Debate: Dangerous Dog Breeds

[Gin]

Morning all!

Now one thing I love about this forum is that we can have a decent debate about something but remain mates afterwards.. (Apart from Rant, who's a seething ball of fury! )

So, today on the news I hear about Colchester Dog Attack.

What are peoples views on this sort of thing?

Are there breeds that are more dangerous than others and if so do you think we have the Right breeds currently classified?

Do you think bad dog behaviour is just in the upbringing and certain dog breeds are more often bought by certain people?

Do you believe that having licences to get / own a dog would reduce incidents like this, or just increase "puppy farms"?

[Glorian]

Licenses and training for the owner. Like a car, dangerous in the wrong hands.

[Six30]

Sometimes it's the owners .. other times the dogs just born a bad ass.

[Arwen]

Any dog can turn aggressive for all sorts of reasons. training for both dogs and owners should be a requirements I think.

The "dangerous" dog breeds list is not accurate in my book. I have known many staffies in particular, 90% of them were some of the best family dogs I've ever been around. Extremely good with kids and very calm around strangers. The other 10% are ones I know to be owned by the low lifes of the town, they are left to run riot, no guidance or training and the owners actively encourage them to fight each other, and people.

I blame the owners/keepers/breeders. Some dogs are more prone to "violence" just as some people are, but those dogs should not be bred from in my opinion. It is the breeders responsibly to breed calm dogs for the pet/show trade. Working dogs should not be kept as pets by most people in my opinion. There will always be some pups that have been bred from two calm adults that may have an aggressive streak, but in most cases this can be trained out.

Edit: A licence to breed and sell dogs would be my preference.

[Skimblet]

Any dog has the potential to be dangerous, some have a temperament that exaggerates that.

Part of it is breeding and part of it is training/way they are treated etc

I do think (and this is probably controversial) that certain breeds are in the main owned by people that could possibly be profiled and pigeon holed as a certain type.

I am a dog owner, I have a Labrador, he is a big stupid soppy f**ker that lets the kids do anything they want to him, he will also not take food from them without being told he can, he likes a good cuddle and will often climb on me to get it. There is a clear pack hierarchy within the household and he knows he is not the leader of said pack, nor a contender (neither am I and he knows that too) but I am fully aware that he could do damage if he decided to do so.

[Throttled]

Licenses and training for the owner. Like a car, dangerous in the wrong hands.

 

Yes, certain breeds and the owner has to be licensed.

[Westbeef]

Small dogs bite much more than big dogs, it's just they don't have the power to do any damage. A Chihuahua can bite you and it would barely leave a scratch.

http://puppylovernews.com/11-dog-breeds-that-bite-the-most/11/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Glorian]

Licenses and training for the owner. Like a car, dangerous in the wrong hands.

 

Yes, certain breeds and the owner has to be licensed.

 

Yep license the owner. Any history of animal abuse or violence etc means they can't own a dog.

I do believe it should be all dogs

1) because where do you draw the line?

2) A small dog can do just as much damage as a big dog when it comes to a small child even an adult. If they get the neck that's all they need.

[Arwen]

Small dogs bite much more than big dogs, it's just they don't have the power to do any damage. A Chihuahua can bite you and it would barely leave a scratch.

http://puppylovernews.com/11-dog-breeds-that-bite-the-most/11/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

Totally agree. We've had a tiny Jack Russell to my mums current dog Hooch (dog de bordeaux) and I still say Jock the jack Russell was by far the most aggressive by nature. He was also the only one we had that was known to be from a puppy farm... (all dogs were/are rescues)

Hooch on the other hand is a massive gentle giant. His signal for "I've had enough of this walk" if to hold your hand in his mouth and calm walk back home/to the car like that, much to the shock of other walkers!

[XTreme]

Dangerous owners and backyard breeders is the problem!

[Hoggs]

I think statistically most bites are from Golden Retrievers/Labradors

And the reason a lot of staffies are in dog homes are because the people buying them for status symbols got upset when the dog turned out to be a big slobbering ball of fluff.

