliably control them.

In his continually updated
“Clifton Report,” available online, Animal People editor Merritt
Clifton publishes tallied of serious human damage — maulings, maimings
and fatalities by dogs — tallied by breed. (He has been tracking such
data since the early 1980s.)

According to these numbers,
derived from Centers for Disease Control and police reports, amongst
other sources, pit-bull-type dogs represent 3000% of the actuarial risk
of more typical breeds. Rottweilers represent 2000%, and — to show the
disproportion — German Shepherds, the third highest-risk breed,
represent only 300% average risk.

Since 1982, pit bulls have killed 259 of the 511 North American victims of fatal dog attacks

In fact, Farmers Group Insurance in California recently stopped
liability coverage for pit bulls and Rottweilers (and wolf hybrids).
Tellingly, the number of attacks and the amount of payout has doubled in
those jurisdictions that — like Calgary — refuse to enact breed
selective legislation.

Before the late 20th century
proliferation of pit bulls into the dog population, no other breed had
ever killed or maimed humans in numbers that come even remotely close to
those killed by pit bull type dogs. (Dobermans, widely maligned in
their fashionable day as dangerous, have killed four people in the U.S.
since 1982.)

The exponential growth of pit bull love — they
currently represent the second most popular breed after retrievers in
sales — is a worrying cultural phenomenon. Now 6% of the dog population,
since 1982, pit bulls have killed 259 of the 511 North American victims
of fatal dog attacks, according to Clifton.

Bans work. They
eliminate the loathsome crime of dog fighting and ancillary criminal
activity, notably drug dealing, that dog fighting attracts. They stop
the co-optation of public spaces by intimidating youths parading canine
weaponry. Overcrowded humane shelters empty out, as dumped pit bulls
represent much of their intake.

Most important: Bans spare
animals and people horrible suffering. San Francisco saw an 81% decline
in fatal or disfiguring pit bull attacks in the eight years following
its ban; Toronto dog bites have decreased by 32% — from 486 to 329 —
since the 2006 Ontario ban on pit bulls.

The Calgary model is
failing. Despite its record licencing rate of 90% — four times higher
than the average in other cities — Calgary area pit bull attacks have
more than tripled: from 58 in 2009 to 201 in 2012.

Facts are facts. What part of “public safety hazard” does Calgary not understand?

National Post

Quick statistics ::

This page is a collection of dog bite statistics that are located on
DogsBite.org or can reached by a web link. Notably, each year, an
American has a one in 50 chance of being bitten by a dog.1

In
the 8-year period from 2005 to 2012, two dog breeds accounted for 73% of
the attacks that resulted in death: pit bulls and rottweilers.

2012 Dog Bite Fatalities by DogsBite.org, 2013

71% of the pit bull fatalities have occurred in the past 10 years; 42% in the past four years; 24% in the past two years.

30-Year Summary: Dog Attack Deaths and Maimings, U.S. & Canada
September 1982 to December 26, 2011 by Merritt Clifton, Animal People,
2012

Over 600 U.S. cities have adopted breed-specific laws
since the mid 1980s, just after pit bulls (fighting dogs) began leaking
into the general population.

Estimated U.S. Cities, Counties and Military Facilities with Breed-Specific Laws by DogsBite.org, 2012

By 2016, pit bulls are projected to maul 275 Americans to death since
1998, the year the CDC stopped tracking fatal dog attacks by breed.

Fatalpitbullattacks.com, 2013

In the 8-year period from 2005 to 2012, pit bulls killed 151 Americans, about one citizen every 19 days.

2012 Dog Bite Fatalities by DogsBite.org, 2013

In 2012, roughly one-third, 32%, of all dog bite fatality victims were
either visiting or living temporarily with the dog’s owner when the
fatal attack occurred.

2012 Dog Bite Fatalities by DogsBite.org, 2013

In the 3-year period of 2006 to 2008, 18% of all fatal dog attacks
occurred off owner property. Pit bulls were responsible for 81% of these
attacks.

Report: U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities January 2006 to December 2008 by DogsBite.org, 2010

In the first eight months of 2011, nearly half of the persons killed by a pit bull was the dog’s owner and primary caretaker.

2011 Dog Bite Fatalities by DogsBite.org, 2011

Over 30 countries across the world regulate dangerous dog breeds with
breed-specific laws including: France, Norway, Spain, Portugal and Great
Britain.

Estimated U.S. Cities, Counties and Military Facilities with Breed-Specific Laws by DogsBite.org, 2012

In 2011, adult victims of fatal pit bull attacks more than doubled the number of child victims.

2011 Dog Bite Fatalities by DogsBite.org, 2012

A study published in 2010 showed there were 4 times as many dog
bite-related ED visits and 3 times as many hospital stays in rural areas
than in urban areas.

Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Stays Involving Dog Bites, 2008 by AHRQ, 2010

Pit bull terriers were selectively bred for a violent activity that is now a felony in all 50 U.S. states: dogfighting.

Dogfighting Fact Sheet by the Human Society of the United States

Over 260 U.S. military bases governed by the U.S. Air Force, Air Force
Space Command, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and Navy regulate dangerous
dog breeds.

Estimated U.S. Cities, Counties and Military Facilities with Breed-Specific Laws by DogsBite.org, 2012

Dog attack victims suffer over $1 billion in monetary losses annually. JAMA reports this estimate to be as high as $2 billion.

Dog Bites Recognized as Public Health Problem by R. Voelker, JAMA, 1997

A 2010 study showed that the average cost of a dog bite-related
hospital stay was $18,200, about 50% higher than the average
injury-related hospital stay.

Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Stays Involving Dog Bites, 2008 by AHRQ, 2010

Dog bites occur every 75 seconds in the United States. Each day, over
1,000 citizens need emergency medical care to treat these injuries.

Nonfatal Dog Bite-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments – United States, 2001 by the CDC, 2003

Dog bites are the fifth highest reason why children seek emergency room
treatment due to activities they voluntarily engage in, such as playing
sports.

