Highlights: In a bizarre turn of events last month, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that he would ban American XL bullies, a type of pit bull-shaped dog that had recently been implicated in a number of violent and sometimes deadly attacks.

XL bullies are perceived to be dangerous — but is that really rooted in reality?

  • @Forester
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    1 year ago

    And there it is people Good old American racism.

    I’m certain you’ve also followed the Russian experiment where they managed to take wild foxes and domesticate them in under 50 generations and now you can adopt one as a pet. So what you’re telling me is that a dog that has been with humanity for over 10,000 years and then went through a period of roughly 300 years of pit fighting is irrepidly damaged but the fox that went through 15,000 years of being a fox It’s just magically now perfect pet in under 100 years. And you’re telling me that it’s genetics and not nurturing and raising the animal that has an impact okay…

    • I mean, to my understanding, those domestic foxes, while tame, are still not quite so perfect of pets as animals that have been bred for longer like dogs are. Though there is no reason it can’t be both, while a dog raised to be aggressive will probably be aggressive, and one raised well should be far less likely to be, it’s not fair to say that there is no genetic basis for friendliness and aggression, else there would be no need for domestication in the first place. A lot of selective breeding can be done in century, so the past few centuries of what an animal has been selectively bred for probably matter a bit more than the centuries before that, to a point anyway. I doubt anyone is really arguing that pit bulls are irreparably damaged as a whole either, but if an animal has been bred for aggression for awhile, undoing that is going to require breeding for the reverse, or crossbreeding with another line that does not have that trait and selecting offspring that do not display it, or similar.

      I’m not really sure what stance to take on pitbulls and similar breeds myself, I’ve known some people with rather nice ones and it seems to me that any law targeting a specific dog breed is going to be somewhat impractical given that breeds are “fuzzy” categories with ill defined edges, not clear and sharply defined, so determining what animals are close to pitbulls but are not quite, and which are considered to be pitbulls, but barely, is going to be a very difficult line to reliably draw.

      • @Forester
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        -31 year ago

        Look up the search terms rat poison and pitbulls and get back to me on the fact that people don’t hate them.

        • I didn’t say anything about people not hating them, clearly many people don’t like them, but that doesn’t really have any bearing on if they’re unreasonably dangerous compared to other breeds or not, since it could be that people think them dangerous because they don’t like them, or it could be that they don’t like them because of them being dangerous.

    • @noride@lemm.ee
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      51 year ago

      Sorry, can you clarify what part of OPs post is racism? Genuinely struggling with that connection.

      • @Forester
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        -41 year ago

        The idiot I’m replying to believes that The genome of a animal directly correlates to that animals behavior potential for intelligence and general demeanor.

        Now where have I heard before that someone’s genetic makeup makes it so that they are not qualified to the same rights and privileges as the others. If this person believes that the parentage of a animal determines how a animal will live and act… That’s eugenics.

        Eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial improvement” and “planned breeding,”

        • @noride@lemm.ee
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          141 year ago

          To clarify, you are directly equating dog breeds with different races of humans so you can paint op as a eugenics apologist, and win an online argument about dogs? Did I get that right??

          • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
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            1 year ago

            Yes, all these ban pitbull people are eugenicist apologists. That’s facts. They might be useful idiots, but they have been tricked by pseudoscientific lies about genetics and behavior.

          • Zorque
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            -81 year ago

            I dont see anywhere in the comment saying they’re making direct comparisons to specific human racial segregation. Just making an analogy using human racism as an example.

            I can see how someone might misconstrue that if they didn’t like the argument, though.

          • hiddengoat
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            -91 year ago

            Breed restrictions are a soft way of telling certain people that they’re not welcome by forcing them to choose between their pet and living in a given location.

            It’s redlining via an external factor that isn’t considered discriminatory. Some idiots look at a hard number “2,000 deaths in 30 years, OMG DANGER!” and refuse to accept the fact that per capita there are more dangerous dog breeds out there. But not by much, because the odds of you being killed by a dog are so preposterously low as to be irrelevant to your daily life.

          • @Forester
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            -91 year ago

            I am merely reading the man statements at face value. Quote" “It’s the owner not the breed.” And “Breed is not a reliable predictor of aggressive behavior in dogs.”

            Those statements just aren’t true. Dogs are specifically bred for certain physical and behavioral traits"

            If you do not see that as the definition of eugenics then I don’t know what to say in regards to your assessment.

            • 520
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              91 year ago

              We have been practicing eugenics on animals for literal centuries via selective breeding. We have shaped the designs of many a farm animal this way. Did you think poodles existed in the wild?

            • Pitbull dogs that were bred for fighting were euthanized if they attacked people. Also, most pitbulls were not used in dog fighting.

              So really you just sound stupid.

              • @Forester
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                11 year ago

                Sweetheart I’m not the one saying that the genetics of a being make up the beings responses. That’s you and your buddy. I’m over here saying that genetics does not define the responses of a being. For the uninformed this means I do not believe in the false science of eugenics.

        • blazera
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          91 year ago

          You’re missing the huge difference that humans arent selectively bred for specific physiological and behavioral traits reinforced over many generations. Theres no human race thats 10 times as small as they used to be with bulging eyes and breathing problems.

            • blazera
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              51 year ago

              mmm yeah really, 160cm isnt 1/10th of 184cm.

              compared to say, a chihuahua’s 3-6lb average weight up againt an American pit bull terrier average 30-60 lbs. Or 80 lb average North American wolf.

              • hiddengoat
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                -71 year ago

                You really going to die on your braindead hill of “ten times bigger!” while ignoring actual evidence of you being an idiot?

                Sounds about right.

                • blazera
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                  51 year ago

                  You playing a half role in deciding who you breed with for one generation and having your own preferences in a mate is not the same as an organization controlling both halves of breeding over many generations with a well defined and consistent list of genetic traits being bred for, which is clear in the major magnitude of variance amongst sizes of different dog breeds, compared to human races.

        • V17
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          31 year ago

          Calling other people idiots and then continuing with the rest of that message is not a good look.

      • @jeffw@lemmy.worldOP
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        -71 year ago

        Did you read the original article? It explains the racebaiting that goes on with pit bulls

    • They didn’t even undergo 300 years of pit fighting.

      Handfuls of these dogs kept by handfuls of people engaged in pitbull fighting.

      The substantial majority of pitbulls out there were just living their life, living amongst families and children, not bothering anyone.

      And if they were bred to fight other dogs, so fucking what?

      You can read first-hand accounts from people who are involved in dog fight organizing who said over and over that dogs who are aggressive towards humans were banned from competition and often euthanized.

    • @rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works
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      -11 year ago

      A lot of domestic animals can go feral, as cats will do as kittens, under one generation. Creating a dog breed requires a lot of intentionality — selective breeding and conformance to some kind of breed standard, like making some specific breed of fox into something that can live in a house.

      That’s not what is going on with pit bulls in 2023. Such as they can be defined, they’re usually selected for their capability to protect. And otherwise they’re bred randomly with other breeds and maybe lose that capability, but then they’re not pit bulls anymore. and to be honest nobody really knows what their capabilities are at that point. It’s a total mess, it’s nothing like concentratedly breeding non-aggressive, non-asshole foxes relentlessly until you can tolerate each other indoors.

      By the way I heard fox piss is… unsuitable for human co-habitation, is that still a problem?