Breed specific legislation seems to be everywhere these days. Counties and towns throughout North America have banned all sorts of dogs, while others very strictly regulate certain breeds. To make matters worse, the entire province of Ontario has banned bull and terrier breeds. (This policy, needless to say, has been nearly impossible to enforce, and it’s not been very successful.)
The problem with BSL is that it’s based upon assumptions that people have about dog behavior. Now, I won’t deny that certain breeds have certain characteristics, but these characteristics are hardly absolutes. Different strains of the same breed often have different characteristics, as I often mention about working strain goldens and show strain goldens. And just because a dog comes from a certain breed or strain doesn’t mean it’s going to be a man-eater.
Now, these problems would be bad enough for BSL, but we have another problem with BSL. BSL is often based upon popular views of dog breeds, and sometimes, well, these popular views do not correspond with reality.
First of all, the most common breed that is regulated or banned under BSL is the pit bull. Now, that word “pit bull” is a nebulous definition. Lots of mixed breeds look like pit bulls, and there are several breeds that are closely related to the pit bull. I’ve never seen one of these laws enacted without lots of interesting non-pit bulls being picked up. Of course, they aren’t doing anything about the real problem, but it makes politicians look good.
A lot of attention is paid to the statistic that pit bulls and rottweilers were the most common breeds implicated in attacks that resulted in death. However, these statistics need to be put into context. Fatal dog attacks are quite uncommon. They represent 0.00001% of all dog bites.
It turns out that dog bites themselves are on the rise in the country. All sorts of dogs are biting. My beloved golden retriever is a major biting breed now, and everyone knows that German shepherds are a major cause of dog bites in this country. We do know that dog bites are a growing problem in this country and internationally.
However, drafted a statute that bans certain breeds, because they are perceived to be more aggressive, really isn’t a solution. There’s a very simple reason for this.
Dog that show aggression have aggressive behavior (wonderful tautology, I know). Behavior is variable in the domestic dog, and as I’ve said before, it varies among individuals and strains of the same breed. The rational response to the growing epidemic of canine aggression is to ban the behavior. If a dog shows aggression towards people, it is banned. It can be a pit bull, a Fila, a rottweiler, or a golden retriever. If it shows aggression, it gets the attention of the law.
Of course, these sorts of laws can also be abused. It seems that any dog with predatory behavior is deemed “aggressive” under some of these proposed statutes. That’s why I think any aggressive dog law has to be based upon aggression towards people. Most dogs that consider cats prey are not aggressive towards people. A cat killing dog might make his owners liable for the cost of replacing the cats and their vet bills, but he’s generally not a threat to people.
The second thing you do to reduce dog bites is to encourage municipalities to have off-leash dog parks. Why? Well, I don’t know if anyone has seen the dog bite statistics from France, but the French don’t have the dog bite numbers in proportion to their population that we do. The reason why they don’t have the dog bites is really quite simple. Dogs are socialized there more, simply because dogs are allowed more places than they are here. Further, they also have extensive off-leash exercise areas where the dogs can meet different people and other dogs. They can learn the rules of society, and they have an outlet for their energy and need for mental stimulation. (They do have BSL in France for bull and terrier types, but the French have their own “bad” breeds, which aren’t banned at all.)
The final thing that has to be done is to encourage breeders of all breeds to choose dogs that have docile or at least tractable dispositions. For some breeders, like some of those who breed Filas and Caucasian Ovtcharkas, what I’ve just suggested is an anathema.
But I’m not just talking about those breeds.
If people would stop breeding golden retrievers that have possessive aggression (even though some idiots think it’s cute!), then you’d see that breed lose some of its reputation for aggression.
If we really took dog aggression seriously, we could reduce the number of dog bites significantly. And we could do it without hauling in all the innocent dogs of a particular breed.
I do think we need to take the growth of canine aggression very seriously. If dog bites really become a severe problem, it will become very hard to keep dogs of any breed. And it’s up to all informed and concerned dog people to ensure that the most intelligent policies are implemented to make sure that dog bites really are prevented.
BSL makes politicians look good. It creates a scapegoat, but it’s very unlikely to work. We don’t need the veneer of good intentions. We need policies that actually address the problems.
