But supposedly breeds don't make any difference here, it's all down to the individual dogs the risk from which can somehow be intuitively assessed by responsible dog owners who also have psychic, dog whisperer abilities.
Does something need to be done about dogs?
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But supposedly breeds don't make any difference here, it's all down to the individual dogs the risk from which can somehow be intuitively assessed by responsible dog owners who also have psychic, dog whisperer abilities.
Sod all of the other quotes, you are refusing to believe that a dog can naturally be dangerous and a risk to humans, it is incredibly naive and stupid to think such a thing.
I don't really put this down to the dogs at all. It's the planks who own them. But you can't control the planks who own them, you can only make it difficult. If banning the few breeds involved in these issues fixes the majority of the problems, then I don't see the problem. I don't think most are saying murder all the problem dogs, just stop any NEW ones coming along and deal with any that are beyond help or simply too dangerous. (Though there are some in here who seem to have an irrational hatred of dogs, having a discussion with them won't achieve anything as they won't appreciate any perspective other than their own, don't waste time arguing with unreasonable people).
The dogs aren't the problem, the people breeding them for certain traits and then abusing the poor creatures are the problem. But removing those specific dogs from the picture is the simplest and probably only way to solve it. Asking Wayne from the bombsite at the end of the street with the two uncontrolled dogs running around in the front garden, to behave, isn't going to achieve anything. So the decision has to be made despite what Wayne wants.
Ultimately, it's a case of "This is why we can't have nice things".
You wouldn't let someone breed and walk around with wolves being aggressive. I don't really see much difference with the more extreme breeds. (Please don't go into the semantics that a wolf is a wild animal, you know what I mean).
I think it's more complicated with dogs like Staffs, as there is a huge amount of variance within the breed. I feel they're going out of fashion as a status dog though and I don't see that many being used that way anymore. The majority that I see aren't even "big".
The dogs aren't the problem, the people breeding them for certain traits and then abusing the poor creatures are the problem. But removing those specific dogs from the picture is the simplest and probably only way to solve it. Asking Wayne from the bombsite at the end of the street with the two uncontrolled dogs running around in the front garden, to behave, isn't going to achieve anything. So the decision has to be made despite what Wayne wants.
Ultimately, it's a case of "This is why we can't have nice things".
You wouldn't let someone breed and walk around with wolves being aggressive. I don't really see much difference with the more extreme breeds. (Please don't go into the semantics that a wolf is a wild animal, you know what I mean).
I think it's more complicated with dogs like Staffs, as there is a huge amount of variance within the breed. I feel they're going out of fashion as a status dog though and I don't see that many being used that way anymore. The majority that I see aren't even "big".
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Yeah this is how I see it.
This is entirely a human problem, I'm not blaming the dog in any part of it - these things are essentially a designer breed that came out of the 90s hip-hop scene in the US.
To solve the problem, no dogs need to be executed or taken away - just make it illegal to breed them, neuter them all - let existing dogs live out their lifespan and outlaw them, but like an amnesty. But anyone caught breeding them afterwards - criminal prosecution and a whacking great fine, £10k or something.
But you understand we're not dealing in absolutes here.
We can't make all people good dog owners, but by having common sense laws which are enforced and some sensible rules (like not breeding BXLs) on the whole, that would reduce the numbers and make it less likely for people to own these things, and ultimately result in less deaths/injuries, because there are fewer of them.
Soldato
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Heritability is about how strongly a given individual's traits resemble, or are directly inherited from, their parents and lineage.
A dog who has high levels of X trait will have parents who also have high levels of X trait... shock, horror.
So "The breed is literally what they were studying", yet they name not one single specific breed and instead are comparing numerous different breeds to find common inherited genetics... which you brought up in response to my point that breed is far less of a defining factor than genetic lineage....
You're just substantiating everything I already told you.
Uh..... well, yeah, that's what I just said..... perhaps without the aneurysm on the keyboard, but otherwise exactly what I already told you.
