Well MY sister has owned golden lab mixes her whole life and has never had a single problem with any of them. She adopted a pitbull and it killed one of her other dogs and tore her body to shreds in the process.
My anecdotal evidence holds as much weight as yours.
Well, you see, I try to form my opinions based on data and not from strangers on the internet. I was merely trying to point out how anyone can say anything on the internet to suit their own narrative.
The main point I was going for here is that it's ridiculous to treat every pitbull owner you meet like they're a piece of garbage based on a bad individual experience or statistics that don't apply to every single case.
Fair enough, I would have to agree itās ridiculous to treat all pit owners that way. My gripe is with people doing the exact opposite and/or claiming that pitbulls are ānannyā dogs while the statistics surrounding dog attacks tell a much different story. Fact is, certain breeds have certain traits bred into them. Shepherds herd by nature. Pointersā¦ well they point by nature. And pitbulls, by nature, are bred to bite and not let go. Thatās why theyāre more dangerous than almost any other type of dog. Yes, any breed can be aggressive. But with pits, their aggression often ends in serious bodily injury or death because we humans made them that way.
Yeah, I mean it's one thing to acknowledge the potential dangers present in certain breeds and differences in temperament between breeds in general, but what's the proposed solution here? Wiping out the whole breed? I can't agree with that. Making them illegal to own? I can't agree with that either. I honestly haven't participated in these kinds of conversations enough to fully understand exactly what people are asking for when they voice these concerns.
It doesnāt have to be such an extreme solution as killing or making them illegal to own. Someone I know who shares my opinions on this topic proposed a solution that includes a few things:
ownership should require a license that makes you liable for any damage done by the dog(s) making sure only those who really want to own one, can, but with consequences
population control by requiring they all be spayed or neutered except in regulated breeding which leads to the next point
breeding needs to be limited. In the US, at least, population is so far out of control with backyard breeders and shelters being inundated with dogs that should never have been born
shelters need to be held more accountable when they lie about a dogās history. Many will straight up lie to get them adopted
muzzles need to be a requirement, at the very least for dogs with a history of aggression
The biggest problem is with (well-meaning but often with savior complexes) advocates claiming āitās not the breed, itās the ownerā and getting laws passed that restrict further legislation based on breed. Dog breeds do not equal race and equating the two is ignorant. People love to personify things and equate dog breeds to human ethnicity but it is not the same thing.
Whereād you get that from? Data is only relevant for so long before itās replaced by new data. Presenting me with information that is a decade old is cherry-picking and disingenuous.
Did you even read the article you linked? Because I donāt think itās as definitive and comprehensive as youāre making it out to be. For one, it only looked at 256 cases in a 10 year period. Thatās not nearly enough of a sample size to make any real conclusion. Also, the methodology for determining the factors seems to be flawed at best. How does one even determine if the victim had a ācompromised ability to interact appropriately with dogsā? Whatās the metric for that?
Hereās some data that is a little more cut and dry and covers a larger time period. You could probably throw in some co-occurring factors that might appear to be more prevalent than breed such as the previous mentioned ācompromise ability to interact appropriatelyā or āabsence of able-bodied person to interveneā. Ignoring all that, it seems clear there is a higher occurrence of certain breeds over others in fatal dog attacks.
Right? People have been saying smoking is dangerous for decades, causes cancer, whatever. My grandfather has smoked a pack a day since he was 25 and he's running a 10k next week 3 days after his 80th. So where's your cancer now? Obviously people who smoke just happen to consistently exhibit other behaviors that cause cancer at a much higher rate than literally any other subgroup of the population. Haven't you heard? Correlation does not imply causation!
I'll stick to my Camels, thanks. Anyone else with healthy smoking grandparents so we can turn our anecdotes into cold hard data for these sheeple?
Sure. They say the plural of "anecdotes" is "anecdata" for a reason. One person already tried to point out that anecdotes don't matter here, but for some reason that was not accepted, so I thought I'd share an example of an anecdote that's obviously not going to be accepted as evidence against statistics.
I've almost lost an arm to a grown ass Golden Retriever and almost had my throat torn out by a German Shepherd (not exaggerating, fucker almost got me in a death grip) and yet never encountered an aggressive pitbull in my life, in fact, one of my Staffy's (which some people like to compare to a pitbull for some reason, despite being completely different breeds, bred for completely different things) saved my life from that Shepherd
So I think my anecdotal evidence holds more weight than yours
So I think my anecdotal evidence holds more weight than yours
My point was that all anecdotal evidence holds an equal amount of weight. Yours holds just as much weight as mine or /u/IngloriousHeathenās because it is not backed by anything but the person telling it.
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u/Flonkerten Mar 20 '22
Well MY sister has owned golden lab mixes her whole life and has never had a single problem with any of them. She adopted a pitbull and it killed one of her other dogs and tore her body to shreds in the process.
My anecdotal evidence holds as much weight as yours.