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Most aggressive dog breeds (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/funny@lemmy.world
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[–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This massively differs per country. Pitbull bites are generally nastier than other bites so they're overreported. It's also partially the public image of pitbulls being nasty dogs that gets them reported more often.

Historically the "most dangerous breed" has changed quite a bit. For a while Great Danes were the worst, then it was Dogo Argentinis, Malinois, German Shepherd, Akitas, Labradors, Jack Russells, etc...

In France for example pitbulls only rank 12th for most bite incidents.

Research on it has been mixed, with studies focusing on nature finding that the breed matters surprisingly little when it comes to aggression. It seems more likely that there's a certain group of owners that handle their dogs irresponsibly, which tend to popularize specific breeds. This seems more likely because places that banned 'dangerous' breeds don't see a decrease in bite attacks; the owners of the dangerous breeds mostly get new dogs, which then just bite people again.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is because pitbulls are a restricted breed and France. So either people don't have them, or they get the vet to say it's some other breed (more often than not)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Point being that different dog breeds are listed at the top of being most dangerous in France.

    You're still allowed to own a pitbull in France, but you do require a training and need to muzzle them in public (but not at home).

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, when pitbull ownership is restricted, pitbulls fall from the number one spot for most dangerous

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Obviously. Point being that these owners take different dogs which then rise in the ranking to take the pitbulls place.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, and to the original point you used french rankings to attempt to make, the ranking of pitbulls is not because they are treated better or just culturally aren't regarded as dangerous, it is because they are restricted legally.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    No, the point I was making regarding what's culturally considered dangerous didn't relate to France directly, that was about the US which went through various phases of panic regarding certain dog breeds. I only brought up France because there different dog breeds have risen to the top of the bite attack statistics. The restriction on pitbulls just let other dog breeds rise to the top. The breed matters less than who owns them. In France, the more irresponsible dog owners gravitate to German Shepherds and Labradors whereas in the US it's pitbulls.

    I don't mind the French ban on pitbulls, because their attacks can be significantly more damaging than those of other breeds. But it won't really reduce the number of incidents.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Do you have evidence that other breed attack rates have risen, as opposed to the attacks by staffy/bully/pit breeds simply not occuring? I wasn't able to find this evidence in eurostat.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Best Friends Animal Society, “Protecting the Public while Preserving Responsible Owners’ Property Rights,” bestfriends.org (accessed July 6, 2021)

    This source shows that pitbull bans did nothing to reduce bite attacks in Spain, showing the same numbers 5 years before and after the ban.

    They also state this:

    Best Friends Animal Society explains three mitigating factors in dog attacks: 97% of the owners had not sterilized the dogs; 84% of the owners had abused or neglected their dogs; and 78% were using the dogs as guard dogs or breeding dogs instead of keeping the dogs as pets.

    Then there's this one:

    ASPCA, “Position Statement on Breed-Specific Legislation,” aspca.org (accessed July 6, 2021)

    Council Bluff, Iowa, banned pitbulls, and saw Boxer and Labrador Retriever bites rise as those were the breeds people switched to.

    Same source shows that it Winnipeg, Canada, instead saw Rottweiler bite attacks increase.

    And from this source:

    Emily Anthes, “But How Much Does Breed Shape a Dog’s Health and Behavior?,” nytimes.com, Feb. 9, 2025

    Rather than breed traits, the ASPCA notes chaining and tethering dogs outside, lack of obedience training, and selective breeding for protection or fighting are risk factors for dog attacks.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Bestfriends.org advocates for pitbull acceptance providing an opinion here, and I don't see the actual data that says the rates of dog attacks remained the same when staffy/bully/pit ownership is reduced.

    If what you hypothesize is true, we should expect to see the overall rate of dog attacks stay the same, while proportionally other breeds become responsible for more of the total sum of dog attacks. Have you found actual statistics to back this assertion up? Your links all point to the home page of the sites, rather than stats.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I didn't put those links in there, that's just Lemmy auto-linking. The full cited source has a bit more info, but it's quite a rabbithole of sources tbh.

    I found https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8730379/ which does have some hard stats, showing that a law enacted in 1991 did little to nothing to prevent bites, whilst also showing the most dangerous breeds bite about as much as other humans do.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    This study seems to show that of 134 mammalian bites studied, about 73% were from dog bites both before and after the dangerous dogs act. I don't have full access to the article but the abstract seems to imply that dangerous breed attacks represented a small percentage of the total bite treatments.

    I'm not sure it can conclude that the rate of attacks overall stayed the same when dangerous breed ownership rates as a whole reduced. The conclusion seems to be that "dog bites are still a similar percentage of mammalian bites" without regard to the overall rate of dog ownership and the impact of the law on dangerous dog ownership rates specifically (but perhaps it is inside the study?)

    One would expect that this sort of statistic would be easy to find if it were true, given the advocacy of bully-breed groups.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    The study measures the totals before and after the ban. If the totals did not change, then one can reasonably conclude there was little to no effect (as that was the point of the ban; reduce bite attacks). The only way you could still justify the ban worked is if dog ownership increased after the ban, which seems unlikely (and iirc the study touches on that).

    One would expect that this sort of statistic would be easy to find if it were true, given the advocacy of bully-breed groups.