The thing with banned breeds (in the UK) is they are dogs who have been bred to be aggressive and as such they are more high risk - Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino and Fila Braziliero are the specific named breeds that are banned. These are vicious dogs, bred to fight or viciously defend. The grey area comes in with "Pit Bull Terriers /Pit Bull type dogs" and people assume staffordshire bull terriers are also dangerous as they sound a bit similar. The problem with pit bulls is they are a solid block of muscle and are very loyal - they will do anything to please their owner which is why they make great "weapons" in the wrong hands.

Any dog can be dangerous and I think it is important to ban the three named breeds above as they ARE dangerous by design. However, with all other breeds the temperament is going to be heavily influenced by the owner and if you get a dickhead buying a dog then that dog is probably going to be a dickhead too.

[bonio]

We used to have to have licences to own dog. If I remember right they used to cost 7/6, the same as a marriage licence. But I don't think they were successful either in helping dogs or control ownership. In the end they were scrapped.

I think the problem is with the dog breeders. If you get a dog from the dog's home they question you and visit your house and look at your kids and only then they let you take one of their dogs (at least that what happened with us). But you can go to a breeder, pay your money and they don't have to do anything to check how you're going to look after the dog. So I'd go for licences for dog breeders, together with inspections where they'd have to show how they vet their customers.

[Joeman]

It's not the breeds, it's the owners and how the treat the dogs, and the press that like to make news of dog attacks only when it's a breed they deem to be dangerous.

The dangerous dogs list is useless. It was just put in place by the then government so they could be seen to be doing something.

This is an interesting article...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2254479/Sausage-dogs-are-the-most-aggressive-dogs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So why aren't sausage dogs on the dangerous dogs list??

[Guest]

Are there breeds that are more dangerous than others and if so do you think we have the Right breeds currently classified?

 

Fortunately there is actual data on this.. and unsurprisingly it comes from America. two studies that i can find.. time is pressing so I must restrict it to just these two.

The first published in Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

and the second published in Annals of surgery.

below are the abstracts from both papers.

1.

Background: The objective of this study was to characterize the nature of dog bite injuries treated over a 5-year period at a large tertiary pediatric hospital and to identify relevant parameters for public education and injury prevention.

Methods: Investigators performed a retrospective review of emergency room records of a single tertiary pediatric hospital. Records of all patients who were evaluated for dog bite injuries between April of 2001 and December of 2005 were reviewed. All demographic, patient, and injury details were recorded.

Results: Five hundred fifty-one patients aged 5 months to 18 years were treated in the emergency department after suffering dog bite injuries during the study period. The majority of injuries (62.8 percent) were sustained by male children. Dog bite injuries were most prevalent during the months of June and July (24.1 percent). Grade school–aged children (6 to 12 years) constituted the majority of victims (51 percent), followed by preschoolers (2 to 5 years; 24.0 percent), teenagers (13 to 18 years; 20.5 percent), and infants (birth to 1 year; 4.5 percent). Injuries sustained by infants and preschoolers often involved the face (53.5 percent), whereas older children sustained injuries to the extremities (60.7 percent). More than 30 different offending breeds were documented in the medical records. The most common breeds included pit bull terriers (50.9 percent), Rottweilers (8.9 percent), and mixed breeds of the two aforementioned breeds (6 percent).

Conclusions: Pediatric dog bites are preventable injuries, yet they persist as a prevalent public health problem. Evaluation of data from high-volume tertiary pediatric health care institutions identifies predictable patterns of injury with respect to patient age and gender, animal breed, provocation, and seasonality.

 

and 2.

Objective: Maiming and death due to dog bites are uncommon but preventable tragedies. We postulated that patients admitted to a level I trauma center with dog bites would have severe injuries and that the gravest injuries would be those caused by pit bulls.

Design: We reviewed the medical records of patients admitted to our level I trauma center with dog bites during a 15-year period. We determined the demographic characteristics of the patients, their outcomes, and the breed and characteristics of the dogs that caused the injuries.

