Commentary: II

Is there a difference? Comparison of golden retrievers and dogs affected by breed specific legislation regarding aggressive behaviour.
S Ott, E Schalke, et al.
Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research
3: 134-140

Is breed-specific legislation justified? Study of the results of the temperament test of Lower Saxony.
E Schalke, S Ott, et al.
Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research
3: 97-103

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Note 5:

In an unusual publishing event, the two papers noted above were published in the same issue of the Journal of Veterinary Behavior; Clinical Applications and Research. The authors are associated with the same Institute at the same University. Ott and Schalke are co-authors of each other's papers. In essence, the two papers are designed to work in tandem. Ott sets up the argument and Schalke attempts to prove that Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is not justified. Theirs is a transparent, poorly conceived argument with questionable scientific value.

Note 6: Control Group

Ott's paper depends on two previous TiHo publications (Mittmann 2002 and Johann 2004) to make a comparison between the aggressive tendencies of dangerous dogs and Golden Retrievers. Ott presents Johann's research on the Golden Retrievers as a Control Group for Mittmann's earlier research on the dangerous dogs listed by the Lower Saxony breed list.

Ott uses the term Control Group (to refer to Johann's study of Golden Retrievers) at least eight times in a brief, seven page paper. But an examination of Johann's paper reveals that her study of Golden Retrievers was not designed as a control group for Mittmann's study of dangerous dogs (which was completed two years before Johann's study). 

The literature on the design of control groups in scientific experiments is extensive, and it's clear that Johann's study, designed and accomplished two years after Mittmann's, does not qualify as  either a Negative or Positive Control Group. Ott's pretense that Johann's study of Golden Retrievers was a Control Group is a specious argument, pasted on post factum to enhance the credibility of her own (Ott's) brief review.

Note 7: 

Shalke's paper, published in conjuction with Ott's, is intended to provide the answer, or proof, to Ott's question: Is There a Difference?  

Shalke provides no new findings; the paper provides nothing more than a summary of the findings provided by Mittmann six years earlier. The purpose of Shalke's paper is to restate the arguments against BSL at an important moment in US, German, and Lower Saxony dog legislation.

Note 8:

The fact that presumably scientific papers are written to provide arguments for the advocates of fighting breeds will come as no surprise to those who read German blogs and discussion forums. As early as December 2002 the German detractors of dangerous dog legislation were aware of forthcoming TiHo publications, and were poised to use them to weaken or overturn dog legislation. As mentioned previously in these pages, a comment left on the KSG forum* referred to Johann's forthcoming study of Golden Retrievers, with its exact title, a full two years before it was published. In the same discussion, Andreas also celebrated the TiHo publications:

Das sind doch gute Voraussetzungen für die bevorstehenden Gerichtsverhandlung über das Bundesgesetz und das niedersächsische Hundediskriminierungsgesetz! **

Andreas' comment appeared within days after Mittman's dissertation was published; it was as if the advocates of fighting breeds had been handed a gift. 

The recycled arguments made by Ott and Schalke in 2008 provide advocates of fighting breeds with a new cycle of references to continue their opposition to BSL.

  The commentary will be continued in a subsequent post.

* * * * * 

Notes:

* Kampfschmuser Gemeinde, which translates roughly as the Fighting-Cuddling Community

** Surely these provide a good basis for the upcoming trial on the federal law and the Lower Saxony dog-Discrimination Act!

See TiHo Index (above) for complete list of posts on TiHo.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks in the US

Commentary

Is there a difference? Comparison of golden retrievers and dogs affected by breed specific legislation regarding aggressive behaviour. (2008)

S.A. Ott, E. Schalke, A.M. von Gaertner, H. Hackbarth. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research 3: 134-140.

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Revised: April 25, 2012; 18:08 EST

Note 1:

At that time the authorities assumed that certain breeds of dogs were especially dangerous without just cause.

