jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
When you look at annual statistics of dog bite fatalities, pit bulls aren’t just the #1 cause of dog bite deaths, they account for more deaths than all dog breeds COMBINED.
I think this graphic should also be taking into account the number of owned dogs by breed, kinda like per capita. Because what if almost everyone owns pit bulls, and all the others are just outliers, then yeah, most attacks are by pit bulls because there’s more of them.
In my opinion, this would probably actually make pits look even worse, but it would actually be more representative of real data
A lot of mixed breeds are labeled as “pit bulls” which can skew the data as well. There’s several different types of “pit bulls” like American Staffordshire Terrier.
And as another commenter pointed out, this graph is coming from a biased source.
If you look at the chart “mixed breed” is it’s own category.
Even if pit bulls are a minority of the population and the majority of attacks that doesn’t mean they’re aggressive, it shows there’s a correlation, but not a causation link. Read my other reply, but in short, this is the same argument racists assholes use to say black people are aggressive, because they’re a minority of the population but are the majority of homicide offenders.
I think you’re the racist asshole comparing black people to dogs
You need to work on your reading comprehension, I compared arguments, not people. The two are an example of “a minority of a group causes the majority of the fatalities, therefore that group is dangerous”, showing an example of that same argument people can instinctively understand it’s wrong.
The number of dogs doesn’t matter, it’s tracking the number of human beings killed by the breed.
Yeah, Chihuahua might bite you, they aren’t going to kill you.
What? The number of dogs absolutely matters. This is like, basic statistics.
Again, what we’re shown here is the number of fatal injuries, but we don’t necessarily know the distribution of dog breeds. Imagine testing this by putting a child in a room with one of each breed of dog and seeing if they get attacked, except with one breed we put in 200 dogs instead of just one, odds are that yeah, one (or multiple) of those dogs is aggressive because there’s so many of them.
This example is basically what the data above represents, it doesn’t consider that maybe pits actually very rarely bite people, but there’s just so many pits that more bites happen.
It is my personal opinion that pits are a more dangerous breed, but I won’t let that cloud my vision of accurately representing data.
For this to be reflective of an even amount of bites per number of each breed of dog owned, half the dogs owned would have to be pit bulls. That doesn’t match my very casual observations. This site, whose accuracy and validity I haven’t bothered to verify in any way, puts pit bulls at about 20% of the dogs sent to shelters. It seems very likely that the dog fatalities are outsized relative to the number of pit bulls owned in America.
The number of dogs is irrelevant because the statistic is counting human deaths by dogs.
You wouldn’t say “well, how many people are there?” either.
Repeat after me, correlation does not imply causation. Two things can be correlated without there being a cause/effect relationship.
What you’re saying is essentially: Pitbull-like races are around 14% of large dogs, but are responsible for 55.9% of fatalities, i.e. more than all other combined. Therefore Pitbulls are dangerous.
I bet you would agree with that logic… Except those are not dog numbers, that’s USA statistics on the African-American population. Congratulations on the racist argument.
Similarly to how there are multiple factors that explain the disparity for African-Americans there are also multiple factors at play for dogs, for example:
I’m fairly confident that if you normalize for living conditions the numbers would not show any significant difference for breeds.
Did you just call black people dogs…? What’s wrong with you…
No, I showed how the argument of a minority of population causes the majority of fatalities is flawed by showing an example of the same argument no sane person would defend. The argument is ridiculous for pitbulls but people don’t see it, use the same argument for people and they see why it’s ridiculous.
Except no- it doesn’t.
Take a pitbull and a labrador. They aren’t simply the same animal with different colours.
Labradors were bred to assist fishermen in retrieving fish. So this would mean being controlled and obedient, not eating what they were sent to retrieve, etc.
Pitbulls were bred to fight other dogs- they were bred for fighting and destroying and that’s it. They’re essentially weapons that decide for themselves. Sure, any animal can be tamed, but it takes effort.
For your argument to work, you have to “concede” (although I wouldn’t use that term because it’s an outright lie) to the racist narrative or what have you that black people are inferior and have less control and are inherently less civilised than white people due to their race. So your argument is a racist one, because it assumes and only works that black people are significantly different to white people, like a different breed of human.
