Wolves instinctively fear and avoid humans, while dogs have been selectivity bred for 10,000 years to share our company. Mix those competing impulses into an animal with the reasoning ability of a toddler and you get an unpredictable and dangerous combination. Young kids especially may trigger defensive behaviors that can result in a crushing bite, or worse.
I used to have a neighbor who was one of those massive truck, baseball cap, toxic macho men. He would often talk loudly in his driveway and keep me up at night.
He claimed his dog was a wolf hybrid. This dog was extremely aggressive and would attack children if given the chance. I NEVER saw that dog outside of the house. Being taken to walks, nothing. I only ever saw the dog through the door a couple times and every time it was the super aggressive barking. Not the normal bark, the one combined with bearing teeth, growling. Stuff from nightmares.
I don’t know it that dog was a wolf dog, apparently they are legal to keep in Canada but may be banned on a municipal level. I wouldn’t put it past a toxic macho man to own a dangerous animal, not train it to scare children away and make himself look like a “tough guy”.
No one that I know of got hurt by this dog. And the dog was isolated enough that it being a “wolf dog” was the only rumor. The guy claimed that he walked the dog super early in the morning -before anyone was out and about to avoid conflict with people and other dogs, but I never saw it.
But I never seen him interact with his dog, never let it out. Never play with it. It’s not a pet at that point. It’s a dangerous doorbell.
Dogs like that, that are aggressive and either can’t or won’t be trained should be destroyed, their owners fined heavily, and banned from owning dogs.
Dogs are classified as property and a dog that hurts someone causes the owner to be liable. A threat of violence from a dog, said property, is not much different than an owner with a gun negligently pointing it.
I’ve been to some pretty remote farm locations and they always have three types of dogs.
The pet - small jack Russell type that lives in the house.
The worker - sheep dog type that accompanies the farmer in his day to day life. Often sleeps close to the house or inside when cold.
The beast - doberman etc always caged in the day. No interaction from guests. Ferocious human haters. They will roam the yards at night and generally patrol.
Each is part of the farm and has their place, to call them property is wrong because they are an essential part of the living.
The problem to me is when one of the 3rd type lives in close proximity to strangers. That’s the last place they should be.
The beast - doberman etc always caged in the day. No interaction from guests. Ferocious human haters. They will roam the yards at night and generally patrol.
If the point of this dog is to attack humans, or if that is incidental and it’s not trained to NOT do that, it should be destroyed. It’s effectively a sentient weapon that will attack people.
There are trained guard dogs and watch dogs. Watch dogs alert people and guard dogs to intruders. Guard dogs warn off intruders and can be trained to attack if a resident is attacked. The latter is much more problematic and liable for lawsuits but what you described is a walking Wrongful Death lawsuit waiting to happen. Trespassing laws (in the US) don’t allow lethal force. Even Castle Law usually requires an intruder to be offering violence.
I hear you and agree in a perfect world they shouldn’t exist, but…
Firstly the key word here is remote. Noone has any reason to be going to these locations unless invited especially at night.
Secondly they are up against pikeys and gangs who will kill them without a second thought so they need to be as hard as.
Thirdly, and obv can’t prove this but yeah they are trained that way with violence from their owner who beats them back to their cages each day if they are still out.
As for the trespassing laws etc, then the dog just gets put down and farmer absolved of guilt with the dog having done its job he trains another.
Nasty business all round frankly.
It’s effectively a sentient weapon that will attack people.
Well, yes, that’s the point. But not specifically people, but any animal coming into the territory, like wolves, coyotes, or foxes, that might kill livestock.
Too many dumbasses with Pitbulls as playthings makes up the majority of the problem. The vast majority of serious incidents with humans involve Pitbulls despite greater concentration of other breeds.
In other words, Pitbulls haven’t been domesticated; or rather that breed is inherently aggressive. So sick of dumb owners who fall for the same ignorant trap that they’re different from the rest.
I grew up around Staffordshire pitbulls who all pitbulls are decended from. To me for a long time they were what a dog was cos everyone had one. Loving, protective, social dogs that had bounds of energy. Even “owned” one for a short while and was comfortable enough to walk off lead with her. Her only problem was other dogs, couldn’t be around them really and saw them as a challenge which was frustrating cos of how amenable she was the rest of the time.
