The sinister, shocking rise of dog attacks on postal workers
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
[1] https://time.com/2891180/kfc-and-the-pit-bull-attack-of-a-li...
Pass legislation that creates high mandatory minimum fines for dog attacks on postal workers, and require that home insurers are responsible to pay. Allow and encourage communities to pass ordinances that require home insurance for owners of certain breeds. Require breeders to receive certification that buyers have notified their insurer of the purchase of a dog (regardless of whether it's covered).
As soon as there's a financial disincentive to own one of these dogs, the number of owners will drop off dramatically. The first few years will be tough as many people give up their animals, but the are dogs that should never have been bred in the first place. It's heartbreaking but necessary, especially when you look at the consequences of unchecked ownership of dangerous dog breeds.
Edit: Really curious why y'all are downvoting. You don't agree that dangerous dogs are dangerous? Or that you should be financially responsible for the risks associated with your animals? Really, what's the disagreement?
If they are going legislate against a dog race is better to weight limit.
Personally I agree with you that the better way is to make owner of aggressive dogs responsible by their pets behavior and make them pay fines or even jail time depending of the gravity of the attack.
Now for breeds that should never been breed in first place, i would put pugs and Bulldogs on the list.
The goal isn't to be perfect, it's to make ownership complexity reflect the risk. It's inviable to outlaw a breed altogether at this point. If folks don't buy dangerous dogs because they're expensive to own, the market dries up and the breeders stop breeding.
I prefer people to be free to get whatever dog they want, as long as they accept the responsability for it.
I have a big dog, a mixed race with more than 40kg. Shes swweet, but when out the house shes always with a chocke colar, because you never know how a dog can react in new situations. This is taking responsability for your dogs actions.
I would also agree to ban big dogs from dog parks. Because theres always fights in dog parks.
Wearing a choke collar isn't a fix in the slightest. Dogs can dig, they can bust out windows, they can slip out the door. Hell, they can rip their leash out of your hands. My uncle's dog pulled my grandmother down some concrete steps, resulting in a hospital stay. Taking responsibility is paying a real, material cost up front when you get the dog and being held responsible for taking the necessary precautions (e.g., by your insurance company).
If you want a dog that's risky, taking responsibility should be a sobering ongoing burden that's non-optional. If you don't want that burden, pick a smaller dog.
Pitbulls are more likely to be socialized to be aggressive than other dog breeds. Either for fighting or duty as guard dogs. (Both terrible - you do not have to breed an animal or abuse it to make it a good guard dog)
The numbers for how many pits involved in attacks this is true for, I have not been able to find.
Aren’t there breeding programs for service dog traits?
Hell, every "guard dog", in my opinion, should need to be insured for the possible outcomes it can cause. Dogs aren't infallible. Why should you be able to keep a guard dog and not pay money to mitigate the extremely real risks of that dog attacking someone?
Therefore if any solutions are to arise, it has to be more thorough than gentle nudges as that's only effective on those who likely wouldn't have bought a pitbull in the first place anyways due to the social stigma.
This is outright false on almost all counts.
- Only 30 states have licensing requirements on breeding dogs. Most of those set thresholds for getting licenses, usually 5-10 dogs (often just females).
- It's not illegal to buy a pitbull. I searched pretty hard and I can't find any regulation in the US that says that anyone can't buy a pitbull.
So no, there's not disincentive. There's no disincentive at all for anyone.
If deterrence is ineffective, turn around and look at the dog owners again. Why do people get aggressive dogs?
The fraction of people who:
- get an aggressive dog (because they’re afraid of something)
- but feel no fear of repercussions (for their aggressive dog’s behavior)
has to be very small.
———
Also, might I suggest indeed “decreasing the population of these animals”?
In short, the solution would probably only work if the majority of the pet owning population and breeders were well-off, financially responsible, and responded to insurance-related incentives.
That's not the intention. The intent is prevention, not justice.
> People who are irresponsible enough to have a dangerous, untrained pitbull as a pet, are probably also not responsible enough to have insurance or insure properly. People already drive without "mandatory" car insurance.
Which is why I specified that breeders should be required to certify that insurers have been informed. It's easier to shut down ten bad breeders than fine a hundred dog owners.
> They may also not have the money to pay the fines
If I get fined for not having insurance and I don't pay the fine, I go to jail. Is that controversial?
> "Require breeders" to do anything is hopeless due to the amount of unlicensed breeders and puppy mills that don't care about the law.
I'll ignore the fact that in many cases you don't need a license to breed dogs. The government does an awfully good job of making sure there aren't unlicensed [insert your favorite regulated profession here]. If you regulate it and enforce it, you can effectively achieve success, even if you don't get to 100%.
Civil liability doesn't stop a dog from jumping a fence and eating a kid's face. You can already be held liable for the actions of your animal. No amount of scaring people with [insurance premiums] is going to decrease the population of these animals.
EDIT: the linked report from the postal workers union [1] cites specifically the underenforcement of the Dangerous Dog Act [2], which does not affect German Shepherds in its current form, so would not help this case.
[1] https://cwue5.org/2024/07/12/rm-cwu-national-dog-awareness-w...
GSDs must have their daily exercise and stimulation. If they don't get it, they get restless and anxious and begin to freak out and get aggressive. They're not meant to sit in a terrace house in England or American apartment.
I’d have to have some serious data on non-attack-involved dogs before I’d consider rejecting the null hypothesis.
In any sort of analytic consideration here the first thing to look at is whether the breed is capable of causing grievous harm. Temperament second, and treatment/training third. And of course overall prevalence. But in terms of the policy decision around breed-specific legislation all that really matters is the number of attacks.
