I guess it always comes down to the amount of damage a certain breed can inflict. Many years ago someone at work was going to have a 3 year old Lhasa Apso put down. When I asked why she told me that after a divorce (not hers) the dog ended up at her mother's house but had taken to nipping at the grandkids.
I wondered how bad could it be seeing as how they are just little guys.
I volunteered to take him allthough she seemed tenative and repeatedly asking me if I was sure.
The day she brought him to work for me is when she asked " you don't wear hats do you, like baseball type hats?" to which I said no, why would you ask?
Seems the loser ( i suspect it was her brother) who it originally belonged to wore a hat and drank a lot (explains the divorce) and would whack the dog around, upon which it became defensive.
She then warns me he does not like anyone touching his neck as I found out one day early on putting his collar as he growled and caught a bit of my thumb, but he seemed okay with other dogs and people until about the 7th year we had him.
We left him at the mother in laws for some reason and she was putting his collar on to take him out and he grabbed her hand for 20 stiches. The hospital wanted too know who's dog it was so they could report it to whoever they would report it to and said if it happened again he would be taken and put down.
At the same time, new people moved in next door and they had a few kids under 10 who we knew would be attracted to him. We don't have fences between out lots.
We weren't sure what to do. We couldn't have been any nicer to him but he just couldn't forget those early beatings I guess.
He was also developing bladder troubles so we decided to put him down.
The moral of the story is, dogs will respond to the enviroment they are brought up in and to their natural instincts. His first 3 years weren't good for his mental well being so he defended hinself when he thought he was going to get hurt, but his natural instinct is to be nice to the master.
A Pit Bull and some others have a natural instinct (some have it bred into them) to hunt.
We have had a Bichon for 7 years since he was a pup and you couldn't find a gentler dog, but then again he gets treated like a King..........
Of the 4,162 dogs involved in fatal and disfiguring attacks on humans occurring in the U.S. & Canada since September 1982, when I began logging the data, 2,589 (62%) were pit bulls; 534 were Rottweilers; 3,343 were of related molosser breeds, including pit bulls, Rottweilers, Dogos, mastiffs, boxers, and their mixes. Of the 510 human fatalities, 258 were killed by pit bulls; 84 were killed by Rottweilers; 380 (69%) were killed by molosser breeds.
Of the 2,301 people who were disfigured, 1,503 (61%) were disfigured by pit bulls; 307 were disfigured by Rottweilers; 1,907 (82%) were disfigured by molosser breeds.
Pit bulls, incidentally, inflict about 10 times as many fatal and disfiguring injuries on other pets and livestock as on humans, a pattern unique to the pit bull class.
Surveys of dogs offered for sale or adoption indicate... that pit bulls are less than 5% of the U.S. dog population; molosser breeds, all combined, are 9%.
The "wolf-like" breeds, including German shepherds, Akitas, huskies, Samoyeds, Malamutes, wolf hybrids, and their mixes, have killed 81 people and disfigured 232. Cumulatively they are 3.9% of the U.S. dog population; about 5% including Canada.
18 Dobermans & Doberman mixes have been involved in attacks that killed seven people and disfigured 10. Dobermans are 1.3% of the U.S. dog population, according to classified ad surveys.
Just 81 large retrievers, by comparison, including all Labs, goldens, and mixes exclusive of pit mixes, have been involved in fatal or disfiguring attacks over these same 30.5 years, resulting in 8 fatalities and 26 disfigurements. Large retrievers are 7.4% of the U.S. dog population.
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