Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is it the breed or bad owners? It’s the BREED!

Back before the prevalence of concealed carry, a few decades ago, I saw a lot of people in Albuquerque walking and running with a 9-iron. Next to a sword or firearm, that is a fairly good antidote for dog attacks.

I've been handling insurance claims for over 30 years. For the last several years, I have handled property liability claims exclusively. Here's my perspective:

Dog bite claims are the the single most common liability claim made under a homeowners or renters policy.

Bully breeds (Pit Bulls, Staffordshire Terriers, etc) account for the largest share of dog bite claims, and produce the most serious injuries. German Shepherds are second in frequency, and nearly equal in severity. Other breeds such as Cane Corsos, Mastiffs, and Catahoula Leopard Dogs produce a disproportionate number of injuiry claims. Of the smaller breeds, Australian Shepherds are notorious ankle biters and produce a lot of claims by people bitten while jogging or riding bikes. Their bites can be quite severe.

Labs, Golden Retrievers and Collies may bite, but the number of claims people make as a result are negligible. If I handle the rare claim for a bite from a Lab, it's almost always a "Lab mix." When I ask what it's mixed with, I'm almost always told "maybe a terrier of some kind."

The most frequent excuse when an insured's dog gets out is about equal shares of: a) "my kid left the door/gate open", and 2) "the dog slipped out when I was taking a package from the Amazon guy." But I am also amazed at the number of people that simply cannot control their leashed dog. I've seen claims where women and children were literally dragged by their dog as it pulls to attack another dog or person. Others willfully let their dog run at large.

The most frequent comment about the severity of the injury by the dog owner is "it was just a nip." Or "he was just playing." Many dog owners are simply unwilling to confront the fact that their dog just tore someone up. That comment is almost always followed by, "I want to fight this, it wasn't that bad."

Here's the reality: If your dog bites someone, unless that person was actually trespassing or provoking your dog, you will be 100% liable in states with strict liability laws, and there's a lot of those states. If your conduct was egregious or reckless, and that conduct allowed the attack or bite to occur, you may be liable for punitive damages, and punitive damages are usually not covered by your insurance policy. In states without strict liability laws, you will likely be liable if there was a leash law you violated - such as your dog running at large. "One Bite Rules" in states can be overcome if you had ANY notice of any prior aggression or bites. Most juries are not going to stiff a bite victim.

If your dog bites someone, no matter how "sweet" it is, you are now in possession of a dog that bites. You will likely lose your homeowners or renters insurance. Many insurers do not want to insure a home that houses a dog that has bitten.

Lesson - control your dog.

I don't hate pitbulls.
I just don't understand. There are so many amazing dog breeds out there. If you are not using them on wild boar, I have no idea why people would chose them.
If people were smart and didn't chose them, they wouldn't be so popular and therefore not nearly as prevalent. Less pits would equal less bites.

But asking people to make smart, informed decisions seems to be asking way too much these days......

Our beagle was the ultimate kid's dog. Could trust him with everything except guarding you sandwich when you left the room. He was the hit of the neighborhood. He loved playing with our kids and their friends. Took him for a walk in a public park and many kids came over and played with him. Then one @10-year-old girl came over and he changed. His hackles went up and his teeth were bared. She and we separated ways and back to playing will all the kids. She approached a while later and same reaction. What was he sensing with this cute little girl I never knew.

It’s amazing how calm the husky appears.

The pitbull seems very jovial.

The people showing these dogs perhaps should switch to goldfish. Or flowers.

Pitt Bull owners are always quick to say my dog has never acted aggressively. Or not my dog, she is a female and as sweet as can be. Or my dog wouldn't hurt anybody.

The daughter of a friend of mine had a pitt bull. Same story, my dog wouldn't hurt a flea. Well one day, for no apparent reason, the pitt bull attacked there 2 year old boy. The dog latched on to his face and almost killed him. The boy was airlifted via trauma helicopter to a trauma center. He's lucky he survived.