As my previous comment goes, she would fall under beast and is better off as a working defence dog and not around people or other animals really. That’s the issue, people keeping dogs that are trained for purpose and then keeping them as pets without purpose.
I largely agree with this. I simply think Pitbulls were bred with certain qualities that don’t take kindly to average urban lifestyles. My neighbor 3 doors down had 3 Pitbulls maul their golden retriever to death. Perfect example of what you said. Meanwhile the hospital nearby took a 2-year-old mauled by her own family’s Pitbulls a few years back. Anecdotes of course but that only corroborates the national statistics I already mentioned.
The thing is, it’s almost always Pitbulls. Retrievers retrieve. Pointers point. Shepherds herd. Pitbulls fight.
I say that as someone who was hospitalized by a German Shepherd for 2 days when I was 12 lol. The only dog I am more cautious with than a Pitbull is a shar pei. Whew… Bred to be imperial guard dogs… I knew one for years and I had very close calls with it.
Interestingly, AKC testing showed pitbulls to be among the best breeds with regard to temperament testing. They are large, strong, and often owned by bad people and bred and (not) trained irresponsibly, but there is nothing to suggest that any problems pitbulls have are systemic to the breed.
For whatever reason, ER doctors and Trauma surgeons would beg to differ as to outcome on the front line; for, despite not being the most populous breed, they make up nearly 70% of all human attacks and 52% of all deaths, with the next breed being Rottweilers at only 10%.
70%. Despite 6% of the dog population.
Whether that’s a reflection of what I perceive as the oft copout, “it’s the owner,” that still begs the question of whether that risk is worth assuming for any owner, let alone the people surrounding the unregulated ownership of such an animal.
Whether that’s owner negligence (even harder to evidence) or the dog breed, the end-result is the same: it’s a breed who exhibits by far the worst outcome.
After all, isn’t it funny that all those irresponsible owners of other breeds don’t yield similar statistics with comparably-sized breeds…?
In other words, (a) Is there evidence the owner of a Pitbull is inherently less responsible than an owner of a Rottweiler or a Doberman? I’ve seen no such evidence. (b) Is there a greater demand upon Pitbull owners to offset the risk to owning a Pitbull versus other breeds?
Wolf hybrids do not make good pets.
Wolves instinctively fear and avoid humans, while dogs have been selectivity bred for 10,000 years to share our company. Mix those competing impulses into an animal with the reasoning ability of a toddler and you get an unpredictable and dangerous combination. Young kids especially may trigger defensive behaviors that can result in a crushing bite, or worse.
I used to have a neighbor who was one of those massive truck, baseball cap, toxic macho men. He would often talk loudly in his driveway and keep me up at night.
He claimed his dog was a wolf hybrid. This dog was extremely aggressive and would attack children if given the chance. I NEVER saw that dog outside of the house. Being taken to walks, nothing. I only ever saw the dog through the door a couple times and every time it was the super aggressive barking. Not the normal bark, the one combined with bearing teeth, growling. Stuff from nightmares.
I don’t know it that dog was a wolf dog, apparently they are legal to keep in Canada but may be banned on a municipal level. I wouldn’t put it past a toxic macho man to own a dangerous animal, not train it to scare children away and make himself look like a “tough guy”.
No one that I know of got hurt by this dog. And the dog was isolated enough that it being a “wolf dog” was the only rumor. The guy claimed that he walked the dog super early in the morning -before anyone was out and about to avoid conflict with people and other dogs, but I never saw it.
But I never seen him interact with his dog, never let it out. Never play with it. It’s not a pet at that point. It’s a dangerous doorbell.
Dogs like that, that are aggressive and either can’t or won’t be trained should be destroyed, their owners fined heavily, and banned from owning dogs.
Dogs are classified as property and a dog that hurts someone causes the owner to be liable. A threat of violence from a dog, said property, is not much different than an owner with a gun negligently pointing it.
I’ve been to some pretty remote farm locations and they always have three types of dogs.
Each is part of the farm and has their place, to call them property is wrong because they are an essential part of the living.
The problem to me is when one of the 3rd type lives in close proximity to strangers. That’s the last place they should be.
