Anecdotal, but I've had lots of dogs growing up. We have five right now. This does not reflect the reality I know.
Shiba inu act like cats and prefer to spend time away from their person. They frequently get kicked out of dog parks for not being friendly to other dogs. It's documented and well-studied. They're not at all like other dogs.
Corgis are protective, commandeering, and can be aggressive. They'll bully other dogs away from food. But they're incredibly loving, needy, and prone to feeling lonely. Again, it's a breed characteristic.
Australian shepherds are outgoing, cheerful, and tend to be neurotic. A corgi might be needy, but they won't ever express it like an Australian shepherd. A corgi will nudge you. An Aussie will dance on top of you and sometimes freak out.
Look at which dog breeds are most likely to attack humans. There are histograms for all this data. It correlates strongly with breed!
Even the queens corgis, who I'm sure got the best training money can buy, were still exactly as you describe. FTA below "For while the Queen adores them, others fear being a victim of their dark side."
https://www.macleans.ca/royalty/as-queen-elizabeth-iis-last-...
Came to these comments just for this breed.
Mine is identical to what you describe except he is pretty friendly to other dogs, but my SO and I had to do a ton or work socializing him when he was young.
A lot like cats.
Hugely stubborn.
Incredibly independent.
Exactly as described when I was doing my research originally and deciding to get one.
I haven't done a single thing to make him that way, either.
I find that most people assume the entire population of dogs grew up in a house and have been reasonably well looked after. In practice, I have seen lots of dogs that have that kind of history and lots of dogs that have had traumas that cause them to resource guard or be reactive to people and/or other animals (these behaviors are not bred, but are specific to individuals / life experience).
I totally agree that some behaviors that have been selected for have very high correlation with the breed, but lots of other behaviors are far less correlated. My Aussie will nudge me with his nose, more like the Corgis you mentioned and less like the Aussies you mentioned. Breed implies correlation of some phenotypes, not causation.
In the end, language matters. The title of the Nature article is a Rorschach. In practice, headlines are usually written by someone other than the author and almost always lose significant detail because they are short.
Definitions are really important here. I love herding breeds, but they were bred to nip at ankles and butts of livestock. Is that considered an “attack”? Does the person defining what behaviors are an “attack” have an incentive to exclude those small harm incidents? Chihuahuas are notorious for being aggressive and giving nips, but they present as small, quick incidents, whereas large breeds are more likely to bite down and/or swing the neck like a shark does. Does that difference bias the stats reporting/legislation choices?
Also, “Pit Bull” isn’t a breed. It is a vague intuition of some of the “bully breeds”. I always have to wonder if people pointing at attack frequency lists which show that inaccurate term are accurate. Did those lists gather data that actually investigated pedigrees or did they eyeball/guess breed based on assumptions?
Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua?
I fostered dozens of dogs. In my (admittedly small sample size) set of fosters, a Yellow Lab was the one with the most reactive response towards people and the “pit bull”/bully breed mixes were the most docile with little people in my family. The only “bites” in my family are from two different trained police GSDs.
I agree with other commenters that kids (and even adults who are not well versed in dog behaviors) should not be around strange dogs with unknown histories or behaviors.
I have seen two significant dog-attack-dog events. Neither showed obvious signs or gave noticeable warnings before the attack. Children should not be around dogs with unknown behaviors/ traumas/ conditioning and probably shouldn’t be around dogs when not supervised by a dog-savvy responsible adult. Obviously more time and exposure can lead to increased trust with an individual.
I agree with both the title (which is generally true but unspecific enough to the point of being useless). I also agree that some behavior phenotypes have significant correlation to breeds, while there are almost always counterexamples.
Would you leave a 6 year old unsupervised with a hungry rat? No - what a stupid question. A chihuahua can cause the same degree of injury (life-altering).
Is there a significant difference in behaviour between a pitbull and a chihuahua? No - this study confirms what has been known for years.
Breed-specific legislation is utter bullshit. It clearly doesn't work, isn't workable anyway (breed is judged based on looks rather than genetics), never had any scientific basis, and has been proven to be detrimental to its own aims time & time again.
Interestingly most people misunderstand what a “pit bull” is. There are a few very similar breeds:
- American Pit Bull Terrier
- Staffordshire Bull Terrier
- American Staffordshire Terrier
- American Bully
[1] https://forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/banned-dog-b...
Chihuahua: face still attached.
Pitbull: lack of face.
Talking about non-outliers as if they have better knowledge of what the safety hazards are is a fallacy.
Neither - they shouldn't be unsupervised with "random" dogs.
Yes, a bigger, stronger dog has the potential for more damage if it becomes aggressive. Funny you use chihuahua as a counter example, because their reputation is for aggression. A chihuahua is less dangerous because it is smaller not because it is inherently less aggressive.
I believe that was the argument made: presupposing a lack of correlation between breed and behavior, a tiny dog is less dangerous than a large one.
They then go on to say that the variation is only around 9%, but it does seem to suggest the opposite than what the title claims. If you can estimate behavior of a stray based on assumed breed and be right more than wrong, it would seem that while breed does not predict entirely, it does correlate. It would be nice to see what the actual study was instead of a blurb.