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Get comfy! Lots of great info here! I would recommend saving this post to use for future reference. There's a plethora of excellent information compiled here!
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How do you find the difference between "pitbulls" and dogs that may look like them in statistics? (For example, other breeds mixed with Dogo argentino,boxers, american bull dogs, bull terriers, mastiffs, etc)
Are the breeds of the dogs checked with lab tests and the like, or do the statistics only record what they called in reports, and if its the later, how do you know the accuracy of the reports? u/paivaaa

How do you recognize Santa Claus?

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Is there any historical evidence that dogfighters ever actually culled human-agressive dogs? That is something you hear a lot from pro-pitbull people. u/raccooncoffee
None.
Research any well-known dogfighter's history and you'll find instances of his/her dogs killing & injuring people, including family members & sometimes themselves. Often the killer dogs' lines were advertised as proven "manstoppers."
Further, since pit bulls are descended in part from war dogs and slavers' dogs, aggression toward humans was bred into their family lines for centuries before the claim that "human-aggressive" dogs were culled first surfaced, about the time in the mid-1980s that the late advice columnist Ann Landers began pointing out the increasing frequency of pit bulls killing children.
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You have followed the pit bulls/BSL issue since the late 1980s/early 1990s, yes? When did you first encounter rhetoric saying that pit bull bans are really just a covert way to keep out people of color by excluding their dogs, and what was the source? u/hardballfetch
This is an almost brand-new argument, & is completely without verifiable support. We first heard it less than 10 years ago, have never heard it from a person of color (any color other than white), & anti-BSL activism comes very specifically & obviously almost entirely from white people, while African-Americans and Native Americans have been disproportionately often the victims of pit bull attacks since Christopher Columbus first brought war dogs to the Americas on his second voyage to the New World.
See https://www.animals24-7.org/2016/11/18/when-dogs-mauled-children-outside-the-white-house/ , and https://www.animals24-7.org/black-history-and-animals/
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Could you comment on the idea that pit bulls had a positive public reputation until a racist association between pit bulls and Black people arose beginning in the 1970s? u/hardballfetch
Pit bulls never had a positive reputation, by any of the many names used to describe them.
See https://www.animals24-7.org/2018/02/16/shark-fights-pigeon-shooters-where-black-man-was-hunted-for-sport/
The racist association of pit bulls with African-Americans in 1853, when the Broxton incident transpired, was the use of pit bulls to kill & terrorize those who escaped from slavery. Speaking of the dog now best known as a pit bull, the 1818 Manual of British Field Sports asserted that, “The bulldog, devoted solely to the most barbarous and infamous purposes, the real blackguard of his species, has no claim upon utility, humanity, or common sense, and the total extinction of the breed is a desirable consummation.”
Observed Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, author of The Natural History of Dogs, published serially in 1839-1840 by W.H. Lizars of Edinburgh, Scotland, “The bull-dog is possessed of less sagacity and less attachment than any of the hound tribe; he is therefore less favored, and more rarely bred with care, excepting by professed amateurs of sports and feelings little commendable to humanity. He never leaves his hold, when once he has got it, while life lasts.”
Much other pit bull history, as well as those quotes, is here:
https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/02/23/cane-corso-a-pit-bull-by-any-other-name/
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You've written about early associations between pit bulls/dog fighting and white supremacist groups. What are some good primary sources for anyone wanting to learn more?
Just go to www.NewspaperArchive or any other good online archive of historical newspaper coverage & start running searches. You’ll find the majority of case reports in newspapers that historically served the African-American community. Here are a couple of handy examples:
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https://imgur.com/a/BahWCgs
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https://imgur.com/a/8NxxqQ9
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Can you help us understand the methodology behind your statistics, so that when pit advoacates attempt to discredit you, we are prepared with a response to defend your reporting? u/hardballfetch
Just read the prefaces to the annual summaries, e.g. https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/01/08/dog-attack-deaths-maimings-u-s-canada-1982-2021-log/
This, summarizing a study by total strangers, offered an interesting affirmation of the accuracy of our data: https://www.animals24-7.org/2021/04/20/study-of-misreported-dog-attack-deaths-affirms-animals-24-7-findings/
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Do you feel that there is an agenda behind the pitbull lobby pushing for these dogs?
