this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours 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.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

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?