[quote=“Tiare”]I have to agree that not all pit bulls are bad. I’ve met some lovely ones…of course also some not so nice ones. But it’s true that it really comes down to the owner. If the owner trains the dog well, then there’s no reason that a pit bull can’t be as nice as a lab (of course it will always be a bit scarier looking to most though)
got bit by a dog while I was there, now cats…that’s another story.
Anyway, sorry the post is so long.
TLTR: Don’t think it’s the dog’s fault. Owner should have trained better, and tech overreacted…[/quote]
Can’t stand labs I wish somone would phase that breed out Seriously they stink soooo bad. I’ve never had a lab only terriers and pit bull types so I must be ignorant about them but god damn I’ve met some stinky labs in my life. I prefer a nice short haired muscular pit bull type to those slobbering stinky balls of lard :eh: Give me a Jack Russell, Staffie or Pit Bull Terrier anyday over one of those mad people aggressive labrador types. I believe in BSL against overly smelly canine varieties that try to jump all over you and lick your face and mate with your butt ergh
lol yah i know I was just being ultimately non PC by attacking the most PC breed of dog in the world the larbrador or its close cousin the golden retriever. You get instant middle class acceptance with one of those in Taiwan. My grandmother’s dog a retriever smelled so bad and it would always hang out under the dining table when we were eating dinner.
I love Jack Russels but there are lot of people that would love them to be out lawed too for their anti social hoologan behaviour.
@sandman at least you did admit that Labs or retrievers do tend to have a BO problem lol
I don’t really like labs, I guess mainly cos when I went to primary school there was a lab down the street that would wander up to the school at lunchtime, and we would feed it the food we didn’t want to eat but our Mums insisted we have, and it would raid the rubbish bins and scavange the trash left out in the street. It was horribly fat, a pale-yellow barrel on legs, good-naturedly waddling around looking for food.
I must say I’ve got a fondness for spaniels, (except those horrid Prince Charles ones) - Springers, Cockers, they’re beautiful, nice, friendly dogs. Love Golden Retrievers too…
And I’ve got a healthy respect for the working dogs, both in terms of their intelligence and their fitness. They just blow me away. I’d love to have one, a Blue Heeler or something, but just could never commit to the exercise requirement that they need.
[quote=“ice raven”]I don’t really like labs, I guess mainly cos when I went to primary school there was a lab down the street that would wander up to the school at lunchtime, and we would feed it the food we didn’t want to eat but our Mums insisted we have, and it would raid the rubbish bins and scavange the trash left out in the street. It was horribly fat, a pale-yellow barrel on legs, good-naturedly waddling around looking for food.
I must say I’ve got a fondness for spaniels, (except those horrid Prince Charles ones) - Springers, Cockers, they’re beautiful, nice, friendly dogs. Love Golden Retrievers too…
And I’ve got a healthy respect for the working dogs, both in terms of their intelligence and their fitness. They just blow me away. I’d love to have one, a Blue Heeler or something, but just could never commit to the exercise requirement that they need.[/quote]
The dog will make you commit to the exercise ! One good thing about having a working dog is it keeps me fit! I walk for around an hour everyday. If I don’t i get emotionally balckmailed by the dog.
That statistic is meaningless. Did you know that most car accidents in Taiwan are caused by Taiwanese drivers? And 99.999% of them are over the age of 18. IT’S TRUE!
Taiwanese adults must be reckless drivers. The should let foreign kids drive instead.
Meaningless? I’m not sure how it could be meaningless.
For sure, Labs are one of the most popular dogs, so stats will naturally be higher, but the point is to show that Labs aren’t going to be the easy-going dogs that everyone takes them for unless properly trained–which IS what they’re good at: being trained.
Maoman’s right. I’d be wanting to see percentages before giving any credence to that statistic.
And I’d need information on exactly how many of those bites were caused by the lab mistaking the human for a sandwich.
From the same site:
Suitability as a pet: The Labrador’s popularity as a household pet owes much to its easy-going temperament and friendly, eager-to-please nature.
According to the AKC, Labs are known for their “kindly, outgoing, tractable nature” and are non-aggressive to humans.
Labrador Retrievers are also known for their high intelligence. They are ranked seventh in a list of the most intelligent canine breeds.
[quote]Labs accounted for 13.3 percent of the reported bites; pit bulls, 8.4 percent; German shepherds, 7.8 percent; Rottweilers, 3.9 percent; and Chows, 3.5 percent.
