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Science

Dog Behaviour Has Little To Do With Breed, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 94

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
From sociable labradors to aggressive pitbulls, when it comes to canine behaviour there are no end of stereotypes. But research suggests such traits may have less to do with breed than previously thought. From a report: Modern dog breeds began to emerge in the Victorian era and are often physically distinct -- for example, great danes are huge and chihuahuas tiny. But it has often been thought breed can predict behaviour, too. Now researchers say there's little sign that's the case. Dr Elinor Karlsson of the University of Massachusetts Umass Chan medical school, a co-author of the study, said research revealed a huge diversity of behaviours within each breed.

"Even if the average is different, you've still got a really good chance of getting a dog that doesn't match what people say that breed is supposed to be," she said. Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers report how they analysed survey responses relating to the physical traits and behaviour of 18,385 pet dogs, almost half of which were purebred, with genetic data analysed for 2,155 of them. Analysis of the survey results for purebred dogs suggested about 9% of behavioural variation was explained by breed.
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Dog Behaviour Has Little To Do With Breed, Study Finds More

Dog Behaviour Has Little To Do With Breed, Study Finds

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  • there are no bad breeds, only bad training (or maybe it's bad owners - or both).

    however i've never understood something. You can breed a dog to look like a doberman, or like a yorkshire terrier, so doesn't that imply that you can breed one to be agressive ?

    you maybe can't breed an agressive dog to look like a doberman (see the famous Russian fox breeding experiment) but i don't see how you can possibly deny that you can't select for agressiveness and end up with an agressive breed.

    however, there's no doubt

    • there are no bad breeds, only bad training (or maybe it's bad owners - or both).

      however i've never understood something. You can breed a dog to look like a doberman, or like a yorkshire terrier, so doesn't that imply that you can breed one to be agressive ?

      you maybe can't breed an agressive dog to look like a doberman (see the famous Russian fox breeding experiment) but i don't see how you can possibly deny that you can't select for agressiveness and end up with an agressive breed.

      however, there's no doubt it's nature and environment, and i think the study is trying to point out how much of the behavior can be attributed to breeding, and the fact that it's not 100% is not surprising. the fact that it's only 9% IS surprising.

      Of course you can breed aggressiveness. It would be incomprehensible that you couldn't.

      I recall some years back, they wanted to breed the aggression out of Dobermans. What they did ended up breeding goofy fun Dobermans.

      Now it is 100 percent true you can end up with say, a nasty Pittie if you abuse it.

      I've known some pitties that are real dollbabies. Same with Rottweilers.

      Here's the thing though, The physical aspects of modern Pitbulls are such that they latch onto you, especially if they latch

      • Yep, this. Pits have been bred with a mouth that clamps. All dogs can get angry. But not all dogs have the equivalent of the jaws of life built in. And really anyone who believes in darwin knows the study is wrong. Russia bred wolves I think it was for both aggression and passiveness. And within a few generations had them.

        • Yep, this. Pits have been bred with a mouth that clamps. All dogs can get angry. But not all dogs have the equivalent of the jaws of life built in. And really anyone who believes in darwin knows the study is wrong. Russia bred wolves I think it was for both aggression and passiveness. And within a few generations had them.

          Russian also bred foxes to become pets. They did it impressively quickly too. Selected foxes for interest and willingness to approach humans. and after some number of generations they had tame foxes. Very affectionate and vocal, kind of goofy cute acting, Not at all like wild foxes other than basic looks.

          Exactly a case of breeding for the mental aspects of the offspring.

          • Ah, you are correct, it was foxes not wolves. And I saw a video of the result. The friendly ones interacted with people with no issues. No one went into the pens with the aggressive ones. Think horror movies for how they reacted to human presence. The experiment went on for decades.

            • Ah, you are correct, it was foxes not wolves. And I saw a video of the result. The friendly ones interacted with people with no issues. No one went into the pens with the aggressive ones. Think horror movies for how they reacted to human presence. The experiment went on for decades.

              There were some interesting and strange things that came out of the experiments, like the foxes who were bred for their tameness had increasingly less pointed edge ears. They took on a slightly more puppy-like look.

