“Yet she is the most gentle dog and labs have the best record for not attacking innocent people.”
Actually, in some places they are the leader in dog bites. It depends on their popularity. Even “nice” breeds attack people, you just don’t hear about those stories because the media isn’t interested in being objective, instead being greedy enough to pick and choose the stories that make more money.
“It doesn’t seem likely that pit bulls are being mistreated any more than any other breeds are so it would seem that it’s something innate about them as to why they attack so much more often.”
Where are you getting your information? Because I can tell you pit bulls are way more often mistreated than any other breed I can think of. How many other breeds are chained their whole lives, harried to the point of insanity, burned alive, drug by cars, beaten with baseball bats, starved, fed gun powder, have their ears cut off with scissors, left do treat their own mange or die from it, put in pits to fight whatever other animal can be found, or killed for not “performing”?
There is a lot of misinformation circulating about this breed, and it has created an epidemic of fear. Did you know that the average number of deaths and dog attacks has not risen since the breed became popular? The same amount of dogs are attacking, just different breeds. This tends to happen when a breed of dog becomes popular with the wrong kind of people, but it doesn’t mean the breed itself is bad. Consider this: there are anywhere from 5 to 10 million pit bulls in the U.S. today. There are on average 17-35 deaths each year from all dogs. There are 13 thousand attacks reported every day, and the vast majority of the ones involving pit bulls are aired on several news stations when they happen, leaving thousands of other serious attacks that are pretty much ignored. Rationality would say that if the dogs aren’t increasing the attacks or deaths and other breeds are taking lives and causing serious damage, it really isn’t a breed problem at all. Here’s another fact for you, if you are even still reading: The CDC has shown that far more important than the breed of dog, the way it is treated has everything to do with its potential for dangerous behavior. The majority of dog bite fatalities, regardless of breed, had one thing in common, which was irresponsible ownership.
On a side note, just this morning my house was burglarized. They took a lot of electronics, and tried to take the television, but it must have been too big because we found it face down in our yard. Our killer pit bull, “Pumpkin”, must have helped them load their car. They had plenty of time to unplug all the electronics, go through all my drawers upstairs, move my lawnmower and car covers to a more convenient place so they could walk the tv through the garage without tripping, and let my cats outside.
I read your entire post, and you make a lot of good points. I do want to see any dog abused or mistreated, regardless of breed. Even if the media is being unfair and reporting in a way that distorts the truth about this breed, I also have just heard too many anecdotal cases. Cases in which the owner or owners were very good to the pit bull, treated it like a baby, and one day it just snapped. Like the latest where the owners swore up and down that their dog was a gentle teddy bear and took off half the woman’s face because she accidently stepped on its foot. I’ve had dogs all of my life. Some breeds are more aggressive and temperamental I am convinced. I’ve observed it in my own life. I come from a family of dog lovers. I am one myself. No dogs in our family have ever been mistreated, neglected, or abused in any way. In fact, it can be sickening how the dogs are sometimes treated better than other people in our family. Yet, we’ve had dog bites. My husband we bit badly by our husky and I was bit as a kid from our shepherd. None of us have ever or will ever take a chance with pit bulls, Rotweilers or dobermans. Labs are by far my favorite. I’d say they’re the best dogs ever! Smart, loyal, good watch dogs yet I’ve never even heard of a lab attacking their owner unless it was abused.