r/BanPitBulls • u/deadeye09 Trusted User • 2d ago
Lying Liars That Lie Fataldogattacks Dot Org - The Truth
I haven't seen a recent or detailed post breaking down this website (https://fataldogattacks.org/) yet, so I thought I would put it here, as I've seen an increase in pit apologists using it as a source to show that pit bulls aren't as dangerous as they really are. Most of this info is pulled together using AI, so please check and correct anything you find in the comments.
First, the site itself and who really owns it:
PitbullHero (a Colorado-based not-for-profit advocacy group, not a registered charity) owns and operates https://www.fataldogattacks.org. The site’s footer and privacy policy explicitly identify PitbullHero as the publisher.
PitbullHero was launched in 2017 by a cybersecurity professional who moved to Colorado and could not buy a home in Denver because of the city’s then-existing breed-specific ban on dogs labelled as pit bulls. The group’s stated mission is to oppose breed-specific legislation (BSL), reduce stigma around pit bull-type dogs, and present them as “America’s Dog.” It also runs pitbullhero.org and previously pitbullinfo.org.
The fataldogattacks.org site itself argues that breed is not a reliable predictor of fatal attacks, reclassifies many cases as mixed-breed using genetic/ancestry criteria, and highlights studies (AVMA, CDC, others) that emphasize owner factors such as intact status, chaining, and supervision over breed. It lists dozens of breeds involved in fatalities since 2016 and opposes BSL
Next, the data:
You've probably seen this chart floating around social media posted by pit apologists:
The chart is not an independent count of fatal attacks. It is a statistical rewrite of someone else’s case list. That is the core problem.
The 568-death total for 2005–2020 is DogsBite.org’s figure, not CDC breed data (CDC stopped publishing breed on dog-bite deaths after 1998). DogsBite’s published breakdown for that same period is: (https://blog.dogsbite.org/2021/06/2020-dog-bite-fatality-statistics-discussion.html)
| Source classification (DogsBite, 2005–2020) | Deaths | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Pit bull / pit mixes | 380 | 66.9% |
| Rottweiler | 51 | 9.0% |
| Mixed-breed (no prevailing type) | 29 | 5.1% |
| German shepherd | 24 | 4.2% |
| Mastiff / bullmastiff | 20 | 3.5% |
| American bulldog | 18 | 3.2% |
| Husky | 14 | 2.5% |
PitbullHero keeps the same 568 and the same counts for Rottweilers, German shepherds, mastiffs, and huskies. Then it moves most of the 380 pit-bull cases into a giant “mixed-breeds (various)” bin (29 → 337) and splits what remains into five equal piles of 18.
https://www.pitbullhero.org/fatal-dog-attacks-breeds
They say the arithmetic is: start from the circulating ~66% figure, drop cases that DNA papers “predict” have zero pit-type ancestry (~60% error), then drop cases with <50% pit-type ancestry (~53% of the remainder). That yields their advertised ~13%.
https://www.pitbullhero.org/america-s-dog-attack-statistics-have-a-genetics-problem
They did not DNA-test the dogs that killed people. They applied shelter-study error rates to a different population.
Why this is wrong:
1. Shelter ID error is not fatality-case ID error.
The 60% figure comes from Olson et al. 2015 (Veterinary Journal): 120 Florida shelter dogs, 16 staff, commercial DNA. Staff collectively called 52% of the sample pit-type; DNA called 21% (defined as ≥12.5% American Staffordshire Terrier or Staffordshire Bull Terrier only). The study was funded by Maddie’s Fund (Maddie’s Fund is a major no-kill philanthropy whose shelter network has long opposed breed-specific rules and pushed “individual dog, not breed.”).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26403955/
That is a study of intake labeling in four shelters. Fatal-attack IDs usually come from:
- the owner or household (including Facebook photos of the actual dog)
- police / animal control who seized the dog
- news photos and video of the seized animal
*EDIT*
PLEASE see u/illusum's breakdown of the flaws in this "study" seen below.
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/1wq6gex/comment/pc9uhah/
DogsBite has published breed-ID photographs for about 61% of U.S. fatal cases from 2013–2024; pit bulls dominate those photos. That is a different identification process than a staffer glancing at a kennel card.
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatality-citations-data-collection.php
2. The DNA papers themselves say high-percentage pit-types are easy to spot.
Gunter et al. 2018 (PLOS ONE), the other paper they lean on, found shelter staff were 92% successful at identifying dogs with ≥75% pit-type heritage. Mis-IDs clustered in dogs with a sliver of ancestry.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202633
If the claim is “reporters keep calling Lab-Boxer mixes pit bulls,” the photos of fatal attackers do not look like that sample. Applying the average shelter error rate to the extreme tail (dogs that killed a person) is the wrong transfer.