Incidence of Dog Bite Injuries Treated in Emergency Departments (1992-1994) by H. Weiss, D. Friedman and J. Coben, JAMA, 1998.

https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-quick-statistics.php

Ayden Evans

5-years old | Jessieville, AR.

Ayden Evans, 5-years old, was mauled to death by a bullmastiff-mix. The boy lived in Oklahoma, but was staying at his aunt’s house in Arkansas for the summer. Ayden was visiting his aunt’s neighbor, Lynne Geiling, when her dog attacked him.

The animal came from another room and attacked the boy when Ayden became upset and started crying. Geiling was unable to separate the two until her husband arrived to help. The boy died on the way to the hospital from blood loss relating to head and neck injuries. The boy’s body was released to a funeral home in Hot Springs before his parents arrived from Oklahoma.

They took their son’s body back home in an urn. After the attack, the dog fled the home. The escaped dog was found and shot by a neighbor the next day. After examining the dog, Hot Springs Animal Control said the dog “was at least 50 percent pit bull.” As of June 28, 2013, the investigation into the boy’s death is still open.

[source citations]Date of death: June 9, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Bullmastiff-mix Relationship to dog: Non-family.

Sex of dog: Unknown Owner of dog: Neighbor.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: No

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: Pending.

Nephi Selu

6-years old | Union City, CA.

Nephi Selu, 6-years old, was bitten on the head by his uncle’s pit bull and died several hours later at a hospital in Palo Alto. The attack occurred at the boy’s grandparents’ Union City home where he and his mother had been staying for an extended period. The boy’s uncle, Keala Keanaaina, is a San Mateo police officer. His seven children and wife also reside at the home.

Cousins he was playing with at the time of the attack said that Nephi had been “ridding the dog like a horse,” when it suddenly threw him down and clamped onto his head. Once alerted, Keanaaina took a hold of the dog by the jaw, and the animal released. The 2-year old male pit bull named Kava was the child’s “best friend,” according to his mother Tilema Selu.

She said the attack came as a shock, “like one best friend turned on the other.” A Beware of Dog sign is posted on a fence at the family’s home. Neighbors always maintained the family owned two pit bulls, though this was not confirmed by police in media reports.

[source citations]Date of death: June 17, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Pit bull-mix Relationship to dog: Family.

Sex of dog: Male Owner of dog: Uncle.

Spay/Neuter: No Multiple dogs: No

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: No.

Arianna Merrbach

5-years old | Effingham, SC.

Arianna Merrbach, 5-years old, was mauled to death by a chained pit bull-mix while visiting her aunt’s home. Florence County Coroner Keith Von Lutcken said the incident occurred at 11:15 am at 7208 Fork Road in Effingham. The girl was pronounced dead on scene. Responding firefighters said she walked up to the dog, which was chained at the home. Lula Waddle, who lives next door to where the girl was attacked, said the victim “grew up with the dogs.

” Autopsy information was released one day after the fatal incident. Lutcken classified the girl’s death as accidental. The cause of death was due to multiple sharp blunt force injuries. Herbie Christmas with Florence County Environmental Services confirmed the dog was an adult pit bull-mix. He said it was the first fatal dog mauling in the county in the 17-years of his service.

His agency seized the attacking pit bull along with two other pit bulls from the residence. The offending male dog was euthanized shortly after the fatal attack.

[source citations]Date of death: June 25, 2013.

Chained: Yes

Breed of dog: Pit bull-mix Relationship to dog: Family.

Sex of dog: Male Owner of dog: Aunt.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: No

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: Pending.

Linda Oliver

63-years old | Dayton, TX.

Linda Oliver, 63-years old, was viciously attacked by a stray dog she began caring for two weeks earlier. Liberty County Sheriff’s Office said Oliver called her husband that morning and said that the dog attacked the couple’s pet “weiner” dog then attacked her when she intervened.

Helpless to save his wife — the husband was an hour away working in Pearland — he called 911. Deputies arrived at the couple’s home and found Oliver already dead on the living room floor covered in dog bites. Deputies confronted the dog named “Bruiser” and fired three shots at it, hitting the animal twice.

The dog fled the property, prompting a search effort throughout the Woodland Hills subdivision where the couple lived. For nearly two days the dog eluded authorities. On the evening of July 2, deputies located the dog, described as a rottweiler-mastiff mix, and shot it to death. Friends said Oliver loved animals and often rescued abandoned pets. She was also the owner of Linda’s Dog Grooming in Dayton.

[source citations]Date of death: July 1, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Rottweiler-mastiff mix Relationship to dog: Family.

Sex of dog: Unknown Owner of dog: Victim.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: No

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: No.

Juan Campos

96 years old | Katy, Texas.

A man and his dog were found dead in their backyard in Katy Friday, both covered in dog bites. Right now, investigators can’t say if the attack is what killed the man.

Investigators tell Eyewitness News a relative came home to the 2200 block of Maplewood Friday afternoon and found the man dead in his backyard covered with severe dog bites.Deputies have seized five dogs in the area. They say it’s possible pit bulls from a neighbor’s yard behind the home got through a hole in the fence and began attacking.

Investigators say a Chihuahua was also found dead. They say the dogs also mauled and nearly killed another family pet, which relatives rushed to the vet.

His Grandson Miguel Velasquez says they’ve had problems with their neighbor’s dogs in the past; the fence shows previous patches. But no one ever thought it would come to this.

“Those dogs should have been either kept in a better, safer place or tied up somehow. Now our family is suffering,” Velasquez said.

Date of death: Aug.30, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Pit Bull Type Dogs Relationship to dog: Neighbor.

Sex of dog: Unknown Owner of dog: Neighbor.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: 3

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: Unknown.

Daniel

2 years old |Gilbert, Arizona .

A man and his dog were found dead in their backyard in Katy Friday, both covered in dog bites. Right now, investigators can’t say if the attack is what killed the man.

