To wish dangerous dog breeds and all breeds closely resembling them were banned in UK?

[DustOfALongSleeplessNight]

There are so many nice friendly breeds, why chose a breed that was developed for aggression and fighting? I know individual dogs have different temperaments, but if they were selectively bred for bull and bear baiting, how can they make good pets?

Pit bulls (illegal in UK) are frequently kept illegally and passed off as Staffy-crosses until the police find them.

I think they should ban all dobermans, rottweilers, staffordshire bull terriers, malamutes, huskies, german shepherds and any other dog with aggressive genetics, plus all the breeds that closely resemble them. I frequently see these breeds in local park, off the lead, running amongst small children!

I must say my Neo looked very dangerous when he ran into the patio doors the other day and slid down the glass.... I nearly fell over laughing

Ok thanks Sansa, I'll stop fretting about the possible emergence of a mythic dragon-dog :)
and yes thats a good point, people who keep other large animals tend to be experts/specialists and the cost and work involved in keeping them is prohibitive for most people

Suzanne I think its a case of horses for courses, our dogs are 34" and 33" at their backs when standing (male and female respectively) but when they rear up on two legs they're taller than my 6'5 husband. They weigh 160 lbs and were specifically bred to protect children and families from bears and other large predators because they can singlehandedly take down a bear quickly and fairly easily without suffering a scratch.
In the UK, no, there probably isn't much of a call for them, but where we are we can be faced with big predators on a pretty much daily basis so I'm very glad of them. Plus they make excellent foot muffs as our male is currently doing, curled up at my feet, no need for slippers here!

Suzanne For the record, I do think most people with very large dogs do train them well- because when your dog is so much physically stronger than you, you need it to behave!

I love large dogs, I think burnese mountain dogs (as an example) are beautiful, but equally, I am realistic that as a petite woman, a dog that weighs as much as I do and is built for strength might not be the ideal dog for me!

I'm really scared of people of un-educated, ignorant and goady posters. Does that mean I can vote to make them illegal?

There have been 17 deaths due to dog attacks in the UK since 2005.
More than 200,000 people a year are estimated to be bitten by dogs in England, with the annual cost to the NHS of £3 million.
Hospital admissions due to dog bites have been steadily rising for the last five years:
2007-08: 4,611 hospital admissions
2008-09: 5,221 hospital admissions

BTW if you are using these sort of satitics should we ban car / private driving and just restrict the roads to public transport as the numbers of deaths and injuries are atleast 10 times this a year........ ok far more like 100 times as much the deaths as in 2013 alone the death toil on our roads stand at 1,713......... and the number or injuries is not reported my god that sort of firgures must cost the NHS billions in hospital admissions ..........

YABU.

And also stating things in such a way that is very unlikely to lead to a sensible discussion about how to tackle serious dog bite attacks/irresponsible dog ownership/people's well founded fears about the safety of themselves, their children, families and pets in public places.

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that perhaps we need to think more about whether the costs of running a scheme where dog owners need a licence would be worthwhile. Or how to make it a legal requirement that dogs over certain size/weight (no need to go into breed) are either kept on the leash or muzzled (if off the leash) in public places. For example- what kind of thresholds would make that workable so someone couldn't claim their dog was 5g under the limit so it was ok to let them run around unsupervised, or whether some parks etc could have special "large dogs areas" that such dogs could run about in unmuzzled, but which other people could chose to avoid etc.

Why choose to have a cat or a rabbit?a yorkie or jack russel? Some people like staffies! ( this is coming from a person who currently doesn't
Have dogs as the vcars would not be impressed)

Cats*

Hahahahahahaha. hahahahahhaha.
YABU go educate yourself and stop reading the daily mail tripe a dog is aggressive by how it is raised not by its breed you raise a dog to be disciplined happy and loved then it is fine you beat/shout or display negativity to your dog it will turn on people and bite them out of fear/insecurity. the breed has nothing to do with it

More oversight of dog breeders and others who own unneutered male dogs might be a better answer here.

Not sure if the law is the same but the first time I went to Australia (WA may also be different in different states) the cheapest dog to own was a neutered female, followed by neutered male, uneutered female, uneutered male because of the price of the dog licence you had to buy.

All dogs should be muzzled when in public - that would solve a lot of problems.

Deed not breed.

YABVU and need to educate yourself before posting. Any dog can be dangerous, it's how they are treated that makes a difference.

Having worked for years with strays the only dog that's ever bitten me was a jack Russell.

It might be AIBU but you cannot go round calling people morons. It's disgusting.

