most dangerous dog breeds, least dangerous dog breeds, and why

[Jimmy Higgins]

If it's your dog. The problem comes when others encounter the dog--how I treat animals has nothing to do with how a dog I encounter has been treated.

Every dog bite I've gotten (nothing serious) has been due to my not accepting the dog doing something to me that I didn't want the dog to do. I did not treat the dogs badly, I simply stopped the improper behavior.

How many dog bites have you gotten?

I have been around dogs all my life, both familiar and unfamiliar and have bitten just once.

Then again, I like dogs.

I like dogs too. Been attacked kind of aggressively by two, both german shepards neither were mine.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

OMG, it is easy to tell who likes dogs and who doesn't.

I was taught to approach dogs, especially those I didn't know, the same way I was taught to approach people, reservedly and with respect. Just like you need to let a person get to know you and you need to get to know a person before you behave in a familiar manner with one another, so you do with a dog.

Now a dog can have a bad day or a violent general temperament, and a dog can just not like you. But you increase you odds of running into such a dog if you treat every dog like they are a dog that doesn't like you.

That's a load of bullshit.

It's obvious that there are dogs that have been raised and trained to behave well, and there are dogs that have been neglected, or have been encouraged to behave badly.

I like dogs and I own a dog, and have done so most of my life, but I have had enough bad experiences with badly-behaved dogs and their irresponsible owners to know that dogs do not need to be provoked to do harm. Some dogs are taught to play fight with their adult owners, and then the dog chews on some kid because it can't tell the difference. Some dogs are taught to greet all people by jumping up on them, and then the dog knocks an unprepared visitor flat on her ass.

And it's all because some owners are just assholes, who put the onus on visitors and strangers to approach the dog correctly.

I never blame the dog; the dog is not a moral agent.

But owners being assholes isnt what this thread is about, but that the breed of dog determines the biting habits of dogs.

 

[bigfield]

I have been around dogs most of my life too. I was bitten once when I was at a party and was running. The dog bit me to stop me. It was a little dog.

That has happened to me, except the dog was a >30kg sheepdog that latched onto my upper arm and pulled me off my feet. Left nice big holes and earned me a tetanus shot. The owners didn't have the nous to realise the dog couldn't differentiate between running children and errant livestock, even though it was habitually behaving in that manner whenever kids came over to play in the yard.

 

[bigfield]

That's a load of bullshit.

It's obvious that there are dogs that have been raised and trained to behave well, and there are dogs that have been neglected, or have been encouraged to behave badly.

I like dogs and I own a dog, and have done so most of my life, but I have had enough bad experiences with badly-behaved dogs and their irresponsible owners to know that dogs do not need to be provoked to do harm. Some dogs are taught to play fight with their adult owners, and then the dog chews on some kid because it can't tell the difference. Some dogs are taught to greet all people by jumping up on them, and then the dog knocks an unprepared visitor flat on her ass.

And it's all because some owners are just assholes, who put the onus on visitors and strangers to approach the dog correctly.

I never blame the dog; the dog is not a moral agent.

But owners being assholes isnt what this thread is about, but that the breed of dog determines the biting habits of dogs.

I responded to your comments about the need to approach dogs properly in order to avoid provoking them.

The thread is actually about (pseudo)scientific racism but I have no interest in engaging Abe's batshit ravings.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Not sure how this talk of dog breeds, which have been subjected to direct and intentional selection pressure for centuries, are comparable to outbred human populations. It would be expected that dog breeds may have behavioral differences that can be explained by their genetic makeup, because human beings intervened in the natural evolution of wolves to create domestic breeds with certain desirable traits (including behaviors). Human races aren't like that at all.

Yes, you are right. There is a greater F_ST for dog breeds than there is for human races: an average of about 0.3 for dog breeds and only about 0.12 for humans, probably due to the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds. F_ST is a measure of the average genetic variation of a subspecies compared to the entire species. I sometimes argue that breeds of dogs are analogous to human races, and the analogy fails only in a difference of degree. There is at least some genetic variation among human races that affects phenotype differences, but not as much as among dog breeds. But, that isn't the purpose of the analogy as given in the OP. The fact is that the common public dogma of absolutely no genetic variation among human races is likewise applied to dog breeds, for the sake of defending dangerous breeds as not innately dangerous after all. Of course the pit bull defenders would have no knowledge or concern about the differences in fixation indexes or other scientific problems. I did a Google search for 'pit bull breed racism'. As expected, the results are all from pit bull defenders who use the analogy abundantly in their favor. The argument is: if you oppose racism, then why do you support breedism?