              There are still a lot of the tame ones around. Apparently the common traits of the tame foxes are that they are bundles of extreme energy, rather talkative, pretty affectionate but goofy about it. I imagine it would be kind of like owning a border collie, you need to provide them with a lot of

              • They also selected some foxes for aggression, and the opposite happened. They snarl, growl, and in general go absolutely apeshit when anyone walks up to their cage. I can't find the video right away (Google can't understand the difference between foxes, Michael J. Fox, and Fox News), but Alan Alda was visiting them.

                • They also selected some foxes for aggression, and the opposite happened. They snarl, growl, and in general go absolutely apeshit when anyone walks up to their cage. I can't find the video right away (Google can't understand the difference between foxes, Michael J. Fox, and Fox News), but Alan Alda was visiting them.

                  Google is kind of pop culture oriented, so I'm not surprised about your search results.

        • "Yep, this. Pits have been bred with a mouth that clamps. All dogs can get angry. But not all dogs have the equivalent of the jaws of life built in"

          Absolute. Utter. Bullshit.
          I thought SD was for people who can think instead of regurgitate garbage they hear thirdhand. I'll wait while you look up any facts that pibbles have "locking jaws". Jayzus people are gullible...
          AKC even states that Pitbulls are not good watchdogs because of their friendliness. A large percentage of "pitbull" reports are from people

          • Yes they are sooo "friendly" you might check that your insurance company will cover you.Seriously, you may want to check. Sometimes where there is smoke there is fire. You may want to have a look at this site. https://www.nationalpitbullvic... [nationalpi...reness.org] And gee, another legal site talking about GSD's, another breed I'd avoid. https://www.oharaattorney.com/... [oharaattorney.com] From that site, "The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) conducted a study and concluded that German Shepherds were one of the most dangerous breeds ba

            • I've owned pitties for years. Insurance not a problem - never has been.
              I have a 1 yr old pup at this moment.
              His problem is he's TOO friendly with people and wants to make friends with everyone.
              The assertion that dogs with short wide heads are more prone to bite is laughable.
              Put it right up there with Phrenology mumbo jumbo.
              Fact is the most likely dog to bite is a chihuahua - no short wide heads there ;)
              People tend to poo-poo little dogs because of their size but in fact they injure probably more people tha

              • I've owned pitties for years. Insurance not a problem - never has been. I have a 1 yr old pup at this moment. His problem is he's TOO friendly with people and wants to make friends with everyone. The assertion that dogs with short wide heads are more prone to bite is laughable. Put it right up there with Phrenology mumbo jumbo. Fact is the most likely dog to bite is a chihuahua - no short wide heads there ;) People tend to poo-poo little dogs because of their size but in fact they injure probably more people than any other breed. https://www.dvm360.com/view/st... [dvm360.com]

                I'll bet you'll be able to get him a lot less friendly after you impress your personality on him - he'll be quick to anger, just like you.

                Saturday night curbstomping time. You've earned it:

                Allow us to just use 2020 and 2021 as a metric, I hope that will be okay with you.

                In 2020 there were 38 fatal dog attacks of these, 2 were German Shepherds, 1 Neopolitan Mastiff (2 were involved in one incident) 1 Belgian Malinoise, 2 Packs of dogs, There was a French Bulldog in there too. a couple indeterminate

          • "Yep, this. Pits have been bred with a mouth that clamps. All dogs can get angry. But not all dogs have the equivalent of the jaws of life built in"

            Absolute. Utter. Bullshit. I thought SD was for people who can think instead of regurgitate garbage they hear thirdhand. I'll wait while you look up any facts that pibbles have "locking jaws". Jayzus people are gullible... AKC even states that Pitbulls are not good watchdogs because of their friendliness. A large percentage of "pitbull" reports are from people that couldn't discern a Shitzu from a Yorkie. https://www.akc.org/expert-adv... [akc.org]

            And some posters have apparent anger issues. The poster who triggered you to spittle flecked rage was merely responding to my post that pits tend to hold and shake. Do you deny that? I know no dogs have jaws that lock - I just didn't go insane, like you just have. So you are right about the quality here going down. You're part of the problem.