Do you also feel that shelters are paid by or run by pit lobbyists since we so much mislabeling and hiding of pits with bite histories? u/Loblollypinetrees
Bearing in mind that one should never attribute to malice what may be attributed to stupidity, there was nonetheless a theory voiced among dogfighters in the 1970s and 1980s that if enough people could be persuaded to keep pit bulls, dogfighting could be re-legalized and popularized as a spectator sport.
This seems to have morphed into the theory expressed by pit bull advocates in recent decades that if enough people adopt pit bulls, breed-specific legislation can be forever obstructed & that pit bulls will fly out shelter doors, no matter how many are owner-surrendered.
Incidentally, it is no secret that many shelters are managed by pit bull advocates, some of whom are paid consultants for pro-pit bull organizations. This has been going on, with increasing frequency, since the 1990s.
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How did you calculate the annual number of non-human fatalities? I don't doubt at all that pits cause an appalling amount of carnage, I'm just curious where those numbers come from. u/moosemoth
https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/01/08/dog-attack-deaths-maimings-u-s-canada-1982-2021-log/
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Given the sheer amount of pit bull attacks on people, what are the odds of surviving/ getting permanent or live changing injuries/ dying? u/USSChancellorsville
Relative to hours of exposure, & bearing in mind that the average American who does not have a pit bull in his/her household spends far more time in traffic than around pit bulls, you are approximately as likely to be injured or killed by a pit bull as to be injured or killed by a drunk driver.
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No kill shelters today are mislabeling breeds, hiding bite history, and placing unsafe dogs with families with children. Will the general public ever realize this? What is the solution for what no kill animal shelters have become? u/coronanabooboo
Unfortunately, it is not just no-kill shelters that are mislabeling breeds, hiding bite history, and placing unsafe dogs with families with children. The ANIMALS 24-7 log of attacks by shelter dogs includes many animal control agencies, serving some of the biggest cities and counties in the U.S., as well as the smallest. The problem is endemic and systemic, and while much of it can be attributed to the rush to be "no kill" at any cost, much of it is also because shelters of all sorts are stuffed to bursting with owner-surrendered as well as impounded pit bulls and pit variants, & animal control personnel understandably don't like killing healthy animals, especially if they act friendly.
Further, the present generation of shelter personnel have grown up, come of age, and risen into managerial positions past the era in which shelters routinely killed, and expected to kill, most of the animals coming their way, when pit bulls were 2% or less of intake (this was in 1986), when fewer than 10 Americans per year were killed in dog attacks (before 2000), and when protecting the public from rabies was the primary reason that animal control agencies existed (canine rabies has now been effectively eradicated from the U.S. for more than 40 years.)
Animal shelters & animal control agencies of all sorts now have a whole different sense of mission than a generation ago, and animal shelter personnel have now grown up believing the mantras that all dogs are alike and that they can "save them all." Shelter personnel having come to believe their own (pit) bullshit is now the biggest part of the problem: many, especially the youngest, genuinely don't realize the dangers in what they are doing and advocating.
When and if the general public ever realizes that this is going on is not ours to prognosticate; but whenever any industry loses the confidence of the public that it is attentive to safety, that industry tends to have a very hard time making a comeback, whether it is the alcohol industry in the 13 years of concentrated effort that it took to repeal Prohibition, or the tobacco industry, the asbestos industry, General Motors & Ford after the Corvair and Pinto debacles, or the animal care-&-control industry itself, after decades of high-volume killing by decompression, gassing, & injections with the paralytic drug T-61 led to the no-kill movement as a backlash, and stigmatization of any shelter that euthanizes where appropriate as a "kill shelter."
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Do you have any recommendations on how concerned citizens who live in fear about the dangerous dogs (mainly pit bulls) in their neighborhoods can influence city lawmakers and law enforcement to take this issue seriously, so enforceable laws can be enacted? u/WeNeedAShift
This is basically civic politics 1-A: contact your elected representatives, show up to meetings, bring other constituents with you, help to elect candidates who share your concerns, & throw the bums out of office who don't. Reinforce your position by keeping a detailed log of local attacks and other incidents.
