Plenty of breeds of dogs are bought by bad owners with the intention of being used as attack dogs. But there is no way you can write off such an overwhelming percentage of pit bull attacks to this reasoning.
Every time a pit bull attacks anything you will always see this argument brought up to defend the breed. If this was truly the case other breeds of dogs would be high up on the list too (Rottweilers and German Shepards come to mind). But they aren’t even close to the percentage of Pit attacks.
Some attacks can be attributed to this fact, but because pit bulls alone make a majority of attacks across all breeds indicates that this cannot be the case.
Additionally out of all breeds of dog, I couldn’t think of a worse breed biting me. All dogs attack, but many bite and release, pits don’t.
Yeah, pitbulls aren’t dangerous for the occurrence of attacks but because when they do they cause the most damage. Most people don’t report a small dog if they cause no major damage.
Exactly. Which is the main reason I posted the fatalities graph instead of just attacks. People aren’t as likely to report a small dog biting them, but you have to keep a report of deaths caused.
And an average of 67% of all fatalities is far beyond the expected amount caused by “bad owners”.
This graphic lumps together at least 8 breeds under the umbrella of “pitbull”, which is rather strange. Sure, if you group many breeds into the same category before comparing it to a singular breed it’s going to look bad.
Also, you need to show per-capita to prove anything here. Sure, the absolute number may be high, but how does that compare to the absolute number of pitbulls? How does that compare to the per-capita of other breeds?
A breed can contain multiple dogs, here is a Wikipedia definition -
Pit bull is an umbrella term for several types of dog believed to have descended from bull and terriers. In the United States, the term is usually considered to include the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, American Bully, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and sometimes the American Bulldog, along with any crossbred dog that shares certain physical characteristics with these breeds.
People just assume breed means a singular type of dog; it doesn’t. This applies to all breeds of dogs (Retrievers and Shepards for example). There are over 300 breeds and this one causes more deaths than the rest combined.
Again, this is why we need per capita instead of an absolute number. We are comparing an umbrella term to something more specific.
We need data that shows they are more likely than other dog breeds. This does not show that, as we don’t know the percentage chance one pit bull may attack vs any other breed based on this information.
This is the problem with statistics. If we select the right method, group things the right way, from the right time, and use specific methods we can prove anything we want. That’s why an understanding of how the field works is so important.
Sorry for the late reply btw, and thank you for continuing this conversation in good faith
Sorry for the late reply btw, and thank you for continuing this conversation in good faith.
All good man. Always happy to have these discussions and it’s nice to find someone willing to engage in good faith rather than anger fueled rantings. Feel free to take as long as you need too.
In response to your comment. I can agree that data can be twisted to present a false truth, which is why we need to pull from a variety of data points to construct a clearer image of what is happening.
But with the information at hand it’s my opinion that this specific grouping of dogs makes up the majority of deaths caused yearly (in the US anyways) and even if we were to list each specific dog instead of breed groupings the numbers of fatalities would still show that Pitbulls cause more deaths than any others.
I also want to state that I am not calling for the extermination of all Pitbulls across the country, I just want laws to ensure that only trained individuals have access to them. All dogs attack, but pit bulls seem to be dangerous as they lock their jaws and never release.
Again, thanks for engaging me in this discussion. It’s a breath of fresh air here.
Plenty of breeds of dogs are bought by bad owners with the intention of being used as attack dogs. But there is no way you can write off such an overwhelming percentage of pit bull attacks to this reasoning.
Every time a pit bull attacks anything you will always see this argument brought up to defend the breed. If this was truly the case other breeds of dogs would be high up on the list too (Rottweilers and German Shepards come to mind). But they aren’t even close to the percentage of Pit attacks.
Some attacks can be attributed to this fact, but because pit bulls alone make a majority of attacks across all breeds indicates that this cannot be the case.
Additionally out of all breeds of dog, I couldn’t think of a worse breed biting me. All dogs attack, but many bite and release, pits don’t.
Yeah, pitbulls aren’t dangerous for the occurrence of attacks but because when they do they cause the most damage. Most people don’t report a small dog if they cause no major damage.
Exactly. Which is the main reason I posted the fatalities graph instead of just attacks. People aren’t as likely to report a small dog biting them, but you have to keep a report of deaths caused.
And an average of 67% of all fatalities is far beyond the expected amount caused by “bad owners”.
This graphic lumps together at least 8 breeds under the umbrella of “pitbull”, which is rather strange. Sure, if you group many breeds into the same category before comparing it to a singular breed it’s going to look bad.
Also, you need to show per-capita to prove anything here. Sure, the absolute number may be high, but how does that compare to the absolute number of pitbulls? How does that compare to the per-capita of other breeds?
A breed can contain multiple dogs, here is a Wikipedia definition -
People just assume breed means a singular type of dog; it doesn’t. This applies to all breeds of dogs (Retrievers and Shepards for example). There are over 300 breeds and this one causes more deaths than the rest combined.
Again, this is why we need per capita instead of an absolute number. We are comparing an umbrella term to something more specific.
We need data that shows they are more likely than other dog breeds. This does not show that, as we don’t know the percentage chance one pit bull may attack vs any other breed based on this information.
This is the problem with statistics. If we select the right method, group things the right way, from the right time, and use specific methods we can prove anything we want. That’s why an understanding of how the field works is so important.
Sorry for the late reply btw, and thank you for continuing this conversation in good faith
All good man. Always happy to have these discussions and it’s nice to find someone willing to engage in good faith rather than anger fueled rantings. Feel free to take as long as you need too.
In response to your comment. I can agree that data can be twisted to present a false truth, which is why we need to pull from a variety of data points to construct a clearer image of what is happening.
But with the information at hand it’s my opinion that this specific grouping of dogs makes up the majority of deaths caused yearly (in the US anyways) and even if we were to list each specific dog instead of breed groupings the numbers of fatalities would still show that Pitbulls cause more deaths than any others.
I also want to state that I am not calling for the extermination of all Pitbulls across the country, I just want laws to ensure that only trained individuals have access to them. All dogs attack, but pit bulls seem to be dangerous as they lock their jaws and never release.
Again, thanks for engaging me in this discussion. It’s a breath of fresh air here.