[darth_avocado]

Most of the responses usually devolve into emotional ones, both from dog lovers and dog haters. As a dog owner I support common sense acceptable rules:

1. No dogs in stores that have fresh produce, dairy and meat 2. No off leash dogs in public areas except in dedicated off leash areas 3. No dogs in restaurants indoors 4. Severe penalties if you parade your unbehaved dog as a service dog

But at the same time, dog haters keep pushing it to the point where you cannot have dogs beyond the confines of your home (the home cannot be an apartment building). People don’t want dogs in apartments and they don’t want them in ANY public areas. The same people will also oppose dedicated dog parks or ensure these parks are extremely small.

Around half the households in the country have a dog. There needs to be a middle ground.

[lotsofpulp]

The problem is “dog” encompasses 20lb to 40lb poodles and shitzus and 60lb to 100lb pitbulls and Rottweilers that can be more dangerous than wild animals that we don’t allow in public.

And those with short fur that don’t shed a lot or are less allergenic and those with long fur that cover the whole space with their hairs.

My toddle has less rights to exist in a space outside their home compared to a dog capable of severely hurting them (and has many times in the past) specifically bred to be aggressive that does not let go after they bite.

This happened to my daughter in the first couple weeks of kindergarten. The class is supposed to line up outside in the morning before the teacher takes them into school, and some mom decided to bring their extremely large pitbull and park it 5 feet away from all the 5 year olds in line.

There was no chance this woman would have been able to control her dog, yet she had the right to keep a dangerous animal 5 feet away from my daughter. I told the school to take my daughter inside and keep her away or I was taking her home, and they had my daughter wait inside the office.

It makes no sense that any other large animal with similar characteristics as a large pitbull would have been disallowed, but because a pitbull falls under dog, it is allowed.

[jfengel]

Breed and size are less predictive of danger than level of training. An 8 pound Chihuahua can do serious damage if it's badly trained. A properly trained Rottweiler is absolutely bomb-proof. It's certainly capable of more damage, but it won't.

Pit bulls are no more dangerous than any other breed. They have a bad reputation because they are popular among dog-fighters, but pit bulls (and pit mixes) make excellent pets -- so long as they are trained. And they're easier to deal with than many working breeds, who quickly become dangerously anxious if you don't give them a job. (Pits, by contrast, are mostly couch potatoes.)

All of that said... most dogs do not belong in public, at least in the US. (Some other countries have a longer tradition of dogs in public, and they routinely train their dogs to behave well.) That is even more important in enclosed spaces, where neither you nor the dog can put distance between you if there is a problem.

The upshot: find a training class, and take it. The class isn't training your dog; it's training you. You have to take it seriously and do the homework. The dog is not a machine to be programmed by somebody else.

[lotsofpulp]

>Breed and size are less predictive of danger than level of training. An 8 pound Chihuahua can do serious damage if it's badly trained. A properly trained Rottweiler is absolutely bomb-proof. It's certainly capable of more damage, but it won't.

Level of damage is a component of danger. I am not worried about the damage an 8lb chihuahua will do to my kid, that can most likely be healed, and most people can stop the attack without weapons.

I am worried that the only way I can save my kid from a pit bull or similar dog is with a knife or gun, and even then, the damage will be severe.

> Pit bulls are no more dangerous than any other breed. They have a bad reputation because they are popular among dog-fighters, but pit bulls (and pit mixes) make excellent pets -- so long as they are trained.

The same can be said of tigers and hyenas and lions and chimps and bears.

[OkayPhysicist]

> The same can be said of tigers and hyenas and lions and chimps and bears.

When we spend 20,000 years breeding obedience into any of those, I'm sure they'll be fine in public, too.

[darth_avocado]

A lot of this seems uninformed projection of your own fears. Your toddler quite literally has more rights to exist in a space not your home than a dog. Unless you mean to say that as long as dogs exist in a public space, your child’s existence is threatened.

Untrained pitbulls can be dangerous, but did the dog display any aggression at any point? Or is the whole story just “a well trained dog was in the vicinity of children, presumably not off leash, and I did not like that because I fear for my children all the time”? And are you actually allergic to dog fur or are you more concerned about the fictional person who may be allergic to dog fur, but only to the fur from larger dogs? Because the reality of dog allergies is that they are not really caused by the fur itself, regardless of the size.