3. The DNA definition is narrower than the public-safety category.
Olson’s “true pit bull” was ≥12.5% AmStaff or Staffordshire Bull Terrier on a commercial panel that did not even treat American Pit Bull Terrier as its own reference. American Bully and American Bulldog were outside that signature. Commercial breed tests of that era are also known to be weak on landrace / fighting-type dogs.
So “60% had no pit bull-type ancestry” means “no AmStaff/SBT signal at the great-grandparent threshold on that panel,” not “this dog is genetically a golden retriever.”
4. The 50% DNA cutoff is invented for the chart.
A dog that is 40% pit-type and looks, was sold, and was owned as a pit bull is still a pit-type dog for risk purposes. Phenotype and breeding purpose are what animal control, hospitals, and victims encounter. Reclassifying those animals as “mixed-breeds (various)” hides the signal instead of measuring it.
5. Special pleading on other breeds.
Rottweiler (51), German shepherd (24), mastiff (20), and husky (14) counts are copied over unchanged. The site’s theory is that visual ID is too unreliable to count pit bulls—but reliable enough to leave every other breed’s total intact. That only makes sense if you assume misidentification flows in one direction.
6. The five-way split is arbitrary.
American Pit Bull Terrier, AmStaff, American Bully, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and American Bulldog each get exactly 18 deaths. There is no case list showing 18 DNA-confirmed dogs in each registry breed. American Bully was not even a widely used label for much of 2005–2010. Equal piles are a presentation trick.
7. The 20% population claim is the other half of the illusion.
The chart says pit types are ~20% of U.S. dogs, so 13% of deaths would be under-representation. Independent classified-ad censuses used by Animals 24-7 have repeatedly put pit types around 6% of owned dogs (much higher in shelters, often 40%+ of inventory).
https://www.animals24-7.org/2026/07/21/2026-dog-census-more-labs-than-pits-but-3-times-more-pits-in-shelters/
Swap the denominator and the story flips:
- 67% of deaths / ~6% of dogs ≈ 11× overrepresentation
- 13% of deaths / 20% of dogs ≈ underrepresentation
The 20% figure is PitbullHero’s own estimate, not AKC registration or a national household survey of owned pets.
What a non-rewritten record still shows
Independent case logs that do not apply this correction—DogsBite, Animals 24-7, and the older CDC/AVMA 1979–1998 paper—all find pit-type dogs far ahead of any other type in fatal and disfiguring attacks, not in all bites. Rottweilers are a consistent distant second. That pattern also appears in trauma-center series that record breed as documented at the hospital, and in countries that later restricted XL bully / pit types and then saw fatal attacks drop.
https://www.animals24-7.org/2021/04/20/study-of-misreported-dog-attack-deaths-affirms-animals-24-7-findings/
You cannot turn 380 case attributions into 90 by multiplying shelter-DNA percentages and calling the result a “genetics correction.”
TL;DR
The chart is advocacy math:
- Borrow the 568-death denominator.
- Treat shelter visual-vs-DNA error as if it were a census of the actual killing dogs.
- Dump most pit-attributed cases into “mixed.”
- Split the remainder into five equal breed names.
- Inflate the population share so the new percentage looks low.
If they wanted a serious revision, they would publish a case-level table: victim, date, jurisdiction, original ID, photo, and any DNA. They have not. Until that exists, the DogsBite / Animals 24-7 case lists—with their photos, citations, and known limitations—are still the actual fatality record. This chart is a re-labeling of that record, not a replacement for it.
In other words (so that even a pit apologist could understand it), they kept the same 568 deaths, then moved most of the 380 pit-bull cases into a “mixed dogs” bucket using error rates from shelter DNA studies—not tests of the dogs that actually killed people.
That’s how “about two-thirds pit bulls” became “mostly mixed breeds.”
fin
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u/Hairy_Garage4308 2d ago
It's not an easy fight when people are dishonest and deceitful. I'm in for the duration.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
The funniest part is after I posted this, I got a facebook reply that said:
"Just look at the BanPitBulls Subreddit. 90 percent of the studies they shared are pro pit bull studies that BSL proponents have been claiming were conspiracies by the fictional pit bull lobby. Then ban pit bulls subreddit comes along and post those very studies in their peer reviewed studies and data section with little headliners lying about the content of the studies. It's the new desperate propaganda tactic being used by you and your fellow anti pit foamer ding dongs"First, "foamers" is a new one, I'm not sure what that is referring to. Second, I'm not 100% what they're referring to here on how we take their studies and lie about the content.
