It's very relaxing to pet a Chihuahua.
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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im pretty sure aggression is bred in for some dogs for thier purpose of being a gaurd dog, or something as bull baiting. also cats can be unpredictabally aggressive.
Shhh the entire concept of genetics is a big ol conspiracy that makes people who live in a fantasy where they control everything through behavior and education, since that is the only thing they control, really hurt. If you point out some things are destined (yes I know nature/nurture) they lose control because their fantasy collapses by conflicting world views.
This is probably what pebbles (who wouldn't hurt a fly ™️ ) thinks anyway
I'm 70 years old, have always had cats around, and have never come across an unpredictably aggressive cat. At least not towards people. Some cats don't like other cats, but that's very predictable for what are mostly solitary creatures. Cats are not dogs, and it's a mistake to compare them.
I think some people are just bad at reading cats.
It's literally why they're called bully breeds.
I think for chihuahuas it's largely a self-defense thing. They have to be aggressive to compensate for being so small.
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This is true but it's part of what makes chihuahuas awesome. My ex had a chihuahua that we raised from a puppy. We were totally nice and he was still psycho. He would attack me if I woke him up too early in the morning. I had to pick him up in a huge pillow as defense. He would go bananas trying to attack strangers but it's only because he was "defending" himself and our pack. The worst part of breaking up is missing that dude. Awesome dog.
Also lots of chihuahuas are totally chill.
Ofcourse you can breed aggression, its so absurd to claim that you cant.
We have bite statistics. Every year, pit bull and pit mixes far outnumber every other breed for human bite attacks, consistently, and always make up far more than half (to the tune of ~70%) of all total bites, by breed. Every single year.
Yet people ignore statistics and are eager to jump on the pibble defense train. “My little angel would never bite anyone!”
Maybe. But numbers don’t lie. Just stop breeding them. It’s cruel to people, and it’s cruel to the dogs themselves, that the breed continues to be perpetuated. Breed-specific behaviors are visceral and strong, whether you have a retriever, a pointer, a herder, or a throat mangler. The breed behavior can be invoked at any time, relatively easily.
We do have bite statistics, and the people most qualified to interpret them disagree with you
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf
If you can breed aggression, you can breed against aggression. Which means you can breed pit bulls to be less aggressive.
A friend of my wife and I got a pit bull a couple months ago. She was going on and on about how sweet he is and how he would never hurt anyone. Last week, it mauled her roommate. Nearly took his hand off while he was changing into his work clothes. His career is likely over and she's still defending the dog.
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Maybe. But numbers don’t lie
This is only said by people who've never actually taken a class about statistics.
Numbers may not lie, but they also don't make assertions. People suck at interpreting data and that fact is constantly utilized to mislead people.
I'm not saying this to defend pitbulls, just that bite statistics don't really tell us anything about innate aggression in dog breeds. Just like FBI statistics don't tell us about innate criminality in ethnicity.
Those bite statistics don't make any attempt to rule out misleading variables. It could be that pitt bull bites are reported more often because of the extent of harm they cause. It could be that people who gravitate towards breeds who are thought to be more aggressive are wanting and are training for aggression.
Statistics is hard, and can generally be used to shape opinions on just about anything.
We also don't really have bite statistics. Almost every citation I see for the data that gets posted over and over again traces back to one of two sources. One was a paper done in the 90s which both asserts that its methodology is inadequate to infer breed related risk and inexplicably combines rottweilers and pitbulls into a single category, a point which never gets carried through into other discussions. The other is that dogsbite site which openly states it is an advocacy site seeking the elimination of pit bulls and frequently gets its "data" from facebook stalking victims of dog bites for pictures of dogs they spent time around recently and then attempting to guess the breed involved from said picture. This is some real clown level shit, especially if you've ever read reports about even veterinarians trying to guess the breeds of mixed dogs that are their patients.
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They literally did the opposite with foxes. Some guy kept breeding the nicest ones until he got a "breed" that wouldn't want to murder you on sight. I'm pretty sure levels of aggression absolutely are something innate in some animals.
"Some guy"
Come on now, let's not buzzfeed our facts here!
Dmitry Belyayev is the guy, though work continued long after his death
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Fun fact about dog bite studies. People go to the hospital and just say "a pitbull bite me". The doctors write that down and can't really do anything else to verify. Then those medical reports are used in studies about dog bites and dog attacks. Meaning we have ne reliable data on dog breeds and attacks.
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Seeing this shit is honestly infuriating.
Jesuschrist
"It can happen to ANY family by ANY breed of dog! 1"
They make it sound like bull dogs of all varieties - and other fighting dogs bred for many generations for aggressive traits - are just really unlucky, that they keep showing up at the top of the stats for child murder and mauling.
Only unlucky ones are the kids who have parents dumb enough to risk their lives with killer breeds in the house. I truly feel for them.
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I have a pitbull (American pitbull terrier) that is a rescue. He loves people, but is so aggressive towards other animals that I can hardly believe it.
After having one for years now, I believe there should be some sort of training or licensing requirement before someone can own one. The combination of innate aggression and power is truly dangerous
I can never walk my dog off-leash, I can never hand my dog to someone inexperienced. I love my dog, but responsible ownership is much more burdensome than any other dog I've had.
Yep, adopted a pit bull several years back and had to re-home it after it attacked my border collie twice and if I wasn't nearby he would have killed her.
Got him as a puppy, raised him the exact same way we did the collie. He would just...snap randomly and go into attack mode. I also couldn't believe it. He was great with people though. Other pets and animals was a totally different story.
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Two things are true at once
(1) Upbringing has an enormous impact on agression in dogs. To the point it actually can be a stronger variable in the prediction than breed.
(2) Some breeds still have stronger tendencies towards agression.
But I agree with this sign’s main point. Banning pitbulls won’t stop the agressive dogs problem. Because the kind of people who usually buy pitbulls raise dogs to be agressive.
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As someone who has raised and fostered dozens of dogs over the years, actual Pitbull breeds DO tend to have problems with aggression. I had one Pit rescue that absolutely loved people, dogs, and cats, and for a couple of years, it was one of the best dogs I had taken in. Until one day he wasn't, he snapped and almost killed another foster we had.
I have had about a dozen or so mixed bully breeds and breeds like American Bulldogs, and not a single one ever gave me a moments hesitation. There absolutely is something in the full blood Pit breed that is an issue. I honestly believe we could breed aggression out of the breed, but it would more than likely just need to end up a bully mutt breed instead.
If you bred it out of them people wouldn't want them anymore. A lot of people want a big scary dog to protect their kids and them and stuff. But it's the same as a gun which statistically mostly kills the owners lol
Aggression is bred. I don't see this as funny.