Laws prohibiting pit bulls are the biggest load of crap. People who fear certain dog breeds need to volunteer at a shelter or study dog behavior and breeds to truly understand dogs.
Pit Bulls, Rottweillers, Bull Mastiffs and many other dog breeds are definitely the most misunderstood and mistreated dogs. There is no such thing as a bad dog, but there are bad humans. Just like a good parent raises good children, bad parents raise bad children; a good dog owner will be able to raise any breed appropriately while bad dog owners will fail. Even miniature pinschers, daschunds, jack russels and chihuahas can be deadly in the wrong hands.
Dogs do not attack without reason, they usually attack only when provoked or threatened. A barking dog, jumping, excited dog does not necesscarily mean vicious. A lot of dogs jump and bark at passers simply because they get excited and curious about passers by. Reacting with fear, running, being fidgety and shifty are behaviors that actually trigger a docile dog into attack mode due to the negative reaction conveyed to them.
Most dog bites occur because of a few reasons.
1) Owner trained dog to be vicious or abused them leading to viciousness. A lot of pit bulls are used in illegal dog fight rings or raised to be gang bully dogs making them vicious.
2) Owner did not train dog properly. A mother dog teaches her kids the difference between play nips, warning nips and aggressive bites. Play nip is when a dog nips affectionately at another in play. Warning nip is when a dog nips another to warn things like 'I dont want to play' 'Go away' etc. Agressive bite is when a dog is actually attacking. Dogs weaned away from their moms when young need the owner to train the dog in gentleness of nips. A significant amount of dog bites were meant to be play nips or warning nips but the untrained dog clamped down too hard.
3) Miscommunication. People often provoke dogs by sudden movements, over reacting in fear and suspiscion, unwittingly invading their comfort zone, unwitting threatening their safety, unwittingly threatening what the dog is protecting. What do we do when our safety is threatened? Fight or Flight! Dogs to the same and they fight by biting. Before assuming that the dog is dangerous try to understand why the bit. There are dogs that will attack strangers if they come too close to the family child, enter rooms without supervision etc. Always ask people before petting their dog. If you are not a dog person with no clue about dog behavior then make sure you consult with the owner while moving about their house.
Finally there are dogs that are genuinely aggressive due to neurological all psychological reasons either by birth or poor ownership and treatment. These dogs must be put down. Similar rules apply to all kinds of pets, cats, ferrets, rodents, they all have their species behavior and less than 1% are genuinely a threat.
I am against dangerous pets. However, I am against breed biases and blaming animals for people's mistakes. I would say human beings are more dangerous than dogs. Human beings kill, rape, beat up, abuse, traumatize humans as well as all other species more in a minute than all dogs put together for a year. Choice between a pit bull and human, I would pick pit bull instead of an self serving ungrateful obnoxious brute.
Edited by return_to_hades - 17 years ago
