2013 dog bite fatalities
http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2013.php
32 U.S. dog bite-related fatalities occurred in 2013. Despite being regulated in Military Housing areas and over 700 U.S. cities, pit bulls contributed to 78% (25) of these deaths. Pit bulls make up about 6% of the total U.S. dog population.2
Together, pit bulls (25) and rottweilers (1), the second most lethal dog breed, accounted for 81% of the total recorded deaths in 2013. This same combination accounted for 74% of all fatal attacks during the 9-year period of 2005 to 2013.
The breakdown between these two breeds is substantial over this 9-year period. From 2005 to 2013, pit bulls killed 176 Americans, about one citizen every 18.6 days, versus rottweilers, which killed 33, about one citizen every 99.5 days.
In the year of 2013, the combination of pit bulls (25), rottweilers (1) and bullmastiffs (2) accounted for 88% of all dog bite-related fatalities. Notably, the two bullmastiff-mixes3 were littermates that inflicted death within a 6-month period.
You had me at Time magazine ...
Of course it’s wishful thinking, given the appropriate conditions, all dogs are capable of attacking.
Honestly, I think the pit bull breed(s) is/are outstanding. I didn’t used to care for them. I have changed my mind. A lot of pit bull owners, however, leave something to be desired. If you make a mistake raising,training or breeding your yorkie, it probably won’t be too big of a deal. If you screw up with any of the pitbulls or other similar dogs, people can get hurt or worse. That being said, I think there ought to be laws against bad dog owners, not bad dog breeds.
In the ‘80s I was a meter reader for 5 years and I cannot tell you how many times I heard people say: “Oh, my dog doesn’t bite.”
Wrong. Wrong. WRONG! My standard reply was: “Does he have teeth? Yes? He bites.”
And they do.
MY son has what’s called an American Stafford-shire Terrier - he is a big dog. When he was about 1 year old he started getting really arrogant and pushing our other dog around - he would not listen and/or come when he was called even though he had been trained to do so.
He needed very firm discipline and a focus of that discipline - for us it was a light aluminium tube which he got a few good wacks with. I don’t like to do this but he needed it and is the best dog since - all I have to do is mention ‘The Stick’ and he comes over and sits down next to me. As good as he is I would not trust him with small children - he is just too big and could easily hurt them plus if he knocked them down the hunting/fighting instinct might kick in.
He is a great dog but you have to strict not mean and wary not complacent.
Pits, and other such breeds, should only be owned by people who can truly handle them. 90+ percent of pit bull owners I encounter are NOT qualified to have them,imho.
my solution for the 6% of dogs doing 68% of the attacking is the same solution for the 3% of persons doing 75% of the gun murders in this country.
They are over 50 percent of the costs at a local animal shelter, more than 50 percent of the problem dogs the shelter experiences.
These numbers are even with groups that take up pitbulls as their mission trying to relieve the stress on the shelter by taking the breed out of the shelter.
The worst part is all the owners that never realized how dangerous their choice of a pitbull is. The ones that don’t come in with some pathetic story that it was the neighbor’s cat or the child’s fault all say I had no idea. The dog seemed so nice, was a part of the family. Then come the words put him down.
We must be careful with statistics...
Blacks make up about 12.6 % of the US population but account for over 50% of the crime! Parallel arguments for analysis sake?
Per Wiki: According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and Native Americans and Asians 2.2%.
The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites, and the victim rate 6 times higher.
TIME Magazine reported.
That ended it for me.
My dogs are relatively small. Even if they were to bite someone, even if they bit a child, they would not destroy tissue and crush bone. They do not have the equipment. A big dog with a massive clamping jaw is a different story. I don’t know what I would do if I saw someone walking a pit bull through my neighborhood. If I saw it when my kids were small I might examine my options always keeping in mind that protecting my family is my first job.
and higher incidence of hoaxes and shakedowns.
6% of the dog population? Does that seem really high to anybody else?