OT bad experience today

[Rick Cook]

How about. "Get the county to pass a leash law" time?

--RC

AAvK wrote:

[Rick Cook]

Agree -- except for specifying a pit bull.

--RC

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote:

[Rick Cook]

Wrong. For the most part they are gentle and loving dogs.

People who own dogs of any sort and let them roam around loose aren't going to have them very long. This is doubly true of pit bulls because of the prejudice against them. (Which we have seen amply demonstrated here.)

--RC

[Rick Cook]

Well no. Or not nearly as much as you think. Retrievers aren't terriers, but they can be trained to be just as nasty and aggressive as any other kind of dog. They don't have the pit bull's reflexes or strength so they wouldn't be quite as much of a threat, but it absolutely would not be for lack of trying.

--RC

[Swingman]

"Rick Cook" spewed in message

Can you read? Do you? According to your own words in a previous message, you havent had any of the above.

Had you made the smallest effort to read this thread, you wouldn't have made such a fool out of yourself by jumping to that erroneous conclusion. You also made clear that your qualifications were limited to having "never owned one" and only "having several friends who own them ..."

Not exactly what I'd call expert opinion that justifies such, well ... "arrogance" ... another one of your words in this thread.

[Rick Cook]

In which you displayed both prejudice and a near complete ignorance.

True of any dog.

Wrong again. While terriers in general tend to be aggressive toward other animals, pit bulls have to be very specifically trained to fight. Some of the training methods are pretty horrendous.

No. Like any terrier they need to be socialized around other dogs, cats, etc. But they do NOT have to be trained not to attack them. The statement simply demonstrates further your lack of knowledge.

Then you haven't been around many medium to large dog breeds.

--RC

[Lobby Dosser]

WoodMangler wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Quite true, but I've yet to be bit by one. :o)

[Doug Miller]

I did not say that goldies could not be made "nasty and aggressive". I said that it's much harder to do with that breed than with pit bulls. Not impossible, just much more difficult.

If you dispute that, if you really believe that a golden retriever can be made into an attack dog as easily as can a pit bull, then your comments on this subject do not deserve to be taken seriously.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

[Swingman]

Rick, your a TOTAL dork! ... go f*ck yourself!

[Tim Douglass]

For many years I lived on a farm. We raised cattle, as did most of the neighbors. It was standard practice to immediately kill any dog that wandered onto your property because it might start chasing or harassing the cattle (or deer, but that's another thread). A single dog running a beef steer around the pasture one day can traumatize the steer so that it takes weeks of additional feeding to finish it. The cost is not insignificant.

People who work with food animals tend to have a little different set of values.

Tim Douglass

[Mark Hopkins]

My neighbor has a 1 1/2 pound chihuahua that is mean as a snake around larger dogs and has a heart the size of a mountain. It is very gentle around kids too. He trained it to be mean around his other dog which is a pitbull, female and very tame. The chihuahua is the alpha dog and the pitbull the subordinate. It is quite funny to watch them sometimes.

[J T]

Re: OT bad experience today Group: rec.woodworking Date: Sat, Oct 2, 2004, 10:18am (EDT-1) [e-mail] (Swingman) says: I had my right hand completely bitten through by a pit bull

I've seen videos of them blowing out tires on vehicles (people taking refuge in them), so the dogs took it out on the tires.

struggling to get my right hand from those jaws

A lot of days late, and several dollars short, but kicking it in the stomach, or other areas, might have done it. But, getting your hand bitten, and thinking clearly enough to remember something like that, might not go together.

but to me there is no reason a sane individual would own one of these dogs, particularly in an urban environment. They are anti-social assault weapons, and no other animal, child, or human is ultimately safe around one,

That seems to be the reason most people own them.

except for the owner.

Sometimes.

To let one run loose in an urban situation, even accidentally, is akin to assault with a deadly weapon and should be treated as such.

Got to go along with that. I like dogs in general, but tend to draw the line at those little yapping rat dogs, and the ones willing to try to eat me.

