Why is it so many people are afraid or hate Pitbull Terriers

Group: rec.pets.dogs.behavior Date: Thu, Nov 11, 2004, 7:18am From:
(elegy)
On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:56:29 -0500,
(Hi Im WEEniE with My Fav4ite
Midi) wrote:
I must of met at least 7 pitbulls naturally at different times but
everyone of them had their backside going side to side & their tails
wagging & wanting me to pat them. People think they are vicious that
they can't be trusted & that's hogwash. Some of the people who owned
them have a little baby. This is what I believe goes on. Keep your
pitbull outside treat it like dirt & you got a problem. Keep it inside
give it plenty of love & you don't. As far as them getting along with
other dogs? I don't know about that but you can say that about any dog.
Maybe it's the area I live in.
personally i think a big reason why so many people are afraid of or hate
pit bulls is the media. you'd be amazed how many people come up to pet
my dog, ask what she is, receive the answer of pit bull, and are
suddenly afraid. they didn't know she was a pit bull. they don't have a
clue what a pit bull looks like or is all about. they just know what
they've been told over and over by the media.
and the more the media feeds the frenzy, the more the horrible owners
flock to the breed because they're bad, tough "monsters". it's a
never-ending cycle.
and it really sucks.
---
petey was a pit bull.
http://shattering.org

You're talking about Petey on the Little Rascles

(Hi Im WEEniE with My Fav4ite Midi) wrote in message ...
Why is it so many people are afraid or hate Pitbull Terriers
1. Because they have a bad reputation (fair or unfair you decide).
2. Because they are very powerful. If they do bite, they have it in
them to do a lot of damage (hence why people afraid of them are
usually also afraid of Rottweilers, et al).
3. Because, statistically they're the most likely dog to kill.

Here are some admittedly out of date statistics on fatal dog attacks,
adjusted for breed, as crunched by Cliff Mortimer of the Guardians of
Wildlife, using the CDC fatality by breed statistics from 1979-1994
and the AKC's population estimates for registered and non-registered
breeds in those years.

Fatal Attacks by Breed Shown as a
Percent of the Total Breed Population
===========================
1. Pitbull terriers 0.35%
2. Siberian Huskys 0.0012%
3. Alaskan Malamutes 0.0007%
4. German Shepherds 0.0005%
5. Rottweilers 0.0003%

This means a given Pitbull is 300 times more likely to end up killing
somebody than the next most deadly breed, Siberian Huskys (who knew?).

I just lurk here. I don't think pitbulls (or other breeds) should be
banned. But i would be in favor of very, very strict accountablity
laws for dog owners. For instance, if your dog kills (whatever the
breed) you get a mandatory manslaughter conviction. If your dog mauls
(does severe damage to a human) you go to jail. This would put a very
strong onus of responsiblity on owners of powerful breeds and types of
dog to train them well, keep them away from children and so forth.
People who wanted such dogs could still have them, but would know
their downside liability going in.

diddy wrote:
Then why don't border collies bite in those large numbers? Or beagles?
There are an obscene number of beagles out there. Every shelter in every
pound in the country has them. By your arguements, beagles in proportion to
statistics and numbers should haver a horrible reoputation as killer dogs,
just because there are so many of them?

They do bite. All breeds bite. I bet if you counted the amount of chihuahua
bites vs. pit bull bites in one year, the chis would come up winners.

But the smaller dogs, or those breeds who do less damage, are far less likely
to make it into the statistics, never mind the media.

Yes, pit bulls are most likely to do more damage when they bite. But as a
breed, I believe they're less likely TO bite than most other dogs.

I am amazed at my next door neighbor's pitbulls. The males have been kept
penned in a rabbit hutch - and the female chained on about a 2' rope - for the
last six months. I haven't seen any of them out running free at all. Not even
to poop. They were even out there during the hurricanes.

I found out yesterday why they are now restrained. They had apparently let
Blackie out of his pen, or he got out, and Baby chewed through her rope.

Now, I'd met them through the fence before they got penned and chained. I had
known Blackie and Junior since they were pups, but Baby was 6 months old when
she joined them (probably about 6 months ago). I'd only met her a couple of
times briefly, and she was always more interested in my dogs than me so I
didn't get a good impression of her sociability.