What's your point, here?
Animals are afraid of strangers... wow, that's certainly a groundbreaking discovery there, boyo.
In truth, they've been quite specific, in that where certain breeds are deliberately bred for certain behaviours, those behaviours tend to be the the ones with the higher heritability... more groundbreaking revelations.
They've also been quite specific re: the trait with the highest heritability was...... trainability. It seems people mostly want a dog that is easily trained..... **** me, who knew, eh? I'm glad you have such an in-depth grasp of the mysteries of stats, else the world would never have realised this!!
****, is there ANY point to your posts, here, or are you just trying to take what I have already said and make it seem like they're your ideas?
Guy put his 14 month old kid in a position where the dogs had access to the child??
**** yes, it was his fault!!!
Presumably you'd just instruct the dogs what not to do, or write it down for them and expect them to understand?
Have you actually lost the plot, now?
This is parenting 101.
Dogs have very sensitive hearing and babies' crying very often hurts or causes the dog distress, which can manifest in a variety of undesirable and even dangerous behaviours in the dog.
There are HUNDREDS of baby websites and dog websites that warn of this. It was covered in our NCT group and there is even a poster on our vet's wall about it.
The parents should have been very aware of this and ensured that both the dogs and the baby were kept separate.
Your mistake is in assuming that these were 'problem' dogs in the first place.
Dogs don't kick off without reason, except in the very few circumstances where they have actual mental health issues.
However, they are dogs and will behave like dogs - When faced with a loud and continuous sound that hurts and distresses them, they'll do something about it. Might be they run away, might be they bark and shout, might be they try and kill the noisy weird thing making the noise.
Parents and dog owners alike should all be intensely aware of this.
Humans do the same thing. Google it, you'll find a lot of cases where people murdered their own baby because it wouldn't stop crying.
Not only does it happen so often that it has its own name, but the death count of Shaken Baby Syndrome utterly dwarfs anything dogs have done.
I'll whisper this very quietly, so you can barely hear it....
DON'T LEAVE YOUR ******* DOGS ALONE WITH YOUR KIDS!!!!!
Kids have been killed even by small dogs.
Breed is not a factor.
No-one here thinks that - Every dog has the potential to be dangerous.
It's the owner's job to identify potential situations where that danger might become realised, and take steps to make sure it doesn't. That's what all that reading and dog training stuff is for.
I mostly agree with the sentiment.
I just don't think laws and bans will do much to stop what is already being done in an unregulated fashion, any more than it stops the trade in illegal drugs and the like, and I don't believe much of it will be earnestly enforced.
Buy hey, no need to worry any more - Just show the dogs a knife. Dogs are afraid of knives. They'll hoik up their skirts and run away in terror!
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I think legislation against dogs would be easier to enforce than drugs for obvious practical reasons.. Illegal drugs obviously can be concealed, produced, bought and sold in private - difficult to do with a gigantic dog that needs walking..
And even if we couldn't get the number of illegal dogs down to zero, say we reduced the numbers by 90% - that would surely have an impact on the numbers of attacks and deaths.
Thread is lost, I think people are letting emotions cloud their judgement.
Saying its the humans, its the same cultural problem as the USA with guns (its the humans that own thats the issue).
If I owned a dog, no matter how well trained it is it would always be on a lead in public, if it was a bull breed, it would also be muzzled when in public or around strangers in home, likewise if a strong breed I would never have it in same vicinity as a weak person without it secured (child, baby, disabled, elderly). Some may see it as cruel, I see it as being responsible. Its akin to making sure your weapon isnt loaded.
Saying its the humans, its the same cultural problem as the USA with guns (its the humans that own thats the issue).
If I owned a dog, no matter how well trained it is it would always be on a lead in public, if it was a bull breed, it would also be muzzled when in public or around strangers in home, likewise if a strong breed I would never have it in same vicinity as a weak person without it secured (child, baby, disabled, elderly). Some may see it as cruel, I see it as being responsible. Its akin to making sure your weapon isnt loaded.
