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jazzimov

(1,456 posts)
Fri May 10, 2013, 10:01 PM May 2013

ATTS official breed statistics

CAVEAT: These statistics only apply to the dogs that were tested.

ABOUT: http://atts.org/about-atts/
http://atts.org/tt-test-description/

Dogs must be at least 18 months old to enter this test. The test takes about eight to 12 minutes to complete. The dog is on a loose six-foot (6? lead. The handler is not allowed to talk to the dog, give commands, or give corrections.

Failure on any part of the test is recognized when a dog shows:

Unprovoked aggression
Panic without recovery
Strong avoidance



Breed Name Tested Passed Failed Percent

AMERICAN PIT BULL TERRIER 870 755 115 86.8%
AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER 657 555 102 84.5%
BORDER COLLIE 292 238 54 81.5%
BULLDOG 136 96 40 70.6%
CHIHUAHUA 43 30 13 69.8%
GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG 3194 2,710 484 84.8%
GOLDEN RETRIEVER 785 669 116 85.2%

Interesting, according to independent testing of 870 Pit Bulls vs 785 Golden Retrievers, Pit Bulls actually scored BETTER for passivity than Golden Retrievers.

There's no way that could be true, unless the M$M has LIED to us. But they wouldn't do that, would they?
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Crepuscular

(1,057 posts)
3. Pretty meaningless
Fri May 10, 2013, 10:43 PM
May 2013

to try and infer any kind of a natural tendency on the part of a breed based on this kind of non-random testing. Unless you are assuming that the type of owners that actually take the time and make the effort to have their dogs participate in this type of independent testing are typical for all of the owners of that breed, the results would not mean much. All this test shows is that some breeds may be better suited for training than others but it's really not a very good measure of natural tendencies. Now if there was a controlled study done with a number of dogs of specific breeds chosen from random, from a variety of backgrounds, that might give a little bit better generalized evaluation of breed tendencies but this type of non-random testing? Not so much.

jazzimov

(1,456 posts)
4. Thank you for your feedback. BUT
Fri May 10, 2013, 11:02 PM
May 2013

this was actually RANDOM testing.

Granted, this was based on responsible owners bringing in their dogs for testing, which I am assuming what you meant by "non-random" testing. Otherwise, these test were totally random.

"All this test shows is that some breeds may be better suited for training than others but it's really not a very good measure of natural tendencies."

Actually, it does address that issue, and it shows that most breeds identified as Pit Bulls actually ARE better suited for training than most other breeds. I will maintain my position that maintaining any breed - specific legislation is the sane as Racism: but as always I will defer to Science - which seems to be contrary to all points that you have tried to make so far.

" Now if there was a controlled study done with a number of dogs of specific breeds chosen from random, from a variety of backgrounds, that might give a little bit better generalized evaluation"

That's exactly what this was. You helped prove my point. Thank you!

Crepuscular

(1,057 posts)
5. nope, sorry
Sat May 11, 2013, 09:00 AM
May 2013

the sample pool used in this testing was not a random one, it was self populated. That makes the results highly questionable, in terms of viewing them as representative of the breeds involved as a whole. Sorry, that's the way science works, random sampling means that every potential dog of a specific breed has an equal chance of being included in the sample pool being tested. This test required that owners make an affirmative decision to test their dogs in this process, it was not random at all, in terms of populating the sample pool. Now you can say that these results indicate differences between breeds based on those dogs that the owners decided to have tested but it's a huge stretch to assume that similar results would be found in sampling a truly random population.

Gormy Cuss

(30,884 posts)
12. I think that you don't understand what Crepuscular means by non-random testing.
Sat May 11, 2013, 12:36 PM
May 2013

The ATTS data can only speak for the results of the dogs tested. It is not generalizable to the breed as a whole UNLESS the number of dogs tested is nearly all of the dogs of that breed.

Whose dogs are tested by ATTS? Dogs who have owners interested in the testing and willing and able to spend money on the test. What else? It's hard to say. By this self-selection process there may be a disproportionate representation of dogs from "good" lines with several generations of dogs known for good temperaments. It could also be that too many dogs from less desirable lineages are represented. That's the problem with a non-controlled study. It may produce results that don't reflect the reality and there is no way of knowing that. For example, if mostly "good" lines of collies are compared to a mixed bag of pit bull lines, the collies would appear to be better tempered dogs than GSDs even though the reality could be the opposite.

A carefully constructed and executed test (i.e. a controlled study) would provide much more reliable data on how the breed would fare on this test.

 

Ron Obvious

(6,261 posts)
8. The meanest dog I've ever known was a bug-eyed Chihuahua with a Napoleon Complex called Fuzzy.
Sat May 11, 2013, 10:52 AM
May 2013

It belonged to a friend of mine I used to visit. He (the dog, not my friend) would spend most of his days engaging in his favourite hobbies of eating, trembling and shitting, but every so often he would take offence at something I said, stop in mid-tremble and cast a jaundiced eye at me. He would then launch himself with a flying leap at my midriff, where he would try to bite me in the bollocks, attacking them in that head-shaking fashion you might have seen other dogs do when ripping a pillow apart, growling all the time.

My friend would think this was just hilarious. He (my friend, not the dog) and I eventually fell out over political differences.

 

baldguy

(36,649 posts)
9. The same people who are scared to death when a Pit Bull wags it's tail at them
Sat May 11, 2013, 11:04 AM
May 2013

Thinks it's humorous when a small dog is aggressive toward humans & other dogs.