            • lol - man, talk about projecting. Insane? Spittle flecks? You get your hyperbole from reading bodice rippers?
              All terriers have an innate behavior to grab and shake. You seem to believe there's some reason to use that as some inane proof?
              That doesn't make them vicious - it means they have some terrier tendencies.
              I do in fact have anger issues against people that unfairly malign a dog based on poor research and half assed witnesses that can't tell one dog from another. Pitbulls are euthanized at many ti

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GBH ( 142968 )

        Except on the scale of dog bite PSI Pitbulls are WAY down on the scale. The highest, the Kangal, bites with almost twice the force of a Pitbull. In fact, depending on the list you reference a Pitbul would struggle to be in the top 20 dogs as far as bite force goes only barely more than a Labrador.

        Regardless of the dog, if they're aggressive and attack you, any medium or large dog is going to fuck you up your day just as badly if not a lot worse. Plus the likes of the Kangal, Tosa Inu or Dogo Argentino are w

        • Except on the scale of dog bite PSI Pitbulls are WAY down on the scale. The highest, the Kangal, bites with almost twice the force of a Pitbull.

          It's not some sort of contest on who bites hardest. It's just that you probably wouldn't want a pitbull to have you by the throat, amirite?

          Anyhow, I'm not familiar with the Kangal so I looked it up. There's a handsome boi! I see they are using them to keep the big cats away from livestock, which actually helps preserve the big cat population.

          I am not anti pitbull. My go-to line when we hear of an attack by a pittie is "Put the dog in counseling, and euthanize it's owner."

          We have some locally who are

      • Of course you can breed aggressiveness. It would be incomprehensible that you couldn't.

        Slashdot has retreads modertaing these days - Offtopic? There can be no more on topic post than what I wrote. Youtube commenter level, ya dork.

      • ???? Dobermans were always one of the least aggressive breeds. I think maybe you mean playful and friendly? As a guard dog they would of been breed to be standoffish originally.

    • and yet even Cesar's own supposedly highly trained dogs have attacked someone. The reality is agression or at least a tendency for it most definitely can be breed into a dog.

    • Only 9% is huge, and it all depends on how they measure it. It is ridiculously simple to train a Labrador to freak out and go into fight of flight mode whenever a strange dog enters the room or get a Pitbull to act peaceful and loving 99% of the time. The loving Pitbull is still more likely to kill you.

      I like to think of it as 2 main factors, plus the training and environment.

      99% of every person's and animal's actions will be dictated by training. Unless you are talking about some of the stupider bugs, we a

  • So you are going to train a Chihuahua to behave like a Border Collie? Good luck.

    • I do think perhaps that the physical size of small breeds does lead them to be a bit more aggressive, and yappy. Definitely terriers are hyper, but that's possibly physical too. But it is true, there are definitely mean labradors and sweet pit-bulls.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        It's not the physics. Terriers were bred to hunt rats. Also to let people know if strangers showed up. OTOH, Bichon Frise were bred to be cute, to do tricks, and to be friendly. But don't try to get a Bichon Frise to retrieve. And I don't think one would do well at hunting rats. And yet they're about the same size (some terriers are larger...the Doberman is a terrier, of a sort).

        That said, the breed specific behaviors are a minor part of the way a dog behaves. But depending on what you're looking at

  • Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @02:52PM (#62490162)
    I wouldn't trust this in the slightest, since it's a survey, and people's ratings of their dogs' character is relative to what they expect, which factors in past experience with the breed.

    Let's look at the statistics for something objective, like the probability of a dog of a given pure breed attacking a person such that it results in a hospital visit or death. How skewed are those stats by breed?

    • Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @11:41PM (#62491158)

      I actually looked those up a few years ago when there was a lot of hubbub about pit bulls in the news. I figured it was a lot of confirmation bias at play: people thought pit bulls were violent, so any violent act by a pit bull merely “proved” they they were more violent than other breeds.

