The restricted breeds list.

peasant

Beth wrote: »

Have you actually looked into the sport? Yes, it is a SPORT. A highly competitive sport that results in the dog being able to do a particular job to get its fun reward. Or do you prefer to go by what you've heard from others?
I'm curious now, as this is a discussion board and we're having quite the discussion

First off ...I grew up next to a "Hundeplatz" ..I've seen more Schutzhund "training" and all its goings on than you ever will ...just to get that out of the way


But now we come to the crux of the matter ...since when is it a SPORT to teach an animal to attack people?
But that's exactly what the SchuHu crowd have made it. A "sport" with lots of shiny cups, medals and certificates ...and to top it all up you HAVE to participate if you ever want to breed or show your dog.

The main problem with the SPORT though once again is the human factor. People don't just want to participate, they want to win. Dogs are pushed beyond their limits/capabilities with regularity. Totally unsuitable dogs are introduced to this training, as well as totally unsuitable handlers. Training methods are unsavoury in some cases to say the least.

Why do you think the muzzle law doesnt apply to those dogs that work in k9 units, harbour, search and rescue etc? Because they are highly trained dogs.

The muzzle law doesn't apply to these dogs for two reasons

- they are supposed to bite
- the are owned by "the law" so they are exempt


Apart from that, they really are highly trained and specialised dogs with a job and highly dedicated and trained handler ...and not family dogs, "trained" on some field by over-ambitious, under-informed owners under the guidance from someone who once read a book published by the "Schaeferhundverein"

I am of the firm opinion that "Schutzhund" training is of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to your common garden variety family dog (regardless of breed)
It is uneccessary at best and dangerous at worst to teach a family dog how to bite.
Training methods used are highly questionable and most Schutzhund trained dogs that I have met personally were the worse for having received that training.

Whatever having a trained "Schutzhund" may do for the ego and penis size (real or strap-on) of the owner ...it does nothing at all for the dog and I REALLY believe that family dogs and society at large are far better off without this "sport".

This opinion has been formed over years of watching;
poor dogs being tormented into doing something they didn't want to do in the first place,
poor dogs becoming nervous wrecks as soon as they were confronted with something that hadn't been trained before
and poor dogs becoming so confused that the became agressive

and will not be altered by a quick discussion over the internet with a SchuHu deciple.

Beth

nipplenuts wrote: »

A long way from the OP now, but this above contains the nub of the problem. Take a tour of Finglas or similar socially depressed area and you will find a particular element of the locals has a propensity for owning bull terrier type dogs. Wonder why? It's perceived as being "hard"

Where has the "hard" image come from?
Irresponsible owners not keeping their dogs under control, leading to the media sensationalising a breed, leading to more irresponsible owners, leading to more reports.

Control the owners by enforcing the current laws - have ALL breeds need to be kept under control rather than just targetting the responsible owners with restricted breeds.


Peasant,
Fair enough, you draw your opinions on experience and see the sport in a different way to me. thats all I wanted to know.

As for the rest, again you are entitled to your opinion. It doesnt make you right, and mine doesnt make me right - thats why they are called opinions.

Totally unsuitable dogs are introduced to this training, as well as totally unsuitable handlers. Training methods are unsavoury in some cases to say the least.

Then they wont go far in the training if they are not suitable for it. Unsavoury? What do you call unsavoury? The use of a prong collar thats taught how to be used properly? There's no place for it in a family pet's training, but in competitive obedience, used correctly - yes they are used to administer a correction when there is blatant disregard of a command - when they are trained to know what the command means, not from the beginning of the training.

The muzzle law doesn't apply to these dogs for two reasons

- they are supposed to bite
- the are owned by "the law" so they are exempt

They are not trained to bite while on patrol.
As for owned by the law - ok, accepted, search and rescue dogs arent owned by the law and they aren't required to wear a muzzle...