I think what most people tend to forget is that most aggressive behavior exists to PREVENT more aggression: it’s like me snapping at some idiot for annoying me so thathe has the chance to get away before I smack him upside the head. In this day and age, of course if I did that, I’d be sent to therapy and anger management sessions. But either way, a growl doesn’t automatically mean ‘aggressive’. People are just more and more misinformed about dog behavior these days, and various sundries (everything from BSL to teevee clips with kyoot puppydoggies to the pure-positive training movement and insecure helicopter parentsv) aren’t helping the cause.
Back in the day when I desperately needed a job and worked at a pet store, I would evaluate puppies and help match them with appropriate owners. (I don’t work there anymore, FYI.) Whenever I would come across a particularly hardheaded pup who was the top dog of the litter, I would tell them that while this one is a good puppy, he does tend to be a bit stubborn and likes to have his way, and will need some training. Or they might actually see the pup bossing the others around in the playpen. The first thing out of their collective mouths was always something like “Do you mean he’s going to be aggressive?”
Remember, they may bite and scratch us, but we must be oh so gentle with them for they are made of fine china and will break if looked at sternly or told “No”… *facepalm*
I know someone who has an American Bulldog. Shortly after getting the dog, she took him out for a walk in her neighbourhood (the burbs in Quebec). Next thing she knew there is this woman, standing in front of her, screaming that she is walking A PIT BULL — WE’RE ALL GONNA GET KILLED. Talk about being uninformed. Took a whole to convince her it was not a pitbull…
The idiots in Ontario banned the Pit Bull because a lot of the Gang Bangers in Toronto used them for “protection”. This was strictly a pandering move before an election. There are so many exceptions for dog shows, etc…
I think it comes down to, “It’s not the dog, it’s the owner!”
You’d be amazed at what gets called a pit bull; Boston terriers are called pit bulls more often than you’d think.
American bulldogs are interesting. Generally, the breed that everyone knows comes from two strains called Johnson and Scott. They descend from dogs brought to the Southern Colonies by Royalists following the overthrow of Charles I.
However, you’d be surprised how many other regional strains of this type exist in the US. As far as I know all of these descend from these seventeenth century imports.
But there’s one that doesn’t fit. It’s called the White English Bulldog. However, it’s actually from Florida, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s probably the closest thing to an Alaunt Boucherie still in existence. It may actually descend from Spanish Alano dogs.
http://bttbab.com/
But I’m sure if someone saw it, they wold immediately call it a Pit Bull and want it banned. They do the same thing with Dogos Argentinos– and the propery dogo temperament is high prey drive but very low aggression towards people and other dogs. They are run in packs in their homeland!
I can’t help but notice the similarity between BSL and gun control laws. In both cases, the laws attempts to modify human behavior by banning the instrument without regard for the humans behind it. In both cases, you have a lawful community of owners who would be adversely impacted by the legislation, an unlawful community of owners who would ignore it regardless, and an activist community which has neither the ability nor the desire to distinguish between the two.
Of course, this is coming from a dazzling urbanite who’s never owned either a firearm or a bully breed, so there’s a good chance I don’t really know what I’m talking about.
I wasn’t going to go there, but I’ve always thought about it exactly the same way.
BTW, I can’t tell you how many guns I own or that I stand to inherit.
I come from a long line of gun nuts.
And yet, I’m not paranoid about the Democrats.
My apologies for bringing politics into the discussion (which tends to rapidly turn any and all internet discussions into flame-spewing trollfests, regardless of the original topic). I once made the exact point in a dog park, and watched people freeze as they tried to figure out what planet I’m from. (I live in Cook County, where it’s technically legal to own a gun, so long as it’s kept disassembled, secured, and never moved). I’m not likely to ever own either, but the ideas behind both just strike me as wrong for the exact same reasons.
I want to stay away from the class element (more troll-bait), but that always struck me as an underlying rationale to both, too.
Haha, I don’t think that will launch anyone here.
Now, if I start writing about yellow flat-coated retrievers– well, that can make things go bad really fast.
Feeling like living on the edge today, eh?
None of my comments are going in the right spot! “Living on the edge” refers to the yellow comment…
Danger, Will Robinson!
What yellow comment?
(yellow–dare I say it–flat-coat)
I get it.
LOL.
I’m getting a lot of comments at once for some reason (did I say something controversial?), so that might be why it’s doing this.
