Dogs have natures and you don’t approach every breed in the same way. You don’t extend your hand to a strange pitbull on the street the way you might to some fluffy little thing who belongs to your gay buddy. We should use the same wisdom with peoples. Some dogs are natural born killers and so are some people.
When I’m driving and somebody on the road angers me, I check them out to make sure they’re not dangerous looking before I wave my hands in protest and honk.
UPDATE: Steve Sailer wrote:
According to a report by Merritt Clifton (via Rosalind Arden), pitbulls accounted for 295 of 593 human fatalities due to dogs between 1982-2014, although only making up 6.7% of dogs. But that’s still the second most popular breed, behind only labrador mixes. My observation from walking down the sidewalk is that pitbulls are much more prevalent today in Los Angeles than a half century ago, when they were only vaguely heard of.
In contrast, labradors and lab mixes account for 11.5% of dogs, and only 4 human deaths.German shepherds, an aggressive/protective breed, are in-between with 15 fatalities and 3.7% of dogs.
Pitbulls, which aren’t particularly big, aren’t the most dangerous dog per capita. The perro de presa canario, a 100+ pound beast, killed 18 people despite being only 0.02% of dogs for sale or adoption. Both are in the molosser class.
Also, wolfish dogs, such as akita, huskies, and wolf-hybrids are pretty scary, as are chows, a wolfish-molosser cross.
Rottweilers are about as dangerous per capita as pit bulls. Dobermans, however, which were notorious when I was a child as WWII guard dogs, have gotten less dangerous: my recollection is that Doberman owners have been breeding for safety while rottweiler owners have been breeding their dogs to be scary.
It would seem like pit bulls could, like dobermans, be bred to keep their good qualities, while breeding out their bad qualities, like a tendency to kill people. But breeding as a hobby or career doesn’t seem to attract as many people with pro-social tendencies as it did in the past, when, for example, Charles Darwin bred pigeons.
It could be that our culture has largely bred out from its more gentlemanly ranks the ruthlessness that helps one be a good breeder, which might explain why dog-breeding today is so much less productive than in the 19th century.
P.S., here is a 2006 Malcolm Gladwell article in The New Yorker on why racial profiling is as bad as profiling pit bulls: “TROUBLEMAKERS: What pit bulls can teach us about profiling.”
From the comments section:
* So Presas kill 2,582 times more per capita than labs.
For some extreme human disparities, blacks in Chicago were 45 times more likely to be arrested for burglary than Asians. In New York City, blacks were 98 times more likely to be arrested than whites for “shooting.” Baltimore residents commit murder at 71 times the rate of Japanese. Baltimoreans, however, are peaceful compared to Central Americans, who have several cities with more than 3 times the Baltimore murder rate (and 200x times the Japanese rate).
From 1986 to 2012, 676,776 immigrants from murder champion El Salvador came to the United States. The country has a population of 6.3 million, indicating the United States imported about 11% of murder-champion El Salvador’s population.
During the same period, 172,000 Japanese immigrated to the United States, meaning the United States imported 0.14% of Japan’s population of 127 million. In summary, a Salvadorean is about 200 fold more likely to murder someone than a Japanese, and a Salvadorean is also about 80 fold more likely to become an immigrant to the United States.
Murder-champion El Salvador is one of several wonderful countries full of great people that get special immigration treatment called “Temporary Protected Status.” Some of those other countries are Haiti, Honduras, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and South Sudan. People from TPS countries can come illegally and receive work permits, and are not subject to deportation. The “temporary” part of TPS is kind of a joke. Honduras has been on the TPS list since 1998. Resident of Japan do not get these privileges, and often have to deal with a lot of red tape before they can work in the United States.
* Gee, it’s almost as if certain subgroups of a species can have different evolutionary histories, and therefore different genetically encoded behaviours. *Brain-chip buzzes* I mean, I blame systemic structures of oppression against pitbulls and labrador-privilege. No other explanation is possible.
I’ve always found it amusing when middle class blue-pillers in my own homeland go on like raving Himmlerites about purity of the line and blood etc. when discussing their expensive inbred animals, but are quite incapable of applying the same line of thought to, well I’ll leave it there.
* In my experience, which has included having my dog mauled on a public street by a neighbor’s pit bull, the owners are drug dealers or society’s discontents who want a guard dog to alert them to strangers and more especially the Law. Owning a pit bull is a badge or mark of membership for them.
When my dog was attacked by an unrestrained pit bull my wife pepper sprayed it (which caused it to release its death grip on my dog’s neck) simultaneously I grabbed it by its hind leg and began spinning it in giant circles like a kid does with a bucket filled with water (like the water, the pit bull’s head stays in its place i.e. away from your hand). At the peak of a whirl, I let it go. It flew about thirty feet, landed in a pile, righted itself, oriented itself and turned to renew its attack. These things are relentless. Luckily, the owner with kids in tow had showed up by then and managed to subdue it. Ever since then I have carried my legally licensed concealed pistol when walking the dog. Next pit bull that attacks me, my wife or dog gets shot. This attack wasn’t the first. The first time, my dog bolted in retreat and jerked my wife backward so that she fell hindmost into a ditch. The police are indifferent. There is no law against a dog killing another dog in my state. To settle, an aggrieved owner must pursue justice on their own initiative through civil courts. Only if the dog bites you do the police take action.
* Dogs breeds have different personalities, on average, and those personalities are essentially the same even when a puppy is raised by a foster mother of a different breed.
* I bet that standard poodles account for exactly zero fatalities. Probably zero fatal attacks ever. Despite the fact that they are only slightly smaller than German Shepherds, with bigger teeth. Poodles are elderly Japanese lady’s equivalent as far as killings go.