 

[Ford]

Out of ignorance, many dogs owners raise dangerous dogs despite the best intentions to treat their dogs well.

And dogs don't just bite their owners; they also fuck with people who have absolutely nothing to do with the condition of the dog.

So obviously there's a lot more to it than you think.

And you approve of this? This little story rather reinforces my beliefs about dog owners. A man, who had every right to be on the property, underwent a frightening ordeal because the owner failed in his duty of care.

Oy vey.

Metaphor,
I am hoping that you will glean from these posts that not all dogs are as you think they are. Note the bolded bit. She did her job - GENTLY! That is a well trained dog.

Gaynor.

The fucked up part about is not that the dog made a bad choice--the dog is not a moral agent--but that that it's owner has trained it to fetch humans with its teeth.

.

As Gaynor said, the dog did her job. What's really fucked up is that most people who get "guard dogs" simply raise them to be aggressive. To make noise. To attack anything that isn't the owner. This dog - after being swatted on the nose - responded as she was trained to do. As you put it, to "fetch" the intruder and bring him to the boss. She didn't even hurt the guy.

Contrast that with the last encounter I had with dangerous dogs. I was out walking mine when out of nowhere came two pit bulls. They straight away attacked my dog, and it was only with the help of a neighbor who came out of his house when he heard the commotion that I was able to fend them off. I'd have followed them home (I'm pretty sure they were from nearby) but I was too busy dealing with the hole they'd torn in the side of my dog. I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd been out walking with a kid.

 

[PyramidHead]

Not sure how this talk of dog breeds, which have been subjected to direct and intentional selection pressure for centuries, are comparable to outbred human populations. It would be expected that dog breeds may have behavioral differences that can be explained by their genetic makeup, because human beings intervened in the natural evolution of wolves to create domestic breeds with certain desirable traits (including behaviors). Human races aren't like that at all.

Yes, you are right. There is a greater F_ST for dog breeds than there is for human races: an average of about 0.3 for dog breeds and only about 0.12 for humans, probably due to the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds. F_ST is a measure of the average genetic variation of a subspecies compared to the entire species. I sometimes argue that breeds of dogs are analogous to human races, and the analogy fails only in a difference of degree. There is at least some genetic variation among human races that affects phenotype differences, but not as much as among dog breeds. But, that isn't the purpose of the analogy as given in the OP. The fact is that the common public dogma of absolutely no genetic variation among human races is likewise applied to dog breeds, for the sake of defending dangerous breeds as not innately dangerous after all. Of course the pit bull defenders would have no knowledge or concern about the differences in fixation indexes or other scientific problems. I did a Google search for 'pit bull breed racism'. As expected, the results are all from pit bull defenders who use the analogy abundantly in their favor. The argument is: if you oppose racism, then why do you support breedism?

The F_ST alone is not a suitable comparison; as I said before, the variations in human DNA are governed largely by millennia of natural selection, while the differences in dog breeds are mostly artificially engineered, often to select for the very variable (behavior) that is to be explained. It's not a difference of degrees, because humans were not intentionally bred for attributes that include the ones you are trying to identify as genetic. The discrepancy certainly owes more to just "the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds," which is a monumental understatement; the very EXISTENCE of dog breeds is the product of a factor that utterly confounds any comparison to human populations.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I used to deliver pamphlets when I was pre-teen, and the bane of my existence were the grossly negligent dog owners who thought that letting their vile, violent pets roam free was a holy sacrament.

If we had more of that, maybe we'd have less junk mail pamphlets.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Yes, you are right. There is a greater F_ST for dog breeds than there is for human races: an average of about 0.3 for dog breeds and only about 0.12 for humans, probably due to the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds. F_ST is a measure of the average genetic variation of a subspecies compared to the entire species. I sometimes argue that breeds of dogs are analogous to human races, and the analogy fails only in a difference of degree. There is at least some genetic variation among human races that affects phenotype differences, but not as much as among dog breeds. But, that isn't the purpose of the analogy as given in the OP. The fact is that the common public dogma of absolutely no genetic variation among human races is likewise applied to dog breeds, for the sake of defending dangerous breeds as not innately dangerous after all. Of course the pit bull defenders would have no knowledge or concern about the differences in fixation indexes or other scientific problems. I did a Google search for 'pit bull breed racism'. As expected, the results are all from pit bull defenders who use the analogy abundantly in their favor. The argument is: if you oppose racism, then why do you support breedism?

