I grew up in the 'hood in the 70s. And although our family had about ...oh 8 dogs not including puppies dropped by females, we didn't know much about dogs. Abiola reports on Vicious Dogs for Vicious People and I think he's halfway on the mark.
Can there be any doubt that these figures arise because vicious individuals seek out breeds in keeping with their own temperaments? Keep this report in mind next time you encounter some mealy-mouthed apologist spouting nonsense about certain breeds being no worse than others: if this were true, golden retrievers would be a lot more popular with the sociopathic set.
He's speaking about pit bulls and rottweilers of course, the gangsta dog of the day. While I may not be so mealy mouthed, I must admit to being an apologist the pit bull, known as a Staffordshire Terrier by breeders. I'm convinced that there are a lot of dogs whose bite is worse than their bark, all dogs can bite, but it's up to their owners to decide if they bite, when they bite and how they bite. So actually, it's more correct to say that people condition their dogs to be vicious. The association to breed of viciousness isn't one of determination, but of relative advantage.
Poodles, for example, are fairly aggressive dogs. I'm not talking about toy poodles, but the real poodle, which is a larger dog than a german shepherd. Last time I checked, more people were bitten by poodles than any other dog.
When I was a kid, german shepherds and dobermans were considered the most vicious dogs. In my neighborhood, an especially dangerous german shepherd was called a 'police dog'. It was all about the culture of raising dogs. How we named dogs, played with them and what our expectations of them were determined the character of the dog, moreso than the breed.
Where I grew up, there was no such thing as an 'inside dog'. All dogs were kept outside in the yard, never in the house. We liked dogs who dug holes - we didn't have gardens in the back yard, and if we did, then the dog had it's own run built apart from the tomatoes and collard greens. We rewarded dogs for snapping, we fed them pepper to make them mean, we taught them to 'sic'. We admired dogs that were ready to chase other dogs, cars and people. We would walk by the junkyards and kick the chain link fence just to tease the guard dogs. It was what we were expected to do, and we did so in anticipation of the day that junkyard dog might get loose. Nothing spread excitement through the neighborhood like word that one of the vicious dogs were loose. We developed a retinue of escape plans, climbing trees, hopping fences, scrambing to get on the hoods of cars (back in the days when cars were made of steel thick enough not to dent from street footballs).
How many times have I done the reverse of the famed Peanuts cartoon duel between Linus and Snoopy? I'd get a towel and make the dog chase it growling and then swing the dog around in the air while it gripped fiercely to the towel with its jaws. We thought it was fun. We grew our dogs to be badass, because we lived in neighborhoods with badass people and we wanted to walk anywhere we pleased with our dog making us more fearless than we really were. Back in those inner city days we were proud of the fact that we could get other people to see us coming and cross the street in order to avoid our path.
My family never really did manage to grow a badass dog, and it was a point of some shame among the neighborhood kids. This is perhaps why I remember particularly well what I wanted at least one of my dogs to be that he never became. Our dogs were friendly and one was even scared of everything. We didn't have large dogs; for the most part they were terrier mutts. Finally, we got a chance to buy a papered black labrador retriever. The fact is that what we most prized in dogs were their companionship on hiking trips. We loved, more than anything, a good mountain dog.
In the 1970s we had dogs but we didn't have knives or guns. We didn't have dogfights for money and we didn't have drug stashes to protect. The inner cities of today are a different matter as is the culture of refined thuggery. The East End Kids of today, the apes of Scarface, they want badass more than we did. They're less ashamed of their brutality. This is the quality they bring to the way they rear their animals and run their lives. They don't look forward to escaping their jungles and leaving their past behind them, they want to tell the world how many times they've been shot, and call it manhood. So it is no surprise that they would ignore the dogs we thought tough and go for another breed.
But I knew two pit bulls and a couple large ridgeback rotts that were nothing but friendly. And I know one in particular that loves people and hates other dogs, and I know the owner is resigned to that, having bought into the myth of breeding. But breeding, training and psychology are three different things two thirds of which are environment. You can buy a hunting dog that don't hunt, and a terrier that can't catch a mouse and a working dog that doesn't work. When's the last time you ever saw a bulldog grab a bull by the nose?
I'm impressed with The Dog Whisperer and what I've learned from his show I find to be one of the more important lessons of life. When, in 2000, I discovered the ways in which Australians regarded animals very similarly to Americans, I felt I had come a long way in understanding their culture. And I think the way people regard dogs is an important insight into their character. Because unlike any other animal, we want dogs to be our friends. What you would have your friend do says more about you than about the dog.
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