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?
Merritt Clifton is to dog behavior what Phil Jones is to climatology.