Aidan3

In order to answer that question satisfactorily, we need to know two things: 1. whether 'most of the attacks' in Australia are due to Bull breeds 2. whether the irresponsible people are more likely to own Bull breeds If the answer to both questions is 'yes', then you can see one of the main reasons why BSL hasn't worked in the past.

Dr Ward is a very sensible person, although her comments got torn to shreds by the public who turned around what she said to imply that she blamed the poor child. The Editorial in today's Saturday Mercury was very well balanced and intelligent.

Minority groups can have a significant impact on the attitudes of the majority. Being consistent and coherent is very important.

Well said, Lo Pan.

Devil's advocate here - how could they possibly know if it didn't work? Dog bites will occur by chance. By banning a breed you are aiming to take out bites that occur at some statistically significant rate due to high-risk animals (a big ask when you look at it that way). If you're banning breeds every second week you're never going to know either way, bites just don't happen frequently enough to satisfy any statistical jiggery-pokery you might apply. I'm not gonna get into this argument, I learned here on this very forum that the BSL hysteria is such that even the most logical & rational argument will not penetrate people's minds when they have decided to pursue a course of willful ignorance. IMO, all I can do is present evidence that proves that hysteria ill founded. Eventually, the people who ARE rational & intelligent beings will see the in the mounting evidence the truth of the matter - eg people like Poodlefan, and I hope to Dog that amongst the lawmakers the same rationality & intelligence is present. The great unwashed, ill-educated & willfully ignorant like Matthew will never be convinced & I wouldn't bother trying to argue with them. I'm not sure if you got the part where I was saying I was playing "Devil's Advocate" or not? I would like to see a better quality of argument against BSL because I think dogs deserve it. The Italy example is just another example of how policy is decided either way based on a profound misunderstanding of statistics.

Devil's advocate here - how could they possibly know if it didn't work? Dog bites will occur by chance. By banning a breed you are aiming to take out bites that occur at some statistically significant rate due to high-risk animals (a big ask when you look at it that way). If you're banning breeds every second week you're never going to know either way, bites just don't happen frequently enough to satisfy any statistical jiggery-pokery you might apply.

Well someone should find out. There are plenty of things we don't know but do research on and get the answer, or something close enough. It might be difficult or expensive, but if it is important to the community (and it seems to be) then it should be done. I agree, but then you have the whole breed identity problem. This should be less of a problem where there is no BSL though. The article I linked to yesterday used an estimated expected frequency and dogs described as pitbulls were over-represented by a fairly broad margin. Keep in mind, even with accurate enough data to perform the necessary statistical analysis (chi square) to determine whether a breed is over-represented in the statistics, this doesn't allow us to draw any conclusions about the cause of this relationship. We tend to see pitbulls in areas where we see a whole lot of problems, not just dog bites.

Further on the evidence thing in the other thread pf, one of the things that's always missing is the denominator. That's because they don't know, except when they are talking about registered, pure-bred dogs.

I don't discount the statistics. I don't fully buy the "but how do we know it's really a pitbull" line either. But what you need to keep in mind with statistics is that correlation does not imply causation. If there is still a problem when you take away the pitbulls, then you have to start thinking that the breed of dog is not the cause of the problem. I hesitate to draw too many analogies, because an analogy is easily twisted into a straw-man argument, but you can compare this to the suicide rate after gun control. Controlling guns does not reduce suicide rates, unfortunately. There is another variable. Quickasyoucan asked earlier about the stats comparing states with BSL and states without BSL in Australia. Unfortunately that wouldn't be a valid comparison for the same reason; in that case "BSL" is counfounded with "location". It's valid data, but we can't draw any conclusions from it.

WOnt work for a huge dog. Why is that, Mason2009? Too difficult for a smaller person?

Maybe leave it at that Matthew - you will never win here. I think there is a Poodlefan fan club. ;) Yes we are called 'Poodlefans Army' or PA and we have magical coins that tell us when to meet up and get online and blatantly agree, cause none of us have our own minds. One of the things I like about PF is that we can openly discuss things that we aren't in agreement on like adults, without any animosity at all. Certainly not name-calling or insults. Then, if one of us decides the other's argument is stronger, we can be convinced by logic and reason. We don't even know each other in person!

So how do the experts define a pitbull? And do countries with fewer pitbulls or no pitbulls have fewer dog bite related fatalities than countries who do have pitbulls?

Do countries who do not have pitbulls through BSL have fewer dog bite related fatalities than countries who do not?

My elderly Golden would be on the hit list

How do you identify a pitbull? A solid discussion of the problem here: http://pittiesplace.com/PIIS1558787806000128.pdf

Would you expect them to be? The expected frequency would be very low for any restricted breed. What we really need to look at in this case is "have dog bites reduced since breed-restriction laws took effect in NSW?"

I deliberately didn't say "high-risk breed".

Let's be careful with any sort of blanket statement. A great owner can have a high-risk dog, and a high-risk owner can have a great dog. I would actually like to have an unemotive discussion on the factors that contribute to risk, but the timing is not right.

I think we need to be careful here to distinguish between what the pitbull actually does and what BSL actually does. In the US, the pitbull and Rott account for disproportionately more dog bite related fatalities than would be expected, given their distribution. There are not enough pitbulls and Rotts to account for the number of fatalities they cause if they were just as likely to attack someone as any other breed (Sacks et al., 2000). What seems clear is that BSL doesn't stop this from happening (I'm not entirely clued up on the data that exists in support of this claim). It seems like an attractive proposition (hence it's support in the general public and media), but it doesn't actually solve the problem. It also ignores the fact that there are literally thousands of examples of really lovely pitbulls and Rotts out there who would be difficult to even purposefully provoke into this sort of incident. If BSL doesn't reduce harm, then there are other causal factors that need to be considered more urgently to reduce the incidence of this sort of thing happening in the future.

The thrill of lighting fires.

1. Teach her to sit on cue 2. Teach her to sit on cue and stay there while you do a variety of normal, everyday things 3. Teach her to sit on cue and stay there while you approach your other dog 4. Teach her to sit on cue and stay there while you pat your other dog 5. Teach her to sit on cue and stay there while you pat your other dog for longer and longer periods of time Reward each step of the way heavily with food and attention (patting, playing etc) Note: when you get to step 3, you may find it easiest to use a barrier or tethers at first, just to prevent anything going wrong and to make everything a bit easier to control.

She really needs to learn to do something else by default when you show attention to your male dog, sitting politely and waiting her turn would be a good place to start. The reward can be your attention, make it really, really easy for her at first then increase difficulty as she gets really good at sitting politely and waiting her turn. It's OK to use a tether or barrier at first in the teaching phase.

x2 One of mine is a social genius, he wasn't always that way, he learned it through interaction with other dogs but it was always clear that he would learn it. The other was never going to be great with other dogs, it wouldn't matter what experiences she had.

Good point, I had taken the original post to refer to an enduring effect. Short-term kenneling certainly can enhance drive for a short-period.

No, sounds like BS to me. There are increases in stereotypies, destructive behaviours, barking etc but the measures are taken "while kenneled" and any attempt to claim that they are enduring should be made with caution.