The law insinuated, without just cause, that particular breeds were especially dangerous. . .

The first example above appears as the second sentence of Ott (2008); the second example appears as the fifth sentence of Schalke (2008). These two papers appeared in the same issue of the Journal of Veterinary Behavior.

The repetition of the phrase without just cause announces that the authors have abandoned all pretense of scientific objectivity. These papers, and others from TiHo, are written not as scientific papers but as amicus briefs. Many of the TiHo papers on dog aggression show similar indiscretions.

Note 2:

All the papers on dangerous dogs published by TiHo are based on data collected by Mittman (2002) and by Johann (2004). It appears that all subsequent TiHo publications on the subject of aggression in Golden Retrievers, including Ott (2008) and Schalke (2008), while not always explicit on this matter, use the existing data sets compiled years previously by Mittmann and Johann.

Note 3: The Test Instrument

The papers published by TiHo faculty all refer to the aggression test designed by Netto and Planta (1997). Stefanie Ott, in the paper currently under consideration, claims the test used to test for aggression in Lower Saxony was based on a temperament test by Netto and Planta (1997). Any connection between the Netto test and the test used in Lower Saxony is tenuous at best.

Netto's test is comprised of 43 subtests, or situations. The test accepted by the state of Lower Saxony and used by Mittman (2002) and Johann (2004) uses 35 situations. One situation was omitted during testing, resulting in a test of 34 situations.

Netto (1997) Section 5.1 The Test Design: If only a small number of subtests are performed, there is less chance of detecting aggression. . . .  It is therefore not advisable to reduce the number of subtests. 

Furthermore, the ratings scale for aggressive behavior was increased from five (in Netto) to seven (in Mittmann), thereby diluting the range of possible aggressive responses. 

Note 4:

A careful examination of the Netto test and the test used in Lower Saxony reveals more troubling discrepancies. Of the 44 situations in the Netto test, Mittmann dropped 27 which dealt with known triggers such as removal of the food bowl, and territoriality inside a car or associated with the dog's bed. Significantly, Mittmann (2002) and Johann (2004) also omitted all test situations which tested for obedience and dog/dog aggression.

TiHo took the remaining 16 situations and bulked them back up to 35 situations, often by inventing near replicas. In fact, the Mittmann/Johann test used in Lower Saxony to evaluate listed breeds bears little resemblance to the Netto test.

Netto's test is explicitly designed to find aggressive individuals, with the intent of excluding them from breeding.  It can be argued that the test adapted by TiHo and first used by Mittmann (2002) is designed to achieve the opposite: to prove that no dog, including the dogs on the Lower Saxony list of dangerous breeds, is inherently aggressive.

The commentary will be continued in a subsequent post.

* * * * *

Notes:

See TiHo Index (above) for complete list of posts on TiHo.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks in the US

Irreparable Harm

This post is one of a series of posts on TiHo. For a complete listing of the posts in this series see the TiHo Index.

* * * * *

Irreparable Harm
. . . a type of harm which no monetary compensation can cure or put conditions back the way they were. --Wikipedia

* * * * *

Revised: April 17, 2012  00:25 EST
Revised: Sept 10, 2012; 01:12 GMT

To:

Golden Retriever Club UK

Golden Retriever Club Scotland
Golden Retriever Club e.V.
Retriever Club de France
NGRC, Australia
Karen Mills, Golden Retriever Breeders Directory (US)

John Cotter, President, Golden Retriever Club of America

   and hundreds of breeders and aficionados of Golden Retrievers

On June 26, 2000 six year-old Volkan Kaja of Hamburg, Germany was savaged by two dogs, a pit bull and an American Staffordshire Terrier. In July of the same year, the authorities of Lower Saxony passed the Dangerous Dogs Act (Niedersaechsische Gefahrtierverordnung GefTVO); this law included various provisions of Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) directed at a proscribed list of dogs.