A 2-year-old boy has died following a dog attack in Gilbert, and the toddler’s babysitter underwent surgery for lacerations she suffered trying to save the child.

A special needs toddler and his four siblings were being cared for at the babysitter’s house near Val Vista and Germann Sunday morning when three adult pit bulls began fighting.

Somehow, the boy and the babysitter got in the middle of the dogfight, and the dogs began attacking the child.

The babysitter, a 28-year-old female, tried to intervene and pull the dogs off the child, but he was mortally injured.

The child was rushed to the hospital and where he was pronounced dead. The babysitter was wounded and underwent surgery Sunday afternoon. She was listed in stable condition.

Date of death: Sept.22, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Pit Bull Type Dogs Relationship to dog: Babysitters.

Sex of dog: Unknown Owner of dog: Babysitters.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: 3

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: Unknown.

Jordan Ryan 5 yrs old | Baker city, Oregon

Authorities say a pit bull has mauled a 5-year-old boy to death in Baker City.

District Attorney Matt Shirtcliff tells the Baker City Herald the attack happened Friday morning and remains under investigation. The boy was at a friend’s home when the dog attacked.

Police Chief Wyn Lohner says the pit bull has been impounded and poses no further threat. He says more information will be released Monday.

The boy has been identified as Jordan Ryan of Baker City.

A memorial will be held Sunday night in front of the kindergarten he attended. An organizer, Cassie Glerup, says candles will be lit and balloons will be released.

Date of death: Sept.27, 2013.

Chained: No

Breed of dog: Pit Bull Type Dogs Relationship to dog: Friends.

Sex of dog: Unknown Owner of dog:Friends family.

Spay/Neuter: Unknown Multiple dogs: 1

On/Off property: On Criminal charges: Unknown.

9.16.2013

Legal Experts and the Enemy of Humanity

THOMAS J. MOYER, Chief Justice, Ohio Supreme Court 1987-2010

“The trial court cited the substantial evidence supporting its
conclusion that pit bulls, compared to other breeds, cause a
disproportionate amount of danger to people. The chief dog warden of
Lucas County testified that: (1) when pit bulls attack, they are more
likely to inflict severe damage to their
victim than other breeds of dogs; (2) pit bulls have killed more
Ohioans than any other breed of dog; (3) Toledo police officers fire
their weapons in the line of duty at pit bulls more often than they fire
weapons at people and all other breeds of dogs combined; (4) pit bulls
are frequently shot during drug raids because pit bulls are encountered
more frequently in drug raids than any other dog breed…. The evidence
presented in the trial court supports the conclusion that pit bulls pose
a serious danger to the safety of citizens. The state and the city have
a legitimate interest in protecting citizens from the danger posed by
this breed of domestic dogs.”

WILLIAM M HOEVELER, US DISTRICT JUDGE, ADOA v Dade County, Florida

Despite plaintiffs’ contention that there is no such animal as a pit
bull, plaintiffs’ own experts have written articles about their
pedigreed dogs referring to them by the common nickname of pit bull. At
trial, these experts identified photographs of dogs as pit bulls, rather
than delineating the dogs into any one of the three breeds recognized
by the kennel clubs. Moreover, veterinarians commonly identify dogs as
pit bulls — rather than one of the three recognized breeds — by their
physical characteristics.

Two veterinarians, testifying for the
defendants, stated that they are often called upon to identify a dog’s
breed because it is an integral part of the animal’s health record. This
they do by reference to standard physical characteristics. Generally,
these veterinarians testified, owners themselves know what breed their
dog is.

There was ample testimony that most people know what
breed their dogs are. Although the plaintiffs and their experts claim
that the ordinance does not give them enough guidance to enable owners
to determine whether their dogs fall within its scope, the evidence
established that the plaintiffs themselves often use the term “pit bull”
as a shorthand method of referring to their dogs. Numerous magazine and
newspaper articles, including articles in dog fancier magazines, refer
to pit bull dogs. Veterinarians typically refer to the three recognized
breeds and mixed breeds with conforming characteristics as pit bulls. In
addition, the veterinarians who testified stated that most of their
clients know the breeds of their dogs.

DON BAUERMEISTER, Council Bluffs, IA prosecutor

All dogs can “get into it”. The reality, though, for way too many dog
owners is the sudden, unprovoked, violent and very serious attack from a
pit bull. These folks have to pay the immediate vet bill. Yes,
sometimes, the Court is able to intervene and order restitution, but
what about the dead dog. What about the psychological damage to those
who had to witness the attack. I have seen pit bulls attack and injure
other dogs. It is something that you will never forget. A very
purposeful bite, indeed. Pit bulls are pros and the rest of the dog
world are amateurs. Man made them this way.

KORY NELSON, Denver, CO City Attorney

The most significant point about the justification for bans or
restrictions of pit bulls is that these are not dependent upon a claim
that every pit bull has a higher than average propensity for attacking
humans. The justification is based on the clear evidence that, as a
group, pit bulls, compared to other breeds, generally have a higher
propensity to exhibit unique behavioral traits during an attack.

These behaviors havea higher likelihood of causing more severe injuries
or death. The Colorado Dog Fanciers trial court made this clear,
stating that, while it could not be proven that pit bulls bite more than
other dogs, there was “credible evidence that Pit Bull dog attacks are
more severe and more likely to result in fatalities.” The court, in
great detail, noted fourteen separate areas of differences, including:
strength, manageability and temperament, unpredictability of aggression,
tenacity, pain tolerance and manner of attack.

A municipality
that is experiencing a problem with pit bull attacks needs to consider
for itself the best course of action to protect its citizens, especially
those most likely to be unable to defend themselves from the tenacious
and sustained attack of a pit bull, who will likely bite, hold, and tear
at its victim despite efforts to stop it. However, given the clear
rational evidence, breed-specific legislation is still a legally viable
option.There is no new evidence that undermines the holdings of Colorado
Dog Fanciers, only new relevant evidence that adds additional support
for BSL, as the differential treatment of pit bulls is based upon
logical, rational evidence from the scientific field of ethology.