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Do you have any recommendations for how we can protect ourselves from pit bull and other dangerous dog attacks? People are in fear of being arrested for animal abuse while trying to keep their families protected.
Do you know how we can get dangerous dogs removed from our neighborhoods before tragedy strikes? Animal control and law enforcement will not remove dogs until a disfiguring or fatal attack occurs. u/WeNeedAShift
https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/03/11/how-to-protect-yourself-others-your-dog-from-a-pit-bull-attack-2022/
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Would you support more stringent regulations for dog ownership, such as licensing, neutering, training requirements etc?
Do you have any thoughts on restructuring the current shelter business model so they aren’t merely free dump sites for dangerous dogs, and for dogs with behavioral and medical problems? u/WeNeedAShift
Dog licensing requirements have been an abject failure practically everywhere they have ever been attempted, even to enforce rabies vaccination. The U.S. canine rabies vaccination rate of 55% is far lower than the 70%-plus needed to protect the public, and is in fact far lower than the canine rabies vaccination rate in much of the developing world.
Attaching neutering requirements to licensing by charging a higher fee for unaltered dogs had some success decades ago, when spay/neuter was still a relatively rare and unfamiliar procedure. This is called "differential licensing." Unfortunately, increasing the fee differential tends to just increase non-compliance. Attaching training requirements or anything else to licensing accordingly has little prospect of success.
The only licensing scheme in North America that ever really did work was in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, under former animal control chief Jerry Aschenbrenner, who set the license fee at only $5.00 & guaranteed that any licensed dog found at large would be returned home, free. This worked very well, but Aschenbrenner retired in 2000, and his successor, Bill Bruce, jacked up the licensing fee to the point of again encouraging non-compliance. Bruce also promoted pit bulls to the point of leaving Calgary as the pit bull attack capital of Canada.Bottom line: prevent possession, sale, breeding, or adoption of dangerous breed types (pits & pit variants), who can be identified on sight, & you won't have to fool around with tedious licensing requirements to keep those dogs out of trouble.
As to how to change the current shelter business model, bear in mind that shelters are always going to be like used car lots, selling (in effect) used dogs and cats. Most will need work, & the dangerous ones really should not be put back on the road. Time was, before spay/neuter became so popular that 70%-plus of dogs & 85%-plus of owed cats are already sterilized, that shelters were full of puppies & kittens who really only needed a good home & loving care to be perfect pets. Beth & I have had many such animals & still have some. But those young, healthy animals are now relatively rare in shelters, & we certainly hope the era of high-volume puppy & kitten intake is over for keeps.
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If you could choose any laws to apply to pits, what would they be and how would you hope that they’d be enforced? u/kindofscaredrntbh
No breeding, selling, or otherwise rehoming. Mandatory spay/neuter of pit bulls. If you have a pit or pits, they're yours, but they are your last.
Define a pit bull by recognizable physical attributes, not by DNA, since every fighting dog breeder mixed together his/her own cocktail of mutt, trying to gain an edge over others in the pit, but the outcome tended (and tends today) to be the stereotypical pit bull head and body shape, with minor cosmetic variations. Those physical traits tend to go with the behavioral traits chracteristic of pit bulls.
It is important to realize that with pit bulls you are looking at a case of function over form, whereas with purebred show dogs it is form over function. A pit bull is a generic type of dog, built to do a particular job, just as a pickup truck is a generic type of vehicle. A pickup truck may be big or small, with a club cab, a sedan cab, or just a plain bench seat, and may be a Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Datsun, or Toyota, but it is still a pickup truck. Smilarly, a pit bull may differ in many superficial externals, but will still be a pit bull.
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Do you see a shift in public opinion since the Tennessee tragedy where more people are becoming in favor of euthanizing pitbulls in shelters, animal control, etc? u/Feeling_Stable9195
Too soon to tell.
There have been many similar surges in concern over the years, e.g. after two pit bulls killed Daxton Borchardt in 2013, but public attention is fickle, pit bull victims & their survivors tend to be too exhausted & depleted by the effort to physically & emotionally recover to sustain campaigns that can kindle into a movement, & pit bull advocacy meanwhile is backed by the multi-million-dollar budgets of the ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, American Humane Association, Maddie's Fund, Animal Farm Foundation, & many others.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, but predicting how & when that will happen would take a good crystal ball.