I have often thought that perhaps dogs of over a certain size and weight could be subject to some controls, suggestions from moustache along those lines sound workable.
Also the points made by Sash? about the Australian system

In these debates the same old rhetoric of 'any dog can bite' and 'my rottweiller would lick you to death' is used, that is besides the point, it's surely obvious that a large powerful dog is capable of inflicting far more serious injury than a yorkshire ?terrier.
Part of the appeal of these dogs is precisely the fact that they are large and powerful the owners are clearly gaining some sense of status / masculinity from the fact of being the master of the dangerously looking creature?.

I am in favour of increased controls in regards to dog ownership, something to disincentivise ownership of large dogs.
Given that it is considered very bad form to not pick up dog excrement these days I think public acceptance of such controls is likely. ?
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It's a bit bizarre to me seeing the level of absolute paranoia from some posters.

It's like they have lived in a bubble all their lives and anything unknown terrifies them.

The only time I have ever come across truly aggressive dogs was in Romania (don't even get me started on animal welfare there), and in China (ditto). In both cases it was guard dogs who were vicious little fuckers, as opposed to the very skittish morose strays.

I'm not saying they don't exist in the UK, but it's nowhere near as common as people are making out.

For reference, dogs often bite children when the kids haven't been taught not to smack the dog in the face, or pull it's tail, or shove things in it's ears.

That's hardly the dogs fault.

Dust, your opinion is narrow-minded, offensive, unenlightened and cretinous. If you voiced it about the human race you would quite rightly be told so in far more vigorous terms.

Educate yourself.

Of course it's not the dogs fault, such a statement is illogical, obviously the dog has no moral agency .
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No, suzanne, but the way people are posting you'd think it was. And if a dog is provoked and bites, it often gets the blame and can end up pts. Especially if no one who knew what they were looking at actually witnessed the event.

"Part of the appeal of these dogs is precisely the fact that they are large and powerful the owners are clearly gaining some sense of status / masculinity from the fact of being the master of the dangerously looking creature?."

For some owners of course, though actually as many people in RL struggle to identify breeds of dog it's more to do with the status the name of the breed gives rather than the actual dog.

Normal sensible people pick a dog because they fit in with their lifestyle not in how they look.

So people pick a Rottweiler over a lab because they like the energy outside but don't want the constant mooching for food inside, or they want to do agility and they're a better fit or they prefer a dog that doesn't bark everytime someone thinks about coming to the door. (Rottweilers aren't a vocal breed in that way).

psip calling someone a moron isn't nice, but then again neither is stereotyping certain dogs.
as for controls on larger dogs, most sensible owners do this already. my dog does not come off his lead unless I am certain there are no people about (apart from one's he knows and who know him) as he bounds over like the great big lump he is wanting to play. I know some people may find this quite scary because of his size so on the lead he stays. he also stays on the lead around New dogs as I don't know their temperament. and that is any new dog he comes across , be it another large dog or a little Jack Russell
only when I am certain that he will not come to any harm or inadvertently cause harm to others is he allowed off the lead for a run and if I do see something which changes this he is called back and put back on the lead.

suzanne - it is bizarre and sexist to say that people who own large dogs are trying to seem more "masculine". What on earth is masculine about a larger dog? And status? Huh?

Big dogs are by no means more aggressive than smaller ones. A Great Dane is bloody huge - They also tend to be very docile and sort of....stupid. You have to train them for any sort of aggression. And what about Afghan Hounds? They are big dogs, but the idea of them being scary is just comical.

I like larger dogs. I like them because I enjoy their exercise requirements, and because I dislike the yappy nature of small dogs.

One thing to bear in mind though is that it's actually quite rare for people to own a specific dog breed. The majority of dogs bought for pets are cross breeds.

What I would agree with however, are dog licenses. I think everyone who wants to own a dog should have to have a license. Not for the people, but for the welfare of the animal. Happily though, the happier and more responsibly owned pet would benefit others as well. In practise though I honestly don't think it's something that could be implemented.

I really dislike this idea of blaming dogs rather than their irresponsible owners.

And if a dog is provoked and bites, it often gets the blame and can end up pts. Especially if no one who knew what they were looking at actually witnessed the event.

It's the dog owner's fault for not keep it under control. Dog owners should always have their dogs under control. If they can't be trusted near children then they should be muzzled or caged. Children can behave impulsively. But they are more important than animals, so the animals have to be controlled.

I don't mean that it wasn't the dogs fault, I mean that the dog has no capacity for distinguishing right from wrong, blaming the dog makes as much sense as blaming a tree branch for falling on someone's head.

Still a dangerous tree? should be chopped down, a dangerous dog which attacks should be destroyed