vendredi 6 juillet 2018

The Pit Bull Problem. A Few Root Causes

Charles Danten, former veterinarian


Financial and Commercial Interests


Some people, such as Harvard's Steven Pinker, explain the current pet fad by a growing compassion for animals and humans. Others, like the author of this article, see in this animal madness erroneous beliefs dating back to the 19th century, when it was falsely believed, that a relationship with a pet could improve the moral and spiritual fibre of mankind. 


American child psychiatrist, Boris Levinson, the instigator of Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT), consecrated these false notions into “science” in the sixties. The pet industry, sniffing a golden opportunity to improve business used this pseudoscience to stimulate the demand for pets and the sale of goods and services. Their marketing campaign was a huge success. Today, one out of two households has one or more animals, and America, and most Western countries, have literally gone pet crazy. (1)

Just to give you an idea of the scope of this marketing success, in America, the pet industry is the eighth in importance of the retail trade; it is larger than that of toys, hardware, and jewellery. According to the American Association of Pet Products, its annual turnover went from 17 billion USD in 1994 to 63 billion USD in 2016. (2)




Veterinarians, Big Pharma, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, AAT researchers, animal protection NGOs, such as PETA, humane societies, pounds, shelters, animal rights' lawyers and jurists, animal media, film industry, steel industries that produce cans for pet food, agribusiness and fisheries who find in this outlet opportunities for their by-products, rendering plants that provide dead animals for pet food manufacturers, makers of pet paraphernalia, trainers, breeders, dealers, smugglers, poachers, groomers, dog walkers, five-star hotels and restaurants for pets, homeopaths, fortune tellers, wig makers, funeral homes, cemeteries, distributors, drivers, supermarkets, super-pet shops and dog shops whose “sole purpose is to sell animals and nothing  else, as if they were selling furniture,” jumped on the bandwagon behind veterinarians and pet food manufacturers, the big winners of this economic bonanza. (3)(4)




Knowing this, it is easier to understand why this industry is so scared of breed-specific legislation for pit bulls. If it should extend to other breeds of biters as well as to their crosses, this would be a terrible blow to the industry. In this business, profit is directly dependent on the size of the animal. Even if they are less numerous than cats... dogs – and the bigger they are the better – are indeed the most profitable of all pets. (5)


Veterinary bias


“The latest studies,” writes journalist Marie-Claude Malboeuf of the newspaper, La Presse“find one after the other that pit bulls are overrepresented among dogs responsible for injuries. However, the report of the Quebec Veterinary Association, cites four of the studies in question, but sometimes omits the most significant passages of the said studies. [...] The 2011 study - spanning 15 years, on the most severe cases treated at a Texas hospital - becomes almost contradictory. The surgeons, who wrote this study, state that pit bulls have proved more deadly than other dogs; caused more heavy or deep comas. And sent patients to intensive care for the longest time. ‘Regulation of pit bulls could substantially reduce the rate of deaths from dog bites, conclude these researchers.’ ”


Dr. Suzie Price, President of the Quebec
Corporation of Veterinarians

“But instead of stating the foregoing in their report to the Government, veterinarians write the following,” writes Ms. Malbeuf: ‘the proportion of victims requiring a surgical operation was identical regardless of the dog: pit bull or another breed.’ In this report,” continues Ms. Malboeuf, “veterinarians criticize ‘serious gaps’ in data compiled by the victims, but totally support false studies compiled by the paid-for-hire scientists of the National Canine Research Council on behalf of a millionaire pro-pit bull advocacy group, Animal Farm Foundation. “According to the report of the Veterinary Association,” concludes Ms. Malbeuf, “targeting certain breeds would only calm the population and would run counter to scientific and demographic studies carried out in recent years.” (6)

