• jopepa@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hippos are super aggressive, territorial, and will bite a crocodiles in half. It’s amazing that’s supposed to be a cute, disarming nickname for a breed notorious for the same traits.

    • snipgan@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      To be fair most won’t, but they definitely can and do.

      Especially when they are jaws on legs that are more inclined compared to other dogs.

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yup. I’ve crunched the numbers before, and it’s something like 1 in 10,000 pit bulls will attack a human or other companion animal every year. It’s not likely for any given pit to attack a person (which I can anecdotally support–they’re obnoxiously friendly and loving in my experience), but it’s also like 10 times more than the next most vicious breed. In my opinion, it’s not worth euthanizing every member of the breed, but it is worth neutering every one. We don’t need dog breeds, especially ones responsible for over half of the violent attacks on people and other animals.

        Of course, I’m in support of neutering all companion animals to reduce the stray population and ease the strain on shelters, regardless of breed or species. Breed specific laws are only one step towards fixing the larger problem.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Of course, I’m in support of neutering all companion animals to ease the stray population and the strain on shelters, regardless of breed or species. Breed specific laws are only one step towards fixing the larger problem.

          Bob Barker is smiling down on you from heaven for this

        • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I must be unlucky because I have yet not run into one that didn’t try to kill me if not for the muzzle or them being a puppy or a fence.

        • workerONE@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Don’t you think that pit bull attacks are dangerous and cause medical trauma which leads to reporting of the attack? I think it’s likely that they don’t attack people more than any other dog breed. I was bit by a black lab mix. I didn’t report it to anyone. If it had been a pit bull I probably would have needed medical attention.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          As you’ve pointed out the dogs are perfectly capable of being lovey couch potatoes. The problem isn’t the dog it’s the people. The breed has a reputation. And the people who like that are just going to move on to the next breed after this one is gone.

      • Seraph@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The actual issue is that’s it’s a degenerative disease in dogs of similar breeds. At some point they get old and less able to recognize friend from foe. That might be ok if it weren’t for the jaws you mentioned.

        • snipgan@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Exactly.

          I’d go one step farther and even say if they even had the same amount of attacks as other dogs, had no possible mental diseases, and all want to caring homes I would still put restrictions/ban on them.

          They are just too large to handle, too big of a bite to brush off, and end up in dog attacks a lot. That’s enough for me.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977763/

              That’s a great article…

              However the only examples of aggression being related to breed is with Daschands and Yorkies, although the study says that’s likely just to that specific gene also making legs shorter.

              While there is a genetic component to aggression, it’s variation is pretty standard amongst all dogs, except the tiny ones who may have accidentally been selected for it.

              But someone asked you for a source for a cognitive thing and you just randomly linked an article about how breed doesn’t determine behavior?

              Did you know what that article was about before you linked it?___

              • Seraph@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                However, it is also notable that a subset of large breeds carries the chrX reduced-fear/aggression and increased-size variants in perfect LD.

                I know reading is hard, friend! I linked that as it was the most interesting thing I found while looking off there were other degenerative diseases common in pitbulls, while not being pitbull specific. Did you think me finding evidence contrary to my beliefs would result in me hiding it?

                I’d give you snarky “let me Google that for you” on the degenerative diseases as they’re genuinely interesting, but I guess you’ll never know what they’re about since you can type a comment but not use a search engine.

    • squiblet@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s funny they call them hippos considering that hippos are extremely dangerous and vicious wild animals.