Here’s the first response I’ve seen so far to Malcolm Gladwell’s piece on various kinds of profiling, including smuggler-screening and canine prejudice:
But two points: first, pit bulls are more likely to be trained or abused in a way that makes them dangerous. Trends about Rottweilers or Dobermans may come and go, but pit bull breeds will always be popular fighting dogs. Why? Because they’re really good at it. This relates to my second point: if it turns on a person for whatever reason, a pit bull is a very dangerous dog. Have you ever seen a pit bull in a fight? Some of them have jaws the size of a football, and when they get a hold of something, it is almost impossible to free. Even the best-trained animal can get in a situation that is dangerous to humans — say, a pit bull is attacked by another dog, and that dog’s owner is a ten-year-old boy who runs up, screaming. Pit bulls are more likely to be abused and more likely, if involved in an attack on a person, to be involved in a serious or even fatal attack. And laws banning pit bulls are often the only way that the owners of fighting dogs are punished (which happens very rarely in the first place). Besides, anyone getting a dog, unless they’re a shepherd or a police officer, is best served by getting a mutt. All this talk of the best breed only encourages people to get pets that really aren’t best for family ownership and to leave great animals languishing in shelters or wandering as unwanted strays. More.
The critic above calls himself Drinky the Drunk Guy. I hope some angry pit-bull owners write in to defend the breed, just for fun. City and airport officials, etc., are busy arguing the civil-liberties and security issues Gladwell highlights, but there’s at least one simple conclusion to be drawn from the doggy part of the piece. Gladwell:
A 1991 study in Denver, for example, compared a hundred and seventy-eight dogs with a history of biting people with a random sample of a hundred and seventy-eight dogs with no history of biting. The breeds were scattered: German shepherds, Akitas, and Chow Chows were among those most heavily represented…. The biters were 6.2 times as likely to be male than female, and 2.6 times as likely to be intact than neutered.
The fellow whose pit bulls attacked a kid and his mom in the story felt that $100 was too expensive for neutering. It’s probably too expensive for a lot of people. Reduce strays and attacks and fix animals for free!
When I was in first grade, a boy I loved because his name was Shaun (as in Cassidy) invited me over to his house. Of course, I went. His dog bit my hand hard, and there was blood everywhere. The romance was through. I saw him years later in tenth grade; he had blond dreadlocks and played D&D. Nice guy, though. It was only his dog that left something to be desired. It didn’t turn me against dogs, just (for a while) boys.
Later: Speaking of which, in the same issue, the dog—let’s call him Spot—in the small illustration at the bottom of page 61 (mid-brilliant Katherine Boo piece, best in issue) sure looks ferocious…