BOB JOHNSTONE, Cincinnati, OH city attorney

We have amassed what I consider an overwhelming amount of information
that demonstrates to me that pit bulls are, by far, responsible for more
fatal or serious attacks than any other breed.

JUDGE VICTOR E. BIANCHINI, San Diego, CA
A pit bull is the closest thing to a wild animal there is in a domesticated dog.

U.S. SUPREME COURT, April 26, 1897, SENTELL v. NEW ORLEANS & C. R. CO.

Laws for the protection of domestic animals are regarded as having but a
limited application to dogs and cats; and, regardless of statute, a
ferocious dog is looked upon as hostis humani generis, and as having no
right to his life which man is bound to respect.

Re: Letter to the editor, Breed-specific language ‘inherently flawed and does not work,’ Burnaby NOW, Sept. 10, 2013.

Dear Editor:

DogsBite.org advocates on behalf of victims of serious dog attacks. The
United States-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization also tracks U.S.
dog bite fatalities, dog bite injury studies, jurisdictions with
breed-specific laws and appellate court rulings that uphold these laws.

Statistical data from DogsBite.org is cited in the peer-reviewed
scientific medical study, Mortality, Mauling, and Maiming by Vicious
Dogs, published in the Annals of Surgery in April 2011.

The
study’s conclusion:”Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher
morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death
than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls
may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites.”

The amicus brief DogsBite.org submitted in the landmark case, Tracey v.
Solesky, helped move Maryland’s highest court to modify common law.

In April 2012, the Court of Appeals declared pitbulls “inherently
dangerous” and attached strict liability when a pitbull attacks a
person. This liability extends to landlords when a tenant’s pitbull
attacks a person.

The Maryland Court of Appeals went as far as
pointing out in their decision ­– concerning the opposing brief written
by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which
sought to eliminate a financial remedy for the young mauling victim –
the following:”Some are similar to the arguments made in the appellant
or amicus’ briefs filed in the present case by supporters of pitbulls.

In light of Maryland’s situation, we find those particular arguments
unpersuasive. We have fully reviewed and considered all the briefs.”

Research and statistical data from DogsBite.org has exceptional
credibility with appellate court justices, surgeons and medical
practitioners, attorneys who champion and represent dog mauling victims,
the many local, national and international news agencies which have
cited our data, parents and activists and of course the victims
themselves.

Colleen Lynn
Founder and President, DogsBite.org
Austin, TX

The science of how behavior is inherited in aggressive dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July-August 2013:

by Alexandra Semyonova

Probably most people recognize that every dog breed results from human manipulation of inherited physical traits. Until recently, most people probably also recognized that much dog behavior is also a result of manipulating inheritance: if you want to do sheep trials, you get a border collie. If you get a beagle, he will likely become instantly deaf to your calls if he picks up a scent to track.

But after discussion started about perhaps banning breeds who often attack and kill, defenders of these breeds began to dispute the heritability of any kind of dog behavior.

Only when behavioral inheritance is understood, beginning with basic biological concepts, can we have a clear and honest discussion about aggression in domestic dogs. First we must understand the relationship between “physical conformation” and “behavioral conformation,” which may be seen as opposite sides of the same coin.

“Physical conformation” describes how a dog has been bred to become physically shaped specifically for the task we want him to perform. The purpose-bred dog’s body––brain, skeleton, muscles, and metabolism––will be different from those of other dogs. The dog will feel physically comfortable doing the job, whatever it is.

The border collie is physically designed for the stalking stance and for switching easily and often from standing to lying down to standing again. A greyhound enjoys sprinting, with a deep chest that easily provides enough oxygen to the dog’s muscles to fuel a burst of high speed.

The same deep chest means the greyhound cannot run marathons because the deep chest prevents a greyhound from losing heat efficiently.

The greyhound’s brain has been shaped by selective breeding to steer the legs in a gait that provides maximum speed in a sprint. The unique composition of a husky’s skeleton, muscles and brain enables a husky to pull a sled with a different gait, and to sustain a brisk pace for long distances.

The greyhound runs by leaping, the husky by pushing, always with one foot on the ground. Each dog is genetically wired to use the specific body the dog has.

Dog breeders have for centuries selected for particular traits by simply watching how a dog performs. They have bred dogs for specific tasks by removing the dogs who perform less well from their breeding stock. Sometimes they will cross in a dog breed they think will add traits to perform the task better.

Breeders select for performance without always knowing exactly which traits they are breeding for. For example, until recently no one realized the husky was being bred for a particular heat economy; they just chose the dogs who kept running the longest.

Eventually, successful breeders produce dogs who are physically shaped to do the dog’s task better than any other dog, no matter how well the other dog is trained.

“Physical conformation” leads to “behavioral conformation.” First of all, each dog’s brain is genetically predisposed to grow to efficiently direct the body it is born in. Then the dog’s brain adapts itself further to the body it is in as it grows in the developing puppy.

There is no gene for running or stalking, but there are genes that give a dog four legs and make those legs longer, shorter, more or less flexible, and so forth. It is because of the action of the genes that confer differently shaped bodies and brains that the pointer enjoys pointing, the border collie stalks and stares, the Newfoundland floats in cold water, and so on.

Selecting for aggression

Just as we cannot make a dog into something the dog has no genetic capacity to be, we cannot prevent a dog from being what the dog is genetically predisposed to be.

Because inherited postures and behaviors are suitable for the body and brain the dog was born with, they are internally motivated and internally rewarded: they feel good. This means that inherited behaviorial traits are practically impossible to extinguish by manipulating external environmental stimuli.

In breeding dogs to perform certain tasks or have a certain look, humans often select (sometimes inadvertently) for abnormalities in body and behavior. We do this by looking for mutations and then breeding for them, or by crossing breeds to get combinations of traits to speed the process up.

