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A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

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Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know an unnecessary risk when I see one. Those breeds are banned in some countries for good reason.

Do you though? People with a lot more information than you have disagree strongly with you.

I know I had two rather fearless pug dogs for 15 years, and the only scary incidents we had during their lives were with pits and mixes. There was one dog park in particular where there was a higher than normal concentration of them that I had to stop going to altogether due to the number of scary incidents. One in particular where I had to physically step in and was bit, fortunately the damage was minor.

As a consequence of this, I became accustomed to immediately assessing the aggressiveness of the dogs by eye gazing upon approach, and found the vast majority gentle and sweet. So I get the frustration of their owners, esp ones who take them in as rescues as the local shelters are flooded with them. 9/10 of these animals will probably go through life showing no aggression and live life as wonderful family pets.

But all these excuses about how it’s the owners fault in how they raised them, that there is no official breed, etc, etc... is bs hand waving. These dogs can be dangerous like that pet chimp who ripped that woman’s hands and face off. There is something instinctual in them, and the physical ability, to do real harm.

As to other breeds that can be worrisome, generally bred for protection, such as dobies, rotts, and German Shepard’s, I never sensed the fear that one of those would instantly end the life of my dogs within seconds. Pits and mixes - easily a “holy shit that was close” encounter in the triple digits, probably once a month on average throughout their lifetimes. Far too many situations where an owner had trouble controlling their dog and they got dangerously close.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#42
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead. Humans who understand other humans also get killed by humans - at rates other animals will never match. In the ballpark of ~20,000 murders are committed every year in the US, yet even though there are 90 million dogs in that same country, only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs. It would be pointless comparing the number of fatal b…

> "...at rates other animals will never match." This is because we make the right decision to not live in close proximity to lions, tigers, bears, apes and all the other menagerie of dangerous creatures we share Earth with. > "...only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs" It's not a coincidence that this number is low. We keep domestic cats and dogs as pets precisely because their propensity and - in some cases -…

And even further, we friggin’ engineered them genetically through artificial selection to be that way.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#43
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the vast majority of them are pit bulls. That might suggest that neither domesticated dogs nor wild animals are as likely to attack as are animals specifically bred to attack.

> Below are lists of fatal dog attacks in the United States reported by the news media, published in scholarly papers, or mentioned through other sources. In the lists below, the breed is assigned by the sources. It's because you're looking at a biased slice of data. There's no national database of fatal dog attacks and people are scared of pit bulls so the media reports on them more.

Some data does exist:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305270428_Character...

> Pit bull bites were implicated in half of all surgeries performed and over 2.5 times as likely to bite in multiple anatomic locations as compared to other breeds.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#44
post #5

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

I agree. Though you could make a similar argument for domesticated animals like dogs. Especially larger dogs. Or humans! There are a lot of things that can be dangerous to humans, especially children, when they fly off the handle. There is always a risk. Most animals function emotionally like humans, but have no good way of communicating emotions like frustration and anger except through aggression. But locking up an…

https://youtu.be/4dwjS_eI-lQ

In that video they show how far they still are from domesticated foxes compared to modern dogs. Well, domesticated pretty much means, "desirable traits for human benefit" when you think about it, the same applies to humans, but we call that civilized or sociable. Theres a joke in the comments, something like the fox goes "I'm okay with you being a meter away from me... but let's keep it that way." The dog, "you cant ignore my love!"

But I fully disagree on the assessment that larger dogs are more wild. Smaller dogs tend to be complete violent assholes for little to no reason. Larger dogs tend to need more reason to become aggressive, unless they came from an abusive environment. I volunteered at an animal shelter for about a year (admittedly to pick up women originally). But I gladly hung out with pits and shepherds from abused pasts so they can be rehabilitated for new homes. I could never do the same with anything smaller than a border collie. Just never worked out. Large working breed dogs are crazy easy for me to calm down, and I am generally not a brave man. Dogs have been bred the last 40k some odd years to genetically want to be with humans. Then some assholes the past few thousand years decided to breed for looks and tiny sizes instead of companionship. That's what makes the larger working dogs great. Listen to and love humans, and have a job to do is their breeding line. Not just looks, which can breed out the friendly part.

Caveat though, there are some pit lines that are a bit whack. Sadly, originally they were bred for fighting other dogs, but super strong friendliness for humans, to avoid the owner getting bit. Which is why they're cuddle bugs with people and are dicks to other dogs. This breed attracted a bunch of dipshits that bred them for just pure aggression, then add on the abuse. So yea... those are the sad cases.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. H…

further, if one has the opportunity to talk to people working in a forensic psychology unit, they might discover the presence of the "wild animal" in the human and that all of us are still a lot closer to that wild animal than we like to admit.