Provisions of the new law allowed owners of some proscribed dogs to keep those dogs if they passed a temperament test, which was administered by veterinary behaviorists at the University of Veterinary Medicine (TiHo) in Hannover, Germany.

The new law and the cycle of testing led to the publication of a number of papers by members of the TiHo faculty. Several papers mention Golden Retrievers, which were used as a comparison group when testing the proscribed dogs. SRUV will discuss these papers in greater detail in forthcoming posts.

A number of these papers were evidently written in English and appeared in English language journals. A number are currently available for download on US and European sites which advocate for fighting breeds including pit bulls, and against Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). These sites include Animal Farm Foundation, Best Friends, Fairdog (Denmark), and others. Pit bull advocates in the US have made extensive use of the research from TiHo, cherry-picking information and quotations for their arguments against BSL.

Among the most popular statements used by pit bull advocates in the US are those which claim that pit bulls show no more aggression than Golden Retrievers. These findings are highly suspect, but pit bull advocates have latched onto them with an obsessive fervor. In making this claim pit bull advocates are apparently blind to the fact that this comparison could be viewed by owners and lovers of Golden Retrievers as libelous.

This pit bull/Golden Retriever equation is repeated by advocacy attorneys, legislative analysts, lobbyists, politicians, and others who should demonstrate more caution. The assertion that Golden Retrievers are as dangerous as pit bulls has become so firmly entrenched among advocates of fighting breeds that it appears repeatedly in the comment sections under the news coverage of pit bull attacks. It has become universal wisdom.

SRUV is not prepared to address the dangerous dog situation in Germany. But in the 30 year period from 1982 through 2012 in the US and Canada, two canine homicides were attributed to Golden Retrievers, one of which was caused by rabies and the second by a bizarre strangling accident. During the same period in the US, pit bulls and close pit bull mixes accounted for at least 217 deaths, nearly 50% of the total canine homicides.*

The claim that there is no discernible difference in aggressive tendencies between pit bulls and Golden Retrievers is an egregious, unethical distortion. The continued use of this assertion by the advocates of fighting breeds would alter the public perception of a breed that is presently considered one of the gentlest, kindest breeds known to man.  The false claim made by pit bull advocates has already caused substantial harm to the reputation of the Golden Retriever, as well as to breeders of these lovely dogs.

* * * * *

Notes:

* One Golden Retriever responsible for an attack was rabid. The second accidentally strangled Kaitlyn Hassard, 6, of Manorville, Long Island, on 1/24/06, by tugging at her scarf. Statistics are from Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, published by Animal People. To view or download the current PDF click here.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks in the US

BSL Scholarship

Our collective attitude toward our animal companions began to change with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation in 1975. The Animal Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1979 and animal law courses are currently taught in over a hundred law schools in the US.

SRUV recently reviewed the scholarship related to Breed Specific Legislation (BSL); we've included a brief bibliography below and more titles can be viewed here and in the relevant scholarly and legal databases.

* * * * * 

Attacking the Dog-Bite Epidemic: Why Breed-Specific Legislation Won't Solve the Dangerous-Dog Dilemma; Hussain, Safia Gray. 74 Fordham Law Review 2847

Canine Profiling: Does Breed-Specific Legislation Take a Bite out of Canine Crime; Pratt, Heather K. 108 Penn State Law Review 855

Dangerous Dog Laws: Failing to Give Man's Best Friend a Fair Shake at Justice; McNeely, Cynthis A.; Linquist, Sarah A. 3 J. Animal L. 99

Panic Policy Making: Canine Breed Bans in Canada and the United States; Hunter, Susan; Brisbin, Richard A. Prepared for delivery at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association.

