Pet ownership is inherently selfish and self-deluded,

I can see that perspective and I don’t totally disagree. Dogs and cats (which are devastating to local ecosystems), seeming to be explicitly domesticated animals with no place in the wild, are potential special cases. The only alternative in my mind would be to neuter/spay the lot of them and that seems just as fucked up as owning them… so that’s honestly not really something I care to get into. I haven’t spent much time thinking about that topic.

pet owners cannot be expected to be responsible.

That’s a statement with insanely broad implications. Replace pet owners with “gun owners” or “drivers of cars” or “airline pilots”. It’s a subset of people that are not so special that they cannot be made responsible. Anyone with the capacity to understand and who is of sound mind can be expected to be responsible if society holds them to that standard.

Unless your point is to reiterate your objection to having a pet being irresponsible, in which case… ok.

WE LICENSE THOSE ACTIVITIES

Honestly, I’d be perfectly fine with more strict licensing of pets. Technically, my region does license dogs but it’s more of a system to make sure you vaccinate them and a fee to help fund pet-related efforts like animal and rabies control.

My only concern is that the licensing body needs to be robust and funded well enough to not pass an unreasonable cost onto applicants… which I feel applies to pretty much any licensing system.

Two of my friends that ended up with rescues that were mostly pitbull had to go through a whole process with several visits and interviews and a follow up some time after the rescue was placed in their custody. That was the rescue agency though not a licensing body.

…and how many neighborhoods, insurance companies, etc have rules against pitbulls?

There is no way that the full picture of breed ownership is tainted by purposely reporting the breed as one that wouldn’t cause the owner to pay more for insurance, get dropped by insurance, kicked out of their rental unit, etc?

Most of the dogs I know have significant amounts of pitbull in their blood. Their owners are not pitbull fanatics - they just rescued a dog from a service and found out it was 50+% pitbull. The one friend who has close to pure (90+%) pitbulls literally rescued them from the streets. Like found the dog with no tags and no chip somewhere near where they live, spent weeks advertising to find its owner, and decided to keep it when no owner surfaced.

Even if they were psychologically identical to every other dog

That’s literally my point - they basically are. I won’t argue that pitbulls are more capable of harming someone due to their physical characteristics. That’s just physics.

Horses are also large, powerful animals and they cause at least a few deaths every year by trampling or kicking humans when provoked, spooked, startled, or whatever - I’m not really a horse person. Obviously, large powerful animals can absolutely cause more damage than lap-sized animals. That doesn’t mean they are the equivalent of a monster from a horror movie that could rip someone to shreds at any moment with no provocation. Not does it mean that anyone who owns one is an irresponsible, naive threat to society.

If you are a responsible owner, the dog or horse isn’t an unreasonable danger.

Sorry you feel personally attacked when someone says pitbulls are dangerous.

I don’t feel personally attacked, but many other people feel personally attacked when someone questions their opinion on pitbulls. I just feel bad for the animals.

Ah yes, I see. You have made assertions that align with the typical narrative and stereotype around a breed of dogs, then demonstrated the assertion’s validity by stating it is a belief held in your neighborhood.

I have completely changed my mind and will now ignore all of my own experiences and knowledge on the topic because a random person asserted a stereotype and stated that people believe and act on a stereotype. I guess that’s it. Debate over.

None of them have kids, but I’ve spent a lot of time around my friends and their dogs. They are just dogs. Many of them are extremely affectionate. When I was a kid my family had a German Shepherd with showdog lineage and my mother had a lifetime of experience of owning and training dogs. Our shepherd exhibited substantially more aggression than any of my friends’ pitbulls.

Yes, big, strong dogs can do more harm than smaller dogs and pitbulls can be big and strong. That does make them capable of being more dangerous if something goes wrong. I can’t argue with that. However, the mentality is that pitbulls are inherently violent or behave violently by natur is what I call bullshit on.

Pitbulls are regarded as dangerous and vicious. They are also abused and subjected to fighting by their owners because that is their reputation. It’s so fucked up. Then, bad owners want a scary dog, treat it poorly, don’t train it and when it acts like any mistreated, traumatized animal would the world declares it inherently violent. There is such a thing as a self fulfilling prophecy.

Hell, one friend has a pit mix that is like < 30 lbs, full grown. I’ve never seen it do anything any other dog wouldn’t do. Still, he’s extremely careful with it because of the prejudice people have against the breed. Once I was hiking with him and another man with his own dog crossed our path. My friend stepped off the path and kept the dog seated and on a short leash in an attempt to reassure the guy well before he got close to us. The guy immediately asked my friend if his dog was a pitbull and berated him as he passed, furious that my friend would be irresponsible enough to own a pitbull.

Many of the people in this thread remind me of that man.

Another story. One of my coworkers paid thousands of dollars in vet bills for their neighbor in order to stop them from trying to get my coworkers dog put down (and it wasn’t one of those “scary” breeds). All because the neighbors small, aggressive dog charged the bigger dog. In its attempt to get away, the bigger dog scrambled and accidentally stepped on the smaller dog and injured it. A poorly trained, off leash small dog almost cost a perfectly average dog it’s life because the owners didn’t bother to restrain it… but the bad owners made out in the end.

One last story. I was hiking with the tankiest, strongest pitbull of all the ones I know. This guy doesn’t want anything to do with other dogs. It’s not aggressive - it’s frightened. We came across another hiker with their dog… the hiker said his dog was friendly and my friend immediately stated that their dog wasn’t interested in making new friends. The hiker ignored the statement and let go of their dog’s leash, letting the dog rush the pitbull tank barking and running circles around it. The pitbull panicked and couldn’t get away and my friend had to try to keep the other dog away from the pitbull for the pitbull’s sake. No harm was done beyond a poor, stressed out pitbull and a pissed off friend.

Should pitbulls exist? I’m indifferent, especially when it comes to purebreds. That doesn’t mean that I want them exterminated or left to rot in shelters. Just let dogs be dogs. Try to make sure puppies come out healthy and worry less about whether they look the way you want them to.

Because their stereotype can attract shitty owners who want a badass dog but can’t be assed to train or care for them.

Or they literally abuse, possibly even with dogfights, and abandon them.

I’m not an owner I’m but someone with a lot of friends that own pitbulls. Pitbulls aren’t some magically special, dangerous breed that is prone to random acts of violence.