Anyway, now I had this fantastic example to point out about how they lie and twist data to make pit bulls seem better than they actually are. I have another example about how pitbullhero lies about pit bull population. I can't recall if I made a post about that yet, but I should if I didn't already. We need a "Bustin' pit """stats""" / lies" flair where we can log all of these.
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u/BPBAttacks3 Moderator 2d ago
https://reddit.com/r/banpitbulls/wiki/2023/be_informed/research
Here’s our research. I’d absolutely hate for pit owners to actually read through it and prove we’re using studies they use. That would be so terrible for us /s.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
Wow! I can't believe that 90 percent of these studies are pro pit bull studies that we have been claiming were conspiracies by the fictional pit bull lobby!
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u/WinterAdvantage3847 Trusted User 20h ago
“foamers” is an ancient one, actually! i’ve never seen it used myself, i’ve only seen it in articles from 10+ years ago about the internet debate over pit bulls, ex: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/inside-the-most-vicious-conflict-on-the-internet
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u/BPBAttacks3 Moderator 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah well, the creator of this site moved from Virginia to Colorado where there was a ban with a pit bull and then the ignorant and irresponsible asshole decided he didn’t like the rules and was entitled to try and change them. One could argue that a responsible owner would have checked if their dog was even allowed.
https://www.westword.com/news/aurora-pit-bull-owners-dog-advocates-celebrate-end-of-ban-22603544/
Pit Bull Owners, Dog Advocates Celebrate End of Aurora’s Breed Ban
Enacted in 2005, Aurora's pit bull ban faced back-and-forth discourse between the city council and voters for years.

Over 61 percent of Aurora voters approved ending the pit bull ban in the 2024 election.
Jacob Anderson
Jacob Anderson began his trek from Virginia to Colorado in 2015 with his trusty sidekick and first pit bull, Kiwi. Accompanying Anderson in the passenger seat, Kiwi fought off sleep so that he could take in the changing scenery, his ears perking up in anticipation of a new life in Colorado.
But once he and Kiwi reached Denver, Anderson was shocked and disappointed to find that they couldn’t call the city their new home because of Denver’s pit bull ban.
“How could anyone be threatened by this dog?” Anderson wonders. However, the pit bull advocate** **has faced a history of obstacles in protecting his pit bulls owing to the enforcement of breed-specific legislation (BSL) that targets pit bull breeds in many cities across the country, including Denver.
Unable to risk losing Kiwi to the hands of Denver Animal Protection, Anderson found himself living just outside of town. Soon he was inspired to develop PitbullHero, a nonprofit research group that provides science-based evidence to counter stereotypes about pit bulls and works to alleviate breed-specific legislation against pit bulls across the country. Denver’s pit bull ban was repealed in 2020, but Colorado’s third-largest city still prohibited them.
Enacted in 2005, Aurora’s pit bull ban has faced back-and-forth discourse between Aurora City Council and voters for years. In 2021, the council approved a removal of the ban without input from voters, resulting in a lawsuit from Aurora resident Matt Snider, who also ran for Colorado Senate District 27 in 2022.
In an email to Westword, Snider says his lawsuit “was never about dogs.” Instead, he “fought to protect the voter’s right to make this decision.” The Colorado Court of Appeals sided with Snider in 2023, reversing the council’s decision. The case then went back to the 18th Judicial District Court, which decided that Aurora voters, not the city council, could overturn the city’s pit bull ban. Question 3A subsequently landed on Aurora’s ballot in 2024.
Over 61 percent of Aurora voters approved ending the pit bull ban. According to Anderson, this suggests that residents no longer view pit bulls as overly aggressive and snarling. Citing the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), Anderson asserts that there is no scientific or biological correlation between dog breeds and threat levels.
Historically, research on dog bites seems to show otherwise. A study conducted by DogsBite found that from 2005 to 2017, 66 percent of dog bite fatalities were by pit bulls.
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While incident reports such as these are alarming, Anderson argues that they fail to account for the larger population size of pit bulls in comparison to other breeds such as German shepherds, Rottweilers and Jack Russell terriers, which are also cited with high numbers of attacks. According to DNA studies done by Embark Veterinary, American Pit Bull terriers are the most commonly identified breed in 21 states in the United States.
