WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Your link showed a heavily edited version of dog bite statistics pulled from newspaper reports. It's difficult to even know how much it was edited because we don't have the raw #'s. Also, it seems as if every newspaper will call anything in the 50-70 pound range a pitbull and let the readers sort it out.  (Sunday Jul 27 | post #318)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Good luck arguing that point! I tried! It seems that everyone on here is a master dog classifier and can spot a pitbull from 6 miles away.  (Sunday Jul 27 | post #315)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Actually no. Statistics on dog bites are hard to come by because very few places keep good records. You'll notice that the BS link I talked about in my last post has it's source as newpaper articles.  (Sunday Jul 27 | post #310)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

I'm going to have to call BS on that link. All other statistics posted by every else on the entire thread don't support the #'s in your link. Also, it's fishy that pitbulls rank with so many but pitbull/anything else mixes are so low. Even pitbull/rott mixes are low whereas rotts have a pretty high # too. I'm thinking that they were quite selective with how they compiled those #'s. Reading the top it seems that they admit to doing a large amount of culling of the statistics. It's a very well known method. Cull, cull, cull until the statistics say what you want. There are three types of lies (in ascending order): Lies, d a m n lies, and statistics  (Sunday Jul 27 | post #308)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Of course there are an exhorbant # of dependent variables. This is real life. There's lots of variables. As such it's impossible, given the scant information we have, to determine anything meaningful from 22 attacks. So, I suppose I should have said that 22 attacks doesn't prove anything one way or the other  (Sunday Jul 27 | post #304)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

If the insurance company said they didn't like your mother they could probably deny you insurance. It's their choice whether to insure you  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #222)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Well, that was 23 deaths over an 18 year span. Pretty flimsy support for looking down on pitbulls if you ask me. It's less than 2 a year. (On average)  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #220)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Yes, this has been my point all along but you main the point pretty clear.  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #217)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Hehe, I had to chuckle there.. I opened myself up for that one!  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #214)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

I believe that I quite plainly said that what we've got to do is find out why. As I just posted, it's actually a 1/110,000 chance that they'll kill. But more to the point, it's maybe 7 a year. What is causing 7 pitbulls a year to kill people? My point is that a lot of people do get pitbulls because they want a violent dog. People who want a violent dog usually end up with one. You can make a dog violent if that is what you want. So, my point is that a dog with a reputation will be found to kill more people because more people are raising that type of dog to be that way.  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #213)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

That link you posted also says that dog bite deaths are very rare. It says that there are 55 million dogs. If we take your often cited 2% of dogs as pitbulls then we arrive at 1,100,000 pitbulls. At 20 deaths per year if half were due to pitbulls (and that is high) then 1,100,000 / 10 = a 1/110000 chance that any given pitbull will kill someone. That's pretty low. It means that the vast majority of pitbulls don't kill people. The VAST majority  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #209)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

No, I don't have answers because I'm not that nosy with my vet. Have you picked your nose in traffic? I mean, how much am I supposed to know about someone else? I have no idea what sort of pets my vet has at all. I'm not even sure it's relevant to the discussion. Vets are supposed to be animal experts not owners of every single type of animal in existence.  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #203)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

Yes in that particular post maybe but the thread (of this subtopic) was about racial profiling and thus it was made to seem as if you were advocating something about an entire race. I know that with so many posts flying around it's hard to keep every some topic straight. (and I'm not being smart with that last sentence. it really can be difficult.)  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #201)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

My point is that it's stupid to project onto an entire population what a subset of the population has done. The point is valid whether one is talking about people or animals. The fact remains that the vast majority of pitbulls do not attack people. While it may be true that statistically pitbulls bite more than some other breeds it still don't prove WHY. (nor does it really show that pitbulls are a problem breed.) The real question is why. Maybe it really does have everything to do with the owners.  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #197)

WOOD-TV Grand Rapids and Michigan

Boy's arm amputated after family dog attacks

The part after "Jawohl mein Fuhrer" was an actual quote from Hitler. It's proper translation is: Certainly, my leader. One Country! One People! One Leader!  (Saturday Jul 26 | post #193)