Study Shows that People With Criminal Records Have “Vicious” Dogs
I appreciate the basis for this research — that there is a connection between human criminal behavior and having dogs that are listed as “vicious” — but someone needs to factor into all this that its not that the dogs are vicious to start with or become vicious because they want to be like their bad owners: owners like these LOOK for dogs that they can abuse enough to MAKE dangerous. These scumbags want the biggest dogs they can find to make themselves feel like “real” men (though I do know there are some women involved in this hideous activity as well).
No offense to Beagles (I have one in my pack) but let’s get real here. How “manly” does some thug look with a beagle? Now my Beatrice can be pretty fierce when she wants to be but that’s not what this is about. This “vicious” thing is about perception and these thugs want to have dogs that make them look bigger and badder. A Rottie or a Pittie can be a very sweet dog but both breeds LOOK “bad.”
So let’s get this straight please. The breeds aren’t bad. The humans are bad and they are the ones who need to be penalized!
This article comes from Reuters and Yahoo News.
People with vicious dogs may be vicious too
People who own vicious dogs such as pit bulls have significantly more criminal convictions — including crimes against children — than owners of licensed, gentler dogs such as beagles, researchers reported on Thursday.
A study of 355 dog owners in Ohio showed that every owner of a high-risk breed known for aggression had at least one brush with the law, from traffic citations to serious criminal convictions.And 30 percent of people who owned an aggressive breed of dog and who also had been cited at least once for failure to register it had at least five criminal convictions or traffic citations.
This compared to 1 percent of owners of low-risk, licensed dogs such as poodles, beagles or collies, the researchers reported in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
“Owners of vicious dogs who have been cited for failing to register a dog (or) failing to keep a dog confined on the premises … are more than nine times more likely to have been convicted for a crime involving children, three times more likely to have been convicted of domestic violence … and nearly eight times more likely to be charged with drug (crimes) than owners of low-risk licensed dogs,” said Jaclyn Barnes of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Barnes and colleagues used public records to check on the criminal pasts of dog owners.
They used agreed definitions of vicious dogs used in writing local ordinances. “A ‘vicious dog” means a dog that, without provocation, has killed or caused serious injury to any person, has killed another dog, or belongs to a breed that is commonly known as a pit bull dog,” they wrote in their report.
The definition excludes dogs used in law enforcement or dogs protecting an owner or property.
Aggressive breeds identified by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and some insurance companies include pit bulls, rottweilers, akitas and chows.
The most frequent low-risk breeds seen in the study included terriers, beagles, collies and poodles.
Follow this link to read more.
Just for the record, this study is seriously flawed
They say: “The most frequent low-risk breeds seen in the study included terriers, beagles, collies and poodles.”
Um, terriers. My ‘pit bulls’ are true 100% American Pit Bull Terriers. UKC, county and insurance registered American Pit Bull Terriers. Real pit bulls. It seems someone forgot to familiarize themselves with the APBT. So what they are saying is that only some terriers, some beagles, some collies and some poodles were low risk.
Furthermore, any study that quotes the law’s definition of a vicious dog is invalid. The study doesn’t study anything. They are targeting pit bulls only, much like the law does…in fact, JUST like the law does.
I only hope that this gets somewhere: http://vote4tom.blogspot.com/2006/10/ohio-court-rules-bsl-unconstitutional.html
This “study” is seriously flawed and appears to me to have a pre-ordained conclusion. I suggest that you read an in-depth analysis of the flaws of this study.
http://caveat.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/17/2507251.html
Richard and Dianne,
Thanks very much for barking in! I agree with both of you that this study has some serious problems. Perhaps the worst problem is the way it is being reported in the “regular” media.
This reminds me very much of one of my economics classes in graduate school where the professor made a point of showing us how research can be designed to find what one wants. He quoted research that showed a correlation between weather and the stock market. That’s similar to how this research shows a correlation between dog breeds and criminal records. As the old law of research says — “correlation is NOT causation.”
For those who ARE fighting BSL, I encourage you to check out the links listed by both Dianne and Richard. Richard’s in particular makes some points that I think will be very useful whenever this research gets hauled out in the press or court cases! Thanks Richard for your well thought through dissection of the research in question.
So thank you again for barking in and pointing out more of these flaws. We as dog lovers have to know what is being said if we are to combat it. And in this case for our fellow dog lovers who are fighting BSL around the world and who will probably be facing this research in the press and court, forewarned is forearmed!
Thanks for the links folks, and the advice there Joy. I have a college class comming up sometime next year (online classes) that may just bring up something like this, so I’ll keep this around.
As for the story, it’s slanted. Thing is, nearly everyone has had a “brush with the law” when you count traffic citations! Traffic Citations? SInce when does getting a speeding ticket make you a “vicious” criminal. I’d like to see an actual breakdown of those numbers and see just how many of their “criminals” had nothing more than a speeding ticket on their record. Another problem is the size of the control group. You can’t get an accurate national or even state average from only 355 subjects. I’d also like to see what criteria was used in selecting those 355 subjects. How did they find dog owners that had not registered their dogs. I would not be supprised if they selected some of them through some kind of criminal search, at which point, of course a large selection will have criminal records. It all depends on the demographics.
I don’t like how this article was put together either! I work with dogs for a living, and I feel ANY dog in the wrong hands can be a mean dog. I’ve been bit by enough terriers and poodles, and beagles to know that first hand. While it does seem unfortunate that certain groups of people flock to breeds that appear tough and mean, it doens’t mean they are all criminals and bad dog owners. I agree with the above poster. 355 doesn’t seem like a large enough number to get an accurate picture of this group of dog owners, and I do not think traffic citations should be part of the equation. hardly defines someone as “violent”.
Hey, thanks for checking out my analysis of the study and for linking to it. I will review Richard’s assessment too.
In addition to the small number of dogs studied, there is an even more glaring example of bias. For example, they looked at 153 ‘pit bull’ owners versus, for example, one Labrador retriever and no German Shepherd Dogs, the two most popular dogs according to county licensing stats.
It’s unacceptable that the MSM rushes to parrot so-called ‘findings’ but resists the actual facts around the whole issue.
The fail to realize that a war is being waged, and that the dogs are just a red herring, no more important than the game pieces are in Monopoly with respect to the game being played or its outcome.
Hang tough, dog owners, we are in to win this. A small donation to your local group of BSL fighters would not be out of order either