A clear case of this is the old English bull dog, who can hardly walk, hardly breathe, and cannot be born except by Caesarean section. The bull dog has also been crossed into other breeds by people who wanted to increase aggression in a breed without waiting for mutations to appear.

There is such a thing as normal aggression in dogs, as in all animals. Maternal defensiveness, territorial defense, and predatory behavior all depend on different neuronal and hormonal mechanisms, and are all normal coping responses. These dog behaviors have been accepted by humans in the process of domestication, as long as the behaviors can be foreseen.

But abnormal disinhibited behavior is not functional, and it is unpredictable. Although high arousal and sudden attack can be functional in certain environments, this behavior is pathological in a safer environment, where a high level of arousal and aggressivity are not necessary and only lead to unnecessary attacks and injuries.

Research implicates the frontal cortex, subcortical structures, and lowered activity of the serotonergic system in impulsive aggression in both dogs and humans. Impulsive aggressive behavior in dogs seems to have a different biological basis than appropriate aggressive behavior.

Kathelijne Peremans, DVM discovered this by studying two different populations of impulsively aggressive dogs. Each dog had executed one or more attacks without the classical preceding warnings, and the severity of the attacks was out of all proportion to environmental stimuli.

Peremans found a significant difference in the frontal and temporal cortices of these dogs, but not in the subcortical areas, compared to normal dogs. Peremans also found significant dysfunctions of the serotonergic systems among these dogs. Serotonergic dysfunction has been widely shown in many different species to be connected to abnormal, impulsive aggression.

Peremans studied dogs of various breeds, selected purely on the basis of their behavior. Peremans was not interested in implicating any particular breed, but rather in finding the mechanism behind the behavior in any dog it occurred in.

She found that all of the dogs with a history of abnormal impulsive aggression shared the same physical abnormalities in the brain. The gender of the dog made no difference. Neither did whether the dog was castrated or spayed.

Peremans left open the possibility that we will later find other physical factors that contribute to abnormal impulsive aggression. For example, the adrenergic system may also play an important role.

Heritability of behavior

Another researcher, Linda Van Den Berg, investigated specifically the heritability of impulsive aggression among golden retriever, a breed rarely involved in fatal and disfiguring attacks.

The goal was find out whether impulsive aggressive behavior was inherited in those few golden retrievers who exhibit it, and if so, to isolate the gene responsible for the behavior. Van Den Berg found high heritability of impulsive aggression, but did not succeed in isolating the responsible gene(s).

The heritability of abnormal aggression in certain breeds of dogs can no longer be denied. The bodies of these dogs have been selected to execute a killing bite more efficiently than other breeds.

These dogs share physical conformation to the task of killing, including exaggerated jaw muscles, heavy necks and shoulders, and body mass that makes defense against an attack much more difficult. Among people who want dogs who can kill, these are the breeds of choice because they are physically more fit for it than other breeds.

But breeders also selected for behavioral conformation. To perform well, a fighting dog had to attack without provocation or warning, and to continue attacking regardless of the response of the other animal. Bull and bear-baiting dogs had to be willing to attack in the absence of the species-specific signs that normally provoke aggression, responding to the mere presence of another animals, and not stopping in response to external stimuli.

The Dogues du Bordeaux used to guard extended farmlands in France, the Boerbulls used similarly in South Africa, and the fugitive slave-chasing dogs of Latin America, such as the Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasiliero, all were selected to specifically for a propensity to kill.

As they selected for performance, breeders could not know exactly which physical changes they were selecting for. But research now shows that selection for aggressive performance includes consistently selecting for very specific abnormalities in the brain.

These abnormalities appear in many breeds of dog as an accident or anomaly, which breeders then attempt to breed out of the dogs. In the case of the aggressive breeds, the opposite occurred. Rather than excluding abnormally aggressive dogs from their breeding stock, breeders focused on creating lineages in which all the dogs would carry the genes causing them to reliably exhibit the desired impulsive aggressive behavior.

Now that we know exactly which brain abnormalities the breeders of fighting dogs have been selecting, the assertion that this aggression is not heritable is no longer tenable. It is also not tenable to assert that not all the dogs of these breeds will carry the genes that make them dangerous.

These genes may occasionally drop out through random accident, just as golden retriever may acquire the genes to be impulsively aggressive. But the failure to have these gene, in the aggressive breeds, is just that––a failure. It is therefore misleading to assert that the aggressive breeds will only have the selected genes as a matter of accident, or that most of them will be fit to interact safely with other animals and humans.

As in the pointer, the husky, the greyhound, and the border collie, the genes of aggressive breeds have been selected so that certain postures and behaviors just simply feel good. These dogs will seek opportunities to execute the behaviors they have been bred for. Because these behaviors are internally motivated and rewarded, they are not subject to extinction. Learning and socialization do not prevent these dogs’ innate behaviors from appearing.

Environments such as the fighting pit, confrontations with tethered bulls and bears, and the pursuit of escaping slaves, for which these behaviors were selected as an adaptive response, are so extreme that there is no appropriate context for these behaviors in normal life. Functional in the pit or facing the bull or bear, these behaviors must, in all other contexts, be called pathological. Because the behavior selected for was impulsive aggression, by definition this behavior will always emerge suddenly and unpredictably.

Speculating in favor of the aggressive breeds, suppose that human artificial selection will fail as infrequently in the aggressive breeds as it does in the golden retriever. Van Den Berg found impulsive aggression in approximately one out of a hundred golden retrievers. If behavioral selection fails comparably often in fighting breeds, there is only a 1% chance that their keepers will not endanger others in their surroundings.

Can aggression be bred out?

Can impulsive aggressive behavior be bred out of fighting breeds?

The fiction that, for example, the American Staffordshire terrier is a different dog from the pit bull, just because the breeding has (also fictionally, by the way) been going on separately for several decades is just that: a fiction.

