Peter De Smidt wrote:

Peter De Smidt responds:


You might make it
less likely that your dog will attack others, but will you totally
remove that urge? I doubt it.

Consider Siegfried and Roy. Clearly they trained and socialized their
animals much, much more than the average dog owner, but nonetheless
tragedy struck. Training can mitigate inborn tendencies, but that's not
the same thing as removing them.



Charlie Self wrote:

Sorry. The analogy doesn't work. Tigers are NOT dogs and no attempt has ever
been made to domesticate them.

snip

I never claimed that tigers are dogs. My point was that socialization
and training do not remove inborn tendencies, and my example
demonstrates that. Behavioral training and socialization of tigers,
dogs, hawks (which I've done), killer whales,..., are all very similar,
and use well established behavioral conditioning, even though the
specific inborn tendencies are quite different.

Yeah and some of those inborn tendencies relates to degree of socialization and
aggression. Keep in mind that pit bulls as a breed are perhaps 200 years old at
most. (Actually only about 100, but the difference is nugatory.) Dogs split off
from wolves about 10,000 years ago and for all that time they were bred to
socialization with humans, obedience and away from wolf-like aggression.

Terriers in general have a tendency to attack other animals. The differences in
pit bulls relate more to their size and strength and to any 'killer instinct'.
(BTW: As near as I can see, pit bulls have no more killer instinct that other
terriers. What they do have is 'gameness' -- the unwillingness to quit. That and
an extreme willingness to do anything to please their owners.)

If you'd spent as much time around pit bulls as you have around hawks you'd
understand that.




But in any case we seem to agree on the overall point.

-Peter De Smidt

And neither of you apparently has any experience with the animals in question.
Sheesh!

--RC