Does something need to be done about dogs?

[ttaskmaster]

I'm lost with what @ttaskmaster is saying if I'm honest.

One moment he's saying that the breed type, or differences between breeds have little influence on behaviour, he then says that breeding Staffies a specific way (by creating hybrids) removed the aggression from them, which to me is a direct contradiction, because you're creating a hybrid breed that behaves differently..

It's this easy:
Breed is an official classification based on a standard of appearance only. It has no influence on behaviour.
Breed type is an official classification based on historic function (herding, hunting, etc). It results from behaviour, not the other way round.
Genes contribute toward defining behaviour.
The behavioural variation, both within breeds and between breed types, result from a combination of genes and environment.

Hybrids are not recognised as breeds until they look sufficiently different from their original lineages, which is why they're usualy named for these origins - Staffy-cross, Staffiedor, Cockapoo, Labradoodle, etc.

The fantasy description you've chosen to use re: XL Bullys has no relevance to anything I've said, thus the flaw.
I'm basing my opinion on the evidence, the fact that this breed is a massive outlier when it comes to attacks.

********. You're basing your opinion on one study, while deliberately ignoring all the others.

You're just in denial still, you recognize that genes impact behaviour but you can't seem to understand that dogs of the same breed are genetically close to each other... because they're not exact clones and there's some uncertainty it's totally thrown you. So even though there's clear evidence for the heritability of traits and we can see obvious correlations there, we can see that within-breed variance is much lower than between-breed variance you just get confused and have decided I don't know what "heritability" means.

Yes, "clear evidence for heritability"... which is the measure of genetic vs environmental influence, which in your study is no higher than 0.7, and averages around 0.5.
It does NOT mean everything is down to genes alone, not by a long way, and the correlations that do exist are far more variant than you comprehend because you're ignoring breed type and narrowly focussing on dogs that exemplify the very breed standard which you then call "fantasy".
And no, between-breed variance is not as diverse as you think, as explained in the studies you still haven't read.

Here, I'll even give you a pretty picture to illustrate it:

These groups show breed types grouped by shared genetic ancestry with distinctly different appearances, all of which result from variation in just one gene.

Ah, look away now ttaskmaster, this guy on SkyNews is talking about behavioural traits:

A legal academic weighs in with assumptions about genetics... is that the best you have?

Some of the dog regulations are weird - my cousin has a dog, I'm not sure the breed, medium size black curly hair with tan undercoat, which is very strictly regulated for the dog's wellbeing.

Portuguese Water Dog?

XL Bullys became legal, see previous mention of this, they used to be classed as a pitbull subtype (they basically are large pitbulls), that faced a legal challenge, people were allowed to breed and openly sell them and now deaths and injuries from dogs have spiked and that's mostly thanks to this one breed.

The legal challenge was successful purely on the basis of the XLB being classified as a different breed... Perfect illustration of the dangerous assumption that breed is enough of a difference to make a difference.

If you ban the XL Bully and another takes its place, backed by data, then ban that too. Nothing is fixed in stone, just have to keep adapting to the tactics of scumbags that feel the need for a dangerous status dog.

Why adapt? Why keep patching the symptoms, instead of addressing the root cause?
Otherwise you just end up banning everything and ******* the majority off because a few people are *****.

 

[potatolord]

...
Why adapt? Why keep patching the symptoms, instead of addressing the root cause?
Otherwise you just end up banning everything and ******* the majority off because a few people are *****.

There won't be a ban of everything. No-one (that I have seen) is arguing for a ban on collies, retrievers, newfoundlands or pomeranians.

A ban on bullyxls would, and it's a guess, be supported by the majority of people. There is a big cluster of serious incidents involving those dogs.

I do think a simple ban is not the best answer. As I said many pages back, there is an enforcement issue here and that needs consideration. People need to report incidents of aggression and those need to be followed up. That needs to be tied into a licensing scheme with training requirements.

