this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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You're missing the blindingly obvious solution that should be taken: spay and neuter them so that no new ones are bred.
Or, ya know, people could be responsible pet owners.
No amount of responsibility can overcome what 200 years of artificial selection at a rate of every 2 years.
Responsibility includes accounting for possible aggressive behavior :/ If you're responsible for a chainsaw, you know to keep it oiled. You know to use it only in the correct environment, and you don't have it anywhere near children.
So yes, you can responsibly own a pitbull. Responsibility is being responsible for a subject; its well being, its actions, and the consequences of its existence.
And yes, responsibility can overcome what 200 years of artificial selection at a rate of every 2 years has done. That is literally what responsibility is charged with.
You're trying to twist and turn here. Accounting for? You can't overcome it. I say again, you can't overcome 200 years of artificial selection.
My aunt has lived with two pitbulls for almost a decade now. Raised two small children in the same home. Nothing but sweethearts. Dogs are individuals, just like people. Just like having another person around your baby, you need to be responsible with any dog breed.
It's about propensity, probability, likelihood, etc.
What's the margin? Where do we draw the line between breeds that are okay to allow to reproduce and which aren't? Pitbulls are statistically very safe, as all dogs are, when treated and trained well. If we banned everything with similar levels of risk of injury or death as pitbulls, we'd have to ban a LOT. Let's start with guns, cars, and hell, why not smoking and drinking for legal guardians of children, too. In-ground swimming pools can go, and let's revamp electrical outlets.
Obviously, it's a sliding scale of propensity, probability, and likelihood, as you said, but pitbulls are much lower on that scale. Just as with everything else on that list, the risk of harm to others, especially children, falls on the responsibility of the owner. This isn't to say "guns don't kill people, people kill people," as obviously guns enable easily killing many people quickly, but rather to contrast the realistic risk to family and community. Pitbulls have been excessively demonized for their relative risk. I can't take anyone calling for pitbull bans seriously unless they believe in authoritatively banning all the other aspects of our lives that pose similar levels of risk to ourselves and others.
You ask questions then rule out any answer* so I guess we're done .
(*technically unless it meets x y z.)
I would love to hear the argument for banning pitbulls despite being less risky than other commonly accepted risks.
In a hypothetical situation where every dog breed is banned except for Chihuahuas.
Would the amount of dog mauling be more, less or equal than how it is now?
If you say anything other than "equal" you agree that the breed is an aspect.
Those other risks are probably a lot more important to society than owning a specific breed of pet.
youre not going to get anybody to see the nuance. all pits bad 100%. even the good pits just didnt smell a good tasty kid yet. and the ones that did are just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. and also dont forget the racism involved with hating pit bulls
The nuance is that tons of "well trained" "family dog" pitbulls "that wouldn't hurt a fly" end up mauling someone to death because of their physical characteristics.
Racism has nothing to do with it.
so youre basing this on anecdotal evidence. got it. racism always has something to do with nearly everything. you think reporting on this (which i presume is what fuels your anecdotal evidence) is unaffected by race?
You don't want to know how many "family dogs" like your aunts end up mauling people to death.
Every single one of them said their dogs were sweethearts and would never hurt fly. Now they are dead.
Yes, you can.
If it was about weeding out the fight drive of the dogs, a lot of things could be done, without the need to drive the breed to extinction. Inside the pit bull gene pool there are two lines: the fighting dogs and the bait dogs. The last ones are those that display the lowest drive for fighting and aggression. There is nothing wrong with these animals except their lack of will to fight other dogs and this trait makes these animals less desirable to people breeding these dogs that know they can make good money by keeping the fight drive of the breed. These are the people that often show off dogs hanging from ropes off the ground, growling and twisting on it, to showcase the bite force of the animals.
Increase the frequency of theses individuals in breeding pools, weed out the naturally more feisty, and you can modify the race or any race very fast. Pugs and Yorkshire Terriers area two examples that come to mind of breeds that suffered radical changes on very short time spans because of aesthetic trends. No obstacle on doing the same thing to improve a breed for good reasons instead of shallow ones.
There are a good number of breeds out in the world much more dangerous than the Pit Bull. The Tosa Inu, which was specifically bred to be a fighting dog, the Presa Canario, also bred for fighting, the Rodesian Ridgeback, and many others. In the 90's, Dobermans had the dirtiest reputation for being very dangerous. Nowadays, not so much.
So, your statement is misinformed.
note to mods: don't like what I wrote, just give me a permanent ban and be done with.
First I like that you acknowledge there is a fight drive.
Second, so you're discussing selective breeding to get it out, which is entirely different than people thinking you can coddle it out. You missed the entire conversation.
Is this you?