Waay back, when I was a kid, I used to read a lot of books on hunting in Africa. I remember one, a hunter remained in camp, and was shaving his head (he didn't like going bald), and was attached by a leopard. He wound up with one fist in the leopard's mouth, and eventully killed it. I don't recall if he strangled it (well, actually I think it was shoving his fist down its throat, which changed its concenration on trying to get away, from killing the guy), or cut its throat, with his straight razor. Supposedly that was the only known case of anyone killing a leopard with his bare-hands. This was in the

20s or 30s, I think. I took a quick look on google, to see if I could come up with it. Instead, came up with this. It doesn't exactly seem true, to me. I can't imagine anyone getten chewed up by a leopard, and wanting someone to film it. THE ARTFUL DODGER The records of accidents with leopards are high. Most of the well-known professional hunters of recent years have all been savaged by leopards, and many of the old-timers, too. Foremost was Charles Cottar, who strangled a live leopard with his bare hands. Whilst doing so, he had one of his sons turn the handle of the movie camera! On seeing his father pouring blood from the deep scratches the leopard was inflicting upon him, his son stopped turning the hand

Came from here.

This name seems familar to me, but in the story I read, the guy was suppoedly in camp alone.

JOAT We will never have great leaders as long as we mistake education for intelligence, ambition for ability, and lack of transgression for integrity.

- Unknown

[Rick Cook]

As far as I can see your experience with pit bulls consists of getting bitten by one when you tried to break up a dog fight. This seems to have led you to a phobic reaction against this particular breed of dog -- irregardless of the fact that anyone attempting to break up a dog fight between _any_ breeds of dogs runs a high risk of being bitten. (And if anything I'd argue the risk of being bitten by a pit bull in that situation is less than with most other breeds because aggression towards humans was stringently de-selected.)

I have obviously spent far more time around pit bulls than you have. I have seen them raised from puppyhood to old age. I have had the opportunity to observe a number of specimens of the breed at very close range. And I have friends who have spent literally years raising them. And of course, some of my best canine friends are pit bulls.

So, yes. I have more than ample experience to comment when faced with the kind of ignorance and phobias you've displayed in this thread.

Call it rather 'experience.' Far more than you have with pit bulls, apparently.

However beyond that, don't you see the arrogance implicit in labeling an entire breed of dogs, or anything else, as 'dangerous'?

--RC

[Rick Cook]

--RC

[Rick Cook]

Well, it wouldn't hurt to have any large breed of dog professionally trained. But the point is that any medium to large dog needs to be well trained and properly socialized.

--RC

WoodMangler wrote:

[Rick Cook]

Actually no. Most people own them because they are fun dogs and they're so friendly they're almost goofy. There are a few people who want a four-legged assault weapon and train and socialize their dogs accordingly. Like I say, a pit bull's major drive is to please its owner. And there are some people out there who shouldn't be allowed to own a goldfish.

That's the reason I find these fairy tales about pit bulls so infuriating. (And you may have noticed I've gotten a, ah, 'trifle heated' over this.) This nonsense about 'anti-social assault weapons' is so completely at odds with the breed's real personality.

--RC

[Rick Cook]

Not nearly as much more difficult as you think. I have friends with goldies too and I know they're also eager to please their owners.

Why? They're both dogs and they both have the same sets of instincts. Do you know what is involved in attack dog training and how it is done? It simply involves reinforcing the instincts in any dog. (And yes, I have worked as a dog handler -- not a trainer! -- for a company that had both guard and attack dogs.) In principle it's no different than teaching a dog to chase a stick -- which is what it looks like in the early stages.

Training an attack dog not a matter of finding a dog with some special 'killer instinct' waiting to be unleashed. It is simply a matter of conditioning the dog to apply its natural behavior in a particular way in a particular situation. And in fact In fact one of the reasons some breeds are preferred for attack dog training has nothing to do with an aggressive temperament. Quite the opposite. For attack training you want a dog which is extremely stable temperamentally.

Now if by 'attack dog' you simply mean making a dog vicious, that's also the same for any breed. Fundamentally you drive the dog crazy by mistreatment until it is deathly afraid of people and it takes out that fear as aggression. You may or may not let the dog bond to you, but you end up with a very mentally ill animal.

--RC

[Doug Winterburn]

Errr, aligators, piranah, west nile carrying mosquitos, ....?

-Doug

[WoodMangler]

NOW You've gone too far!!! Our fine Florida state bird, the mosquito, seldom carries West Nile or any other virus. Don't let a gross exaggeration born of fear and ignorance ruin the reputation of an entire species. And Alligators?!?! And Piranha?!?! How come you're picking on Florida?

Excuse my ignorance, but what's an Errr? If it's slang for another Florida species, well, that'll just seal it!!!

Doug Winterburn did say:

[Rick Cook]

Okay, some things :-) But labeling a whole breed of dog as dangerous is still arrogant.

--RC

Doug W> >