Dog Bite Injury: an investigation into the effectiveness of regulation, Watson, Linda (Thesis)

Pit Bull Bans and the Human Factors Affecting Canine Behavior; Medlin, Jamey; 56 Depaul Law Review, 1285

* * * * * *

SRUV will not characterize all animal law scholarship, but a look at one paper is illuminating. The following paragraph serves as the opening of Irrationality Unleashed: The Pitfalls of Breed-Specific Legislation (Swann, Kristen E.  78 UMKC L. Rev. 839). The Introduction is titled A Tale of Two "Pitties" and begins:

A young woman struggles with an overfull trash bag in a chilly, hissing rain. Hefting the bag into the trash bin behind her apartment building, she hears weak but insistent mewling. Seven impossibly tiny puppies huddle in the wet detritus behind the container. The woman whistles several times to summon the pups' mother. No dog appears. The listless dogs cannot survive in the damp cold. She retrieves a basket lined with towels from her apartment and . . . . 

This three-hankie tear-jerker qualified for the Law Review?

* * * * * *

What is immediately apparent is the mind-numbing tedium of so much of the research on this subject.  It is almost as if the scholars are repeating the same ideas to one another, over and over. This selection of titles, and the excerpt above, do not inspire confidence in current animal law scholarship.

* * * * * *

Related Material:
Related post: Dangerous Dog Laws, DDL
See also: Bioethics (Wikipedia)

Overview of "breed specific" laws, Kenneth Phillips, Dog Bite Law

Statistics:
Statistics on SRUV are from the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, published by Animal People. To view or download the current PDF click here. This page may also include information from Dogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

Information on euthanasia rates is from Pit bulls and Political Recklessness, by Merritt Clifton. Shelter  intake and euthanasia rates are published annually in the July/August edition of Animal People.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks






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ASI: Response from Kenneth Shapiro

On March 1st SRUV wrote an Open Letter to the Animals and Society Institute. Kenneth Shapiro, the Executive Director of ASI, sends the following reply.

* * * * *

The Animals and Society Institute solicits authors who are experts with academic and on-the-ground experience in a relevant policy area. Authors use existing scientific and theoretical literature to present the pros and cons of particular practices involving our treatment of nonhuman animals, framing their scientifically and theoretically grounded analysis and commentary in terms of changes in practice through regulation and legislation. All papers are vetted by two independent scholars. Dog Bites, one of 6 titles in our Policy Paper Series, meets these well-established academic standards. Although the ASI recognizes that the topics are subject to debate, it is our intent to provide the most comprehensive and factual information available at the time of publication, as noted in the Works Cited section of each paper.


The literature on the role of pit bulls in dog bites and dog fatalities is considerable and, in toto, provides a strong critique of the policy of breed-specific legislation (e. g., Voith, Ingram, Mitsouras, & Irizarry, Comparison of Adoption Agency Breed Identification and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 2009, 12, 3, 253-263).

Kenneth Shapiro * Executive Director
Animals and Society Institute, Inc. * (hdqtr Ann Arbor MI)
t/f 301-963-4751
403 McCauley Street * Washington Grove MD 20880 * USA
http://www.animalsandsociety.org/
www.Facebook.com/animalsandsocietyinstitute

* * * * *

Go to ASI: Pt 4 (Next in thread)

Letter to ASI: Part 2

Revised: Jan 7, 2013; 00:44 GMT

Subsequent to posting our open letter to ASI (Animals & Society Institute), SRUV engaged in an email conversation with a prominent scholar of international environmental and animal law. That conversation is reproduced here. Full disclosure: SRUV has slightly expanded our portion of the discussion while the correspondent has not had the opportunity to do so.

* * * * *

CORRESPONDENT: I have received and read your letter, but I do not understand what you are seeking to happen??

SRUV: That's a question we hadn't anticipated. Would it be too presumptuous to say we'd like to "start a national conversation" about BSL (Breed Specific Legislation).

We'd like to put Dr Shapiro and other scholars on notice that they're part of what is essentially a public health issue. Dr Shapiro and others may be acting morally, in their view. But we think they're mistaken in their position against BSL.