      As it turned out, they really are more violent. WAY more violent. I don’t remember the exact numbers, and even if I did they’d be a few years out of date by now, but it was on the order of pit bulls accounting for something like 70% of all reported dog attacks in the US, despite the breed only representing something like 5% of the population of dogs in the US. Roughly 25% of attacks were attributable to Rottweilers, despite them being an even smaller piece of the overall pie of dogs in the US. The remaining 5% of attacks were attributed to the breeds representing the other 90+% of dogs in the US.

      Yeah. Two breeds representing a small slice of the pie made up nearly all dog attacks.

      To be fair, correlation != causation. It could just be that the real cause is that the people who make terrible dog owners are attracted to pit bulls and Rottweilers, suggesting that we’d have had the same issue with a different breed had that owner been so inclined. Even so, that seems unlikely.

      Moreover, there’s a reason why a load of insurance companies and underwriters will refuse to provide coverage to people who own either breed. Insurance companies only care what the numbers say, and the numbers say that certain breeds are way more dangerous.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        I actually looked those up a few years ago when there was a lot of hubbub about pit bulls in the news. I figured it was a lot of confirmation bias at play: people thought pit bulls were violent, so any violent act by a pit bull merely “proved” they they were more violent than other breeds.

        As it turned out, they really are more violent. WAY more violent. I don’t remember the exact numbers, and even if I did they’d be a few years out of date by now, but it was on the order of pit bulls accounting for something like 70% of all reported dog attacks in the US, despite the breed only representing something like 5% of the population of dogs in the US. Roughly 25% of attacks were attributable to Rottweilers, despite them being an even smaller piece of the overall pie of dogs in the US. The remaining 5% of attacks were attributed to the breeds representing the other 90+% of dogs in the US.

        Yeah. Two breeds representing a small slice of the pie made up nearly all dog attacks.

        To be fair, correlation != causation. It could just be that the real cause is that the people who make terrible dog owners are attracted to pit bulls and Rottweilers, suggesting that we’d have had the same issue with a different breed had that owner been so inclined. Even so, that seems unlikely.

        Moreover, there’s a reason why a load of insurance companies and underwriters will refuse to provide coverage to people who own either breed. Insurance companies only care what the numbers say, and the numbers say that certain breeds are way more dangerous.

        You're falling into the trap of thinking it's the breed, not the owner.

        There aren't any dangerous dogs, just dangerously stupid people who shouldn't be allowed to have a pet rock, let alone a dog.

        Pit bulls, staffies and other "dangerous" breeds tend to attract the worst of owners because of their reputation, so it's a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario. People think that pit bulls are dangerous, so louts buy them then neglect/abuse them or worse, train them to be violent, so the reputation grows an

        • I think you may have skipped my “correlation != causation” paragraph if you think I fell into a trap. Even so, given how outsized pits and Rotties were in the stats, I find the argument that it’s all because of “bad owners” to be incredibly unconvincing. I do acknowledge it as a real factor that is almost certainly at play, but surely bad owners buy all sorts of breeds, not just those two, so I don’t see how that argument explains what we’re seeing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hawk ( 1151 )

            and I don't know about Rottweilers, but pit bulls have been specifically *bred* for how they respond to abuse, selecting for the more violent genes.

            No, no all of them, but a large enough portion to be an issue.

            More telling than the raw data on attacks is the "own family" attacks, which is again dominated by pit bulls.

            Yes, a great many, maybe even most, pit bulls are sweet and loving. But the sample today in the US is dominated by those that have been bred for aggression and fighting.

            I rather suspect that

      • The missing piece is what percentage of either breed is likely to attack someone. I suspect that fewer than a single percent of either breed will even be involved in an attack. Developing a particular fear over a breed of dog when the risk of attack is low is a bit irrational.