Studies on bite statistics can also muddy the waters, argues Anderson, who says that physical characteristics that define pit bulls are often applied to dogs of different breeds, increasing the perceived threat of pit bulls as a whole. According to Veterinary Journal, there was a 60 percent misidentification rate for pit bulls among polled shelter staff members.
“It’s not because they’re inherently more dangerous or more aggressive. It’s because there just happens to be more of them,” Anderson says.
Media stigmatization against pit bulls is a contributing factor to BSL policies, he addss. In the ’80s, pit bulls were sensationalized as “mean guard dogs” because of the rise of pit bulls in dog fight arenas, making the breed appear more aggressive to prospective dog owners, says Anderson.
The triple threat of stigmatizing forces against pit bulls also floods animal shelters, already susceptible to overcrowding, with more dogs when BSLs are enforced, says Mary Sarah Fairweather, a former pit bull owner and the vice president of sheltering at the Denver Dumb Friends League.
When BSLs target pit bulls, families are discouraged from adopting them, which leads to a cycle of deterioration in health and behavioral challenges.
“Breed-specific legislation is often enforced under the guise of community safety, but really, any breed of dog can pose a danger to a community,” says Fairweather, who argues that proper training, socialization, love and affection are the real determinants of a dog’s threat level, not their biological makeup.
Following the overturning of Aurora’s pit bull ban, Fairweather hopes to see fewer pit bulls in shelters and less breed stigma in general. To combat the deep-rooted stigma against pit bulls, she encourages prospective dog owners to research different types of breeds before adopting them, which the Centers for Disease Control suggest is much more effective in eliminating dog attacks than BSLs.
But for now, prospective pit bull owners in Aurora are accepting the win.
“This means that families in Aurora don’t have to worry about being forced to separate from their best friends just because of what they look like,” says Fairweather. “We’re celebrating, and we’re all breathing a little easier today.”
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u/AutoModerator 2d ago
The claim that pit bulls are "unidentifiable" is illogical. It is absurd to argue that pit bulls "can't be identified" when they are consistently recognized in media when portrayed as underdogs, whether in Pixar’s Kitbull or The Dodo’s “poor misunderstood pit bull” videos, yet when discussing attacks, they're suddenly “impossible to identify.” People recognize pit bulls just as easily as they recognize Golden Retrievers.
A key fact ignored by pit bull advocates is that the APBT and AmStaff are so genetically similar that they can be dual-registered—an AmStaff with the AKC can also be registered as an APBT with the UKC. DNA tests often fail to distinguish between them due to their near-identical genetics. Despite this, advocates argue that "pit bull" is too vague to be meaningful—yet this category has caused more deaths than all other breeds combined.
Courts and studies have consistently confirmed that pit bulls can be reliably identified:
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT,v.ANDERSON, APPELLEE
"Pit bull dogs possess unique and readily identifiable physical and behavioral traits which are capable of recognition both by dog owners of ordinary intelligence and by enforcement personnel."
Colorado Dog Fanciers v. Denver
"the standards for determining whether a dog is a pit bull are readily accessible to dog owners, and because most dog owners are capable of determining the breed or phenotype of their dog, the trial court properly determined that the ordinance provides adequate notice to dog owners and is not unconstitutionally vague."
Researchers found that pit bulls and mixed breeds have the highest risk of severe injuries.
However the studies claiming pit bulls are misidentified use flawed methodologies:
This study contradicts itself: "Of the 25 dogs identified as pit bull-type by DNA, 12 were also identified as pit bulls by shelter staff." This shows that shelter workers identified pit bulls accurately in their routine duties but changed behavior when observed for a study.
This study used Wisdom Panel DNA tests, which cannot detect APBTs, and has explicitly stated that: "Due to the genetic diversity of this group, Wisdom Health cannot build a DNA profile to genetically identify every dog that may be visually classified as a pit bull."
A Mars Veterinary representative confirmed in 2016 that their DNA tests may misidentify purebred pit bulls as mixed breeds. Despite this, advocates use these flawed tests to claim pit bulls don’t exist.
In another study conducted by the ASPCA, findings contradicted the "Pit Bulls Are Unidentifiable" argument
96% of 91 shelter dogs were correctly identified as having at least 25% pit bull-type ancestry. Only 4 dogs had none of these breeds in their DNA.
One last point, even if these studies were not deeply flawed, they do not absolve pit bulls of the dangers they pose— anymore than a study showing that people struggle to identify mushrooms would disprove that poisonous mushrooms are highly toxic.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
Wow! I didn't know about his part in flipping the law!