Results: Our Trauma and Emergency Surgery Services treated 228 patients with dog bite injuries; for 82 of those patients, the breed of dog involved was recorded (29 were injured by pit bulls). Compared with attacks by other breeds of dogs, attacks by pit bulls were associated with a higher median Injury Severity Scale score (4 vs. 1; P = 0.002), a higher risk of an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8 or lower (17.2% vs. 0%; P = 0.006), higher median hospital charges ($10,500 vs. $7200; P = 0.003), and a higher risk of death (10.3% vs. 0%; P = 0.041).

Conclusions: Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites.

 

I see no specific mention of staffies. golden retrievers or labradors.. though i imagine all these dogs appear in the statistics.. just that they arent significant.

[Hoggs]

I see no specific mention of staffies. golden retrievers or labradors.. though i imagine all these dogs appear in the statistics.. just that they arent significant.

 

Interesting regional variety then -

In the UK as Pit Bulls are banned they obviously won't feature in our statics. The Independant went with Labradors http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dog-breed-most-likely-to-attack-bite-you-revealed-a7166296.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Backed up in part from an insurance company that ran the figures for personal injury claims from postmen - annoyingly the page seems to reverse the data in the print and illustration but the top four are: German Shepherds, followed by Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Border Collies and Labradors

https://www.animalfriends.co.uk/blog/postmen-dogs-public-liability/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Joeman]

It's more about the type of owner than the breed.

Irresponsible owners tend to have dangerous dogs.

And the types of owners who favour the big aggressive types of dogs are often irresponsible types of people!

So you have a big powerful dog in the hands of irresponsible owners... Not surprising things go wrong, and when they do go wrong the results are devastating.

[Tiger]

I'm not surprised to see Labradors up there toward the top of the list - considering its the most "popular" dog in the UK. The figures are meaningless unless related to numbers owned. And, when they say "labrador" do the mean labrador/spaniel cross, labrador/staffie cross etc.

[onesea]

Educate owners and as importantly the general public...

Ban extendable leads little more than a trip hazard tide to an uncontrolled animal, if you need one of those your dog is not well enough behaved.

I had a pair of cockers soft and docile as you like...

Walking them through town on market day (keeping them used to busy circumstances and going to see friends) a small hand appears and strokes his back maybe a little firm, dog understandably jumps and turns no aggression shown (not an uncommon occurrence). Parent just see dog turn and face boy (if he did not "Need" to be on a lead he would be further away as it was dog was on his short lead as far from the "danger" (boy) as possible), boy looks shocked parents react then tell me I have a dangerous dog.

After a few minutes of polite conversation that was going nowhere, I asked what reaction I would get if I stroked his or his wife's back/ bottom. The response was quite aggressive I just pointed out that if that would be his reaction I think my dog was quite restrained.

My dogs where reasonably well behaved they did not need a lead other than for other people to see, often I walked without a lead or had it in a pocket. It was not uncommon to be told your dog should be on a lead and under control. When dogs where walking/ sitting by your feet without any instruction or lead admittedly, its hard to say they are dangerous or out of control.

Do you know how hard it is to teach a puppy not to jump up when every the public sees a puppy pats their knees and encourages them to race over and then tickles there ears when they jump up? Now there is true reward based training of bad habits.

Yes some dog owners do not put the work in and teach them when they are young its sad to see. Maybe every owner (and puppy) should go to x amount of approved puppy classes with there first dog. I did with my pair first one and second one because he had sociability issues (howling) that needed nipping in bud and dog classes are very social for dogs and owners.

Like cycling proficiency at school children should get animal proficiency at school as well, living in the New Forest (where horses, cow's and pigs roam free) you see some incredible stupidity people and pets around the forest animals. Then of course there are the dogs that just don't come back for several weeks, it happens more often than you would think..

[MR_W]

My neighbour has a massive American bulldog. Probably weighs more than my fat ass.

He's a big twat tbh and dopey as anything. Fortunately my neighbours are both nice people so he's been raised ok.

[Guest]

Yorkies = small dog syndrome

Snappy little barstewards need muzzling

[Six30]

My dogs my best mate..... We're going bowling tonight

[bonio]

Could be because Labradors are the most popular breed in the UK.

