Pit Bull Kills Child, so ban Golden Retrievers.

I am glad that the British care about their children, and about people out for a walk, but I hope they go the right way with their laws.

Politicians and other lawmakers are not dog professionals, and again, I must point out that 'information' by people whose business involves dogs, is apt to be propaganda.
(either intentional lies to deceive, or innocent people parroting those lies.)

Where does one go when they don't understand an important topic, but they must do something about it, and the professional 'information' is suspect for being biased?

Common sense, and plain investigation by people who wont put a bias on what they see and hear.

But lets not forget the propaganda. People whose business is dogs, often lie or spin the truth to manipulate information.

People sometimes post things that don't jive with the facts. Like:

"Chihuahuas are more dangerous than pit bulls".
This is so unbelievable that I don't know where to start to de-bunk it.

Common sense should tell you that the bite from a Chihuahua, is not as bad as the bite from a pit bull. Look at their jaw structure and the muscles that work those jaws! And just the plain size of the dog. And the difference in muscle mass.

If common sense won't do it, let me add knowledge.

Dogs have instincts - think of instincts as inherited knowledge. Pit bull are born with programming that will urge them to hang on when they bite.

This instinct, this 'inherited knowledge', this 'program folder', is called "Locking Jaws".

Pit bull fans, have argued that pit bull's jaws are not different from other large dog's jaws. That's not quite true, but more importantly, it is totally beside the point.

"Locking Jaws" is an inherited behavioral trait, it has nothing to do with anything that you can see by looking at a dog's skull.

But the pit bull fan has changed the focus of the subject. He has relied on the lawmakers lack of knowledge about pit bulls.

He has ignored the fact that locking jaws is something a dog does - an instinct, and misdirected the lawmaker to look at skull structure, and to return to subject of the greater power of a pit bull's head and jaws.

And then the pit bull fans conclude for you "They are are stronger dogs, but that is all".

Sorry. That is the beginning of the argument. They are stronger dogs, and have more jaw strength. That is obvious. But that isn't what we have moved on to discuss.

"Locking Jaws" means that the pit bull doesn't nip, he doesn't bite and retreat.

He bites, puncturing the skin, and he holds on. He doesn't let go. He doesn't open his mouth back open and release. He starts to hang on like an American bulldog. He 'locks' his jaws on his victim.

Most dogs do NOT lock their jaws.

Police 'train' German Shepherd Dogs to hang on by playing tug of war with them, this awakens the hang on instinct that is latent in the breed. (It installs the program from a previously unopened file already in the dog).

But even with canine police training, German Shepherd Dogs do NOT jump up and hang onto sacks tied to trees and swing themselves around for hours out of the day.

Pit bull, and several other very similar breeds have an urge to bite and hang.
Like border collies want to herd sheep, and beagles want to follow their nose, and field-bred bird dogs look at birds, pit bulls want to hang on when they bite.

There is a fine little line, between a bulldog that bites and hangs, and the much much much more common case, where pit bulls not only bite and hang leaving a nasty row of puncture wounds, they also have the instinct to shake their heads while they are biting.

It is NOT them grabbing you with their teeth which does most of the damage. It is the head shake which TEARS parts of your body loose.

I have seen a veterinarian, day after day, do surgery on a dog shaken by another dog.

Some days, the dog's laboratory results would indicate the dogs kidneys were overloading.

The veterinarian would open the dog back up, and all would look healthy and pink, but he knew from the lab results that something was decomposing inside of the dog.

He'd have to cut through health tissue to find it, but there it would be.

A muscle, dead and dieing, while hidden by healthy muscle above it. The muscle, or sometimes part of a muscle, would die because the blood supply to it had been torn loose from when the dog was shaken.

The only visible mark when the dog was brought in was 4 puncture marks from the bigger dog's fangs. But underneath muscle tissue was dieing. The surgeries, the pain the dog was in, the suffering. This should not be.

And this should not happen to people. Not to people walking to their car. Not to children. And not to visitors.

It is time to make people responsible for their dogs actions.

And because we are people, we can learn from the mistakes of others. We don't have to let each person learn how dangerous pit bull type dogs are.

We can use collective knowledge - the experiences of other people - to figure out which lines of dogs have the instincts to bite, hang, and shake, and which lines of dogs have emotional or aggressive problems which require that they be trained to suppress their instincts.

It is far easier to raise a puppy who naturally has the instincts you want,
and who doesn't have any of the instinct you don't want -
than to start off with a puppy who has urges to do things that you have to train him not to follow.

People who buy a puppy as a companion, have a right to be sold a puppy who was bred to be a good companion.

One of the questions is:
Are we going to allow dogs as yard guards?

If so, under what conditions?
What type of fence? How high? What to prevent a dog from digging out?
What type of double doors to prevent a child from answering the door and the dog bolting out?

What precautions for invited visitors? (not trespassers.)

Will we have breed bans (No dangerous breeds),
Or size restrictions (like no more dogs over 16 inches or 40 pounds)?

Read:
http://dogsbite.org