They are all good dogs, until they are not. And when that trigger gets pulled very bad things happen. It may never happen, but the potential is ALWAYS there.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the same thing as loading one of your guns, taking the safety off, and telling your kids here go play with this. Ticking time bomb.

Interesting thought process by some. Are Pitt bulls genetically predisposed for the behavior? .

The first and most lasting thing I learned as a USAF SP MWD handler was “[bleep] rolls down leash. It ain’t necessarily the dog and more likely the owner. And, after working 25 years as a LEO I have yet to be bite by a pit bull. Am I careful around them? Yes. I’m also careful around other large breeds such as German Shepherds, Mastiffs etc. The only dogs I’ve been bitten by on duty have been border collies because their owners don’t have enough sense to stay on the same side of me as the dog is and the dog nips me in the thigh every time trying to move me like cattle. Again, the dumb owner not the dog.

Here's another side of the story- A few years ago in our town a policeman was walking down the street to visit with some folks, which is isn't unusual in this town as community policing is the charter here and we get along well with our police department . In any case, a yellow lab charged at the policeman out of nowhere with it's hackles up and teeth bared. As it approached, the cop shot it several times, killing it just before it reached him. He was reprimanded, the city was sued and lost a large settlement, and the policeman lost his job. Yes, our city, which used to be a town of approximately 8K residents and a conservative farm community has grown into a community of 109,000 drawn by high tech growth and is decidedly going blue more each day.

Growing up our family always had dogs and my dad's favorite was boxers and he had a bit of a puppy mill going on in the garage. Keep in mind this was 60-65 years ago. One of my earliest memories was watching them bob the tails of those puppies. The female boxer we had was the sweetest dog you've ever met- it would sleep on the front porch with the neighborhood cats, dogs, and even a family of raccoons . The male , on the other hand, was the most vicious dog I've ever seen then or since. It would literally tear cats into pieces and would do just about anything to get to a cat. Once it bit my mom on the foot when she tried to get a cat away from it and my mom retreated to the house until we got back a couple days later from a hunting trip. My dad was the alpha male to that dog and was the only person he would ever listen to and with him gone, the dog felt like he was running the show. When we got back and my dad heard about what happened he didn't even unpack before he took care of it. He took out his Remington 760 30-06, tossed a bone out in our pasture as far as he could throw it, and when the dog went to retrieve it he shot it and we buried it right there. We had 8 kids in the family and dad couldn't afford to have a vicious dog around the family.

I usually love boxers- they are goofy and look really great and are usually great family dogs, but they aren't the smartest breed around. We have also had labs and once a Pomeranian. Of all of them I think I hated that yapping little Pomeranian the most. I can't tell you how many times it bit me on the ankles when I was a kid. It suddenly disappeared one day and my folks simply said it ran away. I didn't really care either way as I was just glad it was gone.

ive had pits most of my life, as have my parents/grand parents. They do have prey drive, most definitely. the vast majority of incidents occur because inexperienced owners that cant control them own them, because they look cool. There isnt enough context in that video to tell what happened, huskies are known for being mouthy dogs, and it very well may have wrote a check its ass couldnt cash. Once was walking my dog in a nearly deserted park, with my 95lb unaltered male, some complete moron decided he should ignore leash laws and was letting his large black lab run all over, his lab ran up to my dog and i told him he needed to leash his dog and keep it away from mine, his dog attempted to assert dominace (ran up and attempted to jump on my dog) and got its ass kicked in about 3 seconds, and it was well deserved. I didnt let my dog do any real damage in that brief exchanged, but an idiot owner, or an inexperienced owner could have had a major problem.

From my experience after owning bulldogs for 50+ years, it's always the owners fault. It's definitely easy to set a bulldog up to fail, but there's not any other breed of dog that will protect your property and loved one's against people or animals like a bulldog.