Scihub is a good place to go if you want to circumvent paywalls, at least you have the humility to admit that you've made these conclusions without reading any of the peer reviewed literature.

Aggressiveness is not determined by mass, you might want to skip to the behavioral neurophysiology literature there chief. You might be surprised to find that we've drawn a considerable amount of insight to behavior since the days of phrenology.

European science? Egads! What could they possibly discover?! They're *european.* Why, this changes *everything.*

Claiming population studies are too small without showing evidence of statistical significance tells me a lot about the depth of your conclusions based on "data analysis."

Perhaps you should forego the peer reviewed journals and just study fundamental statistics before you start throwing around population inferences.

Don't be lazy and go pull your own studies if you think they refute these claims, you might want to familiarize yourself with impact factor of a publication before you start citing some contrarian with a PhD who only publishes in some third tier crackpot journal that they happen to be editor of. I'll save everyone here some time and say that a single paper does not establish consensus, it's the starting point. It has to be independently verified and confirmed by other independent researches, so if you want to die on this hill I suggest pulling the citations in these papers and reading them before you waste everyone's time with arguments like this.

You absolutely see rottie and GSD owners doing this, you don't even need to get behind a paywall, you just have to use google.

Right now your conclusions sound an awful lot like, "I'm sick of thicc slave owners insisting that their thicc slaves who were bred specifically for working the fields would be treated as people when they are obviously 3/5 of a person and flipping out if they're not."

If we're in denial about the potential danger of owning a dog, at least meet us half way and admit that you're in denial about conclusions driven by prejudice instead of anything resembling quantitative evidence.

Europe is relevant because there aren't a lot of pitbulls there, and the breed is already banned in a lot of EU countries.

Size is relevant because an aggressive small dog is not as dangerous as an aggressive large dog.

This seems like common sense and basic reading comprehension.

Again with the black people and dogs metaphor.
Bro. It's racist. Stop. Please.

Seriously. Human races are not the same kind of thing as intentionally bred breeds of domesticated animals.

Intentional breeding of human slaves during US chattel slavery lasted for maybe a couple of generations (after the supply of new enslaved people from Africa was cut off, and people take longer to reproduce than dogs). There is also little evidence that slave owners were selecting for specific features like dog breeders do; they were just trying to get as many human beings to sell as possible.

White supremacists love to make this comparison. It's stupid and racist when they do it. It's stupid and racist when you do it. Stop.

is the recent uptick in casual racism here a result of the age of the average POETV user, or is it something else?

because I don't think I've seen this level of basic misunderstanding of how to even approach the topic outside of baby boomers

"Acab, unless I see a scary dog"
"racism/eugenics is bad, unless it serves my purposes"

get fucked ashtar

If you think human race and dog breeds are analogous, you are a racist.

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s120 52-019-0109-y

The problem is that statistical studies which purport to show inherent differences between dog breeds (i.e. "nature") will inherently be contaminated by how people choose to raise such breeds (i.e. "nurture").

Take pit bulls, for example. Let's say statistical analyses show that the breed is, in fact, more aggressive & tends to bite more often than other breeds. It's entirely possible that such a result is caused by the type of people who would adopt pit bulls rather than the breed itself. In other words, assholes who want aggressive dogs will tend to raise their dogs to be aggressive.

An additional data point is my personal experience: small dogs tend to bite (and be more dangerous) way more than larger dogs, precisely because their owners have always been able to just stuff them in their purses/jackets & not deal with potential behavior problems, whereas owners of large dogs have had to deal with any potential problems toute suite. I don't think there's anything inherently more dangerous about chihuahuas or jack russell terriers... and yet they've been the most dangerous breeds that I've dealt with.

Can't disagree with any of that.

Jack Russels are really fucking smart and that makes them a handful when they are poorly behaved, I adopted an adult JRT that had been allowed to do whatever she wanted and that dog was suck a hassle

I do want to point out, though, that from the standpoint of actual risk, whether breed X bites people because they're genetically vicious or because a disproportionate number of shitheads love breed X doesn't really matter.

>>>It's a potentially dangerous breed. You can own such a dog responsibly, but not if you are in denial about this.

I very much question your threshold for "in denial". If There are a whole lot of things being said in defense of pit bulls here that do not translate into "Pit Bulls are never dangerous", that nevertheless, seem to be interpreted that way by historically poor readers of English.

>>>is the recent uptick in casual racism here a result of the age of the average POETV user, or is it something else?

>>>because I don't think I've seen this level of basic misunderstanding of how to even approach the topic outside of baby boomers

Ironically, crackersmack, I'm a baby boomer, and yet even I know that when you ask about what's causing the uptake in casual racism without establishing that said uptake is real, you have some magic beans to sell.

Ive been informed by our producer that the correct word is "uptick".

>>>Seriously. Human races are not the same kind of thing as intentionally bred breeds of domesticated animals.

Yessss, but... you said that they're not analogous, and I'm not convinced. Of course they're not the same thing, but using an analogy to compare a thing to itself seems redundant. Comparing things to different things is the business of analogies.

