Well the first thing to keep in mind is how good are people at identifying dog breeds. Take the dog on the left clearly that's a pit bull right? What about the dog on the right well when I met that dog it was in the backyard with the dog that you can't see except for the the backside of. And the dog on the left behind the gate is actually a Rottweiler. And I just assumed that the dog on the right, and I was pretty convinced, was the puppy of that dog and part Rottweiler. Look at those rotty markings. That dog has not one ounce of Rottweiler in it. It was actually born at a complete different location. And didn't meet the rottweiler, or a rottweiler, until it was two years of age. It just happens to have markings and it's living in the backyard of the Rottweiler, so I just assumed it must be mostly, or at least part, Rottweiler. And while dogs like the dog on the left seem to be clearly a pitbull, what we've learned, and people have done very careful studies now that we're able to look at the genome of different breeds, is people who are experts, people like myself, people who are taking care of dogs in shelters, it ends up that we are not reliably able to identify breeds based on physical features of dogs. When you get the genome of a dog, particularly like the dog on the right that is a mixed breed dog, it sure looks like a Rottweiler. When you get the genome and you find out, well you know what, everybody who was asked if that dog was part Rottweiler, and that's what we find, is dogs that sort of look like a certain breed, people reliably will see that breed in the dog. So that's a good thing, people are reliably seeing the same thing, the problem is that they're reliably wrong. That when you get the genotype done, it's not a Rottweiler. It has no Rottweiler in it. So given that even experts can't identify mixed breed dogs in particular but even some purebreds that might look like a Rottweiler. It's very easy to see that when someone has been injured in an attack and they go to the hospital and somebody asks them was it a rottweiler? Then the person says yes. Nobody is going to be able to genotype a dog to confirm the breed of the dog and to make sure that that was reported correctly. And since Rottweilers have such a bad reputation, I imagine that they potentially are being over reported. Well when you look at date of it is a little bit dated. Unfortunately there's just not really good data on breeds involved in aggression towards humans. You know you don't actually see in published papers during this time period a lot of evidence that pitbulls are somehow the worst the worst dog breed in terms of aggression. You see the American Staffordshire terriers, but you know, there are lots of other breeds that you might now expect, like Collies, that seem to be right up there with lots of other breeds. And I think the important thing is remember when we talked about cognition is there's tremendous variability within a breed. And that while yes, there might be some individuals within that breed that sort of represent a stereotype we might have about that breed, the rest of the individuals in the breed are all over the place and are not the same as that stereotypical individual. So just like we can stereotype people, we can stereotype breeds. So the other thing to keep in mind is remember the fox experiment. The fox experiment, within 20 generations, they had bred a line of foxes to be less aggressive. What I didn't tell you when I told you about that experiment is they also bred a line of foxes to be more aggressive. They have an aggressive line of foxes. And they bred them very quickly. Within you know, the same amount of 10, 20 generations to be more aggressive. Well think about in the case of if we're talking about dog fighting or any other horrible activity that people might enter into with dogs where they start breeding a group of dogs to behave differently. More aggressive towards other dogs, more aggressive towards people. Well within a few generations you could have a major change in behavior and while that group of dogs may look like one breed, they are nothing like most of the rest of the breed. Think of the data that we have, the cognitive data, where we looked at two different groups of Labrador Retrievers who cognitively are completely different, even though they look like Labrador Retrievers. So within a breed you can have major differences. So to say that any dog that somehow looks like a pit bull, or any breed, is going to be aggressive I think is doomed to failure just because there's so much individual variability, and there's lots of dogs within different breeds that are having problems being aggressive. So what can science tell us if we can't really use breed as our way to deal with dog aggression? Well, 70% of bites happen to children under the age of ten. About 60% of the children bitten are boys, and about 87% are white. Children are most frequently bitten about 61% of the time when they come in contact with a dog's food or possessions, seems related to jealousy. The children will usually be injured in the head or neck area unfortunately. 55% to the cheek. And lips, with the average length of the wound being about three inches. So, as a parent of two ew, that's terrible. So most breeds are large dogs, and male dogs are more likely to bite than female dogs, which is interesting. At least that's what the data suggest two thirds of dogs who bite children have never bitten a child before. So two thirds have never bitten. So when you say my dog has never bitten anybody it's safe to interact with my dog. Just remember most dog bites are first dog bites. And about 25% to 33% of dogs who bite were the family dog. And the trusted, beloved family dog, I'm sure. So taking all the data that we do have, and thinking about what we actually can use to predict dog aggression, and how to potentially prevent dog aggression. The breed that's most likely to be involved in a dog bite is this breed as a male child under the age of ten who's left alone in a room with another male, a male dog. And this male child may go try to play with the dog, play with the toys and be interested in their food, and that's where you have this child bitten, either on their face or neck. And actually honestly, those are only analogous places that a dog would bite a dog puppy, and in the case of the dog puppy, it would only scare them but when it comes to humans it does serious damage. So dog aggression and summary. While certain dog breeds are stereotyped as being aggressive, there's little published scientific data to support these stereotypes. It doesn't mean that certain populations of that type of breed aren't bred to be aggressive over a few generations. But it certainly doesn't mean that every dog of that breed is like the population that's bred to be aggressive. If tomorrow people decided to have you know Chihuahuas be the most aggressive breed and they started breeding Chihuahuas to be incredibly aggressive toward people well it would be that population of Chihuahuas that we would need to be worried about. Dog aggression is a huge problem, even in the US, so solutions are really needed, but real solutions, not just band-aids that, obviously, are convenient politically. Breed specific legislation really are doomed to failure, because populations of dogs can be bred so quickly to be more aggressive. And this is why it's so important to understand the ecological approach to cognition, it's why we talked about evolution. And it's why we talked about the fox experiment because it has real world implications to understand that evolution can happen fast. Stopping evolution is like trying to stop gravity. You're not going to be able to do it. It's happening right now and it can happen to a breed or a group, a population within a breed. The most likely breed to be involved in a biting incident with a dog is a human child under the age of ten who is male. So those are the people, or that is the information we can use to try to protect people from dog aggression, and hopefully come up with strategies to reduce the number of people, and especially kids. Those kids should have wonderful relationships with dogs. I know in my life my dog is my best friend, growing up was just one of the most important things in my childhood. I hate to think that that dog had bitten me, so hopefully we can work towards a world where not kid has to be bitten by a dog.