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Yes, their lineage... i.e. the breed. That's literally what they were studying, their breed is literally the result of their genetic lineage.
And they've shown how traits vary between breeds, how are you getting muddled with that to the point where the mention of heritability causes you to go off on some tangent about a dog's parents and ignore the evidence re: traits between different breeds. Your cope about variation within breeds doesn't negate that there are clear correlations showing breed-specific traits yet when presented with clear evidence of that you sperge out into a big wall of multiquote madness as it contradicts the entire premise for your flawed positon here.
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Yep.
Apparently I was calling for violence against something by calling for a ban of bully xls and their humane destruction...
Like I said Reddit, is happy with pedophiles, gore and other unhealthy things but say a vicious dog breed needs to be removed from society you get banned from the platform
Soldato
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I have an idea.... going on the latest vegan Vs meat thread some vegans have a desire to give dogs a good kicking........ so set a load of vegans on the most aggressive dogs and job done.
(more seriously)
personally I would have no problem at all with more breeds of dogs being banned completely .
it isn't the dogs fault and some (most even) owners are responsible but too many of the most aggressive ones are used as status symbols precisely because of their aggression , despite those owners have no idea how to look after them (or worse still not caring and happy to have aggressive nasty animals)
that said I would not forcibly kill them (unless a specific animal was shown to be a risk) but personally I would force them to be neutered and make it an offence to breed them with a massive fine. (and "accidental" would not be an excuse as the owner was meant to get them neutered so they would have committed 2 offences in that case)
muzzling and in a lead in public only goes so far. what about a postman going on private land or god forbid a small child hedge hopping to get their ball back? yes they are trespassing but does that really give a green light for a dog to maul them?
(and muzzling a dog 24/7 IS cruel imo)
there will always be edge cases however so I accept it's difficult.
I have known rottweilers as soft as ..... (gorgeous dogs I do have a soft spot for them) and equally known labradors which would be nice as pie 1 minute and turn nasty with little warning the next.
some people would say ban ALL dogs which are not working animals and logically it is hard to argue .... but I would not go that far so I am a hypocrite I guess.
tough one and I get both sides of the argument.
(more seriously)
personally I would have no problem at all with more breeds of dogs being banned completely .
it isn't the dogs fault and some (most even) owners are responsible but too many of the most aggressive ones are used as status symbols precisely because of their aggression , despite those owners have no idea how to look after them (or worse still not caring and happy to have aggressive nasty animals)
that said I would not forcibly kill them (unless a specific animal was shown to be a risk) but personally I would force them to be neutered and make it an offence to breed them with a massive fine. (and "accidental" would not be an excuse as the owner was meant to get them neutered so they would have committed 2 offences in that case)
muzzling and in a lead in public only goes so far. what about a postman going on private land or god forbid a small child hedge hopping to get their ball back? yes they are trespassing but does that really give a green light for a dog to maul them?
(and muzzling a dog 24/7 IS cruel imo)
there will always be edge cases however so I accept it's difficult.
I have known rottweilers as soft as ..... (gorgeous dogs I do have a soft spot for them) and equally known labradors which would be nice as pie 1 minute and turn nasty with little warning the next.
some people would say ban ALL dogs which are not working animals and logically it is hard to argue .... but I would not go that far so I am a hypocrite I guess.
tough one and I get both sides of the argument.
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Soldato
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What they show is that the heritability of 14 different traits are common across various different breeds - There is nothing highlighting any trait that is breed-specific.
But do keep arguing the point, as it merely continues to reinforce everything I already told you and everything presented in the other links with similar studies.
It all still hinges on actually getting it enforced, though. That's the part in which I have the least faith.
Nope, look again the strength of various traits clearly varies across different breeds directly contradicting your claim here.
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Soldato
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The strength, yes, but not the heritability. Heritability works regardless of breed, because it's down to the individual lineage and how likely the traits will be inherited from the parents.
