eminem responded reasonably -

This entire thread boarders on a religious war so I was going to stay out of
the thick of it, but at one point while reading all of the overstatements on
both sides of the issue the thought did occur to me that it was not that
long ago that German Shepherds and Dobermans were spoken of exactly the way
the Pit Bull is today. Especially the Doberman - it was common folk lore
and fire talk to rag on how they turned on their owners with no warning or
provocation. Stay tuned - someone is yet bound to introduce the Rottweiller
into this thread...

el correcto...
as the owner of a number of dobies over the past 20+
years, friend of many others, and having known a
number of rottweilers, etc, i know there are all kinds
of factors which determine a dog's personality, how
it will *tend* to react in various stressful situations,
and how it *might* react under extreme situations...

dogs are people too: they have definite individual
personalities, quirks, habits, and tendencies; our
training, discipline and interaction can all obviously
influence how their personalities are expressed...

of course, *any* breed can be made more viscious
if that character trait is bred for (purposefully, or
as a result of coexisting with some other trait being
bred for), or trained for... obviously, the bigger/stronger/
more agressive breeds are going to make that much
more of a threat when they 'go bad'...

i'd be willing to bet dollars to donut holes that
there are *really* far more dog bites from chihuahua's
than any other breed; its just that while 90% of the
doberman/etc bites may get reported in some fashion,
i bet 90% of the chihuahua 'bites' don't get reported
because A. it's embarassing B. what's to report ?
ow, i got four little dents on my ankle...

some of the most consistently agressive, badly
behaved, and snappy dogs i have met, are the
yipyap breeds; the thing is, because they can be
swept aside with your foot, their 'agression' is
not as threatening as a pit/dobie/etc, and thus
is often not recognized as the nasty behavior it is...

some very few dogs are just born mean, a
bunch more are made mean by willful or casual
mistreatment, and *any* dog -regardless of training-
can 'go postal' if it is in circumstances where
it feels threatened and can't escape...

same goes for people...

dogs is people too...

charley

eof