The differences between black people and white people in reality are negligible. They’re not different breeds, they’re both homosapiens. Essentially it would be like arguing black labradors are more violent than white labradors, which just simply isn’t true.
Not only that, but you’re trivialising the struggle of black people against racist oppression to that of people whining against their fighting dog being banned for good reason.
Worst of all, if they were the same argument, it’s like telling racists that comparing black people to white people is like comparing pitbulls to labradors, which would bolster their argument massively, as they’re completely different breeds of dog.
I urge you to recant your argument, you’re basically saying black people are like a more aggressive, dangerous, and less controlled breed of human compared to white people which is an absolutely vile, disgusting, and false thing to say.
But I whole heartedly believe that pit bulls by nature were meant to be farm dogs. And if you get one and raise them from birth in a good and loving home than bites won’t happen. With this statistic did any owner say that yea I hurt my dog but only because he or she deserved it…etc etc etc. I didn’t think so. No one man or animal is inherently mean. That is a learned behavior. And with all avenues of information getting to people and children is more likely going to be people who are mean. But born that way. Fuck No. Anyone feel free to prove me wrong for this discussion.
the fuck you mean “by nature”? man made dogs.
I think your thinking of hot dogs.
I’m confused now. Do you genuinely think dogs are a natural species? Because… that might explain a lot about this entire post
The real question is “why would you believe that?”
They were bred to kill bulls, bears, and rats, in pits so that none of the animals could escape.
It’s pretty well known they were bred to be fighting dogs for blood sports. It doesn’t mean they end up that way, but intervention is needed in places other breeds do not require it.
Speaking from experience. I adopted a pitbull about 10 years ago. Spent countless hours training it, sent it to a daycare to make sure it was socialized.
Strike 1 was when he got kicked out of the daycare for fighting. Strike 2 was when out of nowhere he bit my friends dog. Strike 3 was when he turned on my border collie and nearly killed her. She was the dog he grew up with and spent every single day with. I had to beat him with a grill spatula to get him to let go, and I was bitten in the process.
My observation with the breed was that they have an instinct built into them and when it triggers they become possessed and they lose all control. Humans don’t usually trigger it, but other pets tend to.
That would be expected behaviour, they have been bred to kill other dogs.
Yep. We found a more suitable home for him.
Truly one of the worst takes I have ever read. What you “believe” means nothing.
Pitbulls were bred to be as aggressive and strong as possible. They are literally attack dogs made for fighting.
It’s a shit breed that should be made illegal, period.
Animals aren’t mean, but they can be bred to be aggressive and dangerous. A pitbull probably doesn’t feel malice, but the reasoning in it’s head is incapacitated by years of breeding to essentially be a weapon that will effectively kill and attack ruthlessly. That was it’s purpose. It’s just following it’s instinct. And that’s what makes them so dangerous as well, they don’t realise it’s wrong.
Elting@piefed.social 8 hours ago
According to Wikipedia (I understand the irony here) dogsbite dot org has been accused of publishing misleading and inaccurate information. However, pit bulls are terriers and terriers don’t let go when they bite. Most terriers are small ratting dogs where this doesn’t matter so much.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Dogsbite.org is super diligent about showing the supporting evidence. For example, the last complete year they have is 2019:
dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatality-citatio…
Each death marked with multiple citations.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
When I was bit by a pit, I was in a fight with his uh, human. The dude was being a dick. The dog looked at me, looked at his “owner” and then lunged at me. I put up my left arm to block my face, thats where he caught me, in my arm. The guy jumpped on the dog, started punching it in the head (this guy was a complete moron) and he wouldnt let go.
I played dead. It was isntict, I dont know. After what felt like enterity, I just, took out a deep sigh, pushed all the air from me, went limp. the dog let go, the guy whos dog it was threw him in the bathroom and locked him in there, and I went to the hospital.
Elting@piefed.social 8 hours ago
My neighbors had a pit that hated other dogs. My sister brought her dog over and it escaped the backyard and jumped through an empty screen door to attack her. I was right there on the porch though and got the dog by the collar. As soon as I got it away from my sister’s dog, it was wagging tail and happy face. Pit bulls are capable of intense focus when they have identified “prey.” Luckily I only got grazed in that altercation.