The Russian researcher Dmitry Kontanovich Beljaev reported that he had bred fear out of foxes in only eighteen generations, but impulsive aggression is a more complex response and much more dangerous to live with while you try to breed it out. Further, Belyaev’s foxes were bred under laboratory conditions, where there was absolute control over not having the wrong genes creep back in again.

As Belyaev bred his foxes into the pettable creatures he wanted, they began to have an increasingly floppy-eared mutt exterior. Belyaev’s discoveries suggest that the interface of physical and behavioral conformation mean it is not possible to breed out the impulsive aggressive behavior of fighting dogs while retaining their shape and appearance.

Form follows function: one cannot have a dog whose entire body and brain are adapted to executing the killing bite, without having a dog who will execute the killing bite.

[Alexandra Semyonova, a dog behaviorist and former Dutch SPCA inspector, is author of The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs (Hastings Press, 2009.)]

17 Barks
Thursday, September 5, 2013

On pit bulls and their owners

In 2013, there have been 18 canine homicides of which 17 were committed
by pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Our dogs are not killing us. Pit bulls
are killing us.

And although pit bulls attack and kill
strangers like Claudia Gallardo, 38 (killed by a pit bull in the front
yard of its owner’s house in Stockton, California) and Pamela Devitt,
63 (killed by 4 pit bulls running at large as she took a walk in
Antelope Valley, California), the usual victims are our children,
parents and guests.

I have come to believe that the modern pit
bull should not be thought of as a dog at all. A dog is man’s best
friend, but this is an animal that will kill the man, his wife, his
children, his parents and the guests in his home. Clearly this is not
man’s best friend; clearly it is not a “dog” in the sense that we think
of a dog.

Charles Manson was anatomically a man, sociologically
a neighbor, and legally a citizen, but he is spending his life behind
bars because he was a deranged individual who orchestrated mayhem and
murder. Just because pit bulls look like dogs, they do not have to be
thought of like we think about dogs such as golden retrievers and
Yorkshire terriers.

In almost all homicides carried out by pit
bulls, the owners and neighbors express shock and disbelief because the
animal never gave a sign that it wanted to kill anyone. But to me, this
is like a drunk driver expressing shock and disbelief that his car could
kill.

In both types of cases, a person made a choice to do
something incredibly reckless, either by getting drunk or by getting the
animal that makes headlines because of the frequency and brutality of
its killing. We need to stop people from doing these reckless things.

Lawmakers have to stop listening to the nonsense about breed specific
laws which is spouted by the owners of bully dogs like pit bulls. Since
2006 there have been 3 psychological studies which focused on the
personality and behavioral traits of the owners of pit bulls and other
high-risk breeds of dog.

A study published in the Journal of
Interpersonal Violence showed a link between ownership of high-risk dog
breeds and deviant behaviors, crimes against children and domestic
violence. Another study concluded that “vicious dog ownership may be a
simple marker of broader social deviance.”

A third study
established that the owners of high-risk breeds of dog displayed more
antisocial thinking styles, have an arrest history significantly higher
than owners of other dogs, and engage in fighting to a significantly
greater degree than other dog owners.

They also had higher
levels of overall criminal thinking patterns to go with the actual
criminal behavior. These people, who are fixated on the animals that
kill, maim and terrorize, are not the people that a lawmaker needs in
his camp. Reasonable people want fair laws that provide a solution to
the obvious problems caused by pit bulls.

Sincerely,

Kenneth M. Phillips
Attorney at Law

Canine Corner
The human-animal bond
by Stanley Coren, Ph.D.

Dogs That Bite and People That Don’t Listen
People often try to explain away misbehavior in children, dogs, and dog breeds.
Published on April 3, 2013 by Stanley Coren, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. in Canine Corner

I recently gave a series of talks at the All about Pets Show in
Toronto. As often happens at such events, people stop me as I am walking
around the hall to ask me questions, solicit advice, or to offer their
opinions about various aspects of dog behavior or events occurring in
the news that may have an impact on dogs and dog owners.

I
usually enjoy these interactions, and try to be as helpful and
open-minded as I can. However, sometimes (fortunately rarely) these
encounters can be quite unpleasant.

dog bite aggression pitbull
denial research science canine puppy human-dog bondOn the second day of
the event, a woman accosted me and began to harangue me about
statements that I had published about pitbull terriers. The statements
which so offended her were reports of research published in respected
scientific journals that found that pitbulls, and pitbull crosses
accounted for a disproportionate number of dog bite related injuries and
deaths.

I tried to tell her that I was reporting credible
research findings, and tried to summarize some of the newer data that
had recently appeared in behavioral and medical journals about the dog
breeds that bite.

In most instances she did not even let me
complete my description of the research before she rejected the findings
claiming that the breeds were being misidentified, that data surveys
based upon press reports were inaccurate or biased, that statistics
underestimated the real number of pitbulls in the population, that other
breeds like Labrador retrievers and Golden retrievers had a higher bite
incident rates but these simply weren’t being reported because of bias.

She also said that researchers ignore the fact that pitbulls are the
dogs that are most likely to be abused and provoked by people, and she
implied that that meant that many of their bites are justified.

I tried to give her some specific research findings to ask her if she
could explain them using her own rationale, however she ignored my
requests and eventually resorted to the ad hominem argument that I
simply didn’t know what I was talking about and I must have an
irrational dislike of the breeds involved.

I must admit that I got frustrated by this, and rather than losing my temper I simply walked away to end the encounter.

As a psychologist I suspect that I know what is going on in her mind.
For many people dogs fit into their family structure in the same way
that children do.

There is a real bond here, and lots of love
and affection for dogs in general and of course especially for the
family’s favorite breed of dogs. If a human child does something wrong
it is natural for a parent spring to his or her defense.

I once
watched the interview of a mother whose son had been arrested for
shooting a shopkeeper during a holdup. Unfortunately for the shooter,
there were security cameras in the store and near the entrance.