The way you put your argument, you seem to state there is no possible way to solve the issues this breed tends to show more propensity to exhibit. Selective breeding is one way and the best way to remove from the breed undesirable traits, as a root cause. But this does not mean it is the only one and extensive, structured, conscious training and conditioning, along with correct housing, can and will drastically reduce the risk of bad events. This breed is composed of individuals, which is often, conveniently, overlooked.
Pit Bulls are not exclusive to bad episodes with horrendous outcomes. Many other breeds are listed as controlled or banned, from country to country.
What Pit Bulls have against them that many have correctly stated is the tendency to attract the worst kind of humans.
Another breed are XL bullies. Pitbulls aren't the only dangerous dog.
Okay. Let's put things in order.
What exists, recognized by consensus, in objective terms and following scientifically verifiable conditions, is the definition of potentially dangerous breeds. These are breeds that, due to intrinsic physical characteristics can inflict serious injuries or cause death, in the event of an attack to others dogs or human beings.
In my barbaric country these breeds are, in alphabetic order:
-- American Staffordshire Terrier
-- Dogo Argentino
-- Fila Brasileiro
-- Pit Bull Terrier
-- Rottweiller
-- Staffordshire Bull Terrier
-- Tosa Inu
Along these, any cross between these breeds and between these breeds and others are automatically deemed as potentially dangerous. No dog is deemed dangerous because they are of one of these breeds; they are taken as having the potential to be and as such to have one, certain conditions must be met. Minors can not own one, no one under the age of 16 can walk one, the animals have to use a functional muzzle when in public spaces, the owners must not have criminal record and must obtain a basic certification from our police, where people are taught a bit more at length all that I have written here, along with some legislation and responsibilities. Oh, and the owner of a dog of one of these breeds must have a civil responsibility insurance.
In order for a dog to be deemed effectively dangerous, the dog needs to either attack or kill another dog, animal or human being *out of their home or property in a fashion that they were not provoked or act in defense of their family.
There have been a good number of dog attacks on humans on my country, a few by dogs of these breeds. When investigated, it is common to find out the dogs are either abused or mistreated, were conditioned to be aggressive or were never properly socialized and trained to model behavior. But as a last, anecdotal, thought: in my town, most dogs declared dangerous due to attacks on human beings are often under 10kg. Why? Because small dogs are cute. They are small, they can't/won't/never hurt no one. Then an unruly dog, used to get their way anyway, always, chomps someone's legs or ankle or hand and then all things go haywire.
You know where 95% of problems related to dogs usually start from? On the other end of the leash.
Based country. Euthanise them all I say.
Why? Why defend a blanket blunt solution after undergoing so much time to develop a proper, clear, definition to what a potentially dangerous animal is and what an actually dangerous animal is? Why label an animal as a danger just because it was born?
You don't educate humans, dogs get punished.
There is no good reason to own any of those breeds casually
Oh, I like that reasoning.
Shall we widen the lens then?
Dobermans, Boxers and Great Danes were viewed as dangerous breeds in the 90's. Belgian Mallinois and German Shepherds garnered a bad reputation due to their association with police and military forces. Catahoula Leopard Dogs have killed people in the US. Border Collies and Australian Cattle Dogs are well known to bite, particularly children, due to their herding background. Even Golden Retrievers and Labradors have been deemed dangerous at some point.
And then there are all the other breeds, less known, that have maimed or killed and never got any attention for it. And all the other breeds that are as powerful or more than the list I shared and just haven't met the criteria of having attacked someone and got the bad press. There are far more powerful dogs in the world than those in that list, breeds specifically developed to chase, hunt and/or fight other animals that are not in it. In Italy, one of my national breeds has been listed as dangerous and controlled; no such concern here as no bad episodes have occurred and we have a higher number of such dogs here, pure bred and crossed.
But you did said something correct: casually.
The biggest issue is most people never bother to properly care for their animal companions. They are pampered as puppies, while they are cute and docile, then more easily managed by being chained or confined to a back yard or a fenced area and overlooked. They become a nuisance, something that consumes time and energy, people say they "don't have".
That is what causes most of the problems regarding dogs.
German Shepherds should require a comprehensive licence gained from training IMHO
I'm starting to feel this is an one sided conversation. You just state something yet never argue on it.
Top misinformation post of the month contender.
If we could rely on every member of any sizable group of people to all reach even the lowest bar of decency, the world would be a very different place. Any solution that relies on the idea of "if everyone just does x" is not a real solution, as much as I'd like it to be.
Hol' up, there's some sort of incongruity here that I can't quite put my finger on...
You should be embarrassed to support eugenics.
r/whooooosh
Could you explain why you think they're not serious?
I suspect they're half-serious but both ironic and hyperbolic. Just seems the most likely.
Maybe? I hear shit like this for real all the time, even here.
The irony of the down votes you're getting. XD
Nah, we should give police orders to shoot every pitbull on sight.