On Dec 28, 2007 3:31 AM, Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That they've been bred for viciousness says more about the people > doing the breeding than the dogs themselves. As for orcas, what's > wrong with orcas? They're carnivores, they're top predators, they're > smart. But they're no better or worse than lions for eating antelope > or grizzly bears for eating caribou.
I have a hard time believing that pits are inherently vicious. We live a few blocks from the Santa Clara dog park and I take our dog there almost every morning and evening if it's open (one of the great things about working from home). Many times, half or more of the dogs there are pits or pit mixes. I've never seen a problem and I know of only one pit attack story from all of the dog owners I've met there. However, I do worry about two things. One is that pits have a reputation for giving no warnings, which is scary if it's true. Most dogs make it clear when they are becoming aggressive, giving the owners a chance to intervene. Second, if a pit does attack, the power of their jaws is scary -- they can do a lot of damage fast. But the latter is true of other breeds that we don't worry about much, such as Scotties and many other terriers. I relaxed a great deal about pits after reading an article citing statistics that made it clear that *owners* are far more responsible for their dogs' behavior than I had imagined before becoming a dog owner (despite growing up with dogs... and cats, birds, hamsters, gerbils, sheep, pony, rabbits, etc.). The article, which I'm thinking maybe we talked about here, showed that as a dog breed gains a reputation for viciousness, the "bad owners" start acquiring that breed of dog and the number of attacks rises. Over the years, the breed that attacks the most changes. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the pit bulls' reputation for unpredictability was entirely due to who acquires them, not genetics -- nurture, not nature. This topic is one where data is thin and it's very difficult to separate correlation from causation. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