I wish there was more literature about this, both academic and fictional. I've always found it amusing how far people go to believe that we're detached from the wild animal in us. From conception to some young age I'd say we barely differ from animals (hence why some animals are compared to humans at various, usually single-digit, ages). Then even once we're grown, there are many situations where I think, surely this is what a regular animal experiences too: looking for something and absentmindedly searching, having fun running around with friends, identifying a dangerous situation and either taking action to defend loved ones or flee, etc.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#46
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the violence on the race of dog tells us more about the reporter than the news story.

Without knowing anything about the owner and the dog, I would rather meet an unleashed Golden Retriever than unleashed Pitbull. Am I wrong thinking like that?

I have been attacked by 2 packs of dogs...neither were wild, just dogs that were not leashed up and formed a pack in the neighborhoods.

One pack was formed of smaller dogs, mostly of the puntable size. The other more medium size, family friendly dogs.

Neither packs contained pit-bulls. It does not matter about the breeds in the pack, just the size and number. 5-10 Jack Russel terriers can mess you up just as easily as 3-4 Labradors.

I notice that the discussion of dangerous dogs now is focused on pit-bulls, I remember as a kid that the German Shepherd and Rottweiler always seemed scary.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#47
post #5

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

I agree. Though you could make a similar argument for domesticated animals like dogs. Especially larger dogs. Or humans! There are a lot of things that can be dangerous to humans, especially children, when they fly off the handle. There is always a risk. Most animals function emotionally like humans, but have no good way of communicating emotions like frustration and anger except through aggression. But locking up an…

I love animals and had dogs and cats living with my family. When I had my first kid, my wife had a large dog (a mixture between a labrador and a german shepard, and probably others - she found it as a puppy attached to a rope in the forest, left to die).

The dog was extremely quiet, socialized and what not. When we brought our baby from the hospital, he was really curious. We left him sniff the baby and the dog apparently understood that the thing that was brought in was important and decided to protect it (he was sleeping in front of the baby's room and would not let any stranger approach.

I had a similar case when I was a baby - my parents left me with their dog sleeping next to my crib outside and it would just do a "woof" without even waking up if someone would approach.

And then, one day, I left the dog alone with my son. My son was in that sort of cage made of ropes he can wander in and the dog was outside. I came back to the room and I found

... the dog licking my son face pressed to the ropes (unexpected happy ending)

I was really scared because it could have been something different (my childhood friend was bit to his face by his own dog, a normal one, not pitbull style but Great Dane IIRC). Nothing ever happended but still, this was this one time where it could have had happen and it would have been MY fault, not the dog's one.

I now have a cat. Well, my family has it, we just live together. The cat does not interfere with me (except sleeping on my laptop when I am not around) and is extremely found of my younger son (14 yo). I am telling my son to never get his face that close to the cat because she will a day or another scratch him (they are running and jumping together, playing). She scratched my leg once (and would not left from under my son's bed for that day because she was probably scared of what she did) - but that could have had been my face.

Accidents happen and animals are animals. This is not something bad - just something one has to be aware of.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. H…

further, if one has the opportunity to talk to people working in a forensic psychology unit, they might discover the presence of the "wild animal" in the human and that all of us are still a lot closer to that wild animal than we like to admit.

Still, a raging 80 kg human can be a handful to deal with. A raging 200 kg gorilla is much worse. There is a lot that can be done to assimilate a gorilla into a human society, but they aren't human and the differences, while possible to understand at a certain effort, may end up surprising you.

My cat still tries to hunt my foot when bored. If she were a tiger, I would have a very serious problem to deal with (it's hard to buy shoes individually)

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#49

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. H…

How about other peoples rights? Not everyone can be around adult gorillas in modern city.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#50
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

further, if one has the opportunity to talk to people working in a forensic psychology unit, they might discover the presence of the "wild animal" in the human and that all of us are still a lot closer to that wild animal than we like to admit.

Still, a raging 80 kg human can be a handful to deal with. A raging 200 kg gorilla is much worse. There is a lot that can be done to assimilate a gorilla into a human society, but they aren't human and the differences, while possible to understand at a certain effort, may end up surprising you. My cat still tries to hunt my foot when bored. If she were a tiger, I would have a very serious problem to deal with (it's h…

> My cat still tries to hunt my foot when bored. If she were a tiger, I would have a very serious problem to deal with (it's hard to buy shoes individually)

But how about a lion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btuxO-C2IzE

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