When shown the video of the boy and his companion entering the store,
the mother claimed that her boy was being misidentified, despite the
fact that he was wearing his high school jacket with both his name and
team number on it.

When asked about that she claimed that the
jacket must’ve been stolen. When another camera clearly showed the boy’s
face, she still claimed that it was not him, and the police had singled
her son out for arrest based on racial profiling.

When the
boys companion actually spoke his name during the robbery she was
ultimately forced to admit to his identity, however she then went on to
claim that her son was provoked into shooting the clerk because the
clerk was threatening him.

However the video clearly showed
that the clerk had his hands out to the sides and had stepped back from
the counter defensively. This mother was clearly offering the human
equivalent of the defenses that the woman in Toronto was giving as
explanations and denials of reports of aggressive misbehavior by pit
bulls.

People who know my work also know that I am not a fan of
breed specific legislation, however, as a psychologist who has studied
the genetic basis of dog behavior I also know that there are real
differences in temperament across breeds.

Aggressive tendencies
are part of those breed-specific differences in a dog breed’s
personality. When I encounter credible data pointing out differences in
the temperament of various breeds I often report them.

I think
they are interesting and important, and can help us to intelligently
select the dog breeds which can fit into a family’s living situation or
particular service dog positions. Take for example the following bit of
data.

Doctors Alison Kaye, Jessica Belz and Richard Kirschner
studied 551 dog bite injury cases that were brought to the Division of
Plastic Surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia over a
five-year period.

The victims ranged in age from newborn to 18
years. As is the usual procedure in trauma cases, as much data as
possible was gathered about the event that caused the injury at the time
that the patient was admitted.

One important bit of data that
was collected in these cases was the breed of the dog that bit the
child. What is striking in this report is the fact that of all of those
injuries where the dog’s breed was identifiable, 50.9% were due to
pitbulls (55.7% if we include crosses).

The next closest breeds
were Rottweilers accounting for 8.9% of the bites (10.3% with crosses),
German Shepherds with 3.7% (7.0% with crosses), and Akitas and Cocker
Spaniels each account for 3% of traumatic dog bites.

According
to the available statistics the most popular breeds of dogs in the city
of Philadelphia are, Labrador Retrievers, German Shepherds, Yorkshire
Terriers, Bulldogs and Rottweilers. As in most large cities in America,
pitbulls (defined as American Pit Bull Terriers, Staffordshire Terriers,
and American Staffordshire Terriers) account for less than 1% of the
canine population.

On the basis of these statistics alone one
would expect that Labrador Retrievers would have the highest bite rate
yet they are virtually invisible in this data set. Instead we find that
pitbulls are responsible for more than 50 times the rate of bite
injuries than what we would expect given their population numbers.

This is from information taken as part of medical intake of dog bite
victims who are being treated for trauma. It is not based on press
reports, nor does it represent some kind of inherent bias against
square-headed dogs.

No matter how much one may love the bully
breeds, these are facts that, like a surveillance video of a robbery
which identifies a perpetrator, cannot simply be explained away under
the cloak of bias or misrepresentation.

Stanley Coren is the
author of many books including: Born to Bark; Do Dogs Dream? The Modern
Dog; Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History; How Dogs
Think; How To Speak Dog; Why We Love the Dogs We Do; What Do Dogs Know?
The Intelligence of Dogs; Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding
Dogs for Dummies; Sleep Thieves; The Left-hander Syndrome

Taryn Blyth
Animal behaviorist, dog trainer

Pit Bulls – just like any other dog?

While the pro-Pit Bull lobby has done much to very successfully persuade the public that Pit Bulls are like any other dogs and that their temperament is simply determined by how you raise them, many experienced dog behaviourists and trainers do not agree.

Certainly my understanding of dog behaviour (through many years of study) and my experience dealing with the breed in training classes, consultations and work at a local shelter has convinced me that Pit Bulls are at far higher risk for abnormally aggressive behaviour towards other dogs.

As important as environment may be, genetics do have an influence on behaviour. Most dog breeds we have today were originally selected not for their looks, but for a particular type of “work”.

Humans selected (through preferential treatment, selective breeding and culling) behaviour patterns which were useful for a particular function e.g. herding or retrieving.

The main behaviour pattern which has been altered through selective breeding is the “predatory motor pattern” – the behaviour pattern that enables a predator to hunt and kill prey:

ORIENT → EYE →STALK→CHASE→GRAB BITE→SHAKE BITE/KILL BITE→DISECT→EAT

Through the process of domestication (essentially selection for genetic tameness), dogs have become primarily scavengers and not predators, but some remnants of this predatory sequence have been retained or even exaggerated where they can be useful for a particular task.

The Border Collie is probably one of the best examples of this: In order to be good herders Border Collies have been selected to have exaggerated EYE→STALK→CHASE behaviours, but the rest of the predatory sequence has been selected out of the breed (obviously a herding dog that mauled sheep would be a problem!).

Pointers have exaggerated EYE behaviours and Flock guarding dogs that live amongst livestock have virtually no predatory behaviours (which is why the sheep don’t run from them).

Pit Bulls, Staffies and other “Bull-baiting” breeds were selected to kill other animals and each other. The parts of the predatory sequence that have been retained in these types of dogs is the SHAKE BITE/KILL BITE and sometimes DISECT.

In fact these types of dogs usually go straight from EYE → SHAKE BITE/KILL BITE with none of the other steps in between. This is why they are often said to be unpredictable.

The plain fact of the matter is that all fighting breeds were genetically selected for their propensity to grab, shake and kill other animals, including their own kind. While Staffies and Bull Terriers have subsequently had the benefit of 100 years of selective breeding as pets and not as fighters (which has changed their genetics for the better), Pit Bulls have virtually no history of being bred as pets and so do not have this advantage.

