In the CDC fatality study most often quoted regarding fatal dog attacks from 1979 to 1998, the breed allocation tables were flawed.

Under ‘purebred’ they had ‘pit bull’, which, as we all know, is not a breed of dog but comprises 3 to 5 purebreds, about 20 lookalike purebreds and an unknown number of mixed breed dogs. They assumed that mongrel dogs are crossbred (ie, the progeny of two purebreds) which is statistically rare. Identification was performed by bystanders, relatives of the victims, etc and as we know, most people are unable to identify even the most common purebred dogs accurately. As we also know, no one anywhere is either able or qualified to identify a mongrel dog’s ancestry.

Another often quoted study by the CDC (also performed with HSUS) states that ‘pit bulls’ and ‘rottweilers’ were responsible for 67% of dog bite-related fatalities. What those who quote this percentage fail to add is that it covered a one-year period when the total number of fatalities in the US was 27 so the 67% number refers to 16.

The media likes to focus on deaths because they are sensational, but these events are so statistically rare that it is impossible to predict any sort of trend among types of dogs responsible. A one-year period is certainly not adequate to predict a trend. As they say, a little science is a dangerous thing.

The most popular registered dog in the US is the American Pit Bull terrier. In 2005, 250,000 APBTs were registered. The next most popular breed, the Labrador retriever had 180,000 pups registered in the same year. I’m rounding the numbers.

Estimates from breed registries put the population for the APBT as 5 to 6 million living dogs in the US. Add in American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire Bull terriers and other lookalike purebreds erroneously dubbed ‘pit bulls’ and you have a lot of dogs.

Unfortunately, the whole ‘breed’ thing is nothing but a red herring promoted by those with an agenda geared towards either the elimination of domestic animal husbandry, the removal of civil rights, or an increase in advertising revenue as a result of fear-mongering and hyperbole which boost audience share.

The whole “those dogs are too dangerous” is no different than “those guns are too dangerous”.

Either the owner of the property handles it responsibly or they don’t.