Though this is an important metric. I don't think pitbulls are inherently more likely to bite, but I do think they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Minor bites are unlikely to always be reported. Note that all of the dogs listed are big powerful jawed dogs.
It's very plausible that a responsible dog owner would have a dog out in the fenced yard when a postal worker came by, and then the breed is definitely going to be a factor.
Most people saying this have no proof of their claim.
(I've been bitten twice when riding, both times by labs. They're goofy dogs, but have a mean streak if they don't know you.)
You can absolutely think broder collies are naturally driven to herd dogs, or Newfoundlands are naturally driven to fetch from water without being racist to your fellow human. I mean wtf!
However, I think the more powerful correlation is that of owners selecting breeds and training for expected behaviors: Some Newfies can be trained not to jump in the water at every opportunity (mine is capable of this restraint, but will always let me know she wants to). Few Newfies will be afraid of the water. But dog owners who know they want their dogs in and around water may select Newfies, swim with them, and otherwise encourage that behavior. More relevant to the article, owners who want dogs to guard their property will select certain breeds who may have only a slight nature for guarding but will nurture that behavior.
And while yes, dog owners do have a huge influence on a dogs character, it's undoubtedly harder to teach a collie how to hunt and a terrier how to herd than it is to teach them the role they are actually known for. That's not true for humans, and his comparison is just incredibly uncomfortable because it implies a similar difference between say, pitbull and a greyhound. Which is not true.
A useful study would be able to provide a recommended course of action an owner could take to reduce the likelihood their dog bites, which is what my proposed study above would do. TRAIN YOUR DOGS PEOPLE.
Dogma. Prove it. Link to any amount of supporting evidence.
1. Serpell, James, ed. The domestic dog. Cambridge University Press, 2017. (start on page 70, available on Google books, too long to quote)
And
2. "We found that a large proportion of behavioural variance across breeds (among-breed heritability) is attributable to genetic factors (figure 1a). The mean among-breed heritability was 0.51 ± 0.12 (s.d.) across all 14 traits (range: h2 = 0.27–0.77), and significantly higher than the null expectation in all cases (permutation tests, p < 0.001). These estimates are also significantly higher than those in previous studies assessing heritability of the same traits in large within-breed samples (mean difference = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.44–0.30; t13 = −12.25, p < 0.001; [44], but see [45]). Incorporating among-breed variance thus yields h2 estimates that are on average, five times higher (range = 1.3–25.5 times higher) than traditional within-breed estimates, which could be due to limited genetic and phenotypic variation within breeds." (MacLean, Evan L et al. “Highly heritable and functionally relevant breed differences in dog behaviour.” Proceedings. Biological sciences vol. 286,1912 (2019): 20190716. doi:10.1098)
General consensus among proper studies is the opposite: behavior is not highly heritable.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2015.06.006
Table 1 is quite extensive. Nearly all of the two dozen studies show less than 10% heritability of the measured behaviors.
Humans were. And are.
The act of identifying dog breeds by behavior statistics and the act of socially discriminating human beings are nowhere near comparable - not in terms of real harm nor theoretical harm nor practical usefulness.
How did you come to that conclusion?
I used to have a couple dogs and now I have children. I walked the dogs on leashes and made them poop outside. I've never done either of those things with my children, or any human.
Show a single study that finds that dog breed influences aggression. Just one. You'll find plenty that correlate the two and maybe even some that stop there and ignore the existence of other factors. It's The Bell Curve for dogs.
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pdf
If harm avoidance is the goal then why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing?
Also relevant is that the breed has an effect on the seriousness of injury if an attack does occur. Obviously I'm going to be less fearful of a chihuahua even if they're more aggressive than the terrier. It's the difference between antibiotics and stitches vs. facial reconstruction.
>Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS.
I don't know what this means.
>why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing?
I do promote that. I don't know where you're getting this from.
Back to the idea of harm avoidance:
Let's say we discover that the only factors that determine bite risk are how the dog is raised and how you behave around it. And let's say there is a non-causative correlation showing breed X has a high bite risk. Then it would be reasonable when adopting a puppy to not consider breed X a high bite risk, but it would also be reasonable to consider breed X a high bite risk when encountering one you didn't raise yourself, and therefore e.g. not allow your child to interact with it (or whatever precaution makes one feel comfortable). More information is better.
>I don't know what this means.
I'll explain my meaning with a hypothetical.
What if one breed were responsible for a high number of USPS delivery worker attacks? Promoting this information begs a policy response against this breed. What if most of this breed were owned by a certain demographic? From the outside this looks like a policy response against a demographic with window dressing to justify it. The outcome is what matters.
I agree with your later point. However, dog owners and parents are responsible for their dogs and children (respectively). More information is better, but selecting some specific information here is clearly targeting something or someone, regardless of intent. That is what I take issue with. Target the issue, not the demographic.
> People care less when it's done to dogs because people are not dogs
I mean, okay.
Which breeds are more likely to attack mail carriers.
You do it for dogs because you're not a dog, no big deal. Maybe you'd do it for people with a different skin color because you are not their skin color. It has happened continuously in the past 100 years and continues to happen.
If a certain breed of dog is responsible for more attacks than any other breed, then breed-specific legislation is not pseudoscience.
Funny you should ask. I own a herding breed right now.
1. Socialization has really no impact on what a dog is bred to do or what it has an aptitude to do. Socialization mainly teaches dogs how to read "dog cues" and how to fit into the dog world. That is - to understand when another dog does or does not want to play, who the dominant one is, what the polite greetings are, etc.
2. My breed does certain things that are unique to the breed, and exhibits behaviors unique to the breed. She was not trained to do so. She lays prone on the outskirts of the field, anticipating a command from a human to move the stock in a given direction. She does this, despite never seeing a sheep/cow in her existence, nor being trained for herding in any way.
Whenever I see dogs of this breed at a dog park, they exhibit the exact same behaviors, down to the posture and eye focus.
The more I read your comments in this thread, the more I realize how little you actually know about dogs, nor did you actually read my comment before labeling it pseudoscience.
Partly, what I meant was that the causation is also irrelevant - if 1 breed is responsible for most attacks, and there is legislation against it that solves the issue - that doesn't mean anyone has been discriminated against. It just means there's going to be less attacks in the future.
Because they do. That's what they were bred for. This has nothing to do with human race analogies. Dog breeds influence behavioral traits heavily. I'm not convinced you know anything about dogs.
So if a rigorous scientific study concluded that pit bulls are more likely to attack mail men than golden retrievers, normalized to the same starting conditions, is it ok to make discriminatory policies against them?