Sure. Meet me in 2008.

I'm beginning to realize that ashtar is closer to me on his than I'd earlier thought.

I am not in favor of any breed-specific regulation. Dogs should be leashed, restrained and supervised. You leash your pit bull to protect the public. You leash your pekinese to protect your dog. I support both.

i would also favor special license requirements for dogs, not according to breed, but according to weight. that could include mandatory training sessions. Let make sure the human is present

Erroneous conclusion. Yes all dogs are individuals, but you're pretending there couldn't have been any influence beyond genetics. Insanely off base.

Both “nature and nurture” play a role in how a dog will act.

They are not insects purely controlled by instinct nor are they some special magical animals immune from genetic instincts unlike the rest of us, so there will be some baseline behavioral tendencies based on breeding history.

But as several people have mentioned, when a dog bred to fuck shit up with its large jaws decides to fuck shit up, shit will get fucked up.

Where do I pretend there couldn't have been any influence beyond genetics? I assume my neighbour got the dog from a shelter, so who knows what fucking crazy shit happened to it before that? I don't know why my aunt's poodle was so mental but it was mental from the start as far as I know.

If anything, I'm saying it *isn't* all genetics. There are lots of nice poodles out there. And my neighbour's dog was a run of the mill mutt lab cross terrier thing, not a pit bull.

Meant to be a reply to Arcturus.

Pitbulls are shit dogs and the only thing worse are their owners. That's my hot take.

>>>>Pitbulls are shit dogs and the only thing worse are their owners. That's my hot take.

Logically, this statement implies that pit bull owners are worse than genocide, war, rape, disease, and child trafficking... and so are pit bulls, but not quite as much.

>>>CDC: From 1979 through 1994, attacks by dogs resulted in 279 deaths of humans in the United States

Wow, that's got to be right up there with bee stings!

Google reveals that this term was invented in 1971 by the president of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America.

Now, on the other hand, a day later, I passed a pit bull someone had tied up next to Dollar General, and that was the opposite experience. It was snarling at me, in a way that did not suggest "I am warning you to stay away." Absolutely terrifying. It looked like a gargoyle.

When discussing banned breeds, the concern is less about including the breed in society in the future, and more about what to do with members of that breed that are currently already in the society.

So banning pit bulls may or may not make the society worse, but what do we do with all those pit bulls that are already adopted? And what about people from abroad who want to immigrate for their job who happen to own a pit bull? The problem is especially acute when you consider that most pit bull owners (or owners of any other breed) are mostly responsible, caring people who have done everything right with regards to their dogs. Why should they have to put down their beloved pet just because of some hysterical legislation?

"Because that breed has a strong tendency towards aggression", say the proponents of the law. And round and round go the arguments.

Yeah. If you wanted an evidence based ban, you'd also have to ban German Shepards and a bunch other popular breeds. Given that serious dog bite and fatality numbers are pretty low, I don't think breed specific bans are particularly useful. General enforcement of leash laws, etc. and dog owner education (particularly owners of potentially dangerous breeds) might be more effective. I would actually be more in favor of banning breeds based on serious genetic quality of life problems, like Pugs.

I do think that Pit advocates insistence that their dogs are not potentially dangerous as a big obstacle to them being responsible dog owners. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think the "no no he's just a widdle wuv baby and you're being racist against my dog if you think otherwise" is, paradoxically, a big reason why pitbulls have such high bite numbers.

I've owned or taken care of a number of large aggressive dogs, some rescues with pretty bad behavioral problems. You keep them under control through training and restraints and they're fine. They way I see people *all the time* let their untrained dogs run around off leash is fucking insane to me.

>>>Pitbulls were banned where I grew up, and I don't think I suffered any particular loss. But who knows maybe my life would've been more delightful if there were pitbulls in it somehow

Well, at least we all finally understand that the important thing is how it affects you.

>>>I do think that Pit advocates insistence that their dogs are not potentially dangerous as a big obstacle to them being responsible dog owners. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think the "no no he's just a widdle wuv baby and you're being racist against my dog if you think otherwise" is, paradoxically, a big reason why pitbulls have such high bite numbers.

But you ARE being racist against dogs if you think a dog is dangerous merely because he's a pit bull. In 2012, 92 per cent of murder convictions were against men. And yet, the vast majority of men are non-murderers, and it would be sexist if you put "POTENTIAL MURDERER"underneath my picture just because I'm a vaginally challenged penile American.

>>>>I've owned or taken care of a number of large aggressive dogs, some rescues with pretty bad behavioral problems. You keep them under control through training and restraints and they're fine.

Wecome to the Ashtar-Ashtar debates.

>>>>Well, at least we all finally understand that the important thing is how it affects you.

Bro I can only judge things from my own experience. Like recently I was out walking behind a lady and her kid and her pitbull. Which was fine, except its balls were all jangling around and when it pissed on something, its giant gnarly asshole retracted like a curled up dead spider. I just prefer dogs with less prominent assholes, you dig?