That needs doing as, if a ban on bulkyxls is introduced, the current crop of bad owners will just switch to something else.

 

[ttaskmaster]

That needs doing as, if a ban on bulkyxls is introduced, the current crop of bad owners will just switch to something else.

^This is the concern with bans, and how far into other breeds the bad breeders would go. They already messed with Staffies and there are hints at other such interferences.
I still assert that breeders are the far better primary target, to protect all dog breeds and stop a number of different offences.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Dogs & Puppies for Sale in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear - Gumtree

Give a pet a good home in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear on Gumtree. Find your best friend within the thousand breeds available on Gumtree: Labradors, Cockers, Golden Retrievers, Boxers and many more.

www.gumtree.com

Absolute state of this ad

 

[Haggisman]

Surely all the arguments of whether the aggression and attacks are caused by genetics vs training (or lack of) are somewhat moot?

ALL dogs have the potential to "snap" (and kill) regardless of breed/upbringing.

When that happens would you rather it be a 1-2ft tall yappy little thing that might cause some nasty scarring before you are able to control it, or a 4-5ft lump of muscle that weighs almost as much as a grown man and has jaws that can crush bone?

I think the problem is that simply banning them won't ever be enough, because they'll move to other breeds - or create new breeds to get around the problem. In many cases the breeds they move to - ordinarily wouldn't have been a problem.

If we brought back licensing and had mandatory insurance, the police would have (in theory*) the ability to sieze dogs which weren't licensed/insured, so there would be an extra layer of protection - before we resort to banning more and more breeds, where in many cases the breed itself wouldn't normally be a problem.

I'm basing this on the general rule, that people with legit insured/licensed things are generally not a problem, because they're responsible.

* I say 'in theory' because without people actually enforcing the rules and laws, all of it's for nought.

Mandatory chipping, insurance and neutering (unless a licenced breeder) IMO (and the same for cats while we're there).

Any responsible owner will already have done those anyway, so it shouldn't affect them at all.

 

[Robbo]

Absolute state of this ad

My god - that is grim.

 

[throwaway4372]

There is a petition about it for those who want to sign:

Petition: Make XL Bully a banned dog breed in the Dangerous Dogs Act

These dogs have been at the centre of numerous attacks of varying severity. I believe there is a need for these dogs to be placed on the list of banned dogs in the Dangerous Dogs Act, so it is illegal to sell, own or breed these dogs.

petition.parliament.uk

 

[Parsley]

Dogs & Puppies for Sale in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear - Gumtree

Give a pet a good home in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear on Gumtree. Find your best friend within the thousand breeds available on Gumtree: Labradors, Cockers, Golden Retrievers, Boxers and many more.

www.gumtree.com

Absolute state of this ad

Ah yes, another dog that hasn't been properly socialised by morons. This is another thing that irritates the hell out of me, they only take these dogs for short walks to go strut about on the street and leave a turd infront of someones gate (that they won't pick up), they can't be bothered putting any of the work in. Zero, nothing. They probably feed them left over chicken bones as well. Because dogs luv bones innit. Sigh. I'm turning into Victor Meldrew, people frustrate me so much sometimes.

They didn't try to get him neutered either, the vet could sedate the dog via tablet in advance and then go ahead and take him for the operation. Probably cost too much.

(Dog loves cuddles yet seems to attack everything in that ad, I feel sorry for the dog, it's an accident waiting to happen, it needs to go to a rescue home, not that any have the space, rather than be sold for £850. £850 for such a lot of work to fix!).

 

[Parsley]

Oops, double post.

 

[Fubsy]

Mandatory chipping, insurance and neutering (unless a licenced breeder) IMO (and the same for cats while we're there).

Any responsible owner will already have done those anyway, so it shouldn't affect them at all.

Mandatory insurance for 3rd party injury only? Or just insurance per se?