According to his professional oath of allegiance, the social duty of the veterinarian is firstly to do everything in his power to defend the interests of the public, and secondly, to relieve the suffering of animals. However, veterinarians currently working in the field of pets no longer fulfil their duty by putting their interests and those of their clients above those of the public. Needless to say, honest veterinarians, and there are many of them, do not condone this attitude and feel quite demoralized by it. 
Here is the Canadian veterinary oath: 
As a member of the veterinary medical profession, I solemnly swear that I will use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society. I will strive to promote animal health and welfare, relieve animal suffering, protect the health of the public and environment, and advance comparative medical knowledge.I will practise my profession conscientiously, with dignity, and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics. I will strive continuously to improve my professional knowledge and competence and to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards for myself and the profession.


Wishful Thinking


If lack of training, inadequate or insufficient training has a lot to do with biting, especially if biting inhibition is left out of the training scheme, inadequate care or surveillance also has a significant impact on behaviour. 

Badly socialized and poorly fed animals, those that are left alone for much of the day, those that lack exercise, those suffering from boredom and various psychological and physiological pathologies caused by domestication, such as the diseases stemming from the emotional dependence (separation anxiety) are real time bombs. 

Quebec's law B-3.1 (art.8) requires that owners of a dog provide the latter with “stimulation, socialization opportunities, or environmental enrichments that suit its biological needs,” but who is responsible for enforcing this law? Do we have the personnel and the technical means required to enforce it in every house, street and Park? Not likely.  (7) 

In the end, these recommendations full of good intentions amount to wishful thinking or as skeptics would say, "the price vice pays-to virtue." While we wait for the change that will finally wipe out dog bites, sometime in the far future, at an unspecified date, it's business as usual. 


Discussion


The elimination of the fighting pit bull works. Don’t believe those who claim otherwise. It is also false to claim that breed-specific legislation does not work because banned dogs will be replaced by another dog breed just as aggressive as soon as they are taken off the market. Pit bull bylaws exist since the 80s and no dog, wherever these laws exist, has even come close to replacing this ultimate killing machine. A pit bull can shred to pieces and tear apart a 200 lbs. mastiff before you know it. No other dog can do this. In other words, it is wrong and dangerous to let these born killers off the hook on the pretext that others will follow anyways. We don’t do this for humans and we should not do it for dogs either. 

Statistics are meaningful and we should strive to compile them with more accuracy for all dog bites, but what makes them so meaningful is their capacity to bring forth the extreme severity and extent of the injuries caused by the pit bulls and the unpredictability of their attacks. This should be one of the main guiding principles when deciding if a breed should be banned, even more important than the frequency of bites. 

It is essential to collect valid data on the population of breeds, the number of bite incidents, the severity of the bite injury, as well as the breeds responsible. To do this, we need to lift the professional secrecy of veterinarians in order to oblige them to report the aggressive dogs they see in their practice. It should also be mandatory for owners to register their pets and their breed without exception when they buy a pet, sign a lease, buy a house or fill in their income tax form. All veterinarians, doctors, police officers, and other stakeholders everywhere should be required to report bites and to identify the breed of the biter with a cell phone picture. These statistics must be available to the public on demand at any time or posted on a website for all to see.


Knowing all along that regardless of the measures taken, it is impossible to eradicate biting dogs without addressing the root causes listed above and in the other articles on this blog. 

Society must choose between lying for business and ideological reasons and telling the truth in order to protect the public, animals, and the environment. 

About the author

Dr. Charles Danten has university degrees in agronomy (BSC), veterinary medicine (DVM), and translation (MA). Dr. Danten worked as a veterinarian for 18 years, 10 of which in his own practice.


Further Readings


Danten, Charles (2015). Slaves of Our Affection. The Myth of the Happy Pet. Available on Amazon. Debunks the pet culture and the claimed benefits of pets. 

Ewen, Stuart  (2001). Captains of Consciousness. Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. 25th Anniversary Edition. How traditional family ties were destroyed for commercial reasons.