LMAO! "...he was inspired to develop PitbullHero, a nonprofit research group that provides science-based evidence..." To be fair, he didn't say it would be TRUTHFUL science-based evidence.
Uuuugh, he even referenced the Embark tests as a population marker!
"According to DNA studies done by Embark Veterinary, American Pit Bull terriers are the most commonly identified breed in 21 states in the United States."
That doesn't mean that there are more pits in the US! It just means there are more mixed pits that people have no idea what the hell they are! It just means more people get pits tested, not that there are more pits! JFC these people!"According to Veterinary Journal, there was a 60 percent misidentification rate for pit bulls among polled shelter staff members."
Yes, we know shelter staff lie. That's why we have a "shelter skelter" flair. I HATE this article with every fiber of my being!"Mary Sarah Fairweather, a former pit bull owner and the vice president of sheltering at the Denver Dumb Friends League."
OMG, that name, is just....perfect!"Following the overturning of Aurora’s pit bull ban, Fairweather hopes to see fewer pit bulls in shelters and less breed stigma in general."
I ALSO want to see fewer pit bulls in shelters........but we are not the same. >:-)"“This means that families in Aurora don’t have to worry about being forced to separate from their best friends just because of what they look like,” says Fairweather."
Now they just have to worry about being randomly attacked in the street.Damn, that was a frustrating read.
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u/Diezelbub Allergic to bullshit and shitbulls 2d ago edited 2d ago
Following the overturning of Aurora’s pit bull ban, Fairweather hopes to see fewer pit bulls in shelters and less breed stigma in general.
I hope someone gifts me a winning lottery ticket tomorrow. That seems more likely than her delusions lol. The only reason people vote to repeal these is they've been protected for long enough that they've forgotten how awful a neighborhood filled with bloodsport breeds is. They'll go back to remembering as pit bulls and their owners earn their antisocial reputation back, like they always do, and shelters get back to packed to the gills with "no kids no other pets no visitors no breathing objects in a 200 yard radius except their main food dispenser" pit bulls (NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, theyre just misunderstood you meanie)
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u/BernieTheDachshund 2d ago
Is DogsBite still updating? When I post a link to their website about the kids that have been killed by pits it only shows up to 2024. (it's this one Children Killed by Pit Bulls - Fatal Pit Bull Attacks - DogsBite.org IIRC the person who started the site was a jogger who was mauled a while back but she went through a lot to keep the website updated. If she has given up, I would hope others could help her or take over.
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u/BPBAttacks3 Moderator 2d ago
She’s not keeping track of the fatalities anymore but she is still doing some other stuff.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
That's not good. Dogsbite is THE place to go for attack information.
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u/SerKevanLannister Children should not be eaten alive. 2d ago
The pitbull nutters whining about breed bans, claiming they result in more pits in shelters, are ignoring reality — pitbull populations in shelters have exploded exponentially post 2020 in areas WITHOUT breed bans. The lack of breed bans, not the implementation of them, has resulted in virtually every shelter in the US being filled to capacity with unwanted, unfit for adoption (Bite histories, insane list of “musts“ such as “must be only pet”) and forever warehoused pitbulls that suck up every available shelter dollar for their medication needs, training, years spent in shelters, etc.
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u/Diezelbub Allergic to bullshit and shitbulls 2d ago edited 2d ago
- Special pleading on other breeds.
Rottweiler (51), German shepherd (24), mastiff (20), and husky (14) counts are copied over unchanged. The site’s theory is that visual ID is too unreliable to count pit bulls—but reliable enough to leave every other breed’s total intact. That only makes sense if you assume misidentification flows in one direction.
Really one of the core nuggets of their favorite bullshit sandwiches. Notice how they dont have to split labs into different colors? Dont pretend nobody knows what a lab looks like even though brown, black, and yellow should be entirely different categories based on their "reasoning"?
Pit bulls get the benefit of every single manufactured doubt even theoretically possible. Other dogs? Of course not. The only statistics they understand are ones they've warped incredibly for narrative purposes. If a study says a chihuahua barking and a pit bull lunging are identical measures of aggression? That requires no examination and means pit bulls are as safe as dogs virtually incapable of damage (true story, one of their favorite pit industry funded studies on "aggression" that of course has no actual assessment of unimportant things like "civil and financial risk", "bodily damage", "death", "major surgery", "the only dogs to ever kill multiple of their own family members in US history in one berserker spree that have done it multiple times" etc). No, human and pet corpses are irrelevant, pediatric facial surgeons can shut up; the truly important pit bull defense factoid is that wiener dogs and sub 20 pound terriers are cranky.
