Highlights: In a bizarre turn of events last month, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that he would ban American XL bullies, a type of pit bull-shaped dog that had recently been implicated in a number of violent and sometimes deadly attacks.
XL bullies are perceived to be dangerous — but is that really rooted in reality?
https://atts.org/breed-statistics/statistics-page1/
From an organization that does temperament tests.
This is the percentage of tested animals that pass their temperament tests.
AMERICAN PIT BULL TERRIER - 87.6%
AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER - 85.7%
OH NOES! 15% don’t pass! How horrific are these beasts?
AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG - 80.2%
AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD - 82.5%
CHOW CHOW - 71.7%
COCKER SPANIEL - 82.4%
DOBERMAN PINSCHER - 80.1%
GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG - 85.7%
GOLDEN RETRIEVER - 85.9%
GREAT DANE - 82.7%
MIXED BREED - 86.6%
ROTTWEILER - 85.0%
WEIMARANER - 80.8%
This is a selection of fairly common dogs and the Weimaraner because I did NOT expect to see that kind of failure rate from those guys. Every one of them I’ve met has been incredibly patient. I include the chow chow to show an extreme outlier. That’s the lowest score I found with around a hundred or more animals tested. In that case it was 99, but that’s close enough for comparison.
So what does this show? Clearly, Aussie dogs all need to be destroyed. They’re far more temperamental and dangerous than pit bulls. Chow chow? Burn them in cleansing fire.
Incidentally, I included the cocker spaniel because that narrative of them being more dangerous than pit bulls follows my personal biases from my own anecdotal experiences. I’ve been bitten by three dogs, all cocker spaniels, all injured me to some extent. But nobody reports the cocker spaniel bite, no matter how bloody it is. You just clean it up and get on with your life because you got bit by a cocker spaniel you fucking pussy. On the other hand, I’ve been aggressively run at by numerous pit bulls and have thus far escaped with only considerable amounts of drool on me after a seriously violent request for pets ended in a belly rub massacre.
Anecdote, however, is not the singular form of data.
Temperament does not equate to ability and preponderance to cause severe injury or death.