Btw this is what I meant when I pointed that most discussions are emotional than rooted in reality.

[lotsofpulp]

>Unless you mean to say that as long as dogs exist in a public space, your child’s existence is threatened.

No, I am saying that public places are not allowed to say a dog cannot exist there, so effectively my choice (and more often than not these days) is to take my kid and leave, or have my kid be in the same space as the dog. This includes playgrounds, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Every dog is a service dog.

>Untrained pitbulls can be dangerous, but did the dog display any aggression at any point?

Why would I wait for it to display aggression? Just like any other animal that is capable of causing a lot of damage, I would be on alert, and preferably keep my kid away. There is obviously no possibility to react quickly enough to stop a large animal from hurting someone a few feet away.

>Or is the whole story just “a well trained dog was in the vicinity of children, presumably not off leash, and I did not like that because I fear for my children all the time”?

How is someone supposed to know it was well trained? Especially given the prior probabilities of the type of people who own large pitbulls in the first place. Just like you evaluate the type of people you're around (for example those with loaded weapons, brandishing knives, etc), why would it not make sense to evaluate the type of animal that is around?

>Btw this is what I meant when I pointed that most discussions are emotional than rooted in reality.

I don't see evaluating potential consequences as being emotional. You might ascribe a lower probability of injury, but I don't see it as consistent to give large dogs the benefit of the doubt just because they are dogs. Especially when all the stats indicate increased damaged from certain types.

[darth_avocado]

> This includes playgrounds, restaurants, grocery stores, etc

Dogs are most definitely not allowed in playgrounds, restaurants (unless it’s for an outdoor seating) and grocery stores.

Everything else you described is mostly you expressing your discomfort around large dogs, stemming for your parental instincts to protect your child. Which is by definition an emotional response.

> Just like you evaluate the type of people you're around

Btw there are two types of evaluations. One is situational awareness and the other is stereotyping. Looking at a large dog that’s minding its own business but complaining about it because it’s a pitbull and COULD be dangerous, fits the second type.

[yencabulator]

> Just like any other animal that is capable of causing a lot of damage, I would be on alert, and preferably keep my kid away. There is obviously no possibility to react quickly enough to stop a large animal from hurting someone a few feet away.

It's almost as if you don't realize that humans are even larger animals, also capable of causing a lot of damage.

[belorn]

> It makes no sense that any other large animal with similar characteristics as a large pitbull would have been disallowed, but because a pitbull falls under dog, it is allowed.

I will just point toward horses, which are dangerous animals, significant more dangerous than any wild animals we allow near civilization, and which no human has any ability to fully control. They weight somewhere around a car, has high risk of going out of control if spooked, and there very little anyone can do once that amount of mass is moving.

Mounted police, cart and horse ride (often on busy tourist streets), or just places that has horse rides directed toward children. We would not treat other large and dangerous animals with similar characteristics to be used as we do with horses.

[lotsofpulp]

Isn't using police horses considered animal cruelty, and an outdated mode of policing mostly used as a show of force? Same for cart and horse rides, but again, the horses are not inside of businesses and airplanes and right next to a kid.

I wouldn't want my kid to be near the legs of a random horse either. If a reputable business is offering horse rides, then I have a little extra assurance of the horse's training or the handler's capabilities.

[belorn]

> If a reputable business is offering horse rides, then I have a little extra assurance of the horse's training or the handler's capabilities.

Them what we are talking about is training. Many dog owners will agree that training is important for the well being of the dog and essential if you want to have them around other people (and dogs). For owners that want to have dogs off the leash it is extremely risky without extensive training, unless they are puppies under certain age.

The more potentially dangerous an animal is, the more training should be required before they are allowed in spaces that risk other people. Given the number of deaths and serious injuries that animals do each year to humans, it seems fairly common sense to have such requirement that scale with how high the risk is given any specific animal.

Horse riding by children would be a bit more complicated. Not sure it is possible to reduce the risk to safe levels, but then that is the role of training and certification regulations.

[hyperman1]

On our beaches and dunes, police on a horse is still a thing, especially if distance between people is high. It makes more sense than any kind of mechanical vehucle, too.