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Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

nature.com

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Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#91

Post by 0x737368 »

randomblast wrote: post #82
0x737368 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the sub?

Based on a quick scan, there isn't much right with it. Just lots of people looking at pictures of dogs doing nothing and squealing about how dangerous that particular dog is - based purely on its looks.

The sub has stickies with pretty convincing evidence of the breed being dangerous. The posts by users mostly seem to be either news stories of someone getting attacked by pitbulls, users sharing their frustrations related to pitbulls and/or their owners, and a few social media screenshots where users claim that the way the dogs' owners behavