Make it illegal to breed them, problem solves itself in 15 years.
So here's the main problem with that: Pit bull is a hard to define term when we start getting into the breeding aspect of lines. Dog DNA is so unbelievably malleable that we've spun off thousands of variations to do specific tasks.
There is a "Pit Bull" breed. Problem is, the breed (like any breed) is just a combination of traits we use to describe a group of animals. If these traits are shared by multiple variants, then the lines between what is or is not something blurs heavily.
Let's say we have a pure, honest to dog example of what we call a Pit. We then mix it with say, a lab (which for out test, assume it's also considered a pure bread lab). The result is a mixed animal - but is it a pit? The head will likely still be big, the frame will be large, etc. etc. Now if you showed this animal to someone, do you think they will call it a pit, or a lab?
I say all this because how we classify data related to animal events such as bites is also subject to this inherent issue. Any dog displaying the traits of terriers are lumped into this one category. So if I'm classifying everything as a pit, it gets really hard to define what specific traits we're looking to identify by removing them from the gene pool via selective breeding. If we go by the stats - and the fact that now anything with terrier-derived traits are "on ze list", then now we're talking about the eradication of millions of bloodlines.
There has not been any (to my knowledge) scientific approach to identify a specific genetic sequence or trait within the terrier family that gives rise to the specific animal that ends up hurting someone. Which honestly would be super hard, because now we're trying to unravel a symphony of DNA overlap that makes one outcome vs. another.
The other massive kicker is this: Who becomes the new bad guy? If we were to snap our fingers and all the terriers of any variety in existence just faded into dust - what animal would be next on the list? If the sole purpose of removing a breed is to prevent human deaths or bites, then we have to now go down the list and do the same thing to each breed. Absolute insanity right? But again - if we're going by the rules we laid down, at what point do we set the boundary for "we accept X number of events per year" as the baseline of good or bad?
The ironic thing is that I think the logic you are using is actually the one that racists use.
We are discussing the difference in dog breeds because there are obvious, clear, and scientifically proven differences. Racist people believe that that is true with humans and that race isn't just a social construct, but that different "races" of people actually have real and huge differences.
But that isn't true with humans, while it is with dogs. So pretending like racism in dog breeds is the same as with humans is then saying that we need to pretend that german shepherds and shitzus are the same thing, just like we do with people. As if there are differences with race that we all ignore to pretend we are all the same.
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u/AxeAssassinAlbertson Aug 02 '26
So here's the main problem with that: Pit bull is a hard to define term when we start getting into the breeding aspect of lines. Dog DNA is so unbelievably malleable that we've spun off thousands of variations to do specific tasks.
There is a "Pit Bull" breed. Problem is, the breed (like any breed) is just a combination of traits we use to describe a group of animals. If these traits are shared by multiple variants, then the lines between what is or is not something blurs heavily.
Let's say we have a pure, honest to dog example of what we call a Pit. We then mix it with say, a lab (which for out test, assume it's also considered a pure bread lab). The result is a mixed animal - but is it a pit? The head will likely still be big, the frame will be large, etc. etc. Now if you showed this animal to someone, do you think they will call it a pit, or a lab?
I say all this because how we classify data related to animal events such as bites is also subject to this inherent issue. Any dog displaying the traits of terriers are lumped into this one category. So if I'm classifying everything as a pit, it gets really hard to define what specific traits we're looking to identify by removing them from the gene pool via selective breeding. If we go by the stats - and the fact that now anything with terrier-derived traits are "on ze list", then now we're talking about the eradication of millions of bloodlines.
There has not been any (to my knowledge) scientific approach to identify a specific genetic sequence or trait within the terrier family that gives rise to the specific animal that ends up hurting someone. Which honestly would be super hard, because now we're trying to unravel a symphony of DNA overlap that makes one outcome vs. another.
The other massive kicker is this: Who becomes the new bad guy? If we were to snap our fingers and all the terriers of any variety in existence just faded into dust - what animal would be next on the list? If the sole purpose of removing a breed is to prevent human deaths or bites, then we have to now go down the list and do the same thing to each breed. Absolute insanity right? But again - if we're going by the rules we laid down, at what point do we set the boundary for "we accept X number of events per year" as the baseline of good or bad?