Trained guard dogs are required to wear a muzzle but it doesnt state what training the guard dog must go through be be a guard dog. A lot of guard dogs are treated cruelly to make them viscious. I would be more against that than a SchH trained dog.

and to top it all up you HAVE to participate if you ever want to breed or show your dog.

In Germany, to register the pups and breed - yes. Here... NO.

Training methods used are highly questionable and most Schutzhund trained dogs that I have met personally were the worse for having received that training.

If they were assessed properly then they wouldnt have either a: been trained for it, or b: been accepted to train.

As for your last line, I wouldnt consider myself so. I corrected incorrect information. It has now led to a discussion.

peasant

Beth wrote: »

Unsavoury? What do you call unsavoury? The use of a prong collar thats taught how to be used properly? There's no place for it in a family pet's training, but in competitive obedience, used correctly - yes they are used to administer a correction when there is blatant disregard of a command - when they are trained to know what the command means, not from the beginning of the training.

Now that would be the prime example ...what German SchuHu circles would call "Starkzwang" ...there is no direct translation for this word/method, but loosely translated it means " to subdue with strong force".

It involves prong collars, yanking at the lead (and the neck of the dog), stepping on the lead to force the dog into "down", hitting its back to force it into "sit" up to electric shock training collars and beatings.

There is no "proper" way of using a prong collar or any other way of corporal punishment / torture on a dog ...no matter what the Schutzhund people say.

It is a) cruel and b) counter productive to training

a) doesn't really need to be discussed further, it's self- explanatory

to b)
In order to properly train a dog, you are looking for its willing cooperation. Heeding your instructions should mean a positve experience for the dog, not avoidance of pain. That's the theoretical/moral level.

But there is a practical side to this as well. Anyone who knows anything about dog behaviour will tell you that they are highly skilled social animals. They have developed a multitude of ways to practise conflict avoidance and conflict resolution as is important for a group/pack animal. If all conflicts between dogs were settled by confrontation and agression, dogs would have seized to exist a long time ago as they would all have killed each other.
The leader of a dog pack does not rule by force/agression but because of authority and experience. Authority does NOT mean to be physically stronger / forcing your will down other's throat, it means leadership. Making the right decisions, avoiding harm, benefiting the pack. The leader of the pack is usually a quiet, calm dog that commands respect instead of demanding it.
Violent behaviour, inflicting injury, is detrimental to the pack (injured dogs can't hunt) ..that's why dogs have developed so many ritualised conflict avoiding behaviours (read up on calming signals). A brutal despot of a dog will never be a leader, instead it will be separated from the pack.

If you, as the human leader of the pack, use violence (and a prong collar IS violence) to force your will onto a dog, you loose its respect. A timid dog will just collapse, suffer and endure ...a strong willed one will sooner or later either ignore you or challenge you..or worse, seek an outlet for it's pent up agression elswhere

Again ...not something you want to happen with a dog that has been trained how to attack.

Your argument that the dogs only attack when told to do so by their handler is thus null and void ...as these dogs will have minimal respect for a handler that resorts to violence to control them.

Not only is training a dog to attack as such highly questionable, doing so with violent methods turns these dogs into uncontrollable weapons ...defeating the point of the training in the first place.


This argumentation is sound and cynologically correct ...but unfortionally the protagonists of Schutzhund training are still stuck in the middle ages in regards of their understanding of dogs (and sometimes humans as well) and continue to spin the fable of having total control over their dogs.

You will NEVER achive total control ...the best you can hope for is co-operation

lostinnappies

Just so you guys understand i was answering the OPs question of how the list was COMPILED not that i agree with it. I have met the softest rotties ever who would sooner lick you to death, so please dont jump down my throat. This is just my understanding of why they are on the list from haven spoken to vets about it.

Morganna

,Any dog worth its salt will protect its owner

peasant

Bambi wrote: »

"The dog literally has to be taught to attack a human" so wild/feral dogs would never attack humans? We're veering off topic here but, what sources are these claims based on, They seem far too absolute for me to believe.