 

[Haggisman]

Mandatory insurance for 3rd party injury only? Or just insurance per se?

I'd say mandatory for 3rd party liability, but most pet insurance includes that anyway - and like I said, any responsible owner will already have that.

 

[Fubsy]

Dogs & Puppies for Sale in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear - Gumtree

Give a pet a good home in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear on Gumtree. Find your best friend within the thousand breeds available on Gumtree: Labradors, Cockers, Golden Retrievers, Boxers and many more.

www.gumtree.com

Absolute state of this ad

Argh FFS this is what drives me mad. No sane person should be taking that dog - it needs either a person with tonnes of experience, security and space to correct the behaviour (full time job basically) or putting down, not putting on ****ing gumtree. The authorities could seize that dog if it was banned while atm Kev from the next estate can come pick it up this afternoon as his first dog and take it down the local park to feed it on kids

 

[Fubsy]

I'd say mandatory for 3rd party liability, but most pet insurance includes that anyway - and like I said, any responsible owner will already have that.

We've just decided to stop insurance on our eldest (labxcollie) as the insurance is well over £100 a month and covers only 60% with a max coverage of £1500 per condition for a year. Just putting the £100 away in a savings account instead to pay for odd things until it's time to let go (this decision was made based on the crap levels of cover available and most small costs work out cheaper not claiming after excess and the first 40% are taken into consideration - pet insurance quickly becomes useless and/or unaffordable as they get older we've found)

Would obviously take 3rd party if it became a requirement, however I fail to see how this stops the attacks from happening, it just provides some punishment or restorative 'justice' for someone having their arm mauled, or in our guys case, he may jump and knock someone over, it could happen as he's not an inanimate object and rather clumsy.

 

[Semple]

There’s a fortune to be made out of doing it, I believe the puppies sell for as much as £10k each…

Breeding those things probably makes you more money than making drugs..

This is ultimately the problem. Even desirable breeds costs are ridiculous. I remember seeing in lockdown that dachshunds were going between 3-5k.

It's perfectly legal, why would you risk selling drugs for such low profit when you could be breeding dogs.

 

[Felon]

It's this easy:
Breed is an official classification based on a standard of appearance only. It has no influence on behaviour.
Breed type is an official classification based on historic function (herding, hunting, etc). It results from behaviour, not the other way round.
Genes contribute toward defining behaviour.

I think what has happened here, is you've overcomplicated everything.

As a result your explanations and points are difficult to understand and don't make sense, this normally happens when somebody doesn't properly understand the topic they're discussing.

This whole thing around "breed" vs "breed-type" is just a diversion and doesn't really mean anything.

At the end of the day, dogs bred from Pitbulls, or dogs that have Pitbull genes in them, are far more likely to be implicated in violent behaviour, regardless of upbringing - because they're from a lineage of fighting dogs.

Trying to overcomplicate the issue by blaming breed, or breed-type, or genes, or whatever - doesn't really get you anywhere, it just overcomplicates the issue and confuses people.

 

[Haggisman]

We've just decided to stop insurance on our eldest (labxcollie) as the insurance is well over £100 a month and covers only 60% with a max coverage of £1500 per condition for a year. Just putting the £100 away in a savings account instead to pay for odd things until it's time to let go (this decision was made based on the crap levels of cover available and most small costs work out cheaper not claiming after excess and the first 40% are taken into consideration - pet insurance quickly becomes useless and/or unaffordable as they get older we've found)

Would obviously take 3rd party if it became a requirement, however I fail to see how this stops the attacks from happening, it just provides some punishment or restorative 'justice' for someone having their arm mauled, or in our guys case, he may jump and knock someone over, it could happen as he's not an inanimate object and rather clumsy.