The F_ST alone is not a suitable comparison; as I said before, the variations in human DNA are governed largely by millennia of natural selection, while the differences in dog breeds are mostly artificially engineered, often to select for the very variable (behavior) that is to be explained. It's not a difference of degrees, because humans were not intentionally bred for attributes that include the ones you are trying to identify as genetic. The discrepancy certainly owes more to just "the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds," which is a monumental understatement; the very EXISTENCE of dog breeds is the product of a factor that utterly confounds any comparison to human populations.

That is another difference--artificial selection versus natural selection, but it does not confound the comparison, as the results are similar. Darwin used the analogy between artificial selection and natural selection to great effect in his book. If there are differences in environments, then there will be differences in natural selection pressures, and phenotype differences will emerge, just as with the results of differences in the artificial selection patterns among domestic species. These phenotype differences are not so well reflected in the fixation indexes, which are a function of the entire genome, almost entirely noncoding DNA, so the fixation indexes are mostly a function of evolutionary time (increasing the fixation indexes with genetic drift) and admixture (decreasing the fixation indexes), not selection pressures. Dog breeds have about the same time component but much less admixture than human races.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It is a good point that dogs were selectively bred specifically for temperment, and humans were not. It is also a very good point that dogs clearly show these differences in temperment based on genetics... which shows that genetics plays a large role in temperment. And it does make sense that if different "races" of people developed in different places along different genetic lines with different selection pressures, you may have genetic differences in temperment amongst humans. It is also a good point that this point is often screamed down as if to acknowledge and study it would be the end of society as we know it. Good points both of you.

 

[PyramidHead]

The F_ST alone is not a suitable comparison; as I said before, the variations in human DNA are governed largely by millennia of natural selection, while the differences in dog breeds are mostly artificially engineered, often to select for the very variable (behavior) that is to be explained. It's not a difference of degrees, because humans were not intentionally bred for attributes that include the ones you are trying to identify as genetic. The discrepancy certainly owes more to just "the greater historical admixture among human races than for dog breeds," which is a monumental understatement; the very EXISTENCE of dog breeds is the product of a factor that utterly confounds any comparison to human populations.

That is another difference--artificial selection versus natural selection, but it does not confound the comparison, as the results are similar.

So you assume! That remains to be demonstrated. Unless by "results" you mean something as benign as genetic variation, in which case it doesn't help for the specific comparison you are trying to make. Beyond that, you only get to say the results are similar if you assume that, like dog breeds, behavioral differences in humans can be classified into phenotypic groups that co-vary with physical appearance. I don't believe this to be the case, so to me, the results of artificial selection (dog breeding) are not similar at all to those of natural selection, and are an excellent illustration of why racism cannot be scientifically justified: humans were never subjected to the kind of prolonged, purpose-driven genetic manipulation required for the between-race differences to be larger than the within-race differences. In other words, humans aren't dogs.

Darwin used the analogy between artificial selection and natural selection to great effect in his book. If there are differences in environments, then there will be differences in natural selection pressures, and phenotype differences will emerge, just as with the results of differences in the artificial selection patterns among domestic species. These phenotype differences are not so well reflected in the fixation indexes, which are a function of the entire genome, almost entirely noncoding DNA, so the fixation indexes are mostly a function of evolutionary time (increasing the fixation indexes with genetic drift) and admixture (decreasing the fixation indexes), not selection pressures. Dog breeds have about the same time component but much less admixture than human races.

There is also the matter of thousands of generations of directed husbandry in pursuit of specific behavioral traits in a closed, controlled breeding environment, which seems especially relevant to the question "how do you explain differences in behavioral traits across dog breeds?"

Human diversity, as a product of slow and directionless natural selection with near-constant intermingling of genetic material from every corner of the earth, is not similarly relevant to the question "how do you explain differences in behavioral traits across human races?"