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Pit bulls are slaughtering wildlife, including nesting and endangered species, countless numbers of livestock, pets, and people.
Do you see any argument for continuing to allow people to own pit bulls as pets? u/WeNeedAShift
No.
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Could you please expound a bit on where/why the pitbull lobby started and what you believe the ultimate goal of the pro-pitbull policies to be? I can’t seem to wrap my head around what possibly could be good about supporting the overbreeding and lack of regulation of such a dangerous and unpredictable animal. u/PrettyPeaceful
Pit bull advocacy is not a new phenomenon. It emerged in the U.S. around the same time dogfighting began to be banned in state after state, in the early 20th century. The blind author Clarence Hawkes and the actress Delores Del Rio were the most prominent public voices of pit bull advocacy in the 1920s and 1930s, respectively. (See https://www.animals24-7.org/2021/11/21/review-pep-the-story-of-a-brave-dog/ )
Efforts led by the dogfighter John P. Colby and family to secure "purebred" status for their pit bulls, rebranded "Staffordshires," continued for decades, including through the formation of the United Kennel Club and the Staffordshire Club of America (1935). Post-World War II, pit bull advocacy went underground for a while, but re-emerged through the efforts of the author Vicki Hearne, the literary agent Jane Berkey, and the Animal Farm Foundation, which they began in 1986 with the assistance of Andrew Rowan, former senior vice president of the Humane Society of the U.S. and founder of the Center for Animals & Public Policy at Tufts University.
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You think America is constantly getting more and more worse with so many attacks from pits every year? u/Mamboo07
Pit bull attacks, fortunately, are only one index of quality of life.
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How has your fight against pitbull breed misinformation, lies, and ignorance affected your other animal welfare work?
Have you met or corresponded with any pitbull attack victims? If so, did it change your views in any way?
What would you say to a fence sitter who has heard the pit lobby lies, but doesn't have a strong opinion either way? What do you think is the best tactic to convince such a person? u/BirdyDreamer
The "fight against pit bull breed misinformation, lies, and ignorance" appears to have had several paradoxical effects on our other work in reporting about animal advocacy. On the one hand, after speaking as keynote or other plenary speaker at 19 major U.S. animal welfare conferences, 1995-2007, I (Merritt) have not been invited to speak at any dg/cat-centered conference since the Michael Vick dogfighting bust in April 2007. (I have spoken at animal rights conferences since then.)
When Beth was invited to speak at the Western University Veterinary College in California in 2019, not knowing that it was & is a hotbed of pit bull advocacy, she was very rudely repeatedly interupted & shouted down before she could even finish a sentence. On the other hand, Beth & I are now reaching more than six times as many readers per year, and are able to publish dozens of time more articles about pit bull attacks, pit bull proliferation, etc., than ever before Beth & I started www.Animals24-7.org in 2014.
It is very likely that this coverage is also attracting far more readers than we ever reached before to our coverage of other animal-related topics, for instance mistreatment of farmed animals & veganism. I'm a second-generation veg & can well remember how few people even knew what a vegetarian is back in the 1950s-1970s, let alone how few would read an article about advocacy for farmed animals.
Concerning meeting & corresponding with pit bull attack victims, the number with whom Beth & I have had direct contact would be now be in the hundreds, if not the thousands. We often gain new information of value from victims, though the basic elements of attacks, after logging more than 500 fatalities in the U.S. alone, and more than 5,500 disfigurements, are by now sadly familiar.
What to say to a fence-sitter? We just publish the news & statistics, & let people draw their own conclusions. Probably the most important point to get across, though, is that pit bulls are just as "sweet" as any other dog, & maybe more so, until suddenly they are not. When people think of a dangerous dog, they tend to think of a snarling German shepherd or Doberman, but those dogs are giving their potential victims warning to back away. This is quite unlike the typical pit bull attack, in which everything seems to be well & good until suddenly all hell breaks loose.
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Is there anything you'd like to add to the Fear My Neighbor episode?
