Pitbull ban in Hawaii

[PaulW]

The Savannah cat is banned in Hawaii, it's seen as a hybrid.

[missydog1]

well Rachel, out of 238 dog attack fatalities between 1979 and 1998, 115 or more than 50% were due to Pitbulls and Rottweilers, and another 15 were crossbred Rottweiler or Pitbull type ...

so while other dogs were responsible and no breed is safe, those two breeds accounted for more than half of all deaths. Even if it's the owner, consider that these breeds make fantastic attack machines available legally for antisocial personalities.

But beyond the owners, there are more incidents of family pets not trained to be aggressive that have killed family members. The baby girl killed on Oahu last year was killed in her own home by her own dog, and IIRC she was sleeping, and they think it may have mistaken her for a chew toy doll. (seriously)

How can people discount breeding and genetics as a factor in dogs? Horses, dogs, cats, lifestock, all have histories of being bred for specific traits. Here's the history of the Pitbull, written by a Pitbull lover:

http://www.pitbull411.com/history.html

Even he says that the animals must be trained and socialized at a young age.
Dog owners here often put little energy into training their dogs.
How hard would it be to require all pitbull owners to put their puppies through formal training at their own expense? Difficult.

[Menehune]

I HATE barking, chasing(me, car, bike),pooping on my property - DOGS!

Then again my best friend was "J J" a cocker spaniel!

This web site gives a FAIR (current to 2007) overview of ALL dog attacks - sorry to say: " pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes were responsible for 65% of the canine homicides"

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

The site does say that: "In all fairness, therefore, it must be noted that:

Any dog, treated harshly or trained to attack, may bite a person. Any dog can be turned into a dangerous dog. The owner or handler most often is responsible for making a dog into something dangerous.

An irresponsible owner or dog handler might create a situation that places another person in danger by a dog, without the dog itself being dangerous, as in the case of the Pomeranian that killed the infant (see website).

Any individual dog may be a good, loving pet, even though its breed is considered to be potentially dangerous. A responsible owner can win the love and respect of a dog, no matter its breed. One cannot look at an individual dog, recognize its breed, and then state whether or not it is going to attack."




"Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else" - Cemetery Nights/Stephen Dobyns

[StillHope]

quote:

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Originally posted by Menehune

..Any dog, treated harshly or trained to attack, may bite a person. Any dog can be turned into a dangerous dog. The owner or handler most often is responsible for making a dog into something dangerous. ..

.. as in the case of the Pomeranian that killed the infant (see website).

Any individual dog may be a good, loving pet, even though its breed is considered to be potentially dangerous. A responsible owner can win the love and respect of a dog, no matter its breed. One cannot look at an individual dog, recognize its breed, and then state whether or not it is going to attack."

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Exactly!
I've met the amazingly friendly pit bulls and one some vicious smaller breads and the ones usually considered to be friendly!

Let the 2-legged pay the price and leave the 4-legged alone!

[amf217]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jon

Strange dog in my yard and it looks like it is going to attack... dead dog.



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I do not believe that America is better than everybody else...
America "IS" everybody else.
HBAT

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Works for me []

[csgray]

I had my face ripped open by a collie when I was a child, should we ban all collies? Due to bad breeding practices, collies now have no room in their skulls for their forebrains, and the owners of the one which bit me failed to properly train and socialize it. My uncle's basset hound had to be shot by a cop when it cornered their kids and housekeeper on the kitchen counter for 12 hours; Bassets are prone to sudden onset dementia which causes these giant couch potatoes to suddenly become incredibly vicious towards anyone, even family members.

Any big dog in the hands of lazy or psychopathic owners can be a big problem, the bigger the dog, the bigger the damage they can cause; which is why powerful breeds like pitbulls, rottweilers and Canarios are associated with more canine homicides. Are we going to outlaw all dogs over 20 pounds to prevent potentially fatal bites? The real problem is that certain breeds are more attractive to borderline personality types, but this is a people problem, not a dog problem. If we outlaw all the breeds people have mentioned here, the same personality type would find other breeds to manipulate and torture. I don't see this as the solution, strict rules governing who is licensed to own a dog, and under what circumstances, would do more good than banning breeds, but I just don't see that happening.

The American pitbull was bred by the westward travelling pioneers to use as an all purpose work and guard dog (The Howell Book of Dogs). It was bred from lineages which had been bred for fighting, so care should be taken around socialization and training them when young, but that is true of many dogs. These dogs were not used to attack humans until recently when sociopaths started training them to be "Bad Dogz" as an extension of their own mean and vicious persona. In parts of Europe dogs are not licensed, the owners are, and you can lose your license for not properly training and socializing your animal. This puts the responsibility where it belongs.

Carol

[Bob Orts]

Should Hawaii government have the ability to ban ownership of a fox, a wolf, a bobcat, a lynx, a falcon, or piranha? If so, why?

[Timkona]

I was bitten by the neighbors Pit. Funny how that dog disappeared one night in a lightning/thunder storm.

Increase the penalties for the owners.

If your dog bites somebody, while NOT on your property, I say we go with 15 years minimum, mandatory for BOTH owners, and juvenile hall for their children.

Have you questioned any of your beliefs, or changed your mind about anything lately?

[Guest]

People that are elected think that there prime objective is to create laws that restrict things. Every election cycle we get more of these do-gooders chipping away at what we are allowed to do.

The FN idiots can't ever even come close to enforcing the laws presently on the books but feel we need more laws.

I am not a big pit bull fan and there are a lot of things that I don't like but does there need to be a law banning everything..

The American bit bull used to be a popular family dog but the assh*les that selective bred them for fighting temperment are the ones at fault.

Cars kill way more people than dogs.
Hell, Doctors kill more people than cars.

I say people should be free to own any dog they want but stray dogs should be shot on site.

Fence it in or have it on a leash or it dies.

[MarkP]

I see myself making arguments on both sides of this issue. With regard to temperament, pit bulls of one variety or another have been bred for fighting for at least a couple of hundred years. To suggest that they are no different than any other dog is to say that the people who bred greyhounds to run 50 mph succeeded quite obviously but somehow the people who worked just as hard at breeding a better fighter not only failed but never noticed that they were failing to make progress towards their goal. You can't have it both ways. Certain varieties of pit bull have more of a hair trigger and also I believe have a reduced ability to feel pain. If over a hundred generations you kill every dog that refuses to fight and keep patching up those that do fight, you could not get anything else really.

On the other hand, you can condition any dog to be dangerous, and I am sure that you can train and socialize almost any dog to behave properly. It is impossible to separate the innate tendencies of the dog itself from the effect of being chosen and trained by someone who selected the dog specifically with an eye towards accentuating those tendencies. Mostly, I don't see how government can deal with determining what breed a dog is unless it is a pure breed. Ironically, I think that pure bred American Pit Bull Terriers are recognized by those that know as being of stable temperament.

The real answer is enforcing responsible dog ownership. However dog fighting is already illegal but it still goes on. I don't support a ban because it is really just a band-aid, but for my own sanity I need to stop hearing people pretend that hundreds of generations of concerted breeding effort has conveniently failed in the case of pit bulls while it has miraculously succeeded in the case of irish wolfhounds and dachshunds.