You do know how heritability works, right?
If you disagree, feel free to lay out exactly which traits you think are specific to which breeds...
Right... and that directly contradicts the claim you made here:
You've now seen a study that shows behavour traits clearly vary between breeds.
See the study again, they've laid out a bunch of traits and shown exactly that. Stranger-directed aggression being high for some breeds and low for other breeds, chasing being higher for some breeds and lower for others etc..etc..
You seem very confused by that, are you imagine there is some behviour trait that only exists for a given breed, how would that even work? Surely a given trait like aggression can be higher or lower... if it's low then, well see the study again, various traits are low for various breeds.
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Soldato
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So you don't know how heritability works, then... You could have just admitted that, you know! No-one would have thought any less of you than we already do.
Heritability is primarily* about how likely a behavioural trait will run in a family line.
It has nothing to do with how strongly that trait manifests - A trait may be stronger in certain breeds (note the plural), because that's exactly how they've been bred to be, but heritability is not breed specific.
Furthermore, a trait can have a high strength but low heritability, and vice-versa, which is where you get so many members of herding breeds that are crap at herding.
Traits do vary, because breeds are generally geared toward certain traits and the breed standard focusses on those where the traits are strongest. The problem with your subsequent assumption is that many dogs' behaviour does not conform to exact breed or even breed group, despite being pedigree-bred.
Thus neither the strength nor the heritability of any trait is specific to any breed, and because heritability is both genetic and environmental, breed itself has almost no impact on behaviour.
*It's usually genetic, but quite often environmental as well. However, I don't think you're ready for that side of it, yet.
LOL you're just in denial here, the study was comparing breeds, you've heard of "heritability" and somehow confused yourself.
The study directly contradicted your claim here so that's perhaps why:
^^^ this is BS:
It's pretty clear that your claim that "breed has very little impact on behaviour" is nonsense, you're just carrying on with some flawed belief there as your always the owner's fault stance is better off if you can pretend that is the case.
Different dog breeds have different traits, some have low trainability, some quite high etc... It's not just their physical size and other physical characteristics that are impacted by their genetics but their behaviour is too.
Why do you think some dogs are known to be smart and easily trainable? Take a look at trainability for the Border Collie or German Shepard... no surprise why they're used as working dogs in sheep farming and police work respectively.
We don't have Pit bulls or Bully XL dogs there sadly but your claim re: breed having little impact on behaviour is total nonsense.
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Soldato
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The study was comparing heritability of traits, which is exactly as described in the quote you yourself keep citing, along with the genetic architecture of dogs to assess their suitability as models for human genetic influences on behaviours.
You don't understand what's actually being said there, do you? Not even the rough gist of it...!
Jeez, you take a random half-quote out of its context from the middle of the article, slap on a pretty picture and hope that proves your point....
The bit in bold is the salient element, with the underlined section specifically supporting exactly what I keep telling you.
Are you done trying to be clever, yet?
Firstly - "Breed differences in behaviour covary strongly with relatedness between breeds, and for several traits, genotype accounts for more than 50% of behavioural variation across breeds—up to 25× higher than heritability estimates from genetic studies within breeds".
So down to the individuals' inherited genes, and not a breed-wide specification. How many different ways can you Google up to reiterate what I've already told you?
"Our GWAS revealed that SNPs associated with breed differences in behaviour tend to fall in genes that are disproportionately expressed in the brain and involved in pathways related to the development and expression of behaviour and cognition. Therefore, although we cannot infer causal effects of specific SNPs, the genes we identified have potential to influence behavioural processes through altered expression in the brain, or contributions to other biological processes involving the nervous system. In addition, the variants associated with breed differences in behaviour are found in genes with sequence or brain-expression differences in foxes artificially bred for tameness or aggression, and several of the genotype–phenotype associations we found align closely with similar associations in human populations. Collectively, these findings suggest that these genes may play important roles in modulating behaviour across species".
So very much not a breed specific argument, but one that shows genetics influencing behaviour in all breeds of all species.