        I also suspect the violent dogs are the ones who have asshole owners that bought them for that purpose. I've known people who've owned both pits and Rottweilers and when they're well trained and cared for, they're no different from

      • In the late 1800's it was "bloodhounds" that were mauling people.
        Fact is in the 60's and 70's there were no reported Pitbull attacks.
        It was Collies, Doberman's, German Shepherds and Rottweilers.
        Most dog attacks are misreported. People are stupid and if a dog attacked it must have been a pitbull because the news is always reporting that - right?
        I dunno about the wrong kinds of owners being attracted to the breed I've owned many Pitbulls and bulldogs and they are gentle dogs to a fault.
        I have nothing but goo

    • Those stats are incredibly skewed by breed:

      https://www.askadamskutner.com... [askadamskutner.com]

      This says 75% of all fatal dog attacks are caused by pitbulls and Rottweilers. Of course, most other dog breeds are less physically powerful, and many of them just couldn't cause a fatality in all but the most vulnerable humans.

      However the dog bite (not necessarily fatal) stats tell a similar story: https://www.superbdog.com/dog-... [superbdog.com]

      Though again you could argue that no one is reporting getting bitten by a Dachshund. But keep in mi

  • Nature vs Nuture vs Envrionmnet (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @02:55PM (#62490174)

    Nature we get traits and instincts that might make us more prone to do something a little more differently.
    Nurture is what we are trained to do and how to act.
    Environment is the conditions that we are in that we need to survive at.

    I am not a Tall person, at 5'5" I am considered short. Short people are often considered to be Loud and in your face.

    However is that a trait of being short, or is it due to other factors.
    Nurture, if you are short, then your parents were probably short too, so you pick up many of their habits and methods.
    Environment, often being over looked and if you don't make some noise then you will be ignored, compared to the quite tall guy who will be noticed no matter what.

    I actually feel extremely uncomfortable when I have to be loud and get into peoples face, however I can be that way, because I am feeling that I am being overlooked, and I have been taught to act like that to get attention.

    My nature I am shorter then most of my peers, however other factors based on how I would behave, which may be due to the aspect of my nature, but it controlled by other factors... When I am at a family reunion, I am actually one of the taller people there, so I can be the quite one who will get attention, just by my presence.

  • Dogs are individuals ... (Score:3)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @03:02PM (#62490192)
    who knew. Overall I still believe you can find tendencies by breed. Greyhounds are fast, but lazy. Labs are loveable goofballs. Dobies are much more friendly than they appear. Chiuauas are horrible little monsters.
    Maybe yours is different, but most will match the descriptions above.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Well, it's true, because there's no such thing as "breed". Breed is an artificial human concept denoting some family of characteristics. What we call a breed is completely arbitrary, and mixed breed dogs (we call them mutts) can become tomorrow's purebreds.

      After all, mix a Golden Retriever and a Poodle, and you get a Golden doodle. Or a Labrador and a Poodle for a Labradoodle. A Pomeranian and a Husky create the Pomsky. What separates those two from mutts? Probably when they were born and when kennel clubs

  • Herding style is very heritable (Score:3)

    by mamba-mamba ( 445365 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @03:03PM (#62490196)
    I am sure this study is correct, broadly speaking. But it is pretty well known that among stock dogs (herding dogs) the style of herding is heritable. Border collies crouch and creep and give strong eye without anyone ever teaching them to do it. And some other herding breeds like ACD's or Catahoulas will basically never do that, preferring to charge in and bark and even nip to get the stock moving. And, as the article says, the biddability of herding dogs is legendary. You don't really have to reward or punish them much at all. You just have to somehow convey what you want them to do and they will do it gladly after that. This all applies much more to working lines of dogs, though. Less so to pet dogs.

    Likewise, livestock guardian dogs such as Great Pyrenees will adopt and guard a herd without anyone ever telling them to do it. Whereas a greyhound will probably not do that and may even chase, harass or kill the herd.

    I get what they are saying. But certain working dogs really are predisposed to the jobs they have been bred to do. This is not just in the imagination of the people who work with these dogs. But hey, if someone can manage to train a greyhound to perform in sheep herding trials I am sure people would pay good money to watch it.

