6 ms·

Too bad they don't track by breed

by nxm 5y ago

willis936 5y ago
What information would that give? Too bad they don't track by socioeconomic status. Too bad they don't track by political opinion. Too bad they don't track by IQ. Too bad they don't track by skin color. The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually used to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  > If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans. How did you come to that conclusion? I used to have a couple dogs and now I have children. I walked the dogs on leashes and made them poop outside. I've never done either of those things with my children, or any human.
  - willis936 5y ago
    The assumption is that different dog breeds are more aggressive than others, independent of their upbringing. Their behavior is in their nature. This hasn't been born out by science yet is still used to justify policy. People care less when it's done to dogs because people are not dogs and it's easy to just say "sure, that sounds right" without digging any further. Show a single study that finds that dog breed influences aggression. Just one. You'll find plenty that correlate the two and maybe even some that stop there and ignore the existence of other factors. It's The Bell Curve for dogs. https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pdf https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pdf
    - happytoexplain 5y ago
      Correlation vs causation is irrelevant in most dog bite contexts, where the practical concern is harm avoidance.
      - willis936 5y ago
        Then why only look at one correlation? Wouldn't it make more sense to look any many correlations that could potentially correlate better, such as owner demographics? Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. If harm avoidance is the goal then why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing?
        happytoexplain 5y ago
        Who is only looking at one correlation? We all take into account the information we have. More information is better. If they had provided more information, it would have improved each reader's overall picture. >Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. I don't know what this means. >why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing? I do promote that. I don't know where you're getting this from. Back to the idea of harm avoidance: Let's say we discover that the only factors that determine bite risk are how the dog is raised and how you behave around it. And let's say there is a non-causative correlation showing breed X has a high bite risk. Then it would be reasonable when adopting a puppy to not consider breed X a high bite risk, but it would also be reasonable to consider breed X a high bite risk when encountering one you didn't raise yourself, and therefore e.g. not allow your child to interact with it (or whatever precaution makes one feel comfortable). More information is better.
        willis936 5y ago
        >>Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. >I don't know what this means. I'll explain my meaning with a hypothetical. What if one breed were responsible for a high number of USPS delivery worker attacks? Promoting this information begs a policy response against this breed. What if most of this breed were owned by a certain demographic? From the outside this looks like a policy response against a demographic with window dressing to justify it. The outcome is what matters. I agree with your later point. However, dog owners and parents are responsible for their dogs and children (respectively). More information is better, but selecting some specific information here is clearly targeting something or someone, regardless of intent. That is what I take issue with. Target the issue, not the demographic.
    - ARandomerDude 5y ago
      I understand your concern about dogs, but the question is why we would think what a person believes about a breed of dogs impacts how they approach humans. You said it well yourself: > People care less when it's done to dogs because people are not dogs
  - dismantlethesun 5y ago
    I have actually seen children on leashes. Heck, it was semi popular during he 80s and early 90s because of the stranger danger scare.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  > The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually used to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans. I mean, okay.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Please don't. It's just very weird to compare dogs and humans. Dogs have been bred for certain behaviours, humans haven't. Which is why It's relevant to ask for breed types for dogs. I just find it to be in very poor taste to try to draw parallels between "dog discrimination" and human discrimination. You can absolutely think broder collies are naturally driven to herd dogs, or Newfoundlands are naturally driven to fetch from water without being racist to your fellow human. I mean wtf!