How many unreported deaths and maulings would you estimate for every death and mauling that makes the news? u/Smurf_Crime_Scene
The recent "Fear Thy Neighbor" episode (see https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/08/20/fear-thy-neighbor-with-our-help-explores-murders-of-hansman-family/ ) illustrated well how the same sort of mentality that underlies much gun advocacy is involved in many dog attacks, including the idea that if one type of weapon or dog is banned or possession restricted, all would be. If there was all that much support for indiscriminately banning guns, the debate would be centered there, not on machine guns.
Likewise, if there was any significant interest in banning dogs other than pit bull types, the debate would long since have encompassed those types. As to "how many unreported deaths and maulings" Beth & I would estimate for every death & mauling that makes the news, insurance data & CDC data allows us to make a multi-part answer.
For deaths, the answer is zero: the CDC reports only numbers, but their numbers & ours for every year since 1982 match ours. For attacks rating 1-5 on the Ian Dunbar scale of seriousness, we log only levels high 4 to 5, & insurance industry data shows that we are picking up about 4%, presumably the most serious 4%, with 96% of the payout cases being less serious. In level 1-3 cases, most of the payouts may be to avoid the expense of litigation; in cases involving level 4-5 attacks, the cost of physical damages tends to far exceed the anticipated costs of litigation.
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If full bans never garnish enough support to pass, is there any other sort of legislation on the table to fight the breed prevalence and misinformation, and hold those liable that choose to own these dogs?
Like targeting shelters for lack of breed and history transparency and penalties/liability for attacks after adopting out a dog without disclosing bite risks or behavioral issues? Or broader investigations and harsher punishments for knowingly putting children in a dangerous home situation, resulting in an attack or death? Or a harsher penalty for first time bite offenses, and having these be very public records? Or stricter city/state dog registration policies and breeding restrictions (mandatory spay/neuter for x amount of years until population reaches a certain level)?
Or a sort of database (almost like a sex offender list) that this breed and bite histories are required to register with, so civilians have the ability to look up where around them a dangerous breed lives, and landlords have the right to turn away for liability reasons. Or somehow implementing an overall higher cost associated with owning a the breed? Obviously a lot of these are my own made up ideas, but ultimately
TLDR (too long; didn't read): I’m interested to know what other legal or legislative avenues there are to target the breed, if a full ban may never come to pass. Especially at the state or local level! u/NewPollution-
There are some ideas here: https://www.animals24-7.org/2015/11/27/how-to-stop-dogfighting-the-quick-easy-way/
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Is there anything that an individual could carry in case of a pitbull attack? For example, if I was walking with my child and a pitbull came charging is there anything at all I could do to protect us? Bear spray, anything? u/Pretend_Jello_2823
https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/03/11/how-to-protect-yourself-others-your-dog-from-a-pit-bull-attack-2022/
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How do people still get away with spreading the nanny dog myth despite the well known origin of pit bulls as dogs bred for bloodsports? u/LongGoneLocust
How do people still get away with spreading the myth of Santa Claus? People believe what they want to believe.
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How many pits/mixes are euthanized per year and why isn't this acknowledged as a problem? u/coryc70
Beth & I last tracked this number in 2014; see https://www.animals24-7.org/2014/11/14/record-low-shelter-killing-raises-both-hopes-questions/
We quit trying to track it, after 20 years, because it was an enormous amount of work, confounded by a tremendous amount of deliberate obfuscation and outright lying on the part of animal shelters––far more, in fact, then back in the "high kill" era when some shelters tried to conceal how many animals of all types they were killing (others, paid back then by the head, tried to inflate their numbers killed.)
As of 2014, shelters were killing about 724,000 pit bulls per year. That number may be down by two-thirds since then, but does not include what are now perhaps thousands of pit bulls per year dying of neglect or from killing each other at substandard "no kill rescues" that are being indused to "pull" the surplus from "kill" shelters to "give them a chance."
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Do you have any key advice (generally) for animal control officers on the ground today? u/XenaXero
Beth, a former ACO, advises "Never get out of your truck without your catch pole," because it may be all you have between you & a dangerous dog, who may seem to come out of nowhere. I'd add, don't get cocky. The dog you think you know at a glance, especially if a pit bull, and/or the dog you don't see coming, are the dogs who are going to bite you, or worse.