That does not mean that Labrador retrievers bite more often than other breeds, the experts said. To try to determine which breed bites the most, there would have to be a dog census, accumulating total numbers of each breed, and then a breakdown to compare breeds. Those numbers are not available.[/quote]
Percentages have nothing to do with my point, though, which is that labs are not the benchmark for well-behaved, non-aggressive dogs. It would be as much a mistake to think that a Lab is a safe pet as it would to believe that a pit bull is a dangerous one–the deciding factor is more often than not the owner.
[quote=“RobinTaiwan”]I found myself thinking about the discussion we had yesterday, straydog.
[quote]You’re a lawyer, aren’t you.[/quote]I think that is very detached. I don’t see the link between international trade law and this thread.
Hi, RobinTaiwan. You made some condescending comments in regard to my post, and I chose to respond in kind with an element of humour that may have been missed by you, as it was re. the lawyer dig.
Um, you’re wrong, I think. Labs pretty much ARE the benchmark for well-behaved non-aggressive dogs. If you take two thousand families with small children, and give half of them labs and half of them pit bulls, I’d bet a months salary that the tragedies occur on the pit bull side, and not on the lab side. It’s like comparing Quantas to some sub-saharan airline. Sure Quantas is going to have a problem sooner or later, but the percentages are firmly on its side.
Um, you’re wrong, I think. Labs pretty much ARE the benchmark for well-behaved non-aggressive dogs. If you take two thousand families with small children, and give half of them labs and half of them pit bulls, I’d bet a months salary that the tragedies occur on the pit bull side, and not on the lab side. It’s like comparing Quantas to some sub-saharan airline. Sure Quantas is going to have a problem sooner or later, but the percentages are firmly on its side.[/quote]
I agree. But labs are more like American Airlines than Qantas. They are many times more likely to bite than some other popular breeds, such as beagles and daschunds.
Pit bulls are fifty times more likely than a Lab to bite someone. They are largely sought after for their gameness, and that is the crucial element: that Labs aren’t bought to be trained to be aggressive. If we took one hundred Labs and one hundred pit bulls and put them with responsible, experienced owners, I think the pit bulls would still be by far the most prolific biter, but far, far less than they are amongst the general population (because the majority of those in the general population who have a pit want the dog to be aggressive).
[quote=“Stray Dog”][quote=“RobinTaiwan”]I found myself thinking about the discussion we had yesterday, straydog.
[quote]You’re a lawyer, aren’t you.[/quote]I think that is very detached. I don’t see the link between international trade law and this thread.
Hi, RobinTaiwan. You made some condescending comments in regard to my post, and I chose to respond in kind with an element of humour that may have been missed by you, as it was re. the lawyer dig. [/quote]
I didn’t think I was condescending. I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry. It’s all good. You can have a hug now but please know that I draw the line at leg-humping and begging at the dinner table.
I think one of the biggest reasons for more lab bites (besides the fact that there are more labs than other dogs ) is that people assume that they’re all perfectly behaved, so they sometimes act more recklessly with them than other dogs. For instance, if someone sees a lab unattended in a backyard, they’d be more likely to go up and try to pet it than if they saw a pit unattended. Some dogs will naturally be given a wide berth by passersby, giving them less opportunity to bite. Another issue is children of course. Families are more likely to get a lab if they have small children than “aggressive” breeds, but children sometimes piss dogs off. There’s just so much tail pulling they can take in a day! It doesn’t mean that they are mean dogs…they just sometimes give a little warning when they’ve had enough.
And, just to clarify, Lab bites are very, very infrequent; just not as infrequent as other breeds. There have been a couple of fatal attacks and twenty maulings by Labs reported in the period from Sep 1982 to November 2006, and considering the number of Labs out there and that this is a twenty-four-year period we’re talking about, I’d be more concerned about being struck by lightning.
That statistic is meaningless. [/quote]Actually, no. The statistics straydog is referring to are quite reliable… Read on…
Personally, I became suspicious when I read the following:
[quote=“straydog”]And, just to clarify, Lab bites are very, very infrequent; just not as infrequent as other breeds. There have been a couple of fatal attacks and twenty maulings by Labs reported in the period from Sep 1982 to November 2006, and considering the number of Labs out there and that this is a twenty-four-year period we’re talking about, I’d be more concerned about being struck by lightning.[/quote]It didn’t make sense to me that from 1982 to 2006, a total of twenty maulings would amount to be more than the maulings inflicted by pitbulls. It did not make sense to me that the Pitbull would have earned such a nasty reputation for less than 2 deaths and less than 20 maulings. So I did my own research and I found the same study which, indeed, uses data collected from 1982 to 2006 in the USA. It’s a very extensive study and it’s well worth a read if you’re interested in this sort of stuff. My interest comes from having a sister who has a 6 year old female lab and who also has a 3 year old daughter. They get along great, by the way, and my sister and her husband have really grown to love that lab even more seeing how gentle she is with their daughter.
