The original thread for which this post is a reply can be found here.
Replying to moderntemplar:<blockquote> and they are the sweetest big puppies in the world. Are they killers? No more than any other dog of any other breed My point? Don’t blame the dog for acting like a dog. Blame the owner for not caring for her animals properly. Proper care includes making sure they don’t run free.</blockquote>You should reread Ormusdudes post made at 1:04pm. I implore you to refute these statistics. The Pit Bull Terrier is a bred specific breed. I do spout off a lot of opinions on here that are not popular or well thought through, but this breed has a history that cannot be changed. My opinions may be changed with facts and historical evidence. “I know a pit bull that is SOOO sweet” does not fit either one of these.
Ok, I will be happy to refute his post. What he has done is called “fact stacking”. This is when you take legitimate data and parse it with unverifiable data (or outright lies) in the hopes that the reader will accept both sets as truth.
ormusdude wrote::
“Pit bull type dogs were responsible for 67% of fatalities, the next closest breed was the rottweiler at 12%.”
FALSE: This information was contrived form a report released by the Centers for Disease Control. It has been highly publicized, to the point many people believ it as fact. It is not fact. The CDC retracted their statements about breed specific bite statistics by saying, “Finally, it is imperative to keep in mind that even if breed-specific bite rates could be accurately calculated, they do not factor in owner related issues. For example, less responsible owners or owners who want to foster aggression in their dogs may be drawn differentially to certain breeds.”
After 1998, the CDC stopped tracking which breeds of dogs are involved in fatal attacks; according to a CDC spokesperson, that information is no longer considered to be of discernable value.
Even though the CDC and all major animal organizations agreed that breed-specific bite data is inaccurate, many websites that profit directly from dog bites and the hysteria that surround them continue to present the flawed data as fact.
ormusdude wrote:
“Pit bull is one of the most brave and dauntless dogs that usually takes on any opponent.”
TRUE: I love that about my dogs. I can leave my 14 year old daughter at home while I work without having to worry about her being victimized by child molesters or other sexual predators (they are in every community).
ormusdude wrote:
“Therefore they take part in dog fighting.”
FALSE: Pit bulls do not “take part” in dog fighting. They are forced into it.
If you don’t believe it, take a look at the transformation that has occured with the Michael Vick dogs. http://www.badrap.org/rescue/vick/now.html
ormusdude wrote:
“It is common knowledge that this dog breed can even mangle the human to death as pit bull locks its jaws onto the booty until it is dead.”
FALSE: It is common knowledge that each day there are millions of pit bulls that don;t bite anyone.
All dogs over a certain size are capable of doing serious damage to the human body. The idea that pit bulls somehow lock their jaws differently than other dogs is not only inaccurate but laughable. Tray a quick google search: http://tinyurl.com/y8tpuf8
ormusdude wrote:
“For each US dog bite fatality there are about 670 hospitalizations and 16,000 emergency room visits, 21,000 other medical visits (office and clinic), and 187,000 non-medically treated bites- 46.1% (nearly half) of dog bite injuries were triaged in emergency rooms as “urgent-emergent”- Dog bites are the second highest reason why children seek emergency treatmentThat’s about 60,000 bites per fatality and that information is dated. It is reported today that a US citizen is bitten by a dog every 75 seconds.”
TRUE: this data can be easily verified. It has nothing to do with pit bulls and everything to do with dog bites in general, which should be the focus of concern.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9424044
The part that he left out is this: “Dog bite injuries are an important source of injury in the US population, especially among children. Improved surveillance and prevention of dog bite-related injuries, particularly among children, are needed.”
Improved surveillance and prevention, not breed-specific restrictions. Interesting.
This is the part that I find relevant: “… For each US dog bite fatality there are about 670 hospitalizations and 16,000 emergency room visits, …”
There are, on average 25 dog bite related deaths in the US each year. If we believe ormusdude, (even though I don’t) that means that pit bulls are responsible for 16.75 deaths a year. There are 307,914,462 people living in the US.
here are some adds for you:
Getting canonized: 20,000,000 to 1
Killed by a pit bull: 18,661,482 to 1
Being an astronaut: 13,200,000 to 1
Becoming president: 10,000,000 to 1
Being killed by lightning: 2,320,000 to 1
Winning Olympic medal: 662,000 to 1
So your chances of being killed by a pit bull are somewhere between becoming president and sainthood.
One more fact worth mentioning…
Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1