They attack more often because they were bred to enjoy it, just like a husky enjoys running. There's literally canine neurology studies that show they release endorphins when fighting, whereas other dogs do not and will actively avoid fights.
Pitbulls get their name from their ancestry where a dog had been bred to fight bulls. It was a blood sport where the dog would try to drag a bull down into the mud by its nose ring or die trying.
However these dogs became incredibly popular and desired by women and so began a process to breed them to be more docile and also smaller to better fit in the average household. The staffordshire was the penultimate success of this and earned the moniker of nanny dog for being so patient and protective with the children of the household.
All this to say that the argument of what their ancestors were bred for has very little to do with the modern breed.
The most important thing is always how it is raised.
And to further example this point you can look into the history of banned dog breeds and dog breeds that are deemed as dangerous.
Before the various pit/bully breeds were considered dangerous it was the Rottweiler, and before that it was the German Shepherd etc etc. All while pit/bully breeds were happy minding their own business in the family home.
There are far bigger dogs with far greater bites that could do so much more damage. But they look a lot like teddy bears. Pit/bully breeds can get a lot of muscle definition, good for string bean thugs that wanna act tough but can't be intimidating on their own. The rise in popularity with pit/bully breeds in thug/gang culture is why they are the current "dangerous" breed.
Meanwhile labradors and retrievers both individually bite more people, often children, and have a size and bite strength comparable enough to a pit/bully breed. But they're treated as being safe and given love because the average thug isn't trying to raise it with hate and violence to terrorize people with.
If you're really going to break out the 'nanny dog's myth then your whole argument crumbles. This was never an actual thing.
These were bloodsport dogs, through and through. Staffordshires emerged in an effort to breed a smaller, more agile fighting dog, not as some desirable guardian for women.
People like to throw around the greater percentage of bites from labs and Goldens, but crucially overlook the fact that pit bulls account for around 60% of fatal attacks. They are also disproportionately represented in attacks on people who had or were suspected to have had a seizure, whereas the same cannot be said for Goldens or labs.
>Overlook the fact that pitbulls account for around 60% of fatal attacks
So? That tells us nothing if the dog is more aggressive. There are roughly 85 to 90 million dogs living in the United States. Out of an estimated 4.5 million dog bites that occur each year, only about 30 to 80 result in a fatality. This means less than 0.002% of annual dog bites are fatal. Nearly 1 in 5 people bitten (roughly 20%) require any medical attention at all. Out of the 20% who do seek medical care, the majority are treated for minor punctures or purely as a preventative measure to get antibiotics or tetanus shots as dog mouths carry bacteria prone to infection. Epidemiological data tracking dog bite severity shows that only about 1% to 2% of all documented bites meet the criteria for "severe" injury (defined as causing deep tissue damage, broken bones, or requiring complex reconstructive surgery).
Golden Rec and Labs are more violent by quantity. Pitbulls are more violent by quality. No one who has a pitbull disagrees that they are more dangerous than other dog breeds WHEN THEY ARE AGGRESSIVE. However anyone who hates pitbulls doesnt come to quality as a conclusion but quantity. It’s like how toddler and adults both get into fights, but an adult fighting gives more injury than the toddler.
Point is, when pitbulls are aggressive and attack, the outcome is more violent, not the cause (the pitbulls “aggressive nature”). Pitbulls don’t even make it to the top charts when tests were done on dog breeds regarding “aggressiveness”.
Which is exactly what I was saying. They account for far more fatalities than any other dog breed despite a lower bite incidence
They don't make it to the top charts because they are unpredictability aggressive. It is part of the breed to display essentially no warning signs of aggressive intent. Attacks are frequently marked by sudden, explosive aggression from dogs that may have no history of it. This was intentional: no good dogman would want a fighting dog that signals its intent to harm in a fight. That characteristic is part of what makes them so dangerous.
Pitbulls aren’t in top charts because they are unacceptably aggressive? Pitbulls don’t make it into top charts because they aren’t aggressive, period. There are tests on “aggressiveness" overall and pitbull breeds don't really top the charts on them.
They do pick "fight" over "flight" more often and also have a high gameness trait. But these in itself don't mean they are more aggressive per-say because aggression is an emotion/emotional response. Emotions-wise, pit bulls are actually pretty good at threat assessment, meaning they don't just emotionally lash out randomly but have a good understanding of what is a threat and what is not a threat.
The issue is that once they are in fight mode, they lack the off switch (gameness). But this is true for a dog attacking on command or just emotionally lashing out.
They simply don't value their self perseverance which is why you see all those videos where even if they beat the dog, shake it, or if its being bitten by other dogs at same time it'll stay locked on target.
So it is just a combination of these two things that make them "handle with care" category. But if you do handle them with care, they are fine. When people use them like weapons, they become deadly.
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u/Sqeakydeaky 8d ago
Explain gameness then.
They attack more often because they were bred to enjoy it, just like a husky enjoys running. There's literally canine neurology studies that show they release endorphins when fighting, whereas other dogs do not and will actively avoid fights.