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Comment by defen | Hacker News Reader

The author says "We found no support for policies targeting particular breeds" [1] which is completely absurd even if you postulate that their study's results were even stronger than they are. Imagine that their study found zero correlation between breeds and behavior. Even if that were the case, the outcomes of that behavior are wildly different. Some breeds will bite you and not even break skin. Some breeds will bite you, and you'll need stitches and antibiotics. Some breeds will literally rip your arms off. How could any reasonable person conclude that "no difference in behavior" leads to "no support for policies targeting particular breeds"?

Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua?

[1] https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520459786575396869

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> 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.

Agreed, that statement completely ignores the qualitative difference between dog bites. I was once bitten by some sort of yellow lab or golden retriever; it bit hard, but it let go before the pain signals even reached my brain. On the other hand, when pitbulls bite they tend to clamp down and shake, like they're trying to tear you apart. Likelihood of a bite is the wrong statistic, likelihood of a mauling is what really matters.

No. I wouldn't let a 6 year old play unsupervised with any dog. That would be incredibly irresponsible, and has lead to innumerable unnecessary child & dog deaths.

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.

I’m not a fan of breed-specific legislation, but I’m more amenable to breed-selective homeowner insurance[1].

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

In my experience, most people don’t specify which they mean, so they don’t actually care about the “breed” (the bloodline), but care more about their intuition of a breed based only on visuals.

[1] https://forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/banned-dog-b...

Another statistical problem is almost any mutt that looks vaguely like a terrier labeled a “Pitt bull type.”

Hey it’s r/pitbulls trying to convince you that your kid’s face getting bitten off is totally your fault. Should have supervised better.

Chihuahua: face still attached.

Pitbull: lack of face.

Ok, since you don't think a 6 year old can play with any dog unsupervised, how about a 12 year old? Would you let a 12 year old play unsupervised with a pit bull? How about with a chihuahua?

Depends on the dog, depends on the child. As per the paper, breed is a poor predictor of behaviour. I wouldn't let most adults in this thread play with my dogs unsupervised, based on the state of the comments.

Fair enough, but I think it's safe to say you're an extreme outlier.

As someone who fostered lots of dogs and had to interview people hoping to adopt a dog from me, I don’t care about what the vast majority of people. All people are ignorant until they aren’t.

Talking about non-outliers as if they have better knowledge of what the safety hazards are is a fallacy.

"Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua?"

Neither - they shouldn't be unsupervised with "random" dogs.

That's why I presented a hypothetical question. It's like answering the trolley problem with "make laws against tying people to railroad tracks". Hypothetically speaking if you had to leave your kid with one or the other, which would you choose? Or would you say "doesn't matter"?

It's a false tautology and not representative of reality. There would be other traits and scenario details to observe that would be better indicators.

Never leave a child alone with any unknown dog. Or really any dog known or not. Children have the bad habit of getting in dogs faces, pulling their ears, etc and don’t always understand a dogs warninings.

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.

> 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.

So you agree that chihuahuas are less dangerous. That's my entire point.

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