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    Dogs have been bred, and certain breeds are nature-inclined to certain behaviors, but the parent is somewhat correct in that the influence of that nature is limited. However, I think the more powerful correlation is that of owners selecting breeds and training for expected behaviors: Some Newfies can be trained not to jump in the water at every opportunity (mine is capable of this restraint, but will always let me know she wants to). Few Newfies will be afraid of the water. But dog owners who know they want their dogs in and around water may select Newfies, swim with them, and otherwise encourage that behavior. More relevant to the article, owners who want dogs to guard their property will select certain breeds who may have only a slight nature for guarding but will nurture that behavior.
    - economusty 5y ago
      Modern dogs are so far from what they were bred for, the dominant influence by far is the influence of the owners. The only relevant statistic would be: percent of bites by dogs that are owned by humans who have not properly trained the dog. That will be a statistics that is more than trivia, the charts in that article are useless trivia paid for by tax dollars. A useful study would be able to provide a recommended course of action an owner could take to reduce the likelihood their dog bites, which is what my proposed study above would do. TRAIN YOUR DOGS PEOPLE.
    - willis936 5y ago
      >certain breeds are nature-inclined to certain behaviors Dogma. Prove it. Link to any amount of supporting evidence.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  > What information would that give? Which breeds are more likely to attack mail carriers.
  - willis936 5y ago
    It would be a single correlation. If the assumption is then made that there is a causation and that is used to inform policy, then there are unequal prejudices informing public opinion and policy. Pseudoscience masquerading as science. Something bad masquerading as something good. You do it for dogs because you're not a dog, no big deal. Maybe you'd do it for people with a different skin color because you are not their skin color. It has happened continuously in the past 100 years and continues to happen.
    - antisthenes 5y ago
      > Pseudoscience masquerading as science. Something bad masquerading as something good. If a certain breed of dog is responsible for more attacks than any other breed, then breed-specific legislation is not pseudoscience.
      - willis936 5y ago
        Yes it is. This is the very crux of the issue. Simply showing a correlation is not demonstrating that behavior is linked to breed. Show a single study that even attempts to prove dog nature is linked to breed. You'll find that actual science finds the opposite.
        spywaregorilla 5y ago
        Sheep dogs like to herd. Retrievers like to retrieve. Covering your ears and saying lalalala doesn't allow you to claim correlations are immune to causality.
        willis936 5y ago
        What makes you say sheep dogs like to herd? Because that is what they do? If you trained a retriever to herd sheep and a sheep dog to retrieve, would the dogs not do those things? What would the dogs do if they were never socialized? Are you even considering these questions, or are you covering your ears and accepting the not-science dogma you've heard your entire life?
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  Dogs were engineered explicitly for various behaviors over the course of tens of thousands of generations. On top of that, treating one dog breed as a higher bite risk over another doesn't have a severe negative impact on society, and a dog can't feel marginalized or belittled. The act of identifying dog breeds by behavior statistics and the act of socially discriminating human beings are nowhere near comparable - not in terms of real harm nor theoretical harm nor practical usefulness.
wiredfool 5y ago
Labs. I just bet. (I've been bitten twice when riding, both times by labs. They're goofy dogs, but have a mean streak if they don't know you.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
economusty 5y ago
The breed doesn't matter, it's the owners that influence the temperament of the animal. The nonsense statistic you ask for simply causes people to associate certain breeds with attacks when in reality it's the owners who do not keep their dogs restrained who need to be analyzed.
- schoolornot 5y ago
  I'll just leave this here for all the pit bull lovers: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2020.php https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2020...
  - etempleton 5y ago
    One problem is pitbulls are not really a standardized breed so a lot of mixed breed terriers get mixed in here. Though this is an important metric. I don't think pitbulls are inherently more likely to bite, but I do think they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Minor bites are unlikely to always be reported. Note that all of the dogs listed are big powerful jawed dogs.
- smt88 5y ago
  USPS doesn't have a set schedule to come to your house, and they have to enter your (perhaps fenced) yard. It's very plausible that a responsible dog owner would have a dog out in the fenced yard when a postal worker came by, and then the breed is definitely going to be a factor.
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  Dogs have completely different personalities across breeds and yet you won't even entertain the possibility the breed has something to do with how aggressive a dog is?
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    This is why usps should've released that info.

