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Moved from @mbgid@lemmy.world.

  • 23 Posts
  • 127 Comments
Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: February 9th, 2025

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  • Oooh that’s similar to one I was taught:

    Look around and try identify 5 different objects

    Close your eyes and try to identify 4 different sounds

    Run your fingers over your clothes and try to identify 3 different textures

    Breathe in through your nose and try to identify 2 different smells

    Run your tongue around your teeth and try to identify a taste

    (Adjust as needed for your body and sense perceptions).


  • gid@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoDogs@lemmy.worldThis is Piggy
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    23 hours ago

    bullies are innately more likely to attack when poorly trained, or;

    Unfortunately I can’t find statistics for the UK, but these statistics for the USA show that pitbulls account for 22 lethal attacks a year. That’s out of roughly 4.5 million pitbulls (source). That is an incredibly low percentage, even if it is higher than the percentage of lethal attacks by other types of dog breed, to the point where we’re comparing differences of fractions of a percent.

    To give that figure of number of fatalities some perspective, roughly the same number of people (21) are killed per year by cattle.

    But taking either of your points to be true, both these cases can be resolved without banning (and putting down or destroying) particular breeds, for example:

    • provide education on training and dog handling
    • better controls and standards for dog breeding
    • licensing/training as part of a condition of dog ownership

    There are existing organisations and dog clubs that already offer some of these services, and would be well-placed to tie in as providers if these things were legislated.


  • gid@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoDogs@lemmy.worldThis is Piggy
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    1 day ago

    I’m curious, do you have any experience with training and handling dogs? Because breeding really doesn’t work in the way you are implying or assuming.

    Describing these dogs as bred for fighting implies that these dogs are pre-programmed to attack and fight. That’s not how dogs work. Breeding for traits is about selecting for particular behavioural and physical attributes. “Fighting” isn’t an isolated behaviour, it’s a collection of traits like defensiveness, aggression, threat identification and so on, and to “fight” dogs need training on these.

    As previous commenters have said, in the tragic cases where bully breeds have been involved in lethal attacks there are indications that the dogs were not handled/trained/socialized correctly.




  • From what I understand, “gothic” was used initially as a kind of insult when describing art or an aesthetic style. It meant “uncivilized” and “barbaric”.

    Then there’s the apocryphal story of Bauhaus describing their music as “gothic” when compared to other contemporary bands, deliberately embracing that meaning of barbaric and uncultured.

    From then on the music press ran with the term, but as with most genres it’s a blunt tool for describing a sound or a style. A lot of bands from the same era who had some crossover or shared elements with goth bands were pigeon-holed as goth themselves, which they felt was restrictive and didn’t accurately describe their sound.

    For example, listen to The Cure’s “Hanging Garden” and Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. Both songs share a similar claustrophobic atmosphere but beyond that they sound very different.





  • gid@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoDogs@lemmy.worldThis is Piggy
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    2 days ago

    They also are rarely serious bites so I’m not sure what point you’re making

    The point I’m making is that the framing of bully type dogs being more naturally aggressive or violent than other breeds is not the case.

    they care if a dog mauls their toddler to death - which happens with far too much regularity

    These deaths are tragedies, but are not regular. The reason they’re newsworthy is because of how rare these events are.

    I think a large problem with the narrative around dog breeds, and their associated traits, comes from a lack of education and understanding about breeds and traits. You’re right, certain breeds have been selectively bred for certain activities: what this means is that collectively, dogs of this breed respond positively to being trained for that particular activity, as well as having physical characteristics to advantage them for that activity. It’s not that all dogs in the breed are predetermined to show those breed’s traits.

    For example: border collies were bred as working dogs, specifically for herding sheep. Some have an innate herding instinct but generally they need to be specifically trained. A friend of mine had a border collie and it was the laziest dog in the world: it had no interest in herding or doing trial training. You can’t assume a dog from a certain breed will display the generalized behaviours the breed is bred for.

    It’s telling that the biggest dog charities in the UK oppose measures for banning specific breeds of dog, because it does not work and takes attention away from measures that do improve safety, like responsible dog ownership and training.




  • gid@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoDogs@lemmy.worldThis is Piggy
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    2 days ago

    Selection bias is running rampant here when interpreting the (partial) statistics around dog attacks and their seriousness.

    For example: the dog breed most statistically likely to bite in the UK is the labrador (source). Jack Russels, chihuahas and dachshunds also rate highly in aggression but attacks are mostly unreported because they are rarely serious.

    So saying some breeds are more aggressive than others may be true, but that’s only half the picture and the narrative around this discussion misses out that there are more aggressive breeds than bully types.

    Bully breeds are strong, and if they attack, the damage can be serious. But the likelihood of them attacking is relatively small, they aren’t more predisposed to attack than the other breeds I’ve mentioned, and their attack response is heavily dependent on how they are trained, socialized and treated. The cases where a well-trained, well-treated and well-socialized bully breed dog is involved in an attack are pretty rare. Where attacks have happened, digging into the background often shows that the dog’s owners had not properly trained or controlled the dog. It is always the owner’s responsibility to care for and keep these dogs safe around others.

    Finally, I’d like to say that this community is for appreciating dogs. Not some dogs. It shouldn’t be for berating people about pictures of particular breeds.