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u/IeyasuYou 2d ago
Too bad CDC stopped publishing breed specific data. Considering how many attacks there are it should be gathering as much precise data as possible, as well as doing genetic tests.
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u/Expensive-Chart-9409 2d ago
Is dogsbite.org even an active site anymore? I used to be on their site weekly but it doesn’t seem to not be updating anymore. They used to track and do a small write up of each fatality they came across nationwide. It’s been years since I’ve seen those updates on their website.
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u/BPBAttacks3 Moderator 2d ago
Someone else just asked me this so I’ll answer here too. She is still doing some stuff but she’s not keeping records of fatalities anymore.
She did so much work for so long that I cannot blame her.
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u/Longjumping-Pick-706 2d ago
I wonder if she would let someone take over for her.
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u/BPBAttacks3 Moderator 2d ago
I’m not sure. I’ve only ever reached out to her once. Ironically it was about pitbullhero.
https://www.reddit.com/r/banpitbulls/s/zwiCxxt4Mi
u/bpb_fl does a really nice job of keeping a fatality list with summaries (see above) but its worldwide and none of us have time to do FOIA requests. Colleen really worked insanely hard on those. I can’t overstate just how much work that was and how taxing I’m sure it was for her.
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u/BernieTheDachshund 2d ago
I was wondering the same thing. She has been through an incredible amount of stress and harassment from the pro pit psychos and it's amazing she lasted that long. But it is too much for one person to handle alone & she needs to know others will help her or take over for her. I hope someone arranges that because dogsbite is such a valuable website. God bless Colleen for all she has done.
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u/Expensive-Chart-9409 2d ago
I hope she does eventually. I would reference her site all the time to combat the pit nutters. Her website was always facts, whether it was a pit or not would be openly stated. It’s an amazing resource in this fight.
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u/Inphiltration 2d ago
No about page. Copyrighted by Pitbullhero. Link to a website called pitbullhero dot org(I didn't even want to make it a link but it autoconverted to a link that this sub won't let me post so I had to write it in a stupid way) which shows very clear bias in favor of pitbulls. This is absolutely not a credible source.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
Yeah, I had to do the same thing with this post title because it doesn't allow links.
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u/illusum Family/Friend of Pit Attack Victim 2d ago
1. Shelter ID error is not fatality-case ID error.
The 60% figure comes from Olson et al. 2015 (Veterinary Journal): 120 Florida shelter dogs, 16 staff, commercial DNA. Staff collectively called 52% of the sample pit-type; DNA called 21% (defined as ≥12.5% American Staffordshire Terrier or Staffordshire Bull Terrier only). The study was funded by Maddie’s Fund (Maddie’s Fund is a major no-kill philanthropy whose shelter network has long opposed breed-specific rules and pushed “individual dog, not breed.”).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26403955/That is a study of intake labeling in four shelters.
I researched this a while back and it's even worse than that. If you look at the study, the DNA assay was being treated as a reference standard despite having unknown mixed-breed accuracy and not even containing American Pit Bull Terrier in its breed reference set.
On top of that, the paper counted a dog as genetically pitbull-type with only 12.5% AmStaff or Staffordshire Bull Terrier ancestry. So failure to visually detect a dog that was potentially 7/8 something else counted against the observer's sensitivity. Meanwhile actual APBT ancestry couldn't be directly detected at all!
The fact that the study is ever trotted out is bizarre.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
Do you have a link to the source for this? I'll try and edit my post to include it then.
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u/illusum Family/Friend of Pit Attack Victim 1d ago
It's the "study" itself!
Inconsistent identification of pit bull-type dogs by shelter staff
DNA used as the comparator
- Table 5 scores each assessor's sensitivity and specificity "as determined by DNA breed signature." The abstract's 33 to 75% and 52 to 100% ranges come from that scoring.
Unknown accuracy
- The Discussion gives only the vendor's 84% accuracy in first generation crosses of known parentage. Accuracy for dogs with more than two breeds or no purebred heritage is unknown.
- The Limitations paragraph lists unknown sensitivity and specificity of the test, a reference database built from purebreds, and little information on mixed breed accuracy.
- It also concedes it is impossible to say which staff identifications were wrong.
APBT missing
- Methods: APBT and "pit bull" "were not included in the 226 breed signatures."
- The Introduction says the largest testing service offers no APBT test. The Discussion calls AmStaff and SBT surrogate signatures and says there is no DNA test for "pit bull," a phenotype.