    • Had a dachshund growing up, and he loved burrowing. If you let him hop into bed, he'd get under the covers and then crawl down to your feet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Likewise, livestock guardian dogs such as Great Pyrenees will adopt and guard a herd without anyone ever telling them to do it. Whereas a greyhound will probably not do that and may even chase, harass or kill the herd.

      No, they won't. Livestock guardian dogs have to be trained to make sure that they won't just play-chase animals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by indytx ( 825419 )

      I am sure this study is correct, broadly speaking. But it is pretty well known that among stock dogs (herding dogs) the style of herding is heritable. Border collies crouch and creep and give strong eye without anyone ever teaching them to do it. And some other herding breeds like ACD's or Catahoulas will basically never do that, preferring to charge in and bark and even nip to get the stock moving. And, as the article says, the biddability of herding dogs is legendary. You don't really have to reward or punish them much at all. You just have to somehow convey what you want them to do and they will do it gladly after that. This all applies much more to working lines of dogs, though. Less so to pet dogs.

      True. I've had herding dogs my whole life, ACDs and Corgis (both breeds), and they're born to herd. Cattle or kids, they don't care! Just give them a job!

  • I'm just not buying it. Many very specific behaviors have been bred into dogs. Some will hunt down and kill every rodent in the vicinity. Some are unhappy if they can't herd all the local children or sheep into one place. Some want, no NEED to run. There are a lot of different behaviors. I'm trying to imagine a pit bull instinctively herding sheep. Or a terrier choosing to race instead of ratting. Nope. Just not happening. As another poster pointed out, a lot of these behaviors are specific to certain situa

  • It's the probability of outliers which matters for a lot of things. Dogs descended from pit fighting dogs are a stupid risk to take. These dogs were bred away from domestication and careful use of existing instincts, towards fighting unprovoked and to death ... anyone surprised that they are more often the outliers which attack unprovoked and to death isn't thinking straight.

    Their sample size wouldn't even be big enough to catch this effect, but why take the risk of your kid getting caught by the throat by

  • Because they are less trainable. Many Siberians like getting wet, respond to their name and enjoy walks on leash. Good luck finding or training cats of most other breeds to behave like that. Dogs are highly trainable, so not surprising you can get many breeds to do or not do many different things, despite somewhat different natural tendencies.

    • Cats are trainable, but they're not good at being trained the same way dogs are, they definitely will not respond to negative reinforcement. I've seen trained cats doing tricks and it's amazing.

  • The American Kennel Club [akc.org] standards "describe perfect type, structure, gait, and temperament of the breed."

    If the results of this study are true, breeders aren't focusing enough on compliance with the temperament standard.

    Honestly, most dog breeders aren't known for ethical behavior.

  • Considering human variation would nominally be better referred to as 'breeds' of human rather than 'races', and considering that human breed doesn't seem to be much of a predictor of behavior EITHER, this isn't shocking.

  • Bad summary (Score:3)

    by Improv ( 2467 ) <pgunn01@gmail.com> on Friday April 29, 2022 @03:22PM (#62490248) Homepage Journal

    Read the paper. The person who summarised it for Slashdot did a bad job.

    • Re:Bad summary (Score:4, Informative)

      by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @03:33PM (#62490272)

      From the paper [science.org]:

      RESULTS

      We surveyed owners of 18,385 dogs (49% purebred) and sequenced the DNA of 2155 dogs. Most behavioral traits are heritable [heritability (h2) > 25%], but behavior only subtly differentiates breeds. Breed offers little predictive value for individuals, explaining just 9% of variation in behavior. For more heritable, more breed-differentiated traits, like biddability (responsiveness to direction and commands), knowing breed ancestry can make behavioral predictions somewhat more accurate (see the figure). For less heritable, less breed-differentiated traits, like agonistic threshold (how easily a dog is provoked by frightening or uncomfortable stimuli), breed is almost uninformative.

      We used dogs of mixed breed ancestry to test the genetic effect of breed ancestry on behavior and compared that to survey responses from purebred dog owners. For some traits, like biddability and border collie ancestry, we confirm a genetic effect of breed that aligns with survey responses. For others, like human sociability and Labrador retriever ancestry, we found no significant effect.