Secondly - Your argument right there merely puts even more emphasis on the responsibilities of the owner... because if any particular breed of dog were proven to be the muderous psychotic raging roid-beast you like to present them as, then whatever dumbassed bell-end not only buys such a dog, but then leaves them alone with a child, has been even more of a ******* ******** by deliberately causing everything that subsequently happens!!
Whichever way you try and present this, it's the owner who has the responsibility, in any scenario you care to come up with.
Hey, why not test me - Come up with some hypotheticals, or even some actual case studies, and I'll show you exactly where the owner was the fail-point in every single one.....
Genetics, yes... in other words, as I have repeatedly said, what they inherit from their parents. If their parents (and their parents' parents, and so on) were all strong herders, then the children tend to be. This is why breeders breed from lineages where the traits they desire are strong, even though it's no guarantee.
This is NOT breed-specific, though - You can (and frequently do) have Border Collies and GSDs that are ******* useless in terms of trainability. Similarly Boxers, one of the most ADHD type dogs around, have been sucessfully trained as competent shepherds.
Why do you think so many examples of "trainable breeds" turn out to not be very trainable?
Do you even know what 'breed' actually means, here?
Behavioral differences among breeds of domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris): Current status of the science
In both popular media and scientific literature, it is commonly stated that breeds of dogs differ behaviorally in substantial, consistent and predicta…
www.sciencedirect.com
Breed-typical behaviour in dogs—Historical remnants or recent constructs?
Dogs show considerable variation in morphology, genetics and behaviour caused by long periods of artificial selection. This is evident in the large nu…
www.sciencedirect.com
These and others already linked firmly establish otherwise, and not only does your woeful misinterpretation of this one study not dispute the others, but in fact it substantiates the others with concurring results of even greater magnitude.
Good work, Robin...
You cannot police the stupidity of people nor the chavs/scum of the country. But you can just stop them from having access to potentially dangerous items.
@ttaskmaster I don’t understand how you can say that the genes or breed of a dog, don’t really influence it’s behaviours.
Take an American Akita for example, you can train it to high heaven, but it’s highly unlikely to ever properly get on with other dogs of the same sex, they’re renowned for being a difficult breed, one of the hardest to work with.
Then take a Great Dane, one of the best dogs with children because they have a very high tolerance level, in terms of being poked, having their ears pulled, tails pulled etc, they just sit and take it.
Those aren’t trained behaviours, they’re genetic breed specific differences, and they’re present from the moment the sperm and egg meet in the womb..
Take an American Akita for example, you can train it to high heaven, but it’s highly unlikely to ever properly get on with other dogs of the same sex, they’re renowned for being a difficult breed, one of the hardest to work with.
Then take a Great Dane, one of the best dogs with children because they have a very high tolerance level, in terms of being poked, having their ears pulled, tails pulled etc, they just sit and take it.
Those aren’t trained behaviours, they’re genetic breed specific differences, and they’re present from the moment the sperm and egg meet in the womb..
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I give up reading his rants when he comes back with that sort of wall of text, there's a study already linked to twice that directly contradicts his claim, these traits are clearly heritable and vary significantly between breeds he gets confused with variation within breeds and thinks that somehow negates this but it's clearly illustrated above.
This is where he's got hung up on something; he's aware that genes are inherited from a dog's parents (somewhat stating the obvious) so he ignores that breeds share genes/lineage. The presence of some variation in genes and behavour within breeds has led to some confusion where he's used that uncertanty to dismiss the differences between breeds.
Anyway, we've got another incident:
Two XL Bully's killed 22 sheep and injured nearly 50 more...
Come on taskmaster, let's hear how it's got nothing to do with the breed, border collies do that all the time right?
Also in 5 years time this guy can own dogs again... why not just ban the breed as it would make it harder for him to be in this position in the first place? I haven't seen any argument as to why anyone *needs* to own a freaking XL Bully... other dogs do exist!
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