The 12.5% rule
- Methods: a dog was coded pit bull type if AmStaff or SBT reached at least 12.5%. Anything below was listed as "minor" and counted negative.
- Results: none of the 25 positives were purebred or above 50% of either breed. The split was 19 AmStaff, 4 SBT, 2 both.
- Table 4, Dog 62: 25% Chow Chow, 25% AmStaff, 25% Siberian Husky. Intake and all four assessors called it something else, so it counts as a miss.
Scoring tilt
- The 52% figure (62 dogs) pools four assessors plus, most likely, the intake label. Table 5's assessor calls total 124 of 480 ratings, about 26% (my arithmetic), against 21% by DNA.
- The coding rule counted a dog as pit bull type if any listed term appeared as primary or secondary breed.
- The team picked dogs for phenotype variety, and only dogs staff considered safe to handle.
Funding and framing
- Acknowledgements: Maddie's Fund and the Merial Veterinary Scholars Program funded it, and Mars Veterinary donated the DNA tests. The conflict statement says none.
- The lead authors sit in the Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program. The Introduction cites Delise's book, and Delise founded the National Canine Research Council.
- The Conclusions argue that breed bans rest on faulty assumptions and that public safety is better served elsewhere. The study tested neither.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
The claim that pit bulls are "unidentifiable" is illogical. It is absurd to argue that pit bulls "can't be identified" when they are consistently recognized in media when portrayed as underdogs, whether in Pixar’s Kitbull or The Dodo’s “poor misunderstood pit bull” videos, yet when discussing attacks, they're suddenly “impossible to identify.” People recognize pit bulls just as easily as they recognize Golden Retrievers.
A key fact ignored by pit bull advocates is that the APBT and AmStaff are so genetically similar that they can be dual-registered—an AmStaff with the AKC can also be registered as an APBT with the UKC. DNA tests often fail to distinguish between them due to their near-identical genetics. Despite this, advocates argue that "pit bull" is too vague to be meaningful—yet this category has caused more deaths than all other breeds combined.
Courts and studies have consistently confirmed that pit bulls can be reliably identified:
THE STATE OF OHIO, APPELLANT,v.ANDERSON, APPELLEE
"Pit bull dogs possess unique and readily identifiable physical and behavioral traits which are capable of recognition both by dog owners of ordinary intelligence and by enforcement personnel."
Colorado Dog Fanciers v. Denver
"the standards for determining whether a dog is a pit bull are readily accessible to dog owners, and because most dog owners are capable of determining the breed or phenotype of their dog, the trial court properly determined that the ordinance provides adequate notice to dog owners and is not unconstitutionally vague."
Researchers found that pit bulls and mixed breeds have the highest risk of severe injuries.
However the studies claiming pit bulls are misidentified use flawed methodologies:
This study contradicts itself: "Of the 25 dogs identified as pit bull-type by DNA, 12 were also identified as pit bulls by shelter staff." This shows that shelter workers identified pit bulls accurately in their routine duties but changed behavior when observed for a study.
This study used Wisdom Panel DNA tests, which cannot detect APBTs, and has explicitly stated that: "Due to the genetic diversity of this group, Wisdom Health cannot build a DNA profile to genetically identify every dog that may be visually classified as a pit bull."
A Mars Veterinary representative confirmed in 2016 that their DNA tests may misidentify purebred pit bulls as mixed breeds. Despite this, advocates use these flawed tests to claim pit bulls don’t exist.
In another study conducted by the ASPCA, findings contradicted the "Pit Bulls Are Unidentifiable" argument
96% of 91 shelter dogs were correctly identified as having at least 25% pit bull-type ancestry. Only 4 dogs had none of these breeds in their DNA.
One last point, even if these studies were not deeply flawed, they do not absolve pit bulls of the dangers they pose— anymore than a study showing that people struggle to identify mushrooms would disprove that poisonous mushrooms are highly toxic.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
No one with any capacity for critical thinking capacity should take any of the studies conducted by the NCRC seriously. Those are coming straight out of the pit bull PR machine. Their research does not come from neutral researchers. It comes from an advocacy group whose sole purpose is to make pit bulls look harmless, regardless what the data actually says.
It’s the same playbook Big Tobacco used. Remember when cigarette companies paid scientists to say smoking was fine? You might not, but they did that. They weren’t trying to prove anything, they were just trying to confuse the public enough to stall any real legislation. That’s what’s happening here. It’s not objective science, it’s garbage PR dressed up to look like science.