      Through genome-wide association, we found 11 regions that are significantly associated with behavior, including howling frequency and human sociability, and 136 suggestive regions. Regions associated with aesthetic traits are unusually differentiated in breeds, consistent with a history of selection, but those associated with behavior are not.

      TL;DR: The title of this thread is incorrect because it suggests that the correlation of traits and genetics is very low. The paper shows that correlation is sometimes high and sometimes low. It depends.

      • Sounds like it's high for things people care about and low for things people don't care about. If you have a good herding dog who's afraid of lightning you're not going to not breed him over that.
  • This study is 100% crap. Worse than most.

  • America's Most Dangerous Dog Breeds (Score:3)

    by ac22 ( 7754550 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @04:16PM (#62490360)

    Breeds involved in fatal attacks on humans in the US from 2005 to 2017:

    Pit Bull 284
    Rottweiler 45
    German Shepherd 20
    Mixed Breed 17
    American Bulldog 15
    Mastiff 14
    Husky 13
    Labrador 12
    Boxer 7
    Doberman 6

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/n... [forbes.com]

    • Yeah, I'm not buying that 95% of fatal dog attacks are purebred

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Breeds involved in fatal attacks on humans in the US from 2005 to 2017:

      Pit Bull 284
      Rottweiler 45
      German Shepherd 20
      Mixed Breed 17
      American Bulldog 15
      Mastiff 14
      Husky 13
      Labrador 12
      Boxer 7
      Doberman 6

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/n... [forbes.com]

      To put this in perspective, that's 401. It took 12 years for dogs to kill fewer people than were murdered in Alabama in 2020 (471) and something that happens in Texas every quarter (1931 murder victims in 2020). A quick google shows there are approx. 18 million pit bulls in the US. I'll take my chances with the dogs, maybe you should do something about the people who murder 22,000 odd a year in the US.

  • ...but for one of those, biting is a bigger deal.

  • Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @04:51PM (#62490472)
    I grew up with sheep dogs. Every herding dog has the same mentality; they treat their family like a herd and make sure everyone's safe, they patrol the lands up to the fence once or twice a day, etc.

    Every "toy" dog, like chihuahas and teacup poodles I've ever seen are like frightened animals who just sit there.

    Hunting breeds like retrievers are just absolute runners, and go nuts if they're not given the time to run out every day.

    And every Chow I've met had a bad temper and was terrible with strangers.

    Breed absolutely plays a role.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      >Every "toy" dog, like chihuahas

      Now wait a minute, that's just disinformation.

      Contrary to the claims of their owners, chihuahuas are a breed of rat, not dog . . .

  • I have a background in public health and epidemiology. A few interests of mine include bicycle safety and canine-related injuries and deaths. This study was covered by Washington Post and NPR and likely many more outlets. I did not *completely* RTFA, but it looked like a study methodology that was a little weak (study participant: "Overall, Fido was somewhat friendly today")

    I was surprised that the NPR story avoided the hot button of Pit Bulls. Reporting on and responses to stories like these often ten

  • Dachshunds sure ended up being shitheads. I always thought of them as cute 'wiener dogs' but after many trips to dog parks and other bad encounters, I now realize there's something screwed up going on in there. Chihuahuas aren't as bad as their reputation from my experience.
  • specially when it pertains to key moments like attacking a running child vs just playing. Of course 91% behaviour is the same. The study proves the contra try to what it claims to demonstrate. This is a bullshit study trying to push the idea that dangerous breeds aren’t dangerous ( some groups are playing sjw about this).

  • ... contradicts the title. Just as "human height, strength, and behavior" "has little to do with sex" "even if the average is different" with minor overlap.

  • Utter and complete nonsense. Dogs are bred for the express purpose of favoring certain behaviors. This seems to be in the realm of pit bull politics.

  • Pit Bull is still responsible for the most fatal attacks in the U.S. by far, killing [slashdot.org] 284 people over that 13-year period - 66 percent of total fatalities. That's despite the breed accounting for just 6.5% of the total U.S. dog population.

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