Well, if - as several people have mentioned - insurance for these bullies is either prohibitively expensive or just not offered at all, it would a) put people off having them, and b) mean they could be seized if not insured. It would also go some way to preventing people from bypassing any ban, as I bet insurance companies are quicker to update their stats and premiums than any government legislation

Besides, it's not just about "justice". If your dog mauls someone's arm and they are unable to work for 6 months, who's going to cover their loss of earnings? Is your £100/month really going to cover that?

 

[Fubsy]

A/snip

Our first puppy was a nightmare, but NOWHERE near as bad as that. For context: we spent £1000s on behaviourists and 1-2-1 training classes. Learnt a lot, made loads of progress, but in the end that dog was dangerous and unpredictable to the extreme and we took the decision to let the breeder have the final say on what happened to him as per our contract. So much money, emotion and time down the drain with just the experience to show for. No one likes to say it, but some dogs are just broken - I saw the look in the two behaviourists eyes over time, even those guys realised it and they were making money from it!

As far as we know he still lives on the farm he was born on, but more likely I hope they saw what we saw and made the right call after they were so judgemental about it being us. It killed our confidence as dog owners, but that's been restored now after very testing, but good experiences with 3 other breeds.

 

[dowie]

Yes, "clear evidence for heritability"... which is the measure of genetic vs environmental influence, which in your study is no higher than 0.7, and averages around 0.5.
It does NOT mean everything is down to genes alone, not by a long way

FFS man, it's like you've got a complete mental block here, no one is arguing that this is monocausal.

I think I've repeated a few times that this is *not* monocausal... yet here we are again with you acting as though I'm arguing that it is... how does your brain work where you seem to think everything is binary? You keep on arguing that the owners are to blame but any argument that points out the breed is relevant too, in your mind, becomes an argument that only the breed is blame.

The point here is that genes (and therefore the dog breed/type) does play a role in behaviour *too* it's not all just bad owners! That doesn't negate that environmental factors also play a role.

Is that really a hard concept to understand? You can't even begin to have a discussion about this is after over a hundred pages you can't even follow what you're trying to argue against.

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

Mandatory chipping, insurance and neutering (unless a licenced breeder) IMO (and the same for cats while we're there).

Any responsible owner will already have done those anyway, so it shouldn't affect them at all.

I'm not sure about that. I haven't nutered my spaniel yet because it increases risks of certain cancers later in life in my breed. We're very careful to not have her any dog contact when in season though.

I'd also rather pay vets bill directly rather than trust profit driven insurance companies to pay out after taking my subscription for years.

I think the solution shouldn't be 'insurance companies' anyway. Treat killer dogs the way you treat killer knives and guns. 10 year stretch for anyone in possession of a dangerous dog in public without a fitted muzzle. Dangerous dog = anything containing pitbull DNA, which includes the Bully.

 

[Fubsy]

Well, if - as several people have mentioned - insurance for these bullies is either prohibitively expensive or just not offered at all, it would a) put people off having them, and b) mean they could be seized if not insured. It would also go some way to preventing people from bypassing any ban, as I bet insurance companies are quicker to update their stats and premiums than any government legislation

Besides, it's not just about "justice". If your dog mauls someone's arm and they are unable to work for 6 months, who's going to cover their loss of earnings? Is your £100/month really going to cover that?

It's why I said "Would obviously take 3rd party if it became a requirement"

Atm, I'm making a personal choice to take on that risk of being sued for loss of earnings - like an insurer would - because the likely hood is extremely low for this particular dog imo. If I commanded him to maul someones arm, he wouldn't do it or be capable. Now the other dog I had? I couldn't have it as the risk (even with insurance) was way too high in terms of potentially hurting/killing someone and me being held responsible - insurance still wouldn't have stopped anything happening though.

Responsibility isn't just the costs. It's the responsibility of understanding what the animal is and what it can do.

Edit: To address the first bit, nobody can get insurance for XLBs as far as I know, unless they lie and put 'crossbreed' - good luck with that. Placing them on the ban list immediately means they require insurance if they have an exemption certificate - but if no-one will insure them?