To say that Pit Bulls won’t be inclined to fight and do damage when they are triggered is like saying that Border Collies raised right won’t be inclined to herd!

As well-known clicker trainer Gary Wilkes says: “To assert that Pit Bulls are only aggressive if you train them to attack is to deny the existence of every other behaviour-specific breed on the planet… try telling a hunter that he paid $10 000 for a finished field pointer that had to be taught to point. He’ll laugh at you!”

The following has to be kept in mind:

No one is saying that a lot of Pit Bulls can’t be “successfully” socialised with other dogs. Many socialised from puppyhood are very friendly and outgoing with other dogs.

The problem arises if and when fighting behaviour is triggered. Even if the Pit Bull does not start the fight, getting into conflict with another animal will often trigger their “grab, shake and kill” response.

“Normal” dogs engage in “ritualised” forms of aggression when they come into conflict. This involves lots of noise, but no real damage. However, when Pit Bulls fight they engage the shake-bite/kill-bite part of the predatory sequence with often fatal or near fatal results.
There is seldom time to intervene to rescue the other dog before serious damage is done.

When Pit Bulls engage in a fight, far from this inducing an aversive state of mind (most dogs are in a defensive, survival mode during fights), opioids and dopamine are released in their brains making them feel really good – this feeling is so pleasurable that they will often seek out this behaviour again. In the same way that a border collie is built to feel really good when herding sheep, Pit Bulls are built to feel really good when fighting.

Due to the opioid release during fights, Pit Bulls do not feel pain and so fight on regardless of injury – trying to stop a fight is incredibly difficult.

When “normal” dogs fight, they usually respond to appeasement behaviour from their “opponent” i.e. as fighting is not designed to kill, but to resolve conflict without serious harm, one dog may “give in” and display behaviour which will cause the other dog to back off. Pit Bulls do not respond to appeasement behaviour during fights as this would have been counterproductive in the fighting pits and has been bred out of them.

In my experience Pit Bulls have a very low reactivity threshold – this means that stimuli at low intensities which would be ignored by other dogs are often triggers for aggressive behaviour in the breed. They also have very high arousal levels – they become physiologically aroused very quickly and to extreme levels.

The above pertains to the breed’s interactions with other dogs. With regards to humans, many Pit Bulls are sweet and devoted pets. However, I know of a significant number owners who have ended up with extreme injuries (hospitalisation) due to being caught in the middle of fights. I also have very serious reservations about the breed with small children:

Dogs with a very low reactivity threshold and high arousal levels may be triggered into a predatory reaction by the sounds of children screaming and the sight of them running during normal child play, resulting in grabbing, biting and shaking.

A few months ago I had a call from a distraught owner with regards to an incident of this nature involving an 8 month-old Pit Bull, despite the fact that the dog had been loved and raised in a good family (with kids) since a pup. The fact is that majority (59%)of fatalities due to dogs in the US are due to Pit Bull attacks, despite the fact that the breed comprises only 5% of the dog population.

One of the huge problems is actually the fact that the breed is extremely friendly and when well-socialised they are usually quite tolerant and very sweet.

What people don’t realise is that the danger does not lie in the fearful, defensive under-socialised Pit Bull (as is so often the case with other breeds), it lies in the dog who will be triggered not into defensive behaviour, but into a predatory/fighting behaviour which is enjoyable and carried out in a happy state of mind – therefore a happy,

outgoing dog is in this case no guarantee that one will not have a problem. In fact, due to the sociable nature of the dogs and apparent easy-going temperament, Pit Bulls are often put into situations which they are not equipped to handle – this is how so many tragedies occur.

Because of my stance on the breed, I have often been accused of prejudice and of having a personal dislike for the breed. However, it must be noted that the very people who are devoted to the breed and have the most experience with them (Pit Bull Federation of SA and Underdogs SA – involved in showing, breeding and rescuing Pit Bulls) have much the same thing to say.

In a recent joint article published in the Journal for the South African Board of Companion Animal Professionals, PBFSA and Underdogs SA had the following to say about their own beloved breed:

“.. The breed’s genetics cannot be denied or disregarded and this can go wrong at any time. Owners, trainers and other professionals working with these dogs always need to keep the breed’s propensity for animal aggression in mind… Disregarding the breed’s genetics and history has in many cases lead to attacks on other animals….

In the rescue and shelter situation…. it is safer to assume that the dog could be animal aggressive and shelters should take caution not to rehome the dog with any other animals… owners (should be) aware that they cannot leave their new dog unsupervised with other animals and that at any given time their new dog may not be able to live with their existing pets…..

With the increase in popularity has come a new unrealistic view of the breed and with it came the term “Petbulls”.

According to those who hold this view the APBT is a loveable couch potato, but it disregards the breed’s genetics…. Proponents of the “Pet Bull Myth” believe that through training, socialisation and environment, the breed’s high prey drive and animal aggression can be eliminated and these dogs can live in harmony with all other animals without any caution being taken.

WE ARE OF THE BELIEF THAT THIS IS A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY. GENETICS CANNOT BE UNTAUGHT AND WHEN THINGS GO WRONG THERE IS CARNAGE AND OFTEN THE OTHER ANIMALS ARE KILLED… We are of the opinion that the Pet Bull Myth sets these dogs up for failure.”

In the last week alone I have heard of 3 confirmed attacks by Pit Bulls in the Cape. Two resulting in fatalities to other dogs and one a serious injury to a person.

I cannot count the number of phone calls that I have received from distraught people whose Pit Bulls were “absolutely fine with other dogs” until they killed the neighbour’s dog or mauled another dog in the family, often after many years of being apparently well-socialised.

It is time that dog lovers took off their blinkers, put aside political correctness (it is almost as though the breed has become a symbol of the oppressed, misunderstood underdog and the fight against prejudice)and faced up to reality.

Pit Bulls are not “bad” dogs, but they are what WE have designed them to be and so have certain limitations. To deny this or pretend otherwise is foolish and only leads to tragedy.