    I mean ultimately the burden of proof isn't on them. There are some statistics that seem to support them. If thess BSL bans worked, one would expect evidence to show that they did, but that's seemingly completely absent too. The vast majority of independent organisations seem to be against these bans.

    If these bans worked, where are the statistics that show they do? What about the myriad of studies saying bite incidents are caused by neglect of the dog rather than breed?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    But this study doesn't say anything at all about the dog bite rate does it? It takes 134 mammalian bite victims and reports the percentage that came from dogs. I could be convinced by a study that showed a rate of dog bites of 13/100000 before an effective bully breed restriction and a rate within statistical significance after the restriction was in place.

    I can't really find clear (or free) statistics on this either way. However, it seems clear that any reduction in rate of ownership of dangerous breeds should reduce the overall bite rate. Is your hypothesis that by reducing ownership rate of a particular breed (bully breeds, in this case), other dangerous breeds:

    1. Become more popular and continue to bite at the same rate

    2. Do not increase in rate of ownership, yet bite more to keep the overall bite rate the same

    ?

    If you mean #2, this is an extraordinary claim that doesn't stand without evidence. If you mean #1, maybe you have a point, but hard to evaluate without access to the stats. If you mean #1, do you think a restriction on all dangerous breeds would reduce the overall bite rate? (Coincidentally, France's restriction applies to all dangerous breeds)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    The point is that there's not really such a thing as a dangerous breed. There's dangerous dog owners though, and that's different. When you ban a breed, most of these owners will switch to a different breed (which inevitably rises in the dog bite statistics). That's mostly what that study showed, despite the ban on dangerous breeds, there weren't any fewer bite incidents.

    it seems clear that any reduction in rate of ownership of dangerous breeds should reduce the overall bite rate

    In theory, sure. But this assumes that certain breeds are inherently more dangerous, which is largely unproven. Most larger studies seem to dispute this.

    (Coincidentally, France's restriction applies to all dangerous breeds

    France's bite rate isn't substantially lower than neighbouring countries that don't have these bans. In practice, it seems these bans do little to nothing to reduce bites, which is an indicator that the breed isn't the issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It is an extraordinary claim that so called non dangerous breeds become more dangerous when so called dangerous breeds are restricted. I don't think you can compare bite rates across borders because access to care, statistic collection methodology, dog ownership culture, etc are all confounding factors.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're making the logical error that the amount of bites indicates that a breed is dangerous. The claim I (and many others) make is that there's no such thing as a dangerous breed.

    As an analogy, suppose the government finds that cars with big flame stickers stuck on them get more speeding tickets, or end up in more accidents. Does the sticker make the car go faster? Would you expect the accident rate to go down if the government banned flame stickers? Or would you expect cars with lightning stickers to suddenly cause more trouble?

    Ultimately, the owner is responsible and studies have shown that the owner is by far the strongest indicator of whether or not there will be problems.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    The studies don't seem to show that. In you analogy, it's not stickers, it's faster cars. Would you expect that if faster cars were banned, those owners would drive slower cars equally as fast as faster cars keeping the rate of speeding tickets?

    This is an extraordinary claim that requires definitive evidence. You can't just come to a conclusion that "ultimately the owner is responsible" without evidence.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    In you analogy, it's not stickers, it's faster cars.

    Well that's the point of contention.

    Would you expect that if faster cars were banned, those owners would drive slower cars equally as fast as faster cars keeping the rate of speeding tickets?

    Actually, yes! They might not go over the speed limit as much, but they're likely to break it just as often. Just about every car can go over the legal speed limit, these owners don't care as much about safety to they're about as likely to break the law in a Lambo than in a BMW or a Renault.

    • This is an extraordinary claim that requires definitive evidence

    I've already given you a study that showed no changes before and after a ban. At this point the claim really isn't so extraordinary, and I expect you to provide some statistic or evidence that a ban does work.

    You can't just come to a conclusion that "ultimately the owner is responsible" without evidence.

    The owner being responsible is an assertion, not a conclusion. I've also already cited studies for you that found that how owners interact with and treat their dog is a very significant predictor when it comes to bite attacks.

    I can respect the need to see statistics, but I don't really think that if one side present evidence with statistics that are possibly flawed in some way, the correct solution is to call it unbelievable and side with the other side that hasn't presented any concrete evidence or statistics showing anything definitive.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    You have made this assertion without any real evidence. The single study, if you are able to read more than the abstract, doesn't show the overall bite rate, the severity of bites, none of this. If you make an assertion that any reduction in dogs capable of doing harm, "dangerous" in the sense that a powerful car is dangerous, has no impact on the severity and frequency of injuries, this is not an evidence based assertion.

    It is understandable to have an opinion about an issue, but it is dishonest to present it as evidence based if there is none.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    How many American Pitbulls are there in France?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Very few of course. Other dog breeds are known to bite a lot in France. You can still own a pitbull but you require training and you need to muzzle them in public.

    Still, there are approximately 35k pitbulls in France. Few compared to the total of course.

    In France, German Shepherds cause 18% of dog bite attacks, 16% for Labradors. Generally bigger dogs -> more reported bite attacks, with some exceptions here and there where popular breeds end up higher.

    Still, most studies don't find a direct connection between a dogs nature and their inclination to attack, or a weak one at best. There is of course a link between the breed and the severity of the attack however.

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