Part of my job is a risk communicator to the general public. I deal mainly with chemicals, but the same principals apply – it’s about balancing risk-benefits and assigning priorities.
When you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a dog (ANY dog), there’s no point in trying to single out a breed. I always scratch my head at the anti-breed people who get so emotional. If they’re really that scared that THE CHILDREN(R) will get bitten by a dog, how can they stand the thought of letting them get in a car? Or on a bike? Or even step outside the house? The world is full of risks, and dog bites is waaaaaaay down at the bottom of the list. And yet some people want to assign so much time and resources to mitigating this tiny, tiny risk.
Dog bites are a growing problem.
Fatal dogs attacks have statistically not grown– even when adjusted for the growth of human and dog populations.
And yet again other people have already said it better: http://btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2008/01/winograd-post-o.html
I’d love to link to Winograd’s post about putting risk in context, but it doesn’t look like his new blog archive goes back to 2008. :P
I really don’t think dog bites are a growing problem. In fact, it is rare to find a major metropolitan area where dog bites are going up. In most places bites are going down and the NCRC released a report on this about a year ago…
I’m also curious about your comment about breeding possession aggression into Golden’s. I’ve never seen anywhere that possession aggression is anything other than a learned behavior by people who are idiots and can’t even train the most basic of good behavior. And having been a foster home for “problem” dogs for several years, I’ve had more than my fair share of dogs that were possession agressive that rather easily unlearned the behavior. If you have any evidence that it is bred in I’d love to see it. I’m not saying you’re “wrong”, just that I’ve never seen anything that would indicate that that is the case.
Nationwide they are on the rise:
http://www.dogbitelawsuits.com/statistics.html
Now, most of this rise, is because dogs themselves are more common now than ever.
As for golden retrievers, possessive aggression or aggression of any sort, is a major fault. Possessive aggression does seem to have a genetic basis. I can’t find the full study (you can only find the preliminary phenotyping study online), but there is a Dutch study that showed that possessive aggression in golden retrievers was easily studied from a genetic perspective.
What happened in goldens is that people stopped breeding them for their working temperament, which is docile and genial and not possessive in the least, and started breeding for all sorts of secondary characteristics. Temperament became less important than have a blocky head, lots of coat, and nowadays a very sedate temperament, which I think may have messed up some of their brain chemistry.
I’ve never did work on food possession proofing with my first two dogs. They weren’t food possessive or aggressive at all. They even shared the same bones!
I didn’t even know one could snarl until recently.
Other than the total dog population, which is current, none of the dog bite statistics on that website even appear to be from the past decade. Most of it is really old information that has been used a lot by lawyers (which this group appears to be) and anti-dog advocates to support overly restrictive laws on dog owners. And there is nothing here that indicates that bites are going up.
Looking at current information, it is rare to a city who’d dog bite stats are rising. While media coverage of bites is going up, there is little evidence that I’ve seen that actual bites are going up. Even though more people own dogs than ever before, we take so much better care of them than before that they really aren’t as much of a problem.
I can’t seem to find the Dutch study you reference. Everything I’ve ever read about possession aggression points to it being a learned behavior…so if there is some phenotype that shows this I’d love to know more about it. So if you can find it that’d be awesome. I had no luck. I completely agree with you though that breeding for looks rather than temperament has had a lot of negative effects…in all breeds.
I found the study: http://www.zevep.com/php/artikeldetail_x.php?typ=oai&id=246429
They are using goldens because they know the aggression is found in certain lines.
They are currently working on determining which genes cause it.
CDC on dog bite numbers: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5226a1.htm
My experience with several lines of goldens suggests that possessive aggression isn’t a learned behavior. There is a genetic basis to it. It can be trained out of the dog, but in my experience, this breed tends to have a difficulty dealing with possessive aggression if it develops.
And if you really think about it, no one in their right mind would breed for this in a golden. Possessiveness is the opposite of what you’d want in a golden retriever, which has an inherited motor predatory motor pattern that involves giving up what it picks up.
They’ve not found the gene, but they do know it’s inheritable: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2006-0427-200041/UUindex.html
The insurance companies apparently think that dog bites are increasing: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/INSURANCE+COSTS+UNLEASHED+RATES+RISE+FOR+PEOPLE+WITH+POOCH+ON+PROPERTY-a084413777
I’m not saying is the biggest problem in the world. I’m just saying that it’s getting to be an issue.