The resistance to BSL runs throughout society, from top to bottom. Some of us see this resistance as damaging to the humane movement, to human-animal relations, and to society at large.

We hope that our initiative will, over time, generate enough interest that scholars and policy-makers will question what has come to be a received opinion about BSL. At some point institutions such as ASI may break away from these beliefs and help forge new and different attitudes about BSL.
Thank you for writing,
SRUV

CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, I would say public safety rather than public health, but clearly an important topic. I think that many of us oppose BSL because of its basic unfairness, in that, most of the risk to the public arises from the human treatment of the dog rather than the inherent traits of the dog itself. If all pit bulls were removed from the US, then those humans who intentionally or un-intentionally create bad pit bulls will just find another dog breed to use, and the risk of harm to the public will remain at about the same level.

SRUV:  There are many who would disagree with you on this matter. Owners of retrievers know that their dogs jump into the water to retrieve a stick or ball, practically from birth, while my blue heeler walked around puddles on the sidewalk when possible. The skill of Border Collies to herd, from birth, is not questioned; in fact generations have come to depend on it. Anyone who has watched field trials in Wales or Scotland comes away from the experience awestruck. We know that ratters, pointers, and other breeds each have their own unique calling.

Why then should we ignore, or deny, the fact that pit bulls retain the specific traits they've been selected for, for centuries? It's unreasonable to accept genetic imprinting for other breeds, but to insist that pit bulls are not subject to genetic imprinting.

The argument that another breed would become the dog of choice for fighters and criminals is often used by pit bull advocates. This belief has percolated through society and become received opinion, strongly reinforced by the pit bull advocacy groups. I recently asked Merritt Clifton for his response to this argument. His reply:

• Dogfighters have been trying to breed more successful fighting dogs for centuries & have never yet come up with any that can beat pit bulls, or even be induced to fight to the death the same way. Note that the non-lethal traditional Central Asian style of dogfighting is quite different from Cajun Rules of dogfighting.

• All of the other fighting breeds are essentially just pit bulls crossed with big breeds, mostly mastiffs:  Dogo Argentino, Presa Canario, Cane Corso, Fila Basiero, et al.

The lesson in all of this is that to win in the pit, it is necessary to breed back to the pit bull behavior & body type.

If all the pit bulls were removed from the US, dogmen and criminals might indeed find other breeds to train, but the end result would not be the same. Other breeds may be trained to be fierce, but it is not in them to fight to the death, or to tear out a human infant's esophagus, or worse. The actuarial risk factor of pit bull attacks is exponentially greater than the attacks of any other breed.

Some pit bull owners are fortunate enough to enjoy their animals for life without ever experiencing an attack. But "the risk to the public" is clearly, demonstrably far greater from pit bulls than from any other dog.

All best wishes,
SRUV

Open Letter to ASI

Revised: January 28, 2015; 18:54 GMT

To: Ken Shapiro, Executive Director, ASI (Animals & Society Institute)
      ASI Board of Directors
      ASI Executive Committee
      HAS USA scholars
      HAS European scholars
      A Potts, A Beck, J Serpell, K Weil, L Gruen, P Armstrong,
      Merritt Clifton, and many others

ASI has positioned itself as an organization poised and capable of being a “major player in the new stage of development” of the animal advocacy movement.

            In order to transform these commercial, religious, academic,
           and other interests, the movement must put forward credible
           economic, political, legal, philosophical, and scientific
           arguments.

 Few would argue that the animal advocacy movement is, as ASI points out, at a turning point. Perhaps the most critical legislative issue we'll face over the next decade is (for many) how we will deal with the proliferation of fighting dogs in our daily life.

Your web site notes that the advocacy movement began in 1975 with the publication of Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. There is a harsh irony in this, because 1975 is the year that pit bull terriers began emerging from the fighting pits,  into the mainstream pet population. It was entirely natural that the emerging advocacy movement would come to the defense of these dogs who were,  to advocates,  refugees from a harsh history. Many of us at the time thought pit bulls were, at heart, like any other dog.

