"It's not the dogs or the dog breed: it's the owners"

[HazelPlayer]

Do you agree?

The person who has said this several times is also thinking of getting either a Rottweiler or a Staffie as a pet around a young child.

It never ceases to astound me why anyone would pick a breed known for their aggression as a house pet, particularly when they have young DCs in the house. It's unfair on the dog as well who will constantly be on high alert due to the circumstances it is in.

Of course it's breed, you never hear about DCs being mauled to death by a labrador or a spaniel.

But if you breed from lines that are known for their aggression, you're likely to end up with an aggressive dog.
Add to that a muscular build, hugely powerful jaws and an instinct to never let go and you have a recipe for disaster.
Even with the best trainer in the world I would never ever allow an XL Bully into my home. Utter lunacy.

Either way, argue until you are blue in the face, is it worth the risk?

I have a colleague who rescued an XL puppy just before the cut off. She babysits her pre-school aged GC a couple of days a week. Why would you risk their safety? For what? I just don't get it.

This comment, said all the time, shows the level of ignorance about domesticated animals and inane characteristics. You wouldn't hear a farmer saying that!

It's bad owners
It's incompetent owners
It's pre disposition
It's health of dog

It isn't black and white but ultimately an owner has a responsibility to ensure their dog is safe.

Of course it's the breed. It's not the owners going around mauling children and ripping arms off their owners. A bad owner will result in a poorly socialised and trained dog absolutely but there's a world of difference between a vicious Yorkshire terrier and a vicious XL bully.

I have a daschund who has specific breed traits, I used to have a collie who also had specific breed traits.

no - that's rubbish. I own three different breeds, pedigrees, all bred to do a specific job.

The terriers are bred as ratters, and they are great at it, one shake and dead rat, the retrievers are bred to gently bring something back to you - rubbish with rats, might catch one, but no idea what to do with it, no killer instinct, my golden just drops it and the terrier grabs and shakes.

my retrievers were bringing things to me as pups without being taught, my terriers had to be taught to let got of something "precious".

Dogs do better in situations where you work with their instincts not against them - so police drug detection dogs are more likely to be spaniels/retrievers not the Shepherds who are used in active chase and detain situations. There is a reason you don't see Golden retrievers being deployed to detain a fleeing burglar 😆🤷🏼‍♀️

We've bred different dogs for different purposes, if you have a dog breed that was DESIGNED to chase, kill, defend, tackle large prey, then that is what it will instinctively do.

Rotties were bred as livestock guarding dogs, so they can be territorial, that doesn't make them bad family pets, but it's a trait you have to manage. I've known some nice staffies, but personally I would never have any of the breeds that are in that bull terrier "family".

It’s both nature and nurture. Size, strength and fighting instincts bred into the dog and feckless fuckwit owners are a bad combination.
There are lots of instances where there is a bad combination of an individual or breed determined dog’s nature and owner’s ability to meet their needs but in most cases whilst it might lead to a less happy relationship it doesn’t end in disaster.

There is a huge difference between an actual SBT and an XL bully - the only confounding factor is that the legislation has encouraged misnaming of XLs as ‘American Staff’ etc so your friend needs to be very careful what she ends up with.

Absolutely. It's about potential to harm. A dog who gets its tail trodden on and snaps isn't a "bad dog " necessarily but the potential consequences vary by breed.

It was dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse who used the mantra 'there are no bad dogs, only bad owners'; she did that for a reason and its time to let it go.
Most trainers don't work with aggressive dogs, which can cause confirmation bias about there not being any 'bad' dogs. Dogs aren't bad in the 'evil human' sense, but their temperament and personality can make them unfit to live among people. Clumsy handling or inexperienced bystanders don't help, but that's not necessarily anyone's fault.
People often need to have someone to blame for a bad situation. Blaming is not a useful mindset. It doesn't fix anything and it doesn't teach us how to avoid a bad situation.

Thanks, everyone for your posts.

