[masraum]

Originally Posted by Alan A

This is going to go nowhere. You’ll never change opinions, but I’ll make 3 points.

1. Fighting dogs were bred for aggression to other dogs (or rats, or whatever). They needed to be handled, and the ones that showed aggression to their handlers were culled. A proper pit is naturally aggressive towards prey/small animals and other dogs, not people. Now molossors that were used to keep people in line (Presa Canaria I’m looking at you) don’t have that bred in. They need real careful handling.

2. Any dog will bite if you piss it off. If you leave a toddler alone with a dog you are an idiot. I wouldn’t leave a kid with either of those 7lb rat dogs, let alone something bigger.

3. In absolute numbers Labradors bite kids more than anything else. There are more of them and it’s reported less, but your kids more likely to be bit by a family Lab than pretty much anything else.

I’ll leave this - https://panterlaw.com/2016/10/26/study-finds-pit-bulls-less-aggressive-chihuahuas/ - it won’t change anyones mind, but do at least read it.

Lastly - consider how this would play out if you were talking about the behavior of people rather than dogs. I personally like most dogs better than most people…

Lots of good points there.

And pits aren't the only dangerous breed for sure. There are other dangerous and potentially more dangerous breeds out there depending upon how you look at things.

It might be similar to giving a 16 year old as their first car a car with 100hp or a car with 400hp. They can speed and get into accidents in both cars. But it's a lot easier (and quicker) to get into trouble with the 400hp car than the 100hp car.

You could compare this to dogs and dog attacks. Is a chihuahua or yorkie more aggressive and less well trained than a pit bull, german shepherd, etc...., yes, that seems to be fairly common. And it's not "right" but the reason is that the tiny dogs might hurt you, but they aren't likely to kill you. Hell, they'd probably have a hard time killing a baby unless there was a pack of them and they had time to do it.