West, Patrick (2002). Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really Is Cruel to Be Kind. Civitas. The price vice pays to virtue.

References


1. Charles Danten (2015). Slaves of Our Affection. The Myth of the Happy Pet. Amazon.

2. Pet Industry Market Size & Ownership Statistics. American Pet Products Association.

3. Jean-Luc Vadakarn (1998). Parle à mon chien ma tête est malade. Albin Michel.

4. Stuart Ewen (2014). La société de l'indécence. Publicité et genèse de la société de consommation. Éditions le retour aux sources.

5. Pet Industry Market Size & Ownership Statistics. Article cited.

6. Marie-Claude Malbœuf. La Presse

7. Patrick West (2002). Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really Is Cruel to Be Kind. Civitas. 


The Killer Dog Problem: How the Globalists in Power are Transposing on Pit Bulls their Bogus Notions on Race and Behaviour

Charles Danten, former veterinarian

Going to the root of things is always a good idea 

if you really intend to change things.


Pro pit bull activist, lawyer, Anne-Marie Goldwater  


Let’s start with pit bull advocate Anne-Marie Goldwater’s delirious statement: “We use derogatory words to identify a certain subgroup of dogs which does not form a ‘race.’ Like blacks, Latinos, Arabs... these aren't races. Just like there is only one race, the race of human beings, there is only one ‘race’ of dogs, it's called dog: canis lupus familiaris.”(1) 

Not so, Ms. Goldwater. The dog is in fact a domesticated subspecies of the wolf, itself divided into more than 450 breeds (races in humans) or variants, easily identified by their morphology (phenotype) and able to predictably produce offspring true to type. No one has ever seen a couple of registered pit bulls like the american staffordshire terrier produce a litter of poodles. 

Breeds in dogs, just like races in humans (2)(3), are an inescapable reality, and this reality is not limited to appearances, but also concerns behaviour (4)(5)(6). 

Genes Versus Training

People often say: “there are no bad dogs, but only bad masters.” Bill Bruce, for example, the author of the current canine municipal regulations of the city of Calgary, is a staunch believer of the above saying as the following quote demonstrates: “We believe that canine aggression is essentially a human problem, and if we solve the problem at its source, the canine problem will resolve by itself.” (7)

This is in fact, the solution that was recently adopted by our present liberal government: more surveillance and the obligation by dog owners to keep their pets on a leash, but without a muzzle, in the case of pit bulls. In other words, since breeds and behaviour have no biological (hereditary) basis, it would be unjust to discriminate against one or another canine. 

But would it really be unjust? Of course not! As most honest breeders, agronomists, and veterinarians can tell you, genes play an important role in aggressiveness, even if the acquired or training aspect of behaviour also matters. (8) All dogs are not born equal. The favorite saying of the pro pit bull advocates, copy-pasted from Jean Jacques Rousseau's preposterous theory of the noble savage, “there are no bad dogs, but only bad masters,” is completely untrue. Depending on the breed and purpose, breeders will select at birth or shortly after, the most docile specimens of a litter for company, and the more aggressive ones, for protection or combat. The others are sold for reproduction to a puppy mil or simply culled.

Does this mean that all pit bull dogs are dangerous? Of course not. An undetermined number is not (see below). But since there is presently no test for effectively separating the wheat from the chaff, it would be safer to banish them all together. These born killers have a very heavy genetic past. They were made by mating extremely aggressive breeds that were selected for thousands of generations for their gameness, strength, overdeveloped predator instinct, high pain threshold, and impulsiveness. These factors combined with the incredible power of their jaws cause extremely serious injuries. Furthermore, pit bull attacks are by definition unpredictable and incredibly violent. 