Thus, it is not inconsistent to say racism has no scientific basis while acknowledging that some dog breeds are innately more aggressive than others; indeed, it is predicted by the vastly divergent origins of humans and pet dogs.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Human diversity, as a product of slow and directionless natural selection with near-constant intermingling of genetic material from every corner of the earth, is not similarly relevant to the question "how do you explain differences in behavioral traits across human races?"

Isn't the near-constant intermingling of genetic material from every corner of the earth a pretty recent development in an evolutionary timeframe? If we really had that going on constantly all along, would we even have distinct "races" of humans? Granted, we have far less "pure breeds" of human than of dog, but would it be fair to say that racial differences in temperment should be as prevalent as physical trait differences between human breeds? If it is a fact that Asian people tend to have narrower eyes and black people tend to have darker skin, would it be equally correct to presume that there may be tempermental or behavioural genetic differences on that level? If not, why not?

 

[ApostateAbe]

PyramidHead, we have differences in perspectives concerning human races but roughly the same perspectives concerning dog breeds, dog breeds being the main topic of this thread, so I am willing to grant you the last word on the debate about human races. I have too many other threads about that already.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

PyramidHead, we have differences in perspectives concerning human races but roughly the same perspectives concerning dog breeds, dog breeds being the main topic of this thread, so I am willing to grant you the last word on the debate about human races. I have too many other threads about that already.

Oh please! There is no other purpose for the OP than to propagate your agenda on race traits. Otherwise, why else put this in PD?

 

[PyramidHead]

Human diversity, as a product of slow and directionless natural selection with near-constant intermingling of genetic material from every corner of the earth, is not similarly relevant to the question "how do you explain differences in behavioral traits across human races?"

Isn't the near-constant intermingling of genetic material from every corner of the earth a pretty recent development in an evolutionary timeframe?

The scale has certainly increased in recent centuries, but even small-scale intermingling would confound grouping humans as we do dog breeds. Really, any situation where people with genetic propensities for certain behaviors were not completely isolated from everyone else would be enough to make racial explanations for e.g. differences in intelligence staggeringly unlikely. Once the boundaries between such specific and inter-dependent genetic clusters are smeared by entropy, they are almost impossible to re-establish without serious top-down engineering, because every shuffling event is preserved in future generations. So, while people obviously look different from each other because of genetic differences, for those physical differences to map anywhere close to 1:1 with other (much more complicated) differences is pretty far down the probability scale.

If we really had that going on constantly all along, would we even have distinct "races" of humans?

Do we actually have those now, at the genetic level?

 

[ApostateAbe]

PyramidHead, we have differences in perspectives concerning human races but roughly the same perspectives concerning dog breeds, dog breeds being the main topic of this thread, so I am willing to grant you the last word on the debate about human races. I have too many other threads about that already.

Oh please! There is no other purpose for the OP than to propagate your agenda on race traits. Otherwise, why else put this in PD?

The topic crosses many forum categories, but it is largely a political issue. The central rallying point of the pit bull defenders is opposition to breed-specific legislation (BSL).

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Do we actually have those now, at the genetic level?

Breeds of humans? Not to the extreme of breeds of dogs, but to some degree I would say yes, and even on a more local level in many places. You can tell a Polynesian person from a northern Chinese person just by looking at them. Physical human traits do tend to clump around genetic lines and geographic origins. If physical genetic traits do, why not behavioural ones? A long stretch from that to saying something that reactionaries will straw man, like the post earlier in the thread going "this means we should tell black people to stop breeding", but it is something that could be worthy of study nonetheless.

 

[PyramidHead]

Do we actually have those now, at the genetic level?

Breeds of humans? Not to the extreme of breeds of dogs, but to some degree I would say yes, and even on a more local level in many places. You can tell a Polynesian person from a northern Chinese person just by looking at them.

When you make this visual distinction, is it indicative of an underlying genetic distinction, and is that distinction best described by the geographic labels you used? How do you know? Being able to visually tell what regions two people come from is not the same as saying there are inherent genetic differences between the groups they belong to, and those differences are most accurately captured by referring to their geographic region. That's the part I'm questioning.