Also, if at all possible, have back-up on dangerous dog calls, including to keep the owners in sight, because irate owners are just as likely to be dangerous as their dogs, & usually one will further incite the other.
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Do you all believe there are 2 stages to pit attacks? I think these are pre-bite and post-bite. u/Mstrkeyster2
Over time I've observed that the effectiveness of techniques to stop attacks dwindle rapidly once a bite has been successfully landed.
I believe it would be helpful to explicitly point out this distinction in a article if so.
This same observation applies to any bodiliy threat, from car crashes to COVID-19. Obviously the first thing to do is to avoid the threat, after which one can only do what one is able to do.
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Is there any action towards holding shelters legally liable when knowingly selling or adopting out dangerous dogs?
See https://www.animals24-7.org/2015/12/23/pit-bull-liability/ for significant case info.
Are there any lists to find local groups advocating for laws and policies to stop the breeding, sales, or even ownership of bully breeds? I have looked for any anti-pit bull groups in Maryland but no luck. Thanks for all your work in raising awareness. u/waxvaxpaxslacks
At this point in time there are many online groups operating through social media, but few if any mobilized to work on the ground to address the legislative issues. This is partly because victims tend to be scattered (we are acquainted with hundreds, but few in any one zip code), and partly because the few times victims have tried to organize public meetings, demonstrations, etc., pit bull advocates have turned up in force with their pit bulls to terorize the attendees.
(See https://www.animals24-7.org/2014/09/30/dont-bully-my-breed-but-we-will-bully-the-victims )
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Do you think there will ever be laws made to discourage or heavily regulate breedings of pit bulls? u/BPBMod__7
We need to stop the issue at the source if we wanna made change happen as soon as possible. Much of the rest of the world is already far ahead of the U.S. in prohibiting pit bull proliferation. But pit bull advocates have often succeeded in diluting the legislation by confusing legislators into mistaking definitions based on function (physical traits) with show dog definitions based on form & DNA.
See https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/08/20/pit-bull-kills-trainer-as-u-k-groups-seek-repeal-of-dangerous-dogs-act-1991/ and https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/05/03/u-k-dangerous-dogs-act-exempts-the-two-breeds-most-likely-to-kill/. DNA identification has many uses, but using it to legally define a pit bull is like trying to use it to define Santa Claus.
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Do you think the rampant mislabeling of pitbulls in shelters is tantamount to consumer fraud? Do you think state attorney generals would pay attention to this matter?
Yes, but no state attorney generals have taken notice of the problem yet.
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How do you deal with the hate comments, threats made, and the slurs from pro pit people? Because, pro pit people can be nasty. u/KaioZuma
For Beth, the most difficult part has been finding herself at odds with family members and friends. Beth is a normally sensitive person. I have the hide of a rhino, & had been an investigative reporter on controversial news beats for many years before pit bull advocacy as we know it today revved up. The idiots, in any cause, are mostly just funny, in a Three Stooges sort of way.
Beth & I often laugh ourselves silly at some of the online absurdities we see from pit bull advocates coming after us with pop guns blazing, loaded with innuendo, misrepresentation, & complete nonsense. Having truth on our side helps. Knowing that there will be more victims helps to reinforce our determination, but is also saddening & sobering, because our goal is for their to be no more attacks creating victims. Also worth a mention, by the way, is that some of the very people who were most verbally abusive at one point have had the pit bull experience & become supportive later.
Finally, the bullies are also cowards. For example, after I'd successfully complained to animal control about an especially nasty local pit bull, some of the pro-pit folks decided to pay us a visit in person, on one of the hottest days in July 2012. They paraded their pits past our mailbox for a while, but the pits were so dehydrated they couldn't piss on it, so I walked out & put down a big bowl of water. After all, it wasn't the pit bulls' fault that idiots bred them & now were out walking them up & down a hill in the hot sun when all they really wanted to do was flop in the shade. Like vampires, though, the pit-paraders seemed to be afraid of their own reflections in water: they quickly packed up & left.
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Are you dogs first, or people first? In other words, what is your priority: Human health/safety/quality of life or the best interest of dogs? u/AnimalUncontrol
Doesn't matter. Since pit bulls have killed an average of about 9,000 other dogs per year for the past decade (see https://www.animals24-7.org/2022/01/11/how-many-other-animals-did-dogs-pit-bulls-kill-in-2021/ ), you could be totally pro-dog & anti-human & still not favor pit bulls on any rational ground.