The most dangerous pit bulls are those that are trained to be aggressive by mostly ill-reputed individuals, such as drug dealers or gang members or even ordinary persons who like to scare or intimidate others. Although law prohibits them, dogfights still occur and dogs are still bred for this purpose. Only the most aggressive dogs are used while the other less performing subjects are sold on the market where there is a high demand for pit bulls. Others are sold to breeders, both black market and legal, where they are reproduced cheap by the dozens without any consideration for their behaviour traits as long as they are true to type. Unsuspecting clients end up buying these Jekyll and Hyde's without knowing where they come from. Many of these dogs are quite innocent looking until the day they change without warning into the monsters they really are. 

Statistical black hole

In the province of Quebec, according to the findings of the Working Committee on the Supervision of Dangerous Dogs, statistics on dog bites are a real black hole for the following reasons: 
  • Registration of dogs is not required in each of the municipalities of the province.
  • The application of this obligation when it exists is often uneven and incomplete, as it is not mandatory to report the breed of the registered animal.
  • Unlike in the US, police officers, doctors, and veterinarians are not required to report bites unless rabies is suspected.
  • The right of veterinarians to secrecy in the case of an aggressive dog is also a substantial obstacle.
  • To make things worst, since all dogs are equal, CBC for instance, for egalitarian reasons, like it does for humans, no longer names the breed of the canine delinquents involved in a biting incident.
Indeed, without knowing the population of each breed, the number of bites as well as the breed involved, it is almost impossible to find out precisely which breeds are the most dangerous. This lack of statistics might be good for business but it is also a flagrant flight from responsibility as well as a denial of breed reality and the importance of biology in behaviour.

The Case of Toronto

Fortunately, the situation is quite different in Toronto where the data on dogs is sufficiently large and precise to get a good idea of the scope of the problem (see table below). It turns out, all pit bull type dogs, pure bred and mixes alike are the most dangerous. Is this the reason why pit bulls and other dangerous breeds were successfully banned from Toronto in 2005? No doubt about it.


Another way of knowing what’s going on is to consult the medical and surgery journals. For the last 40 years or so all serious epidemiological studies - i.e. those that are not made by vets or sponsored by humanitarian societies and pro-pit bull associations  - are unanimous: In North America, the majority of dog bites requiring hospitalization or resulting in death are inflicted by pit bull type dogs. (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18)

Pseudoscience is their creed

According to pro pit bull advocates, all their claims on breeds and behavior are based on sound science. But nothing is further from the truth. None of their allegations are scientifically documented by credible studies. Morally abusive authorities are the sole support to these claims. This is why advocates will viciously attack anyone who questions their sacred beliefs. 

Conclusion

In spite of their small number compared to other popular breeds such as the Labrador, the Golden Retriever, and the German Shepard, pit bulls and related breeds are responsible for a disproportionate number of serious dog attacks. It would therefore be a good thing to fade them out from the market. 

Knowing all along that regardless of the measures taken, it is impossible to eradicate biting dogs without addressing the root causes such as the false claims of animal-assisted therapy which are fuelling a historically unprecedented demand for pets, veterinary bias, and the outrageous humanization of animals, to name but a few (see on this blog a longer article on the root causes). 

It is essential to collect valid data on the population of breeds, the number of attacks, the severity of the bite injury, as well as the breeds responsible. These statistics must be available to the public on demand or posted on a website for all to see. Under the present circumstances, refusing to name the breed of a biter like some mainstream media are doing is outright criminal.

In all fairness, pro-pit bull advocates and our elected liberals need to stop believing that breeds are social constructions and that biology (heredity) plays no role in behaviour. It is not true. These social agents are unable to admit that genes play an important role in behaviour and that breeds are a reality, as this admission would force them to admit that this is true for humans as well. An impossible task, obviously, as these inconvenient truths are totally contrary to the progressive egalitarian ideology inspired by the Marxist cabal that runs their lives. In other words, our authorities are refusing to do the right thing for political and ideological reasons.

In the end, society must choose between lying for business and ideological reasons and telling the truth in order to protect the public.

One last thing!