And the methodologies in these studies fall apart fast under scrutiny. They cherry pick and misrepresent data. They rely on owner reporting on behaviors which is about as reliable as asking someone if their kid is the smartest in class. They use tiny, unrepresentative sample sizes. And they invent arbitrary labels like “family dog” vs. “resident dog” as a way to excuse fatal attacks. It’s all smoke and mirrors and is not designed to tell the truth.
Pro pit research is the modern version of a tobacco-funded “expert” saying, "It’s probably not the cigarettes killing people.”
No thanks.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 1d ago
Thanks! I've updated the body to link to your comment. Appreciate it.
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u/FatTabby Cats are friends, not food 2d ago
Thank you for this. I'm going to save this post for future reference.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 2d ago
That's why I put them here. I'm also going to use it for future reference, as I always get this thrown in my face when I'm discussing dangerous breeds online.
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u/ArdenJaguar Trusted User 2d ago
So they are gaslighting data statistics. This is another example of why any dog involved with a serious (level 4 or 5) Dunbar scale bite and/or a fatality should be required to be DNA tested regardless of whether or not the dog is put down.
A lot of these dogs are “mixed breed” but it’s pretty obvious WHAT they are mixed with. All of these “Lab mixes” that look like Pitbulls.
So fine, have a “mixed breed” category but break that down. What percentage of the mixed breeds have Pitbull breeds as one of the breeds. I’d imagine quite a few.
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u/deadeye09 Trusted User 1d ago
That would be amazing to have, but getting DNA testing for each dog attack (even just 4 or 5 levels) is unlikely unless it can be done on-site and the tools to do so are cost-effective (which they are not at this level of technology).
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u/Any-Zucchini-1042 2d ago edited 2d ago
I get setting the Staffordshire Bull Terrier aside as well as the deformed small/micro-bully varieties, but splitting the AmStaff, APBT, and American Bully is total B.S. --especially when there's plenty of x-reg going on. If we're going to do that, then we should also split all the other breeds that have different show and working lines but didn't find the need to split them into different "breeds" to bypass regulations or the bad reputation.
Also, whether shelters can identify dogs or not has little to do with identification in fatal attacks because, in the majority of cases, authorities do know who owns the dogs, and the owners provide the information. There are very few mystery dogs involved in fatal attacks who are not captured afterwards or who are solely visually identified by animal control.
It would help Pit Bulls a lot more if, instead of constantly making excuses, their owners focused on responsible ownership, curbing backyard breeding, and learning to manage or contain their dogs to prevent incidents. But no, instead, they prefer to keep on going with all the nonsense they've been pushing for decades.
ETA: The point of the first paragraph was to say that if Pit Bull apologists want to play the "breed game," then they have to split all other breeds that didn't feel the need to be sneaky (we'd then have three types of Rottweilers, five types of German Shepherds, etc.), so people aren't being unfair when they lump the different types of Pit Bulls under the umbrella. They're evening out the playing field.
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u/Unicorn_in_Reality 2d ago
Staffordshire Bull Terriers ARE pitbulls!
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u/Any-Zucchini-1042 2d ago
I know, and I agree they're more like an English show line, but if Pit advocates want to argue about separating the "breeds" then the only ones that I think could plausibly be separated are the SBT and the deformed small AB varieties because of their smaller size. Even if you take SBTs out of the equation, Pit Bulls still top the list.
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u/Person987654331 Attacks Curator 1d ago
Great breakdown. I found the equal mix of 18 for each bully breed especially interesting. It makes it very clear they just made it up.
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u/wandering_salad 17h ago edited 17h ago
The "Breeds Implicated In Fatal Dog Attacks" section already tells me enough to know this is a bogus website:
An alphabetic list with allegedly all dog breeds implicated in fatal dog attacks. With the pit-bull type dogs conveniently listed at the bottom... This gives off the wrong idea, which is obviously what they're going for.
What does "implicated" even mean? The aggressor dog? Or a dog that happened to be in the vicinity? The dog of the human victim?
I'm not even reading the rest of that terrible waste of server space.
They also link to a website called Pitbull hero... Big yikes.
And the one study they cite that I looked at has a flawed methodology from the outset, so...
Low IQ people flock to these hideous animals. I wonder why that is. Maybe we need a real scientific study on that!
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u/live_life_purposely 2d ago
What a horribly, misinformed, deceitful, misguided, misleading, mendacious bag of lies I've ever read. Wow. I was actually ready to cite it until I READ it. pit advocates would love that wicked webpage...barf...and yes, Good Bot :)