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General News Pit bulls inherently dangerous?

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Carlgustav, Sep 12, 2014.

  1. Carlgustav

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    US Postal Service: Pit bull attacks, seriously injures mailman in Springfield's Liberty Heights neighborhood | masslive.com
    Do you believe that pitbulls are dangerous by nature or that the ones who attack people or other dogs have been conditioned to act that way?
    I have friends on both sides of this argument and I have a stong opinion, which I will keep to myself for now.
    Before someone points it out, "pitbull" is a non-specific designation that can refer to a number of purebred dog breeds as well as their mixed offspring.
    (Pitbull smily?: :bang:slight_smile:
     
  2. PatrickUK

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    I own two retired racing Greyhounds and they are (to me and my partner) the most gentle and loving dogs. They rarely bark and make superb pets, but I would never trust them around smaller animals as the breed is known to have a very high prey drive and can outrun and catch almost any other animal. Indeed, both of my dogs were bred for chasing an artificial hare around a track. I've seen both of my dogs react at the sight of cats, rabbits and squirrels, but nobody has ever suggested the breed is dangerous. Even so, I take my responsibility as a Greyhound owner very seriously and I never walk them off lead and they are often muzzled.

    I do not believe Pit Bulls are inherently dangerous, but they too must be owned by experienced and competent people who take the responsibilities of breed ownership seriously. Sadly, Pit Bulls have become a 'trophy breed' for irresponsible dog owners who provide little to no training or discipline. In the hands of such people there is a much greater potential for an incident. With good owners, Pit Bulls can thrive.
     
  3. King

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    Unfortunately many dogs are dangerous because the owners are thugs and are a menace to society with the reason of ownership being to portray a gangster image, I don't believe dogs are inherently violent.

    In the UK pit bulls are banned (https://www.gov.uk/control-dog-public/banned-dogs) and can be '"destroyed" if possessed. Eventually it wouldn't surprise me if the same was to occur with rottweilers and Staffordshire bull terriers.
     
  4. Candace

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    I don't believe that they are any more violent than a poodle or a Labrador retriever. It's the darn owner's fault who trains it to be vicious and harmful.
     
  5. Sepina

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    I agree wuth Candace, my younger cousin was attacked by one, I ended up breaking the dogs leg:/
     
  6. AAASAS

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    Pitbulls are illegal in Ontario; my province. My province was also one of the first jurisdictions on earth to outlaw slavery, legalize gay marriage, and give women the right to vote.

    So it is safe to assume that the majority of laws passed are for the greater good of the population. So I would assume Pitbulls are dangerous, and shouldn't be allowed as pets.

    Who cares if owners love them, people love wolves and bears too, doesn't mean they should be allowed as pets.

    I've only ever heard bad stories about them too.

    The truth is, despite being raised in a loving caring gentle home, they are still known to attack people. Just because there are some abuse stories doesn't mean that they are only dangerous under circumstances, they have the potential to harm others regardless of upbringing. To me that is enough to ban them.

    Again they're illegal in Ontario, but if you had one before the ban you can keep it, just no more new ones are allowed to be sold, purchased or taken as a pet. That is a law that covers 13,000,000 people, in one of the most socially progressive nations on Earth, so I agree with it.

    We also have universal healthcare, so it is in the governments best interest to keep everyone safe and healthy. Pitbulls most likely costed the government thousands, possibly millions, in health care costs, where other dog breeds don't. Someone might say the why are cigarettes legal, and alcohol? Well the profits made off selling those most likely put more into the system than take out, but selling pitbulls I doubt was a multi-million dollar industry generating a lot of profit for the government. It just wasn't financially or socially smart to render them illegal.

    This is also why Canadian provinces have insane work and safety laws. If you take anything from a first aid kit in Ontario you have to write on an official form that says what you took, when you took it, and why you took it. This is Ontario law, there are also other crazy laws when working with dangerous equipment or dangerous environments. That is because injuries to people at work, and at home, are very costly to the government. So it is better to not waste tax money on cleaning up something that people could easily fix. I work with a guy from Utah and he cannot believe all the laws we have at work, because back in his State, it was basically a free for all.

    This is why certain people on this forum don't think it's a problem. They're not paying taxes that go towards fixing peoples injuries from pitbulls. A pitbull attack doesn't affect them directly unless it happens to someone they know or themselves. But in Ontario, if someone gets bit by one, and believe me they will, thousands of TAX PAYERS DOLLARS are shoveled out to fix the problem. To me that is not fair, people shouldn't have to pay for other peoples stupidity.

    So I agree that pitbulls should be legal in countries with no government healthcare, because then it will be solely up to the owner of the dog to treat any harm done. That should be enough to deter people from getting them. But up here, I'm not cool with stupid people wasting my money.
     
