Why the UK is banning the American XL bully.

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?

  • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    The closest I could find to the study you mentioned was the following:

    https://positively.com/articles/fatal-dog-bites-share-common-factors/

    Where yes, it says that in 21% of cases the dog was subject to abuse and neglect (one out of five is a rather large number by the way).

    That same study says that in 37.5% of cases the owner had previously ‘mismanaged’ the dog in the past.

    And then you have numbers like in 76.2% of cases the dog was not kept as a family pet.

    Or that in 84.4% of cases the dog was not spayed or neutered.

    Including this gem:

    Interestingly, the breeds of the dogs involved in fatal attacks could only be identified in 18% of the cases. Often times, the media’s report of the dog’s breed conflicted with animal control reports.

    So please, tell me more about how we shouldn’t be looking at environmental factors because dogs aren’t people and with dogs it’s all about breed and nothing else…

    Edit: Ah, we also have this study’s results:

    Frequency distributions revealed that 100% of the owners of High Risk dogs had either one criminal conviction or traffic citation. Furthermore, 30% of the High Risk Cited dog owners had at least 5 criminal convictions or traffic citations (range 1-37) in comparison to the 1% of owners of Low Risk Licensed dog owners (range 1-6).

    • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
      13·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, the source for that webpage doesn’t exist, so not going to believe a word on it.

      Oh, a traffic offense, oh goodness they must be horrible dog owners. Seriously, nearly everyone has a traffic offense, if that’s in the criteria, then no shit it’s at 100%.

      • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        the source for that webpage doesn’t exist

        You mean this?

        Patronek, G. J., Sacks, J. J., Delise, K. M., Cleary, D. V., & Marder, A. R. (2013). Co-occurrence of potentially preventable factors in 256 dog bite-related fatalities in the United States (2000-2009). Journal Of The American Veterinary Medical Association, 243(12), 1726-1736. doi:10.2460/javma.243.12.1726

        Direct link: https://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/research_library/summary-analysis-co-occurrence-of-potentially-preventable-factors-in-256-dog-bite-related-fatalities-in-the-united-states-2000-2009/

        “The source that disagrees with me doesn’t exist after not even a single Google search, so I won’t believe a word of it!”

        • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
          11·
          1 year ago

          Not when the link to said source gives a 404 doesn’t exist page. Blame your source website.

          And some of those factors just apply to pits because of their breed.

          76% are not given lots of human contact, because pits are violent and aggressive, and need to be kept away from people.

          77% compromised ability to interact with dogs; well pits are way too strong for the vast majority of people.

          Unneutered dogs being more likely to attack. Just an argument to force neuter all pits.

          As for breed identification. If it be big, terrier shaped, and boxy head, it’s pit enough.