Dangerous Dogs Owners

Not to nit pick but the only dog there that was bred to fight was the Bulldog though these days they are mostly just fighting to breathe.

Doberman was bred to guard.

GSDs were bred to herd sheep.

Rottweilers were bred to herd cattle and pull carts.

Akita was bred to guard.

What all these breeds possess is a need to obey their handler which of course in the wrong hands can be disastrous.

Good golly. My evidence for them not identifying pitties is a working on a professional level with both. Vets have too much else to worry about than identifying every single nuanced breed on sight. They aren't a registrar and once breed related illness can be rules out, they don't care that much. The wardens in the areas around here couldn't pick a Mal from a GSD, nevermind distinguish various bully breeds and their mixes. Heck, I've worked with dogs a while now and I couldn't say for certain sometimes.

Change my mind on what, exactly? This is what I mean by hysteria. Do you want me to change my mind on wanting a better system in place? On wanting to dig out the root of the problem before attacking the branches? On not wanting the lab x rottie client of mind, who is the world's biggest sweetheart, to be put down just because he looks like he has bully breeding? On thinking reactionary solutions don't help anyone? Or was it my earlier post saying we need some form of competence test for restricted breed ownership? Or should I change my mind on saying pitties do account for a large amount of attacks and something needs to be done?

Knee jerk, reactionary responses (which "kill everything that looks like a pittie, even though even professionals have trouble telling them apart. Feck the risk of killing someones harmless, beloved pet" certainly is) are only a thorn in the side of the people who are looking for actual solutions and changes that will work.

You can find it here why the stats are not accurate

https://www.pitbullinfo.org/inaccurate-pit-bull-statistics.html

Interesting Canadian investigative report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFa8HOdegZA

I'm afraid it's fairly long, and I'd also warn people that there are discussions of injuries, deaths, also some footage and photographs that are upsetting/NSFW

It includes the interesting fact that after pit bulls were banned in Toronto, the overall reported dog bite rate dropped from over 100 per year, to 15.

He looks very scary. But you should never judge a book by it's cover.

Awwww isn't that the cutest photo....the doggy with the little baby kiss kiss xxxxx

i cant really tell if you are being serious, the comment seems sarcastic but hard to tell. Either way I had to say that photo is not cute. Its terrifying. And not because its an xl bull breed, it would be with ANY dog in that situation with a tiny infant. Hard to tell since the ears have been brutally cropped but it looks like they are pinned back and the dog is showing dangerous guarding behaviour to the child. This is not safe, its not cute and NO DOG should have full access to a baby like that.

We have a one-year-old English Bull Terrier and he is lovely and placid, a lot of work but placid. He loves young kids having come from a well-known breeder in Cork that has a young family.

We went from everyone in the estate wanting to say hello to him 6 months ago to people picking up their aggressive little ankle biters (while our lad is completely unreactive) to getting filthy looks recently due to this incident down south.

As you can imagine I've had questions about what he is etc, as he's very unusual looking, to you can't have one of those in Ireland because they're "banned". 🙄 The sheer ignorance now is unreal, people making up breed names is the latest thing because they heard something on the news and are just jumping on the bandwagon.

Dogs have been bread as tools and companions for thousands of years. They are what you make them, a guard dog, an attack dog, an assistance dog. Like humans, they're a product of their environment.

Putting an EBT in the wrong hands would be catastrophic for the animal and anyone that they come across. We were heavily vetted by the breeder and had video chats with them in the lead-up to collect him. Even to this day, we're in contact with them. That doesn't stop random Karens from making judgments in public because they don't like the look of him or me.

Out of curiosity, why are owners of “restricted breeds” so against putting a muzzle on the dog? It’s part of the terms and conditions of having a dog, of that nature, so why do you rarely see a muzzle?

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a dog with a muzzle and, even then, it was on a greyhound type. Are greyhounds even restricted?

Passing a pit bull type is unnerving at the best of times but passing one with a muzzle eliminates that completely.

This morning while driving, passed a bloke with a German Shepherd on a long lead and no muzzle. It's also can't remember seeing a restricted breed with a muzzle on when out in public.

It doesn't matter what you think, it's the law.

I know the English Bull Terrier, very unusual face and nanny dogs. One side of the family used to always have them and there are some stories. One was back in the 50's, a neighbours old english sheepdog was always wandering around the road and this one day got over the gate and into the relatives. The dog killed the sheepdog and dragged it into its bed. The neighbor couldn't say anything. The other was was back in the 80's or 90's and someone broke into the house and left the house a few pounds lighter. Lump of flesh was left behind as they tried to get out the window. These dogs were well trained and fantastic pets but by god a stranger did not enter the house without permission.

I would muzzle my dog if they had shown signs of aggression or anxiety before. They haven’t, but were attacked by other dogs (non restricted breed) in the past.

It made more sense to make this a requirement for any dog that had shown aggressive behaviour outside, rather than an arbitrary list of breeds.

I think it should be a requirement that all puppies be muzzle trained and are comfortable wearing one from a young age. Such stigma around muzzles in general they are so useful in a variety of scenarios and if they became more common place then the stigma would be gone. Not that all dogs need to wear them at all time, but you never know when it might be needed and having it normalised would make that easier.

All dogs should be muzzled in public. I have no problem to muzzle both of mine, even it's only one who needs to be muzzled by the law.

I think you would be in for some surprise, even smaller ones would manage to take a nice chunk..