    #6 AAASAS, Sep 12, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2014
  7. Fallingdown7

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    Most pit bulls I know are really nice and gentle. It's the owner's fault for doing anything to provoke a dog or not knowing how to handle it.
     
  8. MintberryCrunch

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    I don't think it's a coincidence that pit bulls are responsible for an inordinate amount of dog attacks.
     
  9. Auren

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    They are conditioned that way. Sometimes people will terribly abuse them to try to make them into fighting dogs, which is why there are so many messed up ones out there. But if they're raised in a good home from the time they're puppies, they're pretty much like any other dog.
     
  10. LadyRedRover

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    I've raised pit bulls ever since I was a kid. A lot of people don't understand that pit bulls are naturally an aggressive, stubborn, and territorial breed. For the first year and a half of their lives, you have to constantly train them, show them who's 'boss', and establish that their territory is your territory and you are the 'pack leader'. Without that training, you have incidents like this one with the mailman.

    Sadly, it takes a lot of experience to raise a pit bull properly and most of the people that have them don't realize that.
     
  11. HuskyPup

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    All the ones I've met have been very nice and friendly, and in Baltimore, I've met more than a few. It's the owners, and not the dogs.

    I'm sick of all these places that have outlawed various breeds around the US; in some places, Huskies, Malamutes and other breeds have also been outlawed, and I feel this is just plain stupid. I'm not about to trade my freedom to live in some fru-fru, namby-pamby nanny-state. No thanks.
     
    #11 HuskyPup, Sep 12, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2014
  12. BryanM

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    There are no bad breeds of dogs, only bad owners.
     
  13. I own two dogs who are full pits or pit mixes. Both are very sweet and gentle, but they do like to roughhouse with each other.

    As others have said, pit bulls are conditioned by a lot of owners to be violent. Literally any dog can be made to fear humans and attack; pit bulls are powerful dogs, so they are often used for dog fighting rings.
     
  14. SeaSalt

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    I cant help but think that Pitbulls are a victim to stereotypes. Because Pitbulls never get anything but negative press, the people looking for vicious dogs are attracted to them. Remember that good dogs behaving dont make for a very good news story and the media does love a thug with a "dangerous dog".

    [​IMG]

    A bad owner can turn any dog violent, Ive even seen Golden Retrievers acting viciously thanks to a shitty owner.
     
  15. RedSwiss

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    In the same way some people are more aggressive than others, just by nature, I think pitbulls are just more aggressive than other dogs by nature. I don't think they're all killers, I just think they have a shorter fuse than other dogs, which makes them more dangerous when combined with the fact they're physically strong.

    Example: You don't hear of a Labrador mangling a corpse unless it was suitably provoked, but its almost once a week I hear of someone's pitbull trying to eat someone after it walked past them in a way it didn't like. Just for the record, im not saying Labradors are all passive and magical creatures, ive met plenty of people who've been bitten by Labs, but ive met even more people who've been bitten or even made permanently disabled by a pitbull.
     
  16. HuskyPup

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    Another thing to bear in mind is the number of types of dogs that are called 'pitbulls'. This includes several breeds and mixtures thereof, and unless we have some idea of how many of them there are out there in relation to other breeds, it's hard to say as a percentage how many are likely to be 'harmful'. The number of attacks is of little value unless we have a baseline of total breed population to compare it to.

    And I also find them cute, generally docile dogs; if you tried to ban them in Baltimore, the people of the city would have an open revolt! Very, very popular here, and I seldom read of attacks.

    You're many, many more times as likely to be run over by a car, than bit by a pitbull.

    Plus, they are SO cute!

    [​IMG]
     
  17. LiquidSwords

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    I don't understand why he mauled the baby's face he was always such a lovely family pet

    To say that no dog is more inherently dangerous than another is simply wrong. To say that certain breeds are fine as long as they are in the hands of the right owners actually only acknowledges this fact. Then, given the impracticality of legislating to take dogs away from only the irresponsible owners, the sensible thing becomes to ban certain breeds outright.

    ---------- Post added 13th Sep 2014 at 01:29 AM ----------

    I don't know how this is relevant in any way
     
  18. Carlgustav

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    #18 Carlgustav, Sep 12, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2014
  19. TrueColors

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    Heeeeeeeeeell to the no. Pitbulls are the sweetest dogs I ever met. It's the freaking owners that are the problem. Why don't we put /them/ down, eh?
     
  20. Alex94

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    I think it's all about how you raise them... If you don't hurt them, teach them to be aggressive or neglect to train them they'll be fine. I know a lot of people with pitbulls and I would like one as well. Only one dog that I know has a slight temperment issue but he was also taken from a really bad home and has since adjusted.