Physical human traits do tend to clump around genetic lines and geographic origins. If physical genetic traits do, why not behavioural ones? A long stretch from that to saying something that reactionaries will straw man, like the post earlier in the thread going "this means we should tell black people to stop breeding", but it is something that could be worthy of study nonetheless.

I look at it like this:

A. behavioral traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins
B. physical traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins

Both of those can be true, but taken together they do not imply:

C. behavioral and physical traits clump around the same genetic lines and geographic origins

Which, among other things, is what must be true in order for racism to be scientifically justified. With dogs, the mechanisms that govern the genetic clustering of physical and behavioral traits have been consciously, deliberately constructed by intelligent beings, so what would otherwise be a monumental coincidence is explicable by intelligent intervention.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Breeds of humans? Not to the extreme of breeds of dogs, but to some degree I would say yes, and even on a more local level in many places. You can tell a Polynesian person from a northern Chinese person just by looking at them.

When you make this visual distinction, is it indicative of an underlying genetic distinction, and is that distinction best described by the geographic labels you used? How do you know? Being able to visually tell what regions two people come from is not the same as saying there are inherent genetic differences between the groups they belong to, and those differences are most accurately captured by referring to their geographic region. That's the part I'm questioning.

Physical human traits do tend to clump around genetic lines and geographic origins. If physical genetic traits do, why not behavioural ones? A long stretch from that to saying something that reactionaries will straw man, like the post earlier in the thread going "this means we should tell black people to stop breeding", but it is something that could be worthy of study nonetheless.

I look at it like this:

A. behavioral traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins
B. physical traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins

Both of those can be true, but taken together they do not imply:

C. behavioral and physical traits clump around the same genetic lines and geographic origins

Which, among other things, is what must be true in order for racism to be scientifically justified. With dogs, the mechanisms that govern the genetic clustering of physical and behavioral traits have been consciously, deliberately constructed by intelligent beings, so what would otherwise be a monumental coincidence is explicable by intelligent intervention.

C is certainly true, and a good point, but nor does it mean they cannot be clumped around the same genetic lines and geographic origins. It is something worthy of study. We may find some surprises. My problem would be with those who display a dogmatic refusal to do the investigating, for fear of social collapse, as if merely considering the question is worthy of scorn. You seem to be more open minded than most.

I remember when I was back in school, in a Psych class on genetic influence on behaviour, the prof brought up the Bell Curve, a book written about a decade ago that claimed some races are more intelligent than others. He brought it up as an example of "racism" and treated it with disdain and refused to show us why it was wrong. I suspect that it is very flawed research and wrong in many ways, and I don't accept its conclusion, but to dismiss it merely because it is not what we'd hope for is a real problem.

 

[PyramidHead]

When you make this visual distinction, is it indicative of an underlying genetic distinction, and is that distinction best described by the geographic labels you used? How do you know? Being able to visually tell what regions two people come from is not the same as saying there are inherent genetic differences between the groups they belong to, and those differences are most accurately captured by referring to their geographic region. That's the part I'm questioning.

Physical human traits do tend to clump around genetic lines and geographic origins. If physical genetic traits do, why not behavioural ones? A long stretch from that to saying something that reactionaries will straw man, like the post earlier in the thread going "this means we should tell black people to stop breeding", but it is something that could be worthy of study nonetheless.

I look at it like this:

A. behavioral traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins
B. physical traits clump around genetic lines and geographic origins

Both of those can be true, but taken together they do not imply:

C. behavioral and physical traits clump around the same genetic lines and geographic origins

Which, among other things, is what must be true in order for racism to be scientifically justified. With dogs, the mechanisms that govern the genetic clustering of physical and behavioral traits have been consciously, deliberately constructed by intelligent beings, so what would otherwise be a monumental coincidence is explicable by intelligent intervention.

C is certainly true, and a good point, but nor does it mean they cannot be clumped around the same genetic lines and geographic origins. It is something worthy of study. We may find some surprises. My problem would be with the dogmatic refusal to do the investigating, for fear of social collapse. You seem to be more open minded than most.

I don't know of anybody who thinks we shouldn't investigate it for fear of social collapse (which doesn't mean nobody feels that way, I just haven't heard them). I know a bunch of people who say it shouldn't be investigated because it's not a likely enough scenario to warrant it, and the resources could be better spent investigating more potentially fruitful avenues of research.