Too bad they don't track by breed

by nxm 5y ago

Too bad they don't track by breed

What information would that give? Too bad they don't track by socioeconomic status. Too bad they don't track by political opinion. Too bad they don't track by IQ. Too bad they don't track by skin color. The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually used to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ARandomerDude 5y ago
> If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans. How did you come to that conclusion? I used to have a couple dogs and now I have children. I walked the dogs on leashes and made them poop outside. I've never done either of those things with my children, or any human.
- willis936 5y ago
  The assumption is that different dog breeds are more aggressive than others, independent of their upbringing. Their behavior is in their nature. This hasn't been born out by science yet is still used to justify policy. People care less when it's done to dogs because people are not dogs and it's easy to just say "sure, that sounds right" without digging any further. Show a single study that finds that dog breed influences aggression. Just one. You'll find plenty that correlate the two and maybe even some that stop there and ignore the existence of other factors. It's The Bell Curve for dogs. https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pdf https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pdf
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    Correlation vs causation is irrelevant in most dog bite contexts, where the practical concern is harm avoidance.
    - willis936 5y ago
      Then why only look at one correlation? Wouldn't it make more sense to look any many correlations that could potentially correlate better, such as owner demographics? Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. If harm avoidance is the goal then why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing?
      - happytoexplain 5y ago
        Who is only looking at one correlation? We all take into account the information we have. More information is better. If they had provided more information, it would have improved each reader's overall picture. >Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. I don't know what this means. >why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing? I do promote that. I don't know where you're getting this from. Back to the idea of harm avoidance: Let's say we discover that the only factors that determine bite risk are how the dog is raised and how you behave around it. And let's say there is a non-causative correlation showing breed X has a high bite risk. Then it would be reasonable when adopting a puppy to not consider breed X a high bite risk, but it would also be reasonable to consider breed X a high bite risk when encountering one you didn't raise yourself, and therefore e.g. not allow your child to interact with it (or whatever precaution makes one feel comfortable). More information is better.
        willis936 5y ago
        >>Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use USPS. >I don't know what this means. I'll explain my meaning with a hypothetical. What if one breed were responsible for a high number of USPS delivery worker attacks? Promoting this information begs a policy response against this breed. What if most of this breed were owned by a certain demographic? From the outside this looks like a policy response against a demographic with window dressing to justify it. The outcome is what matters. I agree with your later point. However, dog owners and parents are responsible for their dogs and children (respectively). More information is better, but selecting some specific information here is clearly targeting something or someone, regardless of intent. That is what I take issue with. Target the issue, not the demographic.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    I understand your concern about dogs, but the question is why we would think what a person believes about a breed of dogs impacts how they approach humans. You said it well yourself: > People care less when it's done to dogs because people are not dogs
- dismantlethesun 5y ago
  I have actually seen children on leashes. Heck, it was semi popular during he 80s and early 90s because of the stranger danger scare.
threatofrain 5y ago
> The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually used to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans. I mean, okay.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Please don't. It's just very weird to compare dogs and humans. Dogs have been bred for certain behaviours, humans haven't. Which is why It's relevant to ask for breed types for dogs. I just find it to be in very poor taste to try to draw parallels between "dog discrimination" and human discrimination. You can absolutely think broder collies are naturally driven to herd dogs, or Newfoundlands are naturally driven to fetch from water without being racist to your fellow human. I mean wtf!
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  Dogs have been bred, and certain breeds are nature-inclined to certain behaviors, but the parent is somewhat correct in that the influence of that nature is limited. However, I think the more powerful correlation is that of owners selecting breeds and training for expected behaviors: Some Newfies can be trained not to jump in the water at every opportunity (mine is capable of this restraint, but will always let me know she wants to). Few Newfies will be afraid of the water. But dog owners who know they want their dogs in and around water may select Newfies, swim with them, and otherwise encourage that behavior. More relevant to the article, owners who want dogs to guard their property will select certain breeds who may have only a slight nature for guarding but will nurture that behavior.
  - economusty 5y ago
    Modern dogs are so far from what they were bred for, the dominant influence by far is the influence of the owners. The only relevant statistic would be: percent of bites by dogs that are owned by humans who have not properly trained the dog. That will be a statistics that is more than trivia, the charts in that article are useless trivia paid for by tax dollars. A useful study would be able to provide a recommended course of action an owner could take to reduce the likelihood their dog bites, which is what my proposed study above would do. TRAIN YOUR DOGS PEOPLE.
  - willis936 5y ago
    >certain breeds are nature-inclined to certain behaviors Dogma. Prove it. Link to any amount of supporting evidence.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
> What information would that give? Which breeds are more likely to attack mail carriers.
- willis936 5y ago
  It would be a single correlation. If the assumption is then made that there is a causation and that is used to inform policy, then there are unequal prejudices informing public opinion and policy. Pseudoscience masquerading as science. Something bad masquerading as something good. You do it for dogs because you're not a dog, no big deal. Maybe you'd do it for people with a different skin color because you are not their skin color. It has happened continuously in the past 100 years and continues to happen.
  - antisthenes 5y ago
    > Pseudoscience masquerading as science. Something bad masquerading as something good. If a certain breed of dog is responsible for more attacks than any other breed, then breed-specific legislation is not pseudoscience.
    - willis936 5y ago
      Yes it is. This is the very crux of the issue. Simply showing a correlation is not demonstrating that behavior is linked to breed. Show a single study that even attempts to prove dog nature is linked to breed. You'll find that actual science finds the opposite.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        Sheep dogs like to herd. Retrievers like to retrieve. Covering your ears and saying lalalala doesn't allow you to claim correlations are immune to causality.
        willis936 5y ago
        What makes you say sheep dogs like to herd? Because that is what they do? If you trained a retriever to herd sheep and a sheep dog to retrieve, would the dogs not do those things? What would the dogs do if they were never socialized? Are you even considering these questions, or are you covering your ears and accepting the not-science dogma you've heard your entire life?
happytoexplain 5y ago
Dogs were engineered explicitly for various behaviors over the course of tens of thousands of generations. On top of that, treating one dog breed as a higher bite risk over another doesn't have a severe negative impact on society, and a dog can't feel marginalized or belittled. The act of identifying dog breeds by behavior statistics and the act of socially discriminating human beings are nowhere near comparable - not in terms of real harm nor theoretical harm nor practical usefulness.

wiredfool 5y ago

Labs. I just bet. (I've been bitten twice when riding, both times by labs. They're goofy dogs, but have a mean streak if they don't know you.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

economusty 5y ago

The breed doesn't matter, it's the owners that influence the temperament of the animal. The nonsense statistic you ask for simply causes people to associate certain breeds with attacks when in reality it's the owners who do not keep their dogs restrained who need to be analyzed.

schoolornot 5y ago
I'll just leave this here for all the pit bull lovers: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2020.php https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2020...
- etempleton 5y ago
  One problem is pitbulls are not really a standardized breed so a lot of mixed breed terriers get mixed in here. Though this is an important metric. I don't think pitbulls are inherently more likely to bite, but I do think they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Minor bites are unlikely to always be reported. Note that all of the dogs listed are big powerful jawed dogs.
smt88 5y ago
USPS doesn't have a set schedule to come to your house, and they have to enter your (perhaps fenced) yard. It's very plausible that a responsible dog owner would have a dog out in the fenced yard when a postal worker came by, and then the breed is definitely going to be a factor.
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
Dogs have completely different personalities across breeds and yet you won't even entertain the possibility the breed has something to do with how aggressive a dog is?
- aaomidi 5y ago
  This is why usps should've released that info.