Pit bulls

[ultimate777]

Say I decide to breed pit bulls?
I have a premonition I utterly believe in a pit bull I breed
will tear apart some small children I will have, in part due to their carelessness.
If my premonition comes true are the children responsible?
If not, who is?

[RickD]

Say I decide to breed pit bulls?
I have a premonition I utterly believe in a pit bull I breed
will tear apart some small children I will have, in part due to their carelessness.
If my premonition comes true are the children responsible?
If not, who is?

Lemme get this straight...if a pit bull you own, tears apart small children, you blame the children?
If you breed a pitbull, and you have small children, you my friend are an idiot. If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase, "I don't know why the pitbull mauled my baby, I never had a problem before"...

So, not the children, not the dog. You would be responsible. No reason to pick the "shark" of dog breeds if you have children.
*****edit****

I just reread your post, and it looks like you could be setting up the responder in a trap.
Please tell me you aren't putting the pitbull breeder in God's place, and saying that God is at fault because people sin.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

I just reread your post, and it looks like you could be setting up the responder in a trap.

I've been wondering about the changing migratory patterns of West African sea turtles. This has me very concerned. I think the increased production of yellow beets in North America is the culprit. And why do Chihuahuas bark so much?

FL

[ultimate777]

Say I decide to breed pit bulls?
I have a premonition I utterly believe in a pit bull I breed
will tear apart some small children I will have, in part due to their carelessness.
If my premonition comes true are the children responsible?
If not, who is?

Lemme get this straight...if a pit bull you own, tears apart small children, you blame the children?

If you breed a pitbull, and you have small children, you my friend are an idiot. If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase, "I don't know why the pitbull mauled my baby, I never had a problem before"...

So, not the children, not the dog. You would be responsible. No reason to pick the "shark" of dog breeds if you have children.
*****edit****

I just reread your post, and it looks like you could be setting up the responder in a trap.
Please tell me you aren't putting the pitbull breeder in God's place, and saying that God is at fault because people sin.

I'm not saying, I'm asking, I actually hope someone can prove to my satisfaction that it is absolutely not God's fault but I don't think anybody can.

Rick I don't have to feel I am right.

For example ten minutes before the Challenger blew in flight I had premonition it would blow up on the ground.
When it seemed it was safe I was so relieved I resolved to write a letter adressed to all the crew
about my foolish premonition and how glad I was to be wrong.

So I don't think anybody here is doing me any favors by proving I am right.
But that's my satisfaction, not anyone elses.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Dogs don't have a freewill to choose, so it is the owners fault. If the dog was capable of making a moral choice then it would be the dog's fault for attacking because it choose to do it and it wasn't just instinctual. The Children are innocent also unless they provoked the dog to attack, then there would be shared blame.

[B. W.]

I just reread your post, and it looks like you could be setting up the responder in a trap.

I've been wondering about the changing migratory patterns of West African sea turtles. This has me very concerned. I think the increased production of yellow beets in North America is the culprit. And why do Chihuahuas bark so much?

FL

I was wondering the same thing after seeing squirrels eating the rest of the peaches off my peach tree - yep must be the yellow beets

Do Chihuahuas really bark? I thought they yip...

Or maybe this, see that Turtle in Miami was eating yellow beets, saw Al Gore, belched and now we have globe cooling. The Chihuahua belonged to Tipper. You think?
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[B. W.]

Say I decide to breed pit bulls?
I have a premonition I utterly believe in a pit bull I breed
will tear apart some small children I will have, in part due to their carelessness.
If my premonition comes true are the children responsible?
If not, who is?

If the owner would have listened to God - he wouldn't be breeding pit bulls...
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[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

If the owner would have listened to God - he wouldn't be breeding pit bulls...

I think pitbulls have a bad reputation because they tend to be adopted by marginal people who have issues with anger. The dog then becomes an expression of the owner's problems and in a dog as powerful as a pitbull that is a very bad thing.

I know 3 pitbulls - 2 females and a male - and they are the loveliest of dogs. One even lives with a newborn baby. In all three cases, these pitbulls have been adopted by ordinary, well-adjusted people. Not by people who have anything to prove, be it anger, or power, or pride, or the need for protection.

Again, the problem is with the human, not the dog. (And yellow beets. Yellow beets are poisoning our world.)

FL

[RickD]

ultimate wrote:
I'm not saying, I'm asking, I actually hope someone can prove to my satisfaction that it is absolutely not God's fault but I don't think anybody can.