You're of course correct not to believe that a dog wouldn't know how to attack a human or that it would never do so. There will always be circumstances when just that can happen.

Generally speaking though, over millenia of co-existence, the dog has evolved to live with and among humans, to integrate with them and to learn how to read (and manipulate!:D) them. The old saying "you don't bite the hand that feeds you" rings very true for dogs, because if they bit they wouldn't be fed or even destroyed.

A perfectly healthy, well adjusted dog will always have a friendly disposition towards humans (that's why we love them so much). ..it's in their (genetic) interest as an individual and as a species.
Only bad experiences or bad training (and in rare cases self defence) will turn them into man-agressive monsters.

The Sweeper

Beth wrote: »

Where has the "hard" image come from?
Irresponsible owners not keeping their dogs under control, leading to the media sensationalising a breed, leading to more irresponsible owners, leading to more reports.

It's worth noting that the tabloid sensationalism around "Devil Dogs" has less to do with irresponsible owners and more to do with a slow news season.

I've been trying to find a reference to this on the internet, but it's difficult to search through 20 years of hype to find what I want. Suffice to say I got this historical tidbit from a man who had produced the BBC Nine O Clock News for a decade.

In the late 1980s, there was a slow news season one summer in the UK. Really slow. Nothing happened. Other than a heat wave, the press were searching for something to put on their front page.

Then a rottweiler dog mauled a child. (It was possibly two rottweilers - as I said, I'm finding it hard to find the original story among the hype.)

The press leapt upon the story, because it was newsworthy. Then, purely because there was nothing else going on, the tabloid media started a campaign against 'dangerous breeds'. They needed something to fill their pages, and the story took off like a rocket. It offered opportunities for huge headlines, hype, impassioned debate, great photo opportunities - they filled the rest of the slow news summer with the Rottweiler story (and apparently 'rottweiler' became a term for any news story that grew legs and ran).

The News of the World ressurected that circus with its Devil Dogs Campaign in 2006. That wasn't an original action - they knew a tried and tested remedy to a slow news month and they implemented it.

Basically the media didn't sensationalise a breed because a recognisable proportion of owners weren't controlling their dogs. They sensationalised a breed because there was nothing else going on at the time.

Top Dog

Morganna wrote: »

It is egotistical macho people who do schutzhund.

Sorry, but this is one of the most riduculous statements I've read yet, so I felt compelled to reply. Do you even know what Schutzhund is about? And that protection training is only one aspect of it? Dogs can undergo Schutzhund training, get their certificates and recognition, and never have to do the protection training which is the only area I'm aware of that biting is involved.

Do a little homework and you'll see its not all about the biting, aggression and attacking. Your above statement is no better than the misinformed sensationalism we see daily in the newspapers with references to devil dogs.:rolleyes:

Peasant - you make for a very interesting debate, but you have still not shown any links to statistics for the bite incidents in Germany which you've referred to

peasant

Top Dog wrote: »

Peasant - you make for a very interesting debate, but you have still not shown any links to statistics for the bite incidents in Germany which you've referred to

That's because there is none, not a quotable one anyway.

Bite statistics in Germany are a confusing affair as every state has a different way of compiling them. Fact is that the GSD leads the way. Fact also is that with regard to the sheer numbers of GSD in Germany the amount of bite incidents is relatively low but proportionally still slightly higher than it ought to be. Another fact is that almost all GSD in Germany have been subject to some degree of Schutzhund or VPG training, at least the obedience end of it.

now ...IF what the SchuHu people claim was right ...that a Schuhu trained dog only ever bites on command ...then there should be virtually no bite incidents involving GSD's. But there aren't ...the numbers are higher than other breeds (with the exception of pitbull types who get their rank by virtue of attracting the wrong owner and often mistaken identity)

Now make of that what you want.

