You just have to raise them correctly -- thousands of generations of specialization to attack bears isn't as powerful as love... Nuture > Nature.
I’d just like to add to keep your dog home when you go to out to eat. You dog isn’t cool. It isn’t well behaved. No one likes your dog and more than likely, no one likes you.
My best friend has the most loving Pit Bull you would ever meet. Seriously, shes the sweetest dog I have ever known. However they are well educated on Pit ownership as both were former Veterinarians. They always take precautions when visitors come or when they take their dog out. Put the dog away upstairs, always on a leash, no interactions with young adults or dogs...etc However. I have known several dogs that have been attacked and mauled to death in dog parks by irresponsible Pit owners. Free roam without a leash, little beagle comes up and bam. Dead. I know two others involved with Pit mauling. One was an owner (not my friend above) and he was "shocked" that it happened. I love Pit bulls with all my heart, but you always have to be careful around them and never let your dog interact with them out in the wild. You don't know the owners and you don't know how they are trained. They're very territorial and will attack at the slightest trigger. I agree that you always need to be on the defensive and train both yourself and the dog on how to analyze and approach a given situation. Don't rely on others to do the work for you
Yes you heard that right. All dogs and dog owners should be trained in my opinion. Real provocative I know.
You know this is so obtuse that it makes me angry. I have two small dogs and there is no instance in which they could kill or seriously injure another dog or person, none. Conversely, any Rottweiler, Pit Bull, or German Shepherd could kill or seriously injure any dog or person rather easily no matter how much training they have or don't have. It's absurd for you to claim these dogs are not dangerous. The size of the dogs combined with their musculature, intelligence, aggressiveness, and bite strength make them extremely dangerous animals. I've had multiple family members chased and attacked by German Shepherds in my neighborhood.
One day I was working on my car in my garage and look over and one of these monsters was in the garage, just staring at me. This dog was easily 200 lbs. I grew up with Danes and have a mastiff so I’m a pretty good judge of dog weight. Anyway, I backed away from him and he silently paced me just six feet away. I got in the passenger side of the car and tried to blast the horn to scar him off and nothing happened, because I had the battery out. I realized that if my wife or son came out into the garage it might attack them so I grabbed a broomstick handle and was going to (try) to run it off when this greasy roidmonster guy came into my garage, apologizing profusely about the dog. He had elbow length rawhide leather gloves on, which upon reflection later made me realize that the dog was serious dangerous. I was telling my buddy from the next street over about it and he goes ‘oh yeah, that’s Diablo’ I’m like what? He say it’s his neighbors dog, that constantly barks. The neighbor is a real piece of work too, and my buddy is pretty sure he beats his stripper girlfriend. We were in the front yard doing some landscaping a few weeks later and there goes Diablo, pulling his meat head owner, complete with the elbow length gloves, down the sidewalk. My wife looks at me and apologies for doubting me. A few weeks after that my buddy tells me they moved out after the girlfriend gets meathead thrown in jail and leaves him. I was honestly puzzled that such a train wreck was in our neighborhood but apparently he was flush with oil and gas money and was trying to play house and captain saveaho. The funny thing about it was that Diablo was the third dog to just waltz into my garage in a year. I remember mentioning that to a Vietnamese friend of mine and she said it was good luck. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yup. I have a large dog & everyone in my neighborhood w/ a small little terrier or chihuahua thinks their dog doesn't need to ever be on a leash or taken care of. These little monsters are aggressive & some of them are plain psycho. I have had chihuahuas come out of no where & bite my gentle dog while I am walking him & he yelps and then tries to avoid them. He is a very sweet dog but if a dog his size were to show aggression, it would easily become a dog fight. For some reason, he does not return aggression to little dogs, thank god, because we would have had some dead chihuahuas to deal with. Well today, a chihuahua that had previously bit my dog ran out of its owners garage to attack my dog again. I stayed between it & my dog. It kept trying to get at him & of course the owner is watching doing nothing. Then this other neighbor's dog (a friend of my dog's) got in between them & started barking at the chihuahua (also his friend or at least dog acquaintance, as they are next-door neighbors). That neighbor (owner of nice neighbor dog) then chased the chihuahua back into irresponsible neighbor's home & shut the door. I have never had issues w/ a big dog before (outside the dog park) because big dog owners generally don't let their dogs do whatever they want. They know there are risks involved. People think their dang 10lb or less dogs can do anything. My neighborhood is weirdly almost all pitbulls/mastiffs or chihuahuas/maltese/some other dumb toy breed. We have never had issues w/ the former. The chihuahuas harass me on my runs too!
I believe those are literally the most dangerous dogs in the world they are just super rare -- if you shrunk them down to 20 pounds they would be just as fearlessly aggressive.
Pitbulls do disproportionally attack, but they are also the #1 dog in the United States by numbers. Similarly, Huskies have the most ER visits & deaths in Canada & they are also the most common dog there. Both breeds do tend to be more aggressive. But they are also very common.
That's what I keep seeing. Labs are #1 according to the AKC. Pit bulls are not an AKC recognized breed so they are not even on the list.
Yeah, and they're scary AF. I always preface the story with 'did I tell you about the time the werewolf came into our garage?'
Reading through this I understand what you are trying to say, and in a perfect world sure - everyone should be educated. However, I don't see how you can blame anyone for being nervous/anxious around an unfamiliar dog. There are too many examples of **** dog owners to be that naive. Not to mention there are plenty of people who don't own a dog who would like to go on a walk through the neighborhood and not have to worry about some annoying owner trying to prove how "friendly" their pet is. As many others have pointed out in this thread, it is YOUR responsibility to assume nobody else or their pets want to interact with your pet. Obviously with larger breeds many people understand that, but small dog owners are just as culpable. My mom owns a couple of yorkies. I love them, but I know them personally and used to live with them. When a cable technician comes to your house, put the ****ing dogs up. Nobody cares that they are "friendly". At least you shouldn't assume that. They still bark and act annoying AF around strangers. It really doesn't matter if they would never bite. That being said, I don't know many Yorkies that have killed other dogs or people.
It's been my extensive experience that small breed dogs are the biggest assholes, and so are their owners, and I'm sure that less than 1% of these dogs is obedience trained, and worse, they're spoiled rotten. When I was younger, I was in door-to-door sales, and every dog that bit me was under 20lbs, without fail. The owner would open the door and they would shoot out the door and attach themselves to my ankle. I was bitten a dozen times and dodged ten times that many. If they didn't bite unprovoked, they would at least just stand there at the door barking like maniacs while the owner looked down at them like they had something salient to say. Also, when I took my mastiff to obedience training, not a single dog was under 30lbs. People say that their dogs are their kids, especially people who don't have kids, but I can tell you as someone who has both, if my kids acted like your dog, they would get their asses kicked on a regular basis.