I look at dogs, bred for eons for different specialisms - hunting, retrieval, herding, guarding, water rescue, ratting etc. In the case of bull terriers, they were bull baiting dogs. Bred to be risk taking and aggressive enough to attack bulls, and to go for their throats and to pull them down and hold on.

There is a video on YouTube of a bull terrier doing that to a donkey, I'm not sure in what country. But the poor donkey had to deal with being hitched to a trailer and being attacked at the throat and pulled to its knees by the dog. Someone beat the dog with a stick and the donkey was doing its best to kick it (with difficulty, obviously) and I think they got it off, I wasn't comfortable watching the video.

I don't understand his anyone can think that a breed that was originally bred to bait bulls - and to thus have aggression and great tenacity (and to have a very strong psi bite and ability to hang on) would be less dangerous than a breed that is not like that ..... I don't think a "good," owner can always overcome breeding & instincts.

I was wondering if I'm being pedantic in that or not.

I think it's just semantics.

We have a situation where 'that sort' of owner consistently chooses to own 'that sort' of dog - and it's leading to the deaths of children and innocent adults.

You can't ban or exterminate the people, so all that's left is to ban/exterminate the dogs.

There's a broad variety of dog breeds because humans selectively bred for different behavioural, tempermental, physical and aesthetic traits.

But training and the way the dog is raised matters too.

If a dog for whatever reason becomes aggressive, it's build will affect the effects. An agressive pomeranian won't be able to do much more than nip you in the ankle. XL bullies can attack until grown adults are dead.

I've challenged an ignorant dog owner today. The dog bounded up to a woman at a bench barking. She ended up shrieking with fear, standing on the bench. He was not quick at recalling the dog and when I caught up with him, I pointed out that to let his dog terrify someone like that falls in the legal definition of the dog being out of control and he needed to put it on the lead (woman still standing on the bench watching). He half heartedly argued back but decided to temporarily humour me.
A minute later there was an oncoming woman with her dog wearing a "reactive vest" so I I warned her about it and she went off path to avoid. By the time I completed my loop of the area, I saw him ahead of me again and quel surprise, the dog was off lead again. How fucking predictable.
Thank god it wasn't of a breed built for power and bite.

There's far too many feckless owners ruining public spaces with their nuisence dogs, but certain breeds are more likely to become dangerous than others when triggered. The only thing that surprised me with this one was that he humoured me relatively quickly and didn't victim blame or use the word "friendly" to minimise.

You wouldn't expect to train a lion to live as a domestic cat. Nor a wolf or fox as a domestic dog.

https://blog.dogsbite.org/2022/06/fatal-rottweiler-attacks-archival.html

That's just an amateur records site in the US.

A lot of young kids on that list.

That's a powerful dog with a powerful bite, that's part of my problem with it.

Same as either Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

131 kids over 48 years in a country of 335 million.
131 is 131 too many, but actually to me, it's really not alot.

It could certainly be "bad" owners with risky breeds.

But I'm not sure I'd entirely trust a risky breed owned by a "good" owner either.

Anyway, there are risky breeds and powerful breeds - with much more capacity for damage and death than other breeds; which I suppose is why "it's the owner, not the breed" doesn't ring true for me.

What do you think is the acceptable limit for babies and toddlers etc to be killed by pets?

It's "A lot" by the way.

To a point. But when you have a big jaw that is designed to clamp into and tear at large prey humans will be vulnerable.

Partially, but a dog with massive strong jaws could inflict huge damage even without being poorly trained.

This is exactly what I think. I don't see the point in the "it's the irresponsible owners fault" yes, AND?? This is exactly the argument that keeps the USA in its woeful situation with guns.

having worked with dogs for 30+ years I can tell you with clarity that no puppy is born bad.

After 30 years I'm going to presume you know that a dogs genetic traits tend to come to the fore around the age of maturity. And that all the training in the world can at best poorly mask them.

That's why so many of these xl bully attacks seem to happen once the dog is over two years old.

I think puppies can be born bad.
XL bullies are genetically aggressive the same way Sheepdogs know how to heard.

I've had dogs which hated other dogs, and dogs that are soft as shit. Same training.