So many dogs are just ill-suited for the modern concept of having a dog. This thing where we just have a dog around a <1500sqft home where they eat and sleep and occasionally go for a walk is less than 100 years old. For the other 20,000+ years of hominid-canine interaction, they had an actual job to do that was typically physically and mentally demanding. They were warding off wolves or enemy tribes, or helping us hunt, or pulling loads. Now they just sit around all day in this tiny little slice of territory. People get in love with the aesthetics of the breed instead of what they were actually bred to do, and it has consequences.
And when you express concern at the irresponsible owner it's you who is the bad guy. Not the neglectful owner, because in America intent counts. You could have restrained your anger, but look at the poor little dog, it doesn't know what it is doing. (No, it doesn't, it never learned and it never occurred to anyone around it that it should learn.)
Everyone immediately perceives that large dogs require constant attention and handling skills, but the less immediate but very real dangers from small dogs are downplayed.
There's nothing good that can come out of this. The likely outcome is a dead small dog and a vet/physician bill. I'm not risking a hand injury over someone else's animal, hand injuries can be disabling.
BSL works because it is also based on probabilities, specifically the probability that a group of closely related dog breeds are all likely to exhibit the same behaviour.
The problem with pit bull type dogs is the breeding that makes them attack a target’s most sensitive region - the neck. Better to have all related breeds removed that run the risk of yet another child dying because someone could not be arsed to contrôle their dog.
A threatening person I have little doubt she would have a go at.
As I've said elsewhere on this thread, the first-order consideration for breeds is just the physical capability; temperament and training are second-order considerations that may mitigate some of the capabilities, but rarely will increase the danger of a breed.
Wot?
Here's a quick google result to the contrary: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families...
They can absolutely kill a small child.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/12/27/dach...
At a minimum you are talking about dogs that are capable of killing a child and seriously injuring an adult, and when we talk about the larger breeds in the pit bull family, clearly capable of killing an adult.
Some larger breeds, like golden retrievers, can be ferocious when provoked, and can be dangerous in this regard, but in terms of brute strength are more limited. This is even putting aside differences in temperament.
The most dangerous animal is humans, yet we allow people to freely breed them in any number they like and unleash them upon the world when they reach high capability to make damage, ie. upon adulthood.
Mosquitos kill 700K humans in year. That is about yearly toll of just the war in Ukraine. Humans directly kill 475K of other humans yearly, ie. homicides, and 1.35M by cars, and multitude of other indirect ways. And it is very easy to defend yourself against mosquitos - just apply repellent. There is no such easy way to defend yourself against humans.
People got more dogs. Dogs were unsocialised. Return to office left dogs alone. People shopped online so there are more deliveries (and more biting opportunities).
I don’t know if this is, or is not, the best thing to do but what stands out to me here is it seems to be their best guess. As in, they hadn’t been trained on what to do?
first mistake is to approach an animal you know is hostile.
Also that specific owner of the lip-biter should be in prison. If someone actively being bitten in the face can maneuver a door closed on the dog, then so can the owner.
The owner didn’t try hard enough to help. A person in a dire situation figured this out. The owner did not. The owner is not fit for owning this dog if their level of control is less than someone who’s in panic.
There is no way this person is not responsible for buying the dog and then not acting to prevent the attack.
Is there PPE a worker can use if they're delivering to a house with an animal? Should there be a requirement for mailboxes to be mounted at a certain height so workers don't have to bend over? Is anyone even looking into this?
I've walked by very aggressive dogs w/o issue - while the people who followed me were charged. I had made some eye contact and otherwise didn't register them. The other folks were more respectful of the animal and their territory. Objectively, their approach has a better track record.
My take: The dogs had been wound up for 3 sec on my approach and 60 sec on theirs.
Risky dogs were common where I grew up, including ferals I knew and ran from every time (they were noisy, I had lead time). In my exp, there isn't a standard template. Reading the dog can help sometimes. Other dogs have fully unpredictable behavior. Known behaviors can change over time.
I tell people to do that with my dog and it works (he's not aggressive in any way, just a bit skittish with new people).
If you squat or kneel, you are more stable, facing forward, have your arms in a position where they can manipulate something in front of you (i.e. to defend yourself), and your legs as the forward-most part of your body. If you bow, your torso is off-center of your feet, your center of gravity stays high, your head and face are the most exposed part of your body, and your arms are angled to manipulate something below you.
If an attacking dog gets into a position where your arms can deflect it while bowing, your groin, legs and torso are already in trouble.
"The phenomenon of behavioural problems in dogs who missed out on socialisation and training opportunities during lockdowns has been well documented, too.
Added to this, Lloyd says, the return to hybrid or full-time, on-site work now means that “a lot of those dogs are spending more time in isolation and they’re not used to that. The doorbell goes and it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to them all day. They’re increasingly territorial when they protect the home.”"
Also it sounds like a UK specific thing - postal deliveries deep into private frontyards. In US the postal boxes are on the edge of the property.
In general, pitbulls and bully breeds make up around 6% of the population of dogs and account for 22% of attacks. This isn't inherent to the breed, it's inherent to shitty dog owners wanting a badass looking big dog and not investing the necessary time and effort in training and socializing their pet. This leads to batshit breed restrictions and a perpetual ignorant narrative that demonizes different breeds of dogs. Demonize ignorant pet owners who purchase the animal for appearance or status without putting in the work and taking responsibility for the dog.
Essentially, dog breed doesn't impact behavior directly. It impacts their physiology, which impacts how they can behave. A well trained pitbull, or poodle, or shepherd, or collie, or malinois are equally unlikely to attack unprovoked. The point is the training, of which socialization is a big part.
Untrained, unsocialized dog attacks are about as antisocial as drunk driving. It doesn't make sense to focus on the model of car the drunk was driving. It doesn't make sense to focus on the breed of the dog shitty owners allowed to attack.