I agree that people need to be informed on the correct way to raise a dog, but I also feel that way about children.
Large dogs are strong. You have to be a strong person to handle one (personality over physical).
Its only prejudice that helps these claims.
10 years ago golden retrievers were being overbred and were having temperment problems.... were goldens banned? No, because they are viewed as the "family" dog.
I myself have a siberian husky and they are labeled on the dangerous dogs list.
As stated by the ASPCA the temperment of a husky is:
loving, good with children, easy to care for since they do not eat alot, overly intelligent and horrilbe guard dogs..... this puts them on the dangerous dog list.
When they were younger my mom got this stuff you rub on the furniture to stop chewing. She put it on the wooden arm rests of these chairs we had....the dogs went nuts chewing them up after she put it on. I swear they loved the taste of that stuff.
Scrappy still gets himself in trouble with chewing...especially socks and tissues (ew).
My dogs have both done things that would have gotten them killed if I didn't love them so much. lol
They can get away with more things from me than I will allow from any human. Humans don't have the cute and loyal factor to fall back on.
Doggies don't :)
Haha panties and soap....
http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-b...
Dog Bite Study
You may or may not have seen the dog bit study that was done by a University of Pennsylvania researcher. If you haven't, then you may be surprised at the top three dogs that are the biggest and most common to bite, and it wasn't the American Pit Bull, Rottweiler, or German Shepherd Dog.
Dachshund
Chihuahua
Jack Russel Terrier
It appears that the study covered just over 3,500 dogs and tested them for aggression vs humans, their owners, and other dogs. According to the numbers, over 50% of Dachshunds showed some type of aggression.
There are several different ways the data could be interpreted, and different routes that we can take. The one that comes to mind first is to take the "mad mommy" route and ban all Dachshunds, Chihuahuas, and Jack Russels before they do any harm. But, that sounds pretty ridiculous if you ask me, especially considering we're talking about such small breed dogs. But, if you think about it, if larger breeds were found on the top of the list, the "mad mommies" would all unite and have them banned universally.
Another route, is to just ignore the numbers and chalk it up to a small sample size or something saying that the research didn't have a clue about proper testing methods. We can conclude...
Dog Bite Study
You may or may not have seen the dog bit study that was done by a University of Pennsylvania researcher. If you haven't, then you may be surprised at the top three dogs that are the biggest and most common to bite, and it wasn't the American Pit Bull, Rottweiler, or German Shepherd Dog.
Dachshund
Chihuahua
Jack Russel Terrier
It appears that the study covered just over 3,500 dogs and tested them for aggression vs humans, their owners, and other dogs. According to the numbers, over 50% of Dachshunds showed some type of aggression.
There are several different ways the data could be interpreted, and different routes that we can take. The one that comes to mind first is to take the "mad mommy" route and ban all Dachshunds, Chihuahuas, and Jack Russels before they do any harm. But, that sounds pretty ridiculous if you ask me, especially considering we're talking about such small breed dogs. But, if you think about it, if larger breeds were found on the top of the list, the "mad mommies" would all unite and have them banned universally.
Another route, is to just ignore the numbers and chalk it up to a small sample size or something saying that the research didn't have a clue about proper testing methods. We can conclude that it was all a mistake.
But, in total, nearly 20% of the dogs showed some form of aggression. 4.4% showed aggression to strangers. 1.9% toward their owners, and 13.5% showed aggression toward other dogs.
Summarized from the "Fear the Dachshund" by Brent Toellner from the American Pit Bull Terrier Gazette; Volume 33, Issue 1; Fall 2008
Dogs are generally friendly to strangers, with 95.6% of dogs being kind to strangers. No single breed had the majority of its dogs show aggressiong toward strangers. The breed with the highest aggression toward strangers was the Dachshund with 20.6%, Chihuahuas at 16.1%, and the Australian Cattle Dog at 9.6%.
No breeds were prone to bite their owners. Beagles had the highest aggression toward their owners at 7.9%.
Looking at dog aggression to other dogs, this was found to be a little rare. About 86.5% of dogs showed no signs of aggression to other dogs, which is odd considering one of the biggest myth about "pit dogs" is that they are naturally dog aggressive. Over 2/3 of the Pit Bulls in the study never showed any aggression to other dogs. Dachshunds, on the other hand had 30.3% aggression to dogs, and Jack Russels had 30.8%, making the Dachshund and Jack Russel Terrier the most dog aggressive dogs according to this study.
But, in general, about 29% of dogs had some kind of incident, including Dachshunds (25%), English Springer Spaniel (24.6%), Australian Cattle Dog (24.3%), Chihuahua (21.4%), German Shepherd (20.9%), Wheaton Terrier (20.4%), Boxer (20%), and the Border Collie (17.8%).
Results
So, what does the study say and confirm?
In spite of what media reports would like you to believe, most dogs are not by nature, naturally aggressive. In fact the vast majority of dogs are not aggressive at all, and the vast majority of all breeds are not aggressive.
All dogs can be aggressive if certain instances present themselves, either through lack of socialization, environment, or other learned instances.
Dog VS dog aggression is far from a "unique" Pit Bull characteristic and can carry across all dog breeds.
If we're ever going to get the very root of aggressive dogs in the country, we're going to have to quite pretending this is a breed-specific problem, and educate and demand that all dog owners take responsibility for the training and behavior of their dogs because until then, people will continue to believe that their breed isn't the problem.