Wow this post got popular. I got called into work and didnt see the replies, sorry ladies and gentlemen! Trying to catch up tonight.

  • li10@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    IMO, the issue is purely down to their strength and ability to kill a person.

    I don’t doubt their temperament is fine, but when an animal has that much power they’re a serious danger in the rare situation that they’re out of control.

    I like Jack Russells, I’ve got two, if they were strong dogs and someone said they’re being banned because of it then I wouldn’t mind. Just don’t let them breed any more.

    A dog’s a dog. While I have a preference, ultimately I don’t really care what breed I have.

    Pugs should be banned as well. A dog’s a dog, not a fashion accessory.

    • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I don’t doubt their temperament is fine

      Pits have an incredibly strong prey drive, and once they decide to attack something they almost never stop. So no, they don;t have the best temperament.

      Pugs should be banned as well

      There’s at least a retro-pug movement now that is working to breed the overly shortened snout out of pugs, and make them a healthier breed.

      • isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s so frustrating people don’t seem to understand that pit bulls are just terriers. If you’ve ever seen videos of small terriers working in fields and doing what they’re bred to do, you absolutely see the same behaviours in bully breeds, just magnified ten-fold.

        The problem is now you’ve bred a 30lb+ dog that is pure muscle, has been specially bred from breeds with already high prey drive to be more aggressive/protective and are trying to treat it like a family dog.

        I love pitties, I think they’re cute and sweet (I’ve also never met a “mean” one), but they have long passed being an “average” household breed at this rate. Years of bad/selective breeding need to be undone before they should be reevaluated and gl with that.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          They were bred as family dogs first, then as hunting dogs. And decades later some people used them for fightingz and even then ones that attacked handlers were banned from fighting and often euthanized.

          Read the book by the guy that originally bred them. It’s in Google Books though the name escapes me at the moment.

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Pugs Bulldogs they should be banned for their health reasons.

    • dan@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The problem with “don’t ban them but don’t let them breed more” and allow people that have one to just carry on is you just create a potentially lucrative black market for these dogs (in fact you doing that might make them more sought after), which doesn’t actually fix any problems.

      Not necessarily advocating killing animals because they’re inconvenient but ultimately if they’re going to be a problem (and it certainly seems like that’s the case) then the sooner they’re banned the less harm is inflicted overall.

      • sirjash@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Black market for dogs that shouldn’t exist anymore after 10 years? What would you do with a dog you couldn’t take out of the house? Where’s the demand? I can’t imagine pitbull junkies selling everything they own just to get one more pup either

        • dan@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Well the black market doesn’t exist because it’s not legal to own a pitbull - as you say, who wants a dog they can’t take outside?

          My point is if you ban breeding but you don’t ban owning the dog then you risk creating that black market.

          • OskarAxolotl@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You only allow people who already own a banned dog to keep it. After a few years it will become obvious that anybody who owns a young illegal dog must have purchased it after the ban.

            • dan@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I get the concept but the downside of banning sales without banning ownership is it will have zero immediate effect, risks creating a black market in the short term. It may even increase the demand for those dogs (see the increase in gun sales in the US when there’s a threat of legislation).

              So I can’t imagine any reasonable government supporting that approach.

              • OskarAxolotl@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I don’t think there is a proper short term solution to this problem. At least dogs don’t live forever. A gun bought now can still be used to shoot somebody in a hundred years, a pitbull, on the other hand, has an average life expectancy of 12-14 years.

    • bobman@unilem.org
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      1 year ago

      A dog’s a dog, not a fashion accessory.

      Some people will get legitimately mad that you bring up this reality.

      They want to be praised for spending thousands of dollars on a purebred that is going to have way more health problems than a mixed breed.

    • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s part of the issue. The other part is that pits are seen as an aggressive breed, so assholes who want an aggressive dog get a pit, treat it like shit, and wind up with an aggressive dog. Then, being the shit owners they are, they’re typically the ones who let their dogs run loose on the street, or dump them wherever when they become an inconvenience, so you wind up with animal shelters full of aggressive, untrained, unsocialized pits who only further the stereotype.

      • dan@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The issue with pugs is not that they’re evil or bad creatures, it’s that humans have selectively bred them for their looks, but that’s lead to the animals suffering because their breeding means they have massive problems with breathing, their knees, spine, eyes, etc. That’s unfair on the animal.

        It’s like saying we want to eliminate genetic diseases like Down’s syndrome or Haemophilia. Nobody’s saying individuals with those conditions are bad, it’s that we don’t think people should be born with conditions that give them a worse life.

        Now for dogs it’s a bit more complicated because those conditions are afflicted upon them by us purely for aesthetics, and if dogs are banned that inevitably leads to some being killed which isn’t very fair on those animals, but if we can’t find a way to reverse the worst aspects of their breeding is the only way we can prevent further suffering.