Reply #28: Agreed there is conditioning for viciousness.. however.. [View All]

[progressivebydesign]

Certain dogs have certain tendencies bred into them for certain reasons. You could train a poodle to be an attack dog all you want, but an 8 pound poodle cannot kill an 8-year old child. There are certain breeds, and certain temperments that warrant caution. It's just the nature of dog breeds. If you want to train a good herding dog, you wouldn't buy a labrador. If you want a dog that is bred with the ability and physical characteristics to kill another animal or human being, you would choose a certain breed. The dogs that killed that poor woman in San Francisco were a type of Mastiff. German Shepherds, they are lovely dogs.. but they are naturally bred toward guard work and police work. I've known a few sweet pit bulls.. but never in a million years would I leave a child alone with a pit bull, etc.. Humans can only do so much in training a dog to live as we want them to. My mini-Aussie has never been trained to herd anything but frisbees.. and yet, if you aren't going the direction she wants you to.. will give you a slight nip on the leg or heel. We never taught her to do that... it's ingrained. Our lab carries her food dish everywhere... she has never been on a bird hunt in her life, has never been trained to carry the spoils of a hunt, yet she carries that dish around like Snoopy. It's ingrained in her breed.. just as the characteristics that increase the chance of dog to human or dog to dog violence are ingrained deeply. We just can never know what might set it off. BTW, our dear lab came to us at 3 months.. when we adopted her she had scars all over her muzzle.. seems that two neighboring pit bulls tried to pull her through a fence by the muzzle, to kill her, having already killed cats in the area. She's never recovered emotionally from that attack.. it was very vicious.