But here they are, out and free, and I see them both sail over the fence.

Approaching these two, I have to admit I was nervous. Not about Blackie,
really - he had gotten out before, ran from his owners, and came right to me.
But Baby... the only one who's pure pit... never did give me clear enough signs
to be sure about her. And here she is ignored totally by all humans and kept
outside on a 2' rope for 6 months. Hmmm. Loaded gun?

Luckily, she was standing just a few feet from her gate, so I grabbed her rope
and got her in quickly.

I knocked on the door and told them what had happened, and that I'm sure they'd
jump the fence again now that they knew they could do it. But the dad wasn't
home, and he's the only one who will go near the dogs. So I also knew that
nothing would be done about it.

Well, Blackie got out again last night. Just as I was going to work, I saw the
mom calling him. He had obviously been trained that "come" means "jump back
and run away, because something bad is going to happen." He wouldn't even come
to me this time. I got out one of my super-dooper fish cookies, and lured him
closer to the gate. But he was too smart for that. He would go just so far
and that was it. Uh uh. Not even a fish cookie will buy my freedom, lady.

He ran off, and the neighbor gave up. I had to go to work.

Story continues... This morning, I have the crew in my yard finally attacking
my fallen limbs. I look out - and there's Blackie with them! He won't let me
grab his collar, in fact all I can get in is a little chin tickle before he
jumps backwards (fooled me once, HAH). But this time, he willingly follows me
to their house and goes through the gate when I open it.

At which time Baby, who is now tied up to some kind of rolled-up fencing
(wtf?), pushes herself through the space between the gate and the house,
pulling that fencing with her.

What does she want? Kisses. That's it. I stood there and hugged and kissed
and petted her for a few minutes, and she was eating it up, snuggling up
against me and burying her nose in me. Then when I opened the gate to try to
untangle her rope, she willingly stepped back inside for me.

Oh, MAN I wish I could get those dogs away from him. Junior, the one who has
yet to be out of his pen, doesn't even bark any more. He's a very sociable
dog, the most sociable of the three, and this is killing him.

What amazes me about this whole thing is that this guy next door has the
prescription for making mean, biting, psycho dogs down pat. Other than
physically mistreating them, which he doesn't do - he has some misguided
perception that he loves and takes care of his dogs - these guys are so abused
it hurts.

His last purebred pit bull, Gale, was the same way. She spent 3 years of her
life chained in the back yard, and was still a people-lover. She died when she
jumped the fence and hung herself. I guess that's why Baby only gets 2'.

What breed besides a pit bull would be so resilient to take this and *still*
love humans and crave attention? There are some - greynounds come to mind.
But not many. Would you expect that kind of trust from the average gsd? How
about an unsocialized and ignored rottweiler? There's an idea that puts
shivers up and down my spine.

Oh, and they were just as friendly and accepting of the strange crew working in
my yard as they were of me.

*All* dogs are loaded weapons. They all have strong, sharp teeth, and they
instinctively know how to use them. Comparing them to guns, a chihuahua is a
BB gun, a border collie a .22, and perhaps a rottie is a .45 magnum. A
pitbull, on this scale, would be a submachine gun.

But you've got to pull the trigger pretty hard to get that submachine gun to
fire.

Don't blame the breed.

---
Canine Action Dog Trainer
http://www.canineaction.com
It's A Dog's Life
http://hometown.aol.com/dfrntdrums/m...age/index.html
Get Healthy, Build Your Immune System, Lose Weight
http://www.re-vita.net/dfrntdrums

diddy wrote:
But there are strict laws on sub machine guns and special licensing.As
there SHOULd be. You have to pass strict back ground checks to own one.

I don't think that requiring special licensing to own a pit bull is a bad idea.
It may be the compromise legislation that makes sense.

However, knowing the legislators, they'd get the criteria for it all screwed
up. I can see it now: "Will this dog have any exposure to children? Yes?
Then you can't have a pit bull."

The best bet would be a psychological exam that tests for aggressive tendencies
- in the human.

---
Canine Action Dog Trainer
http://www.canineaction.com
It's A Dog's Life
http://hometown.aol.com/dfrntdrums/m...age/index.html
Get Healthy, Build Your Immune System, Lose Weight
http://www.re-vita.net/dfrntdrums