The animal advocacy movement has been so successful in sustained defense of pit bulls that the belief that pit bulls are like any other dog persists despite the preponderance of evidence amassed for more than 35 years that in some significant respects they are behaviorally quite different.  Much of the humane movement unequivocally continues to fight any form of breed-specific legislation,  even leash laws which would only require heavier leashes for pit bulls. Meanwhile,  four people have died  from pit bull attacks in the first seven weeks of 2011; dozens have been seriously mauled. Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Animal shelters in urban areas have at times been overwhelmed with dogs; at least 25% of whom are abandoned and abused pit bulls. Dogs are transferred by the truckload out of Los Angeles up the coast to Seattle and into Canada. Dogs (of all breeds) are moved from Florida to Maine, from Georgia to New England, and from San Francisco to New York.  Chartered airplanes routinely fly dogs across the country in an effort to avoid euthanasia. Vast human and financial resources have been exhausted in the process and there is little or no assurance that the dogs will avoid euthanasia in the end. The rescue groups and the humane movement are on a hamster wheel, desperately trying to keep ahead of the backyard breeders. Yet these are the same animal advocates who fight common-sense legislation to ban backyard breeders of pit bulls.

The ASI's Animals' Platform page continues: There are significant lessons to be learned from the U.K. animal protection movement, which since 1976 has used the opportunity of general elections to form coalitions and advance a “manifesto for animals.”  There is indeed much to learn from the UK, which formed the first SPCA. Need we point out that one of the accomplishments since 1976 has been the passage of the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991, which imposes some limitations on specific breeds? US humane agencies have parted ways with their brethern in the UK and other commonwealth countries since 1976. Perhaps that's because the British have a greater historical understanding of pit bulls and the genetics of fighting dogs.

Finally, we would take issue with ASI's claim that it is an “independent think tank.” Your policy paper Dog Bites: Problems and Solutions, was written with the assistance of Animal Farm, a vocal advocate in the increasingly contentious BSL quandary. This book is not a serious piece of work.  A truly independent body would decline such assistance and influence, and we urge ASI to renounce this book and refuse all such support in the future.

With this letter we are launching a campaign, requesting the humane movement, the advocacy groups, and legislators to engage in a reappraisal of our collective views toward pit bulls and BSL. ASI is one of the few institutions capable of helping us achieve this goal, but it would require a radical realignment of your priorities. Yet we am optimistic enough to hope that within a few years ASI will commission research to study why humans defend so tenaciously these dogs, when clearly such devotion is not beneficial to the humane movement, to the animal kingdom, or to humankind.

In the coming weeks we will address similar challenges to the AVMA and all their state affiliates, the newly established American Society of Veterinary Journalists, to the Humane Societies, to Guide Dog Associations, to State and local law enforcement associations, to state and federal Child Protection Services, to corporate and individual charitable donors, and to newspapers and responsible journalists.

Perhaps ASI will serve as a beacon in this forthcoming discussion and lead all of us to a new perspective on public safety. Perhaps ASI will lead us to the realization that as animal advocates, we can fulfill our moral and ethical responsibilities as animal stewards by a wiser use of our resources, by directing our compassionate care to the animals who are often the victims of pit bull attacks, and by finally acting to diminish the number of those attacks.

Next post in ASI thread

* * * * * 

Statistics:

2014 Year-end report of dog attacks
   Animals 24-7; January 3, 2015
32 years of logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks
   Animals 24-7; September 27, 2014

Statistics quoted on SRUV are from the nation's authoritative source for current dog attack statistics, the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada.
View or download the current PDF

This page may also include information fromDogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks

2014 Dog Bite Related Fatalities on Daxton's Friends

Index of canine fatalities on Daxton's Friends

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