There's a reason ambulance chasers like dogbitelaw.com use him as an 'expert'.
As Al Gore is to Global Warming, so Clifton is to dogs.
Posted on 04/07/2010 8:13:56 PM PDT by Chet 99
Herding dogs gotta herd...But can be trained for extreme frisbee, instead.
Fighting dogs gotta (fight)....But can be trained to pull weight, instead.
Instincts can be harnessed and diverted.
“I suppose they get them because they are good with children?”
During the Victorian era, Staffordshire Terriers [from which “pit bulls” came or *are*] were *the* dog of choice for families wanting “nannies” for their children.
The dogs excelled at the task.
Leaving *any* dog alone with a kid with a full diaper is unwise in the extreme.
As wonderful as any of our big/little family dogs may be, they are still coprophages at heart.
It's even more unusual to hear about a trained fighting dog attacking anyone. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen a story about that happening...
There’s that word “trained”, again.
Now...are dogs born trained or does ~some other~ influence/factor come into play, later?
[I think we’ve made an unprecedented and bold new discovery, here]
Dr. Brady Barr measured the bite force of an adult female hippo at 1,821 lbf (8,100 N); Barr also attempted to measure the bite pressure of an adult male hippo, but had to abandon the attempt due to the male’s aggressiveness.
I was asking for proof that the dogs are more dangerous than other dogs, in that either their attacks are more serious on average, or that there is a higher percentage of pit bulls that have attacked than those that haven’t.
I know that people get the dogs because they BELIEVE the dogs will improve their status as a thug. I know that people get them because they BELIEVE the dogs are supernaturally strong and aggressive. I know that none of these people should own dogs at all.
If you can’t find anything from a reputable source that proves the dogs are inherently human aggressive, bite more often, or that attacks from them are on average more serious than other similar-sized breeds, then I will not be inclined to change my mind. I bothered to do the research. I went through every study I could find for proof when I hated the breed. I never found anything from a reputable source, so I changed my mind. It wasn’t a quick decision, and it took a lot for me to admit that I had been mistaken, but I did.
By the way, did you even read the study I posted? Because you keep saying the same things, even when presented with proof that your claims are wrong. I am curious to know why you aren’t mentioning any of it.
Wow.
And here I was, duly impressed with the Hyena’s [now seemingly paltry] 1000 psi.
Hippos are far fewer in number than pits; inhabit a MUCH smaller and less densely populated geographic area yet kill 300+ people a year.
And there’s nary a peep about them on the news...
Anybody who’s bothered to find out what dog fighting is all about knows that it takes extensive training and conditioning to make a fighting dog; people(many of them inner-city wannabe dog-men) just assume they pop out of the womb ready to enter the pit, but it’s not true.
Their instincts must be nurtured, honed, encouraged, and reinforced; that’s why a proven fighting dog costs thousands of dollars; they don’t just happen overnight!
To deny that the Pit Bull is more capable of violence than your average dog is to engage in idiocy.
To deny that many Pit Bull owners procure the dog because of its reputation and capacity for violence is to deny reality.
http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html
Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, has conducted an unusually detailed study of dog bites from 1982 to the present. (Clifton, Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006; click here to read it.) The Clifton study show the number of serious canine-inflicted injuries by breed. The author's observations about the breeds and generally how to deal with the dangerous dog problem are enlightening.
According to the Clifton study, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings. In more than two-thirds of the cases included in the study, the life-threatening or fatal attack was apparently the first known dangerous behavior by the animal in question. Clifton states:
“If almost any other dog has a bad moment, someone may get bitten, but will not be maimed for life or killed, and the actuarial risk is accordingly reasonable. If a pit bull terrier or a Rottweiler has a bad moment, often someone is maimed or killed—and that has now created off-the-chart actuarial risk, for which the dogs as well as their victims are paying the price.”
You’d never expect a /s-less post this long after April 1, would you?
[gotcha!]
;]
I know far too much about training pit fighters...more than I want to, really.