And we’re doing stupid things to try to stop dog bite, like banning pit bulls. What about the golden retrievers that bite?
http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Dog-Bites/dogbite-pubs.html
4.5 million people are bitten by dogs every year. About 885,000 receive medical attention for the bite. That’s an increase over the estimates I’ve seen from the 90’s from the CDC.
City data is interesting, and it tells you about dog regulations in cities. It cannot be used to generalize out to the whole country. It’s a simple units of analysis issue.
That said, the question should be what should be done to prevent dog bites? And I can tell you one thing that doesn’t work– breed specific legislation.
here”s the press release from the NCRC that notes bites are trending downward over the past couple of decades. This certainly mirrors the cities I have information for as well.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/dogbiteprevention/NCRC/prweb955754.htm
I’m seeing nationwide public health numbers. Of course, city dog bites are going to drop. Large cities have stricter dog laws than smaller cities, small towns, and the suburbs.
What I’m seeing is nationwide numbers that do have an increasing trend, which is tracking the dog population. And the insurance companies are seeing more litigation from dog bites. Ergo, at the macro-level they are increasing, while at the micro-level they are decreasing. It’s a simple units of analysis problem.
According to the US Census, 80% of the US population lives in Urban areas vs rural ones (this is 2000 census data, but it has gone up, not down, since then). http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm
It doesn’t logically work that if most cities see a decrease in dog bites that dog bites are going up Nationally. Theoretically it’s possible, but not logical.
If you look at the source of the CDC numbers you quoted they’re from a 1998 Lockwood dog bite study and have not been updated (to my knowledge) since then.
I think the first thing we need to do when talking about the dog bite situaation is to be sure we know what numbers we’re using and be sure that we’re talking about it accurately. While it certainly SEEMS like bites are going up, there is little evidence (other than increased media coverage) that supports this. Once people realize that bites really are going down, some of the hysteria around bites gets neutralized and we can start having real conversations about effectiveness.
Then, upon really looking at the data, we’ll find that there are a couple of key scenerios that lead to most major dog bites:
1) Young children (usually under 2) left alone with dogs.
2) Dogs that are used for guarding/protection purposes that attack someone that shouldn’t have been attacked
3) Dogs left chained up as their primary form of containment (or who are otherwise neglected) that serve more as lawn ornaments than as pets
4) Packs of dogs running at large.
If we focus all of our efforts on dealing with these issues we’ll be in much better shape. Create programs for parents to learn how to introduce new infants into homes with dogs, provide adequate police protection for communities that need it so they don’t need dogs for guarding purposes, focus on cruelty/neglect cases and pick up stray dogs.
Adding more laws that take resources away from these key points is counter-productive because it focuses on non-essential and non-determinent issues…which is why BSL has failed so miserably everywhere.
Looking forward to reading the genetics studies.
The only problem with doing cities is that city means different things in different states. For example, my state doesn’t have metro government mergers, so the cities themselves are smaller areas. I agree you have to be careful with the numbers.
Note: I didn’t send you the Clifton study. That thing is bullshit.
According to the US Census they considered a city anything over 50,000 people. We can quibble about that number, but I just pulle from their data.
And yeah, the Clifton thing is just ridiculous. I am amazed at anyone that gives that thing half an ounce of credibility….
The only problem with using city data– and I’ve experienced this in my profession as a political scienitst– is that it’s very hard to extrapolate whole country data from urban data.
But I will admit that most of the data on dog bites is quite nebulous.
Breed specific requirements (legislation, shelter policies, whatever) also make good people become liars.
How many lovely little pit-bull puppies and pit mixes are called something else by a shelter (can you say, “Lab mix???”) so that the pups don’t have to be summarily put down or put through a tortuous chain of evaluations and special adoption rules? I’ve heard and seen a few examples myself.
I don’t really blame anyone for doing this, but when the truth is obscured everyone loses.
Any breed can bite, any dog can bite, and if everyone were to remember that, there’d probably be fewer bites.
What I think of “pit-bulls” is too complicated and only based on my personal opinions and limited experience… but nonetheless I’m against BSL big-time.