Some people shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a dog.

RebelOne

(30,947 posts)
16. Yep, that's a Chihuahua alright.
Sat May 11, 2013, 01:05 PM
May 2013

I have one like that and have to lock her in another room whenever I have company.

greatlaurel

(2,004 posts)
10. Dog behavior is affected by many factors.
Sat May 11, 2013, 11:53 AM
May 2013

Dog behavior has a lot of variables and one cannot label one breed as unusually vicious. Early puppy training is vital. I have a 6 year old yellow lab who is a a wonderful and cooperative dog with the immediate family but is an ultra protective, vicious dog to anyone with whom she is not familiar. We live on a farm and she is not allowed to roam on her own, so she is not a danger and is quite useful, as in our small community, we are the people with the crazy mean dog.

Our vet has worked with us to try and solve this issue. She thinks it is because we acquired her from a local reputable breeder at an older puppy age of 12 weeks. The vet thinks that because our dog was from a breeder and was an older puppy she missed out on vital socialization, staying at the breeder too long. Before this lab, we had two black labs who were litter mates. They were 12 weeks when we got them. They were the sweetest dogs and loved nearly everybody. They could be trusted with nearly anyone and were kind and friendly dogs all their lives. The difference was that they were not from a traditional breeder, but from a close relative who raised them in their house with constant human interaction.

When we first moved to our farm the people who sold it to us had a Doberman Pincher that they were going to have put down. We took her in and she was a fabulous dog. At the time Dobies had a terrible reputation. She was just a lovely dog and incredibly smart. When we were having our first child, everyone wanted us to get rid of her because she would be a "danger" to the baby. We ignored everyone. She was the best baby watch dog. When the baby cried in her crib, the dog would come and get me and if I did not move fast enough, she would nudge my arm forcefully with her nose and then run back to check on the baby and then run back to me over and over until I got to the baby.

My point is dogs are variable, training and proper socialization are vital to proper dog behavior. Any type dog can be vicious if humans fail them in training and proper socialization. Our lovely lab was failed by her humans at the breeder and by us. We needed to do far more intensive socialization because we got her so late. This was ignorance on our part, not intentional, but it is our responsibility now to keep other people safe from her and keep her safe, as well. We take our responsibility very seriously.

The pit bull breeds are being abused by creepy scum for nefarious purposes just like Dobies and Rotties in the past. At some point these creeps will move on to a new dog breed to victimize. I recognize the problem , but I do not have a good solution. I think much stricter limits and regulation on dog breeders might be a good answer. Proper restrictions on puppy mills, especially the Amish ones, would be a good start.

Donald Ian Rankin

(13,598 posts)
17. I'm afraid I think this is an attempt to mislead rather than to inform.
Sat May 11, 2013, 01:49 PM
May 2013

The vital fact to keep focussed on when discussing dangerous dogs is the extraordinarily high proportion of fatal attacks perpetrated by a single breed group - pit bulls and pit-bull derived dogs - which make up only a tiny fraction of total owned dogs.

So we don't need proxy measures like this to answer the question "are pit bulls more dangerous than other dogs"; we *know* that the answer is "yes, much".

We can debate *why* that is - to what extent it's because they're more likely to attack people as opposed to to what extend it's because those attacks are more likely to be dangerous, and to what extent it's because of inherent characteristics of the breed as opposed to to what extent it's due to the type of people who buy pit bulls.

But there's no room for debate about the fact that it *is* true.

I'm afraid that I think that selective quoting of statistics to try and trick people into believing that pit bulls are not more dangerous than other breeds of dog, while not a lie per se, is a deliberate attempt to mislead.

There's also the issue that extrapolating from a self-selected and hence non-representative sample to a population at a whole is nonsense.

And the fact that these statistics represent three unrelated things, only one of which is closely relevant to a dog being dangerous, rolled into one.

 

loli phabay

(5,580 posts)
18. from experience id rather deal with the retriever than than the pit bull
Sat May 11, 2013, 01:52 PM
May 2013

Not many people train their retriever to be mean but i see a lot of aggressive pit bulls that even when shot continue to attack. Now i dont blame the breed just the conditioning of the dogs by owners.

Crepuscular

(1,057 posts)
19. if people want to deny the impact
Sat May 11, 2013, 02:17 PM
May 2013

of hundreds of years of selective breeding, that results in certain physical and personality characteristics in different breeds of animals that share a common ancestry and want to maintain that there is "no difference" between breeds and that it's solely due to "nurture", get back to me the next time a Percheron wins the Derby. Let's see you train that Bloodhound to herd cattle or that Husky to point a grouse. Show me the Yorkie that excels at retrieving a dead goose. Let's run a race between your Saint Bernard and a Greyhound and see who wins.

Does that mean that every individual dog within a certain breed will have those characteristics or that they cannot be bred back out? Not at all. Irish Setters used to be excellent field dogs until they were extensively bred for show characteristics. "Pit Bull" types were bred for a long time to reinforce certain types of behavior, including tenacity and aggressive behavior. That does not mean that all of the dogs of breeds and mixes that are commonly identified as Pits will exhibit that behavior but it's either hopelessly naive or intentionally misleading to portray that collection of breeds and mixes collectively, as just misunderstood "babies" that would not hurt a fly.

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