Incidentally, there are probably 100 victim advocates against pit bulls who have lost pet dogs & other animals to pit bulls for every one who has personally survived a pit bull attack or lost a family member to a pit bull attack. Among them, quietly, but often as avid readers & supporters of ANIMALS 24-7, are many of the best known leaders of the animal rights movement, which is not to be confused with the no-kill movement.
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What is your best argument that The Canine Good Citizen Test and the ATTS are in no way guarantees that a dog will be safe? u/9132173132
See https://www.animals24-7.org/2015/12/04/did-aspca-discover-certifying-safer-dog-screening-might-be-dangerous/What is your opinion on Fabian’s Law, passed in AZ?Fabian's Law is a dressed-up one-free-bite law, that does not do anything until after a dog has already harmed someone. From the definitions section: "'Aggressive dog' means any dog that has bitten a person or domestic animal without provocation or that has a known history of attacking persons or domestic animals without provocation."
Beyond that, "without provocation" is left undefined. Pit bull owners have claimed as provocations for attacks, sometimes successfully in court cases, such actions as a person crying, sneezing, coughing, having an epileptic seizure, falling down, standing up, ringing a doorbell, squatting down like a catcher, and even, in one very recent case, allegedly trying to break up a fight among three pit bulls with a plastic bag of recently picked dandelions.
If "without provocation" is to be part of a dog law at all, "provocation" needs to be defined as an action potentially immediately injurious to the dog, dog's puppies under eight weeks of age, or a human member of the household.
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How has advocating for BSL and pit bull victim awareness affected your personal life, especially your sense of safety and security? u/hardballfetch
Pit bull advocates tend to be way more afraid of us than we are of them. See water bowl anecdote above.
It is tedious, though, as a lifelong runner, to have to dodge out-of-control pit bulls in public spaces used by runners for decades before pit bull owners decided they could just let their pits run amok anywhere there isn’t an animal control officer on duty.
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What conditions would need to be met for you to make your input data available to a bona fide journalist investigating the pit bulls/BSL issue? u/hardballfetch
We take this sort of request on a case-by-case basis. Almost inevitably it comes from pit bull advocates; never from a bona fide journalist, which is not surprising, since journalists have all the same access to newswires, etc., that we do.
We have shared input data with many bona fide public health researchers over the years, including within the past six weeks.
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This topic seems overdue for a more in-depth journalistic investigation. Are you aware of any reporters currently working on this issue? u/hardballfetch
Mainstream mass media journalism tends to be a very competitive & fast-moving field. Unless someone contacted us for info yesterday, in which case the story probably came out today, we wouldn’t have any idea who’s working on what.
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BSL advocates and pit bull advocates both say they want fewer dog bites and fewer unhoused pit bulls in the animal shelter system. What areas of potential agreement would be good starting points for more productive dialog between BSL advocates and pit bull advocates? u/hardballfetch
Pit bull advocates sacrificed any opportunity for “productive dialog” long ago, in rejecting even the mild mandatory sterilization approach of the legislation in effect in San Francisco and San Bernardino County, California.
Breed-specific problems require breed-specific solutions, whether the topic is what sort of dogs can be kept outdoors in winter, what sort of horses can run in what kind of race, or what kind of dogs are safe to keep anywhere in potential contact with people & other animals.
Pit bull advocates may be belatedly realizing that they are about 5% of all dog owners, at least, who are in turn about 40% of the human population, meaning that pit bull owners are less than 2% of the U.S. human population.
Which suggests that the current pit bull disaster will continue until & unless the other 98% of the public rally & respond as the public eventually did to domestic violence associated with alcoholism, asbestos, tobacco use, the Corvair, the Ford Pinto, and decompression, gassing, T-61 use, and high-volume killing of dogs & cats as population control.
Pit bull advocacy has demonstrated itself incapable of either self-regulation or accepting compromise measures such as the San Francisco and San Bernardino ordinances.
That means regulation must be imposed from outside, and must seek nothing less than a total shutdown of the entire pit bull breeding & sales industries.