If you've already made up your mind that God is at fault, then it's possible that nobody can prove to you that it's not God's fault that people sin.

I guess I could conversely say that there's a very good chance that nobody could convince me that it is God's fault.

[RickD]

FL wrote:
Again, the problem is with the human, not the dog. (And yellow beets. Yellow beets are poisoning our world.)

I once knew a family that raised yellow beets. The yellow beets were perfectly good with the family cat, and the children. Then one day, the beets just went crazy, and poisoned the children. I remember the family saying that the beets were always good beets, and they never had a problem before. I really think it's the breed of beets. No other beet besides the yellow beet has such a vicious "bite".

[PerciFlage]

If the owner would have listened to God - he wouldn't be breeding pit bulls...

I think pitbulls have a bad reputation because they tend to be adopted by marginal people who have issues with anger. The dog then becomes an expression of the owner's problems and in a dog as powerful as a pitbull that is a very bad thing.

This pretty much sums it up. Temperament-wise the worst dogs tend to be the smaller breeds historically used for coursing and ferreting, such as Jack Russells. Partly this is because they were bred to tear animals apart, and partly it's because, to an adult human, even a vicious small dog doesn't represent much of a threat, so their problem behaviour gets written off as cute.

Outside of the tabloids, there's not much reason for thinking that any given breed is intrinsically more savage than another. As FL says, like any other sub-culture, the culture of people who want a butch looking dog and who aren't prepared to do any training has its fads. 15-20 years the fad was for pitbulls, and these days Staffies are popular. Rottweilers and Dobermans have had their respective times too, but in my experience a dog's aggression is much more related to its upbringing than its breed.

[RickD]

You guys are missing some important info about pitbulls. There are real reasons why they are more dangerous than other breeds:
http://www.dogsbite.org/dangerous-dogs.php

It is important to point out that fatal dog attacks committed by pit bulls and their mixes more than doubles the attacks inflicted by rottweilers. It is well documented by experts3 and humane groups4 that pit bulls pose a substantial danger due to their selective breeding for dogfighting. Unlike other dog breeds, pit bulls frequently fail to communicate intention prior to an attack (surprise attacks); possess a lethal bite style (hold and shake) and a ruinous manner of attack (gameness).

So, in other words, if a pit bull attacks, it is much more likely to inflict serious harm.

[PerciFlage]

I don't disagree too much there, pit bulls are certainly a strong breed. Where I disagree is with the popular idea that pit bulls are inherently more likely to attack than other breeds. In my experience, a dog's tendency to attack is far, far more related to how it was reared than to its breed, and this is where breed-specific laws fall down. In failing to recognise that an owner's behaviour is a major component of whether a dog grows up to be vicious, these laws just mean that people who want a violent dog move on to the next well-muscled breed. They then neglect the dogs, don't feed them properly, fail to socialise them, and so the problems with vicious animals persist.

In my opinion legislators would do far better to construct laws that focus on owners and, perhaps most importantly, breeders. But this sort of legislation would have an effect on real world outcomes rather than appeasing tabloids and vocal voters, and sort of thing just won't do. It's literally dog-whistle politics.

[RickD]

PerciFlage wrote:
I don't disagree too much there, pit bulls are certainly a strong breed. Where I disagree is with the popular idea that pit bulls are inherently more likely to attack than other breeds. In my experience, a dog's tendency to attack is far, far more related to how it was reared than to its breed, and this is where breed-specific laws fall down. In failing to recognise that an owner's behaviour is a major component of whether a dog grows up to be vicious, these laws just mean that people who want a violent dog move on to the next well-muscled breed. They then neglect the dogs, don't feed them properly, fail to socialise them, and so the problems with vicious animals persist.

I don't disagree. But the problem I see coming from the "pro pitbull camp" is that their argument is that pit bulls aren't any more dangerous than other breeds because they don't attack any more than other breeds, if raised properly. That's just a straw man argument. Pitbulls are more dangerous because of the harm they cause when they do attack.

[PerciFlage]

I think owners of dogs with the potential to do more damage need to be mindful of that fact, and take extra steps to make sure their dog is socialised and well trained. As I mentioned before, I don't think breed-specific laws are an effective way to tackle the number and ferocity of dog attacks, because there is always another breed for irresponsible owners to bestow their favour upon.

Legislation needs to focus on owners and breeders if it is to make a truly meaningful difference. There's a crude comparison to be drawn with road safety laws here - you're more likely to die if you get hit by a truck than a small car, but bad drivers are legislated against more than vehicle size.