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?
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.
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.
Sorry, can you clarify what part of OPs post is racism? Genuinely struggling with that connection.
Did you read the original article? It explains the racebaiting that goes on with pit bulls
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,”
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??
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.
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.
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?
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
Oh really?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-height-by-country
Humans have been selectively breeding ourselves for centuries. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by force, and sometimes by Habsburg. This is largely defined by the beauty standards of a given culture, but there are always more factors.
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.
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.
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.
Calling other people idiots and then continuing with the rest of that message is not a good look.
I’m calling red dig an idiot but go on
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?