Interestingly, the Lab is included in the stats, but it doesn’t even get a mention whereas the Golden Retriever is mentioned as being responsible for choking a child by tugging on a scarf.
The link I posted above includes stats for many dog breeds. Here are the “real” stats for the lab and for the Pitbull.
Attacks that caused bodily arm:
Lab-26
Pitbull-1110
Deaths:
Lab-2
Pitbull-104
Maimings:
Lab-20
Pitbull-608
For those who will not bother reading the study, here are a few select quotes of my choosing taken from the study linked above and from the following article: dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html
[quote]Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, has conducted an unusually detailed study of dog bites from 1982 to the present. (Clifton, Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006; click here to read it.) The Clifton study show the number of serious canine-inflicted injuries by breed. The author’s observations about the breeds and generally how to deal with the dangerous dog problem are enlightening.
According to the Clifton study, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings.[/quote]
Make sure to read Clifton’s notes and conclusions if you want to get a good idea of how level-headed and accurate he is in his findings.
I could post more interesting quotes, but I suggest you read some of this material if you’re interested.
The discussion has turned into trying to understand why labs would bite more often than Pitbulls do and this is stemming from straydog’s unverified claims which are false. It also seems apparent that stray dog read the above already since the stats he posted about the Lab are closely accurate and since it is apparent that we are referring to the same study. At the very least, the study I found is using data collected from the same time span as the study straydog is mentioning. It’s highly unlikely that there would be such a tremendous discrepancy between the study he is referring to and the study I linked above.
As a conclusion, I suggest that you provide evidence to support your claims, straydog. Let’s see your stats. I also suggest that you think your next post through very carefully. I don’t mean to offend but what on earth are you up to? You labeled me as being “uninformed” earlier meanwhile you’re intentionally posting false information. WTF?
PS: Further research tells me that there are as many as twice more labs registered in the US as the next most popular breed. This puts a certain emphasis on the above statistics were you to compare PB’s and Labs. So to the Labs owners out there, I think it’s fair to say that you probably have a very good family dog.
[quote=“Stray Dog”][quote=“RobinTaiwan”]The discussion has turned into trying to understand why labs would bite more often than Pitbulls do and this is stemming from straydog’s unverified claims which are false. It also seems apparent that stray dog read the above already since the stats he posted about the Lab are closely accurate and since it is apparent that we are referring to the same study. At the very least, the study I found is using data collected from the same time span as the study straydog is mentioning. It’s highly unlikely that there would be such a tremendous discrepancy between the study he is referring to and the study I linked above.
As a conclusion, I suggest that you provide evidence to support your claims, straydog. Let’s see your stats. I also suggest that you think your next post through very carefully. I don’t mean to offend but what on earth are you up to? You labeled me as being “uninformed” earlier meanwhile you’re intentionally posting false information. WTF?
PS: Further research tells me that there are as many as twice more labs registered in the US as the next most popular breed. This puts a certain emphasis on the above statistics were you to compare PB’s and Labs. So to the Labs owners out there, I think it’s fair to say that you probably have a very good family dog. [/quote]
Mate, are you sure you’re a lawyer? Read through my posts again. No need to apologize; I’m just letting you know that you’ve embarrassed yourself here. [/quote]
How so? You clearly stated that labs are responsible for more bites than PBs and it simply isn’t true. In fact, it’s nothing more than a lie. Where are your stats showing that labs bite more frequently than other breeds? Let’s see them. Your response is not thought out very well. Do you have any evidence to support your claims?
Seriously they stink soooo bad. I’ve never had a lab only terriers and pit bull types so I must be ignorant about them but god damn I’ve met some stinky labs in my life. I prefer a nice short haired muscular pit bull type to those slobbering stinky balls of lard :eh: Give me a Jack Russell, Staffie or Pit Bull Terrier anyday over one of those mad people aggressive labrador types. I believe in BSL against overly smelly canine varieties that try to jump all over you and lick your face and mate with your butt ergh 
) is that people assume that they’re all perfectly behaved, so they sometimes act more recklessly with them than other dogs. For instance, if someone sees a lab unattended in a backyard, they’d be more likely to go up and try to pet it than if they saw a pit unattended. Some dogs will naturally be given a wide berth by passersby, giving them less opportunity to bite. Another issue is children of course. Families are more likely to get a lab if they have small children than “aggressive” breeds, but children sometimes piss dogs off. There’s just so much tail pulling they can take in a day! It doesn’t mean that they are mean dogs…they just sometimes give a little warning when they’ve had enough.