@steveTu I'm not against banning dangerous breeds of dog, but the root of the problem is that there's an element of the population that wants to keep dangerous/vicious dogs and will always find a way to get/train one and breeders will come up with new types if there's money in it, so the list of banned breeds would have to be updated often. And some will just ignore a ban anyway.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Oddly, if you read the dog death list, I don't recall reading 'Joe blogg's, a drug dealer,
dog attacked another drug dealer' if you see what I mean - very few cases of attacks on 'male' (assuming thugs are largely male) adults in the open (I would expect >18<30 age group). It seems to be mainly aged >30 or <16 (I haven't analysed it - that's just a gut feeling) and more related to friends/family.
Most likely their dogs are primarily for part of their image, possibly to intimidate rather than to actually attack their rivals or whatever, and when they get out of control it's family/friends/innocent people minding their own business that get attacked. I've no idea what goes on in a dog's mind but I assume a young man with another similar type of dog wouldn't appear vulnerable and so is less likely to be a target than an older or younger person or a smaller dog.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
It's interesting eh? Ditto with our two kids - totally different, but both ended up with similar mental issues. Maybe I shouldn't have locked them under the stairs so often. But if you accept dog traits and that breeding for physical and temperamental attributes works, then presumably humans are also affected by breeding? Chickens, horses, efflumps, swans...breeding and temperament.
How do you work out what is breeding and what is learned behaviour based on breeding? If a kid has bad eyesight then that's a result of breeding but the impairment will affect how they experience the world.
I spoke to a doctor of psychology recently who advised me that the best thing I can do for my kids is to raise them with resilience. Competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. Essentially it shouldn't matter what your breeding is as long as you're given the tools to manage your behaviour.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Exactly @wild edges. Teach them to cope and not believe they are the centre of the universe and entitled to ignore the needs of others. Not everyone with psycopathic or sociopathic tendencies turns out evil because good parenting teaches them that others matter, hence manners, consideration, empathy can be learned.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I haven't a clue as to what is nature or nurture. But I do 'know' that for millennia, man has bred 'things' for both physical and mental attributes. So I would guess that some mental attributes are innate. If ...IF... that works for other animals, then why not the human animal?
I said above about being thuggish being a male thing. Is that then so? Are women softer and more symp/empathetic by nature or is it just their upbringing? Are men more violent by nature as a general disposition? If you can breed those traits in animals - aren't humans animal and work on the same genetic basis?
As for what a psychologist says, just be warned that medicine in general is a newish science and the science of the mind even more recent. What they think now, will not be what they think they know in 20...30..150 years... 'Gay' conversion therapy isn't confined to history yet. Lobotomies are only 100 years back. Chemical castration ... when did that stop? The point I'm clumsily making is that 'traits' that were thought to be alterable by drugs and interventions are not seen that way today. They are seen as genetic. Genetics is new - so we'll learn more and more hopefully. Exploring the mind is new - ditto.
Like humans, dogs that are well loved and treated correctly will be well behaved.
@Obelixx. Friends of ours had a beautiful Cocker Spaniel for about 5 years and she was the friendliest dog you could wish to meet. Over a comparatively short period of time she changed character completely. Started becoming more and more aggressive to family members and other dogs. It came to a head when she flew at one of the children, and it was only by good fortune that the parents managed to grab her and prevent the attack. Long story short, the dog had a brain tumour which affected her behaviour. I accept that is a rarity, but I have known other dogs to suddenly act completely out of character. My niece's dog is a great daft lump but when out walking one day he started to snarl and tried to attack another dog. This had never happened before, and has never happened since, but thankfully he was on his lead and it came to nothing.
The point is that no dog is completely trustworthy, even in the most loving of environments. I'm not suggesting that those involved in recent attacks are from loving households, I suspect that's far from the truth.
The difference between being bitten by a snappy chihuahua and by one of these "XL Bully" breeds must be partly down to the size and strength of the dog, surely... the American "Bully" breed can weigh 10 stone. Why does anyone want a dog that size? And how can they afford to feed them, these days?
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
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