If the point of this dog is to attack humans, or if that is incidental and it’s not trained to NOT do that, it should be destroyed. It’s effectively a sentient weapon that will attack people.
There are trained guard dogs and watch dogs. Watch dogs alert people and guard dogs to intruders. Guard dogs warn off intruders and can be trained to attack if a resident is attacked. The latter is much more problematic and liable for lawsuits but what you described is a walking Wrongful Death lawsuit waiting to happen. Trespassing laws (in the US) don’t allow lethal force. Even Castle Law usually requires an intruder to be offering violence.
I hear you and agree in a perfect world they shouldn’t exist, but…
Firstly the key word here is remote. Noone has any reason to be going to these locations unless invited especially at night.
Secondly they are up against pikeys and gangs who will kill them without a second thought so they need to be as hard as.
Thirdly, and obv can’t prove this but yeah they are trained that way with violence from their owner who beats them back to their cages each day if they are still out. As for the trespassing laws etc, then the dog just gets put down and farmer absolved of guilt with the dog having done its job he trains another. Nasty business all round frankly.
Well, yes, that’s the point. But not specifically people, but any animal coming into the territory, like wolves, coyotes, or foxes, that might kill livestock.
Too many dumbasses with Pitbulls as playthings makes up the majority of the problem. The vast majority of serious incidents with humans involve Pitbulls despite greater concentration of other breeds.
In other words, Pitbulls haven’t been domesticated; or rather that breed is inherently aggressive. So sick of dumb owners who fall for the same ignorant trap that they’re different from the rest.
I grew up around Staffordshire pitbulls who all pitbulls are decended from. To me for a long time they were what a dog was cos everyone had one. Loving, protective, social dogs that had bounds of energy. Even “owned” one for a short while and was comfortable enough to walk off lead with her. Her only problem was other dogs, couldn’t be around them really and saw them as a challenge which was frustrating cos of how amenable she was the rest of the time.
As my previous comment goes, she would fall under beast and is better off as a working defence dog and not around people or other animals really. That’s the issue, people keeping dogs that are trained for purpose and then keeping them as pets without purpose.
I largely agree with this. I simply think Pitbulls were bred with certain qualities that don’t take kindly to average urban lifestyles. My neighbor 3 doors down had 3 Pitbulls maul their golden retriever to death. Perfect example of what you said. Meanwhile the hospital nearby took a 2-year-old mauled by her own family’s Pitbulls a few years back. Anecdotes of course but that only corroborates the national statistics I already mentioned.
The thing is, it’s almost always Pitbulls. Retrievers retrieve. Pointers point. Shepherds herd. Pitbulls fight.
I say that as someone who was hospitalized by a German Shepherd for 2 days when I was 12 lol. The only dog I am more cautious with than a Pitbull is a shar pei. Whew… Bred to be imperial guard dogs… I knew one for years and I had very close calls with it.
Interestingly, AKC testing showed pitbulls to be among the best breeds with regard to temperament testing. They are large, strong, and often owned by bad people and bred and (not) trained irresponsibly, but there is nothing to suggest that any problems pitbulls have are systemic to the breed.
For whatever reason, ER doctors and Trauma surgeons would beg to differ as to outcome on the front line; for, despite not being the most populous breed, they make up nearly 70% of all human attacks and 52% of all deaths, with the next breed being Rottweilers at only 10%.
70%. Despite 6% of the dog population.
Whether that’s a reflection of what I perceive as the oft copout, “it’s the owner,” that still begs the question of whether that risk is worth assuming for any owner, let alone the people surrounding the unregulated ownership of such an animal.
Whether that’s owner negligence (even harder to evidence) or the dog breed, the end-result is the same: it’s a breed who exhibits by far the worst outcome.
After all, isn’t it funny that all those irresponsible owners of other breeds don’t yield similar statistics with comparably-sized breeds…?
In other words, (a) Is there evidence the owner of a Pitbull is inherently less responsible than an owner of a Rottweiler or a Doberman? I’ve seen no such evidence. (b) Is there a greater demand upon Pitbull owners to offset the risk to owning a Pitbull versus other breeds?
Perfect response
Does sound like good passive home defense though if it’s just constantly making its presence felt to any visitors
Effective, perhaps. I wouldn’t use the term good here.
indiscriminate is probably a fitting word for it too unfortunately.