Here's a county by county map of dog breeds: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-27690167

[Westbeef]

Are there breeds that are more dangerous than others and if so do you think we have the Right breeds currently classified?

 

Fortunately there is actual data on this.. and unsurprisingly it comes from America. two studies that i can find.. time is pressing so I must restrict it to just these two.

The first published in Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

and the second published in Annals of surgery.

below are the abstracts from both papers.

1.

Background: The objective of this study was to characterize the nature of dog bite injuries treated over a 5-year period at a large tertiary pediatric hospital and to identify relevant parameters for public education and injury prevention.

Methods: Investigators performed a retrospective review of emergency room records of a single tertiary pediatric hospital. Records of all patients who were evaluated for dog bite injuries between April of 2001 and December of 2005 were reviewed. All demographic, patient, and injury details were recorded.

Results: Five hundred fifty-one patients aged 5 months to 18 years were treated in the emergency department after suffering dog bite injuries during the study period. The majority of injuries (62.8 percent) were sustained by male children. Dog bite injuries were most prevalent during the months of June and July (24.1 percent). Grade school–aged children (6 to 12 years) constituted the majority of victims (51 percent), followed by preschoolers (2 to 5 years; 24.0 percent), teenagers (13 to 18 years; 20.5 percent), and infants (birth to 1 year; 4.5 percent). Injuries sustained by infants and preschoolers often involved the face (53.5 percent), whereas older children sustained injuries to the extremities (60.7 percent). More than 30 different offending breeds were documented in the medical records. The most common breeds included pit bull terriers (50.9 percent), Rottweilers (8.9 percent), and mixed breeds of the two aforementioned breeds (6 percent).

Conclusions: Pediatric dog bites are preventable injuries, yet they persist as a prevalent public health problem. Evaluation of data from high-volume tertiary pediatric health care institutions identifies predictable patterns of injury with respect to patient age and gender, animal breed, provocation, and seasonality.

 

and 2.

Objective: Maiming and death due to dog bites are uncommon but preventable tragedies. We postulated that patients admitted to a level I trauma center with dog bites would have severe injuries and that the gravest injuries would be those caused by pit bulls.

Design: We reviewed the medical records of patients admitted to our level I trauma center with dog bites during a 15-year period. We determined the demographic characteristics of the patients, their outcomes, and the breed and characteristics of the dogs that caused the injuries.

Results: Our Trauma and Emergency Surgery Services treated 228 patients with dog bite injuries; for 82 of those patients, the breed of dog involved was recorded (29 were injured by pit bulls). Compared with attacks by other breeds of dogs, attacks by pit bulls were associated with a higher median Injury Severity Scale score (4 vs. 1; P = 0.002), a higher risk of an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 8 or lower (17.2% vs. 0%; P = 0.006), higher median hospital charges ($10,500 vs. $7200; P = 0.003), and a higher risk of death (10.3% vs. 0%; P = 0.041).

Conclusions: Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites.

 

I see no specific mention of staffies. golden retrievers or labradors.. though i imagine all these dogs appear in the statistics.. just that they arent significant.

 

That's the US though, the dog culture over there is totally different than the UK and the popularity of certain breeds is much different. The Pitbull isn't illegal in the US, it's not even recognised as a breed in the UK.

[rennie]

I like to think that we are responsible dog owners,

we have a rescue bull lurcher.

she has several issues!

we were vetted/had home visits etc. before we got her.

I wouldn't even have considered having her if we had young kids in the house!

I will never have a dog from a breeder! only rescues!

Some breeds are more likely to be a problem than others but it's mostly down to the owners!

I wouldn't have some breeds because I realise our limitations on time/exercise etc.

[Westbeef]

I like to think that we are responsible dog owners,

we have a rescue bull lurcher.

she has several issues!

we were vetted/had home visits etc. before we got her.

I wouldn't even have considered having her if we had young kids in the house!

I will never have a dog from a breeder! only rescues!

Some breeds are more likely to be a problem than others but it's mostly down to the owners!

I wouldn't have some breeds because I realise our limitations on time/exercise etc.

 

We had 2 lurchers when I was growing up, lovely dogs and as daft as a brush.