flintknapper wrote:
So in essence you are saying that pit-bulls as a breed are people aggressive (everyone of them) and that they are basically ticking timebombs?
No I didn't say that at all. But I do honestly believe that *some* of them are and therefore some behavior that may be normal and non-hostile in, say, a collie, might be reasonably interpreted to be more potentially hostile from a breed like a pit bull.
Permit me to suggest that this may not be the very best analogy (if that was your intent). Mountain Lions are wild predators that depend upon their hunting skills for their very existence.
On the contrary this is precisely the analogy I am making and you have emphasized the point perfectly.
It is my opinion, and the opinion of many (who you say are wrong, so you disagree) that the very same type of aggressive or "wild" instinct that you find with a big cat is present in some breeds of dogs. It's not like dogs are naturally herbivores. They are also predators and apex predators in most environments where they would be wild. They have a similar instinct to any other predator. My house cats that are sitting right here with me have the same kind of instinct as well, although they are far less dangerous to humans because they are not nearly big enough to be a serious threat. However hundreds of generations of these felines born in a domestic environment and trained to be docile pets reduces the chances that they are going to "snap". I don't think pit bulls have the same continuous history of domestication as house cats.
If this were true of Pit-Bulls (or other dogs) there would hardly be any need to feed them, water them, or try to keep them in a domestic environment.
Let them be born in the wild and you will see, they don't need your help to survive.
But lets entertain the Mountain Lion thought.... just for sake of argument. There are people who will not hesitate to kill every snake they encounter, these same folks would no doubt kill the Mountain Lion.
I am saying it would be reasonable to kill a mountain lion that was advancing in what you thought was a threatening manner towards your children, even if it had been tamed to be someone's pet, because that type of animal has an elevated likelihood of regarding your children as "prey" than most domesticated animals. I didn't suggest you'd shoot every mountain lion on sight.
Occasionally, a black bear, a deer, a moose, a coyote, bobcat, etc....will wander into town someplace in the USA. All of these animals are known to be a potential threat to man under certain conditions. So using your logic,
No you are not using my logic, you are making up new logic to support a straw man argument.
Using my logic, if you are in a very populated park and someone has a black bear, moose, coyote, bobcat (forget moose or deer, I am talking about carnivores here) that they have attempted to domesticate, and they bring it as a pet to this park without any leash, and then you find it advancing towards your children in what you believe is a threatening manner, THEN you will quite reasonably assume the animal is a legitimate threat, and you will shoot it.
Likewise if you are out in Yosimite hiking, and you see a wild pit bull minding its own business, I wouldn't expect you to shoot it any more than you would a black bear, coyote, bobcat, or mountain lion.
Quite simply I don't think pit bulls are fit for domestication, any more than are mountain lions or grizzly bears. That doesn't mean that people don't do it, and certainly there are people who have succeeded at taming a mountain lion and keeping it as a pet without incident. The same is true for pit bulls.
they should all be shot on sight just because of what they are! No consideration should be given to "what they are doing...or if they truly pose a threat".
I emphasized "truly" because I think this is the sole differentiator in our arguments. You see, I think that the breed of dog weighs on the determination of whether the dog's behavior is "truly" a threat, while you seem to be saying that pit bulls are no more likely to be a threat than any other breed of dog.
You hear about it often from people who have a pet python who kills or eats the family pet or a baby in the house, or with other tamed exotic animals that people keep as pets like big cats or wolves.
This is basically the more of the same. Truly wild animals vs. domesticated animals is not entirely the same thing.
No I was talking about
domesticated animals, such as big cats, wolves, or pythons. I am not talking about a wild python that comes in the open window of someone's house somewhere and eats a baby. I'm talking about a python that someone bought at a pet store when it was 11 inches long and after 10 years of living in their home, being handled by people, etc., then one day while everyone's sleeping it escapes from the cage and eats the family's baby. Or some numbskull who finds a mountain lion cub and keeps it as a pet, the animal grows up and when it is 150 lb, after decades of living with people and children and being what appears to be a very normal, routine tame pet one day little Johnny goes missing and the cat has pieces of t-shirt in its teeth.
You see I think that pit bulls, even when domesticated, are dangerous like any other wild animal that has been incorrectly domesticated.
When I was a kid we had a cat that was half bobcat (it didn't live more than 18 months ... heart too small for the cat's body). We got this cat as a newborn kitten, it was the only one that survived six weeks out of the whole litter. The cat was basically like a bigger, stronger, louder, normal house cat 99% of the time but it had this wild streak that would come out every so often when it was startled or scared and it was very nearly lethal. I have first-hand knowledge of keeping wild animals as pets. My neighbor's pit bull was much the same.
So the same thing is believed by many to be true of pit bulls.
Many folks thought the world was flat at one time. My question all along has been (is it reasonable).
You mean, is it reasonable to think that pit bulls constitute more of a threat than most other dog breeds? It certainly is reasonable.
I certainly do not, and I think it is intellectually dishonest to demonize an entire breed of dog because some of them bite.
No I am not demonizing an entire breed. I am just more likely to interpret some actions of this particular breed as a threat than I am many other dog breeds. Just like I am much more likely to think a 150 lb cat is much more potentially a threat than is my 12 lb cat.
It is my opinion that any threat from a large dog is to be taken seriously....but not to make any hasty decisions to shoot based solely on breed.
Nobody ever said they made hasty decisions made
solely on breed. They made decisions based on their assessment of a number of factors, perhaps including the dog's breed. That's totally reasonable.
Yeah I'm much more likely to shoot your dog if I think it is attacking me if it's:
#1 strong enough to overpower an adult man or kill a child
#2 one of a number of breeds that
I CONSINDER to be more aggressive
#3 approaching in a manner that I consider to be a threat
This totally reminds me of the argument I had with my neighbor who just
swore that her pit bull, like all pit bulls, was sweet and loving and harmless, despite the fact that I had to prevent it from attacking my kids one day in my back yard with a shovel. Doesn't matter how much evidence you have to demonstrate the hazard of such an animal, some people are just unwilling to consider anything other than what they already believe.
Guess that's why I'm a cat person :)
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