Our area was under ‘red alert’ back in the 80s because stealing family pets for use as “bait dogs” became epidemic.
The scum would take them out of their own yards or knock the windows out of their owner’s parked cars.
The local SPCA jacked up adoption prices to make the shelter dogs “too expensive” to use for bait.
[It was a nerve-wracking and costly time to be doing Dobermann resuce..I had to be fast and have enough cash at the ready, all the time]
So...*if* they “fall out of the womb, killers”, why then do fight trainers need to start with helpless kittens and small/non-combative dogs in the ring to “build confidence” in pit fighters?
[and in case nobody caught the patently obvious implication...because the freaking dogs aren’t born with a desire to kill and need to be *taught* to do it!]
That’s it then.
No more trips to the National Zoo for me.
Oh, I know YOU know! I was just continuing my train of thought...I wish more people would take the time to do a little research(Ha! Fat chance.)
My dog will eat horse poop and I've had to stop him from sampling bear crap.
Dogs will also eat cat stool, rich in protein apparently.
I'm wondering if baby poop is likewise attractive to dogs.
They may have wanted, like any dog, to get to the hidden 'treat'.
In consuming it, the child's very small scrotum could easily been mistaken as part of the 'treat'.
In this case what happened could hardly be called an attack.
There was no intention on the dogs part to injury the baby.
It does give another reinforcement to what we all should know anyway...
Do not leave an infant unattended with any dog.
I am so glad that you brought up Merritt Clifton! He is the very reason I asked for reputable studies. No fault of your own, but let me fill you in on this person.
He has made a “study” based on numbers he collected and others he felt the need to leave out for some reason. There have been many professionals that have written about this study, because it is so far from the truth that it is laughable, and this man has exhibited a great deal of biased behavior, to the extent that people trying to contact him with additional reported attacks that he left out have said the man refused them.
This man, editor of a magazine devoted to pets, has no idea about dog breeds, their characteristics, their temperaments, or anything else. He is not an animal behaviorist, a biologist, or a geneticist. He is a journalist, and it shows.
In the same study you just posted, he is quoted saying that pit bulls have their tails customarily docked. Obviously he is mixing up the breeds. Pit bulls can sometimes have cropped ears, but they do not dock the tails. Presa Canarios are a very rare breed and have not been involved in enough attacks to even warrant their inclusion in the study, yet there they are with pit bulls and rottweilers. I will try to find some links to this when I get home this evening, because you will want to read what they have to say.
“You have presented nothing that proves my claims are wrong.”
Again, did you read the study I posted? Because if you haven’t, perhaps you should hold onto that thought and read it. It shows that pit bulls are second to labs in bites, and seventh in severity of bites. Why not just read it?
"Dog ate babys poop out of diaper that i left outside the door for a min. Didnt eat any of the diaper just all of the poop. i cant smell it on him or see it in his teeth. but the poop is missing. Can this harm him. It was from a one yr olds diaper. Hopefully the dog put it in the garbage and thats why there are no traces of it on him. but just incase he did, what should i know?"
Answer...
HA! Yes, the infamous diaper bandit has visited you. Baby poop is a notorious dog favorite. It ranks right up there with cat poop. I'm assuming it's because it's so full of interesting smells, Lord knows it's full of interesting colors, right?
Heh, anyway, a little snack of poopy every once in a while probably won't hurt your dog (they have stomachs of steel!) but you do want to make sure it doesn't happen often, and if your dog shows signs of illness, go to the vet right away. Human poo is some of the nastiest poo there is, as far as bacteria goes. Get a good diaper pail that seals out the odor, and use it immediately when changing diapers. When you empty the diaper pail, put the bag in a trash can with a locking lid. (Other critters like to get into it too.)
I use the Diaper Champ, which takes regular trash bags, and my dog has never even attempted to eat the poo, but there have been some incidents with raccoons or opossums outside when it wouldn't fit in the trash can.
No, but sources who are kook animal rights activists
interested in pushing a radical agenda on society
and who get their ‘facts’ from newspaper accounts
are to be rightly rejected and condemned.
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