Breeds do behave according to their genes, but if you mix them up in a dog park for example, they don't mingle according to their breed because unlike humans they were not artificially selected to recognize their breed as one of their own. Pit bulls in a dog park, for example, will not mingle with pit bulls more than they will mingle with any other breed. In other words, they do not have a special attraction for dogs of their own breed. Dogs are breed-blind. Liberals like pro-pit-bull-advocate, Anne-Marie Goldwater, therefore wrongly assume that if dogs are breed-blind, humans are also race-blind. They forget that humans were naturally selected to recognize those of their breed or race. So if you mix a bunch of people from different races, in a jail or in a high school for instance, they will eventually mingle with those that are genetically similar to them (theory of genetic similarity by Philippe Ruston: people are naturally attracted by people who have similar genes). This is not at all the case for dogs or any other domestic animal of the same species. But wild animals will mingle according to their breed. There are dozens of breeds of ducks, they are all ducks, but they divide naturally into their respective breeds because of natural selection. The same for humans, unless they are forced at gun point to do otherwise by totalitarian types of ideologues like Trudeau and friends.

In my new book, The Globo Trickster Book, there's a chapter on race called, "There is only one race, the human race," which makes the link between the bogus notions on race in humans and in dogs:



References

1. Thomas Gerbet (September 21, 2016). L’avocate Anne-France Goldwater défend les pitbulls à LongueuilRadio Canada (site consulted November 12, 2016).

2. Steven Pinker (2002). The Blank Slate. The Modern Denial of Human nature. Penguin Books.

3. Steven Pinker (2012). Fear of Race Realism and the Denial of Human Differences. Conference on YouTube.com.

4. Robert Plomin (2018). Blueprint. How DNA makes us who we are. Allen Lane (Penguin).

5. Charles Murray (2020). Human diversity. The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class. Hachette Book Group.

6. Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Belknap Press, 2000.


8. Mark Derr (February 6th 2001). It Takes Training and Genes To Make a Mean Dog MeanThe New York Times.

9. Michael S. Golinko, MD, MA, Brian Arslanian, MD, and Joseph K. Williams, MD, FAAP (2016). Characteristics of 1616 Consecutive Dog Bite Injuries at a Single Institution. Clinical Paediatrics

10. Mark A. Prendes et al. (2016). Ocular Trauma From Dog Bites: Characterization, Associations, and Treatment Patterns at a Regional Level I Trauma Center Over 11 Years. Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg: 32(4).

11. Garvey et al. (2015). Morbidity of pediatric dog bites: A case series at level one pediatric trauma center. Journal ofPediatric Surgery: p. 50, pp. 343-346.

12. O’Brien et al. (2015). Dog bites to the head and neck: an evaluation of a common pediatric trauma and associated treatment. Am. Journal of otolaryngology – head and neck medicine and surgery: p. 36, 32-38.

13. Prendes et al. (2015). Ocular trauma from dog bites: Characterization, associations, and treatment patterns at a regional Level 1 trauma center over 11 years. Ophthalmic Plastic Reconstructive Surgery.

14. Bini, J.K. et al. (2011) Mortality, Mauling, and Maiming by Vicious Dogs. Annals of Surgery; 253 (4).

15. Ricky L. Langley (2009). Human Fatalities Resulting From Dog Attacks in the United States, 1979–2005. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine; 20(1): 19-25.

16. Jeffrey J. Sacks, MD et al. (2000) Breeds of Dogs Involved in Fatal Human Attacks in the United States Between 1979 and 1998. Renters for Disease Control and Prevention.

17. J. J. Sacks, R. W. Sattin, and S. E. Bonzo (1989). Dog Bite-Related Fatalities from 1979 through 1988. Journal of the American Medical Association; 262: 1489-1492.

18. William G. Winkler (1977). Human Deaths Induced by Dog Bites, United States, 1974-75. Public Health Reports; 92(5): 425–429.