EDIT
for anyone able to read German, page 7 of this document is where it's at:
http://www.hundegesetze.de/down/NRWauswert_hundebericht_2006.pdf

Top Dog

Fair enough on there not being quotable statistics. I'm just interested as we'd considered doing Sch with our Rottie. Still may, but seriously doubt we'd do the protection training as I simply don't see the need for it.

You sound pretty well versed on the subject so maybe you could answer a question for me. I've heard tell that dogs who do Sch training, don't know if this includes the protection aspect, can have a much shorter life expectancy when compared with a regular family dog of the same breed. Do you know if there's any truth to this?

peasant

Top Dog wrote: »

I've heard tell that dogs who do Sch training, don't know if this includes the protection aspect, can have a much shorter life expectancy when compared with a regular family dog of the same breed. Do you know if there's any truth to this?

I doubt that really.

Provided the training is done properly, the dog is not over excerted or injured, I couldn't really imagine why it should have any effect on life expectancy.

What happens in circles of really ambitious SchuHu people is different though.

It is not uncommon to keep a "cracker dog" in virtual solitary confinement in a run behind the house and only take it out for a few hours every week for very extensive and demanding training, where the poor dog explodes from having no excercise at all to jumping hurdles, doing sprints, etc at full tilt.

That of course isn't good for its muscles, joints or psyche and those dogs usually don't get very old. But to those kind of owners that doesn't really matter, as long as they've won a few medals with that dog.

But this kind of behaviour really is the exception rather than the rule.

peasant

To bring this thread back on topic:

In my personal opinion, in this day and age, having a list of restricted breeds is a moral and ethic embarrassment to the society that issued it.

The mindset behind this is the same as in medieval times where cats where put to trial as witches.
The animals, per definition, are innocent. They are not capable of rational decisions, they are not responsible and they can not be held responsible.

Furthermore this whole thing also smacks of underlying racism. To assume that one breed of dog is fundamentally different than another breed not only shows zero knowledge of dogs in general but also gives an insight into the breedist/racist mindset behind.

Sure, there are dangerous dogs out there, and something needs to be done about this. But these dogs are not dangerous because they belong to breed x, but because they were bred wrong, trained wrong and kept wrong.

The responsibility for a dog being dangerous always lies with those that made it so ...people. These are the ones that need to be stopped/restricted, not the dogs.

whitser

but the news papers say they are evil, are you saying they're lying? i've seen pictures in the news them dogs look like eeny meanies.

getz

in the uk more people keep dogs than in ireland ,dogs as pets is quite new to a lot of people in the republic ,yet the goverment was quick to ban every dog it dident like the look of--then realised it made a cockup and changed the list---in the uk the restriced list is small

lostinnappies

what do you think of this info then
http://dogobedienceadvice.com/which_dog_breeds_are_most_aggressive.php

Discostuy

Did i read right recently that Holland abolished their dangerous dogs act due it being a waste of time as it had no effect??

One other thing i often thought about was that if there was a legal loophole or legal act about an animals right to defend itself if it was attacked.

With all these dangerous dogs being muzzled, and say you were caught without a muzzle, could you not argue by muzzling the dog you were taking away its right to defend itself in attack?? Just a boredom thought...

getz

the list of restricted dogs in the uk as follows--- pit bull terrier-japanese tosa--doco argentinos-fila brasileiros - only four dogs by name as in the uk far more people have dogs -and a lot more people are bit--but it is understood that most of the problems are the owners not the dogs---notice only the pit bull is on the irish list ?

arybvtcw0eolkf

Discostuy wrote: »

Just a boredom thought...

Oh and a good thought too.

I've posted this before.

My lad is attacked almost everytime we're out for a walk, his only form of protection is me and my size 11's.

Honey-ec

Mairt wrote: »

My lad is attacked almost everytime we're out for a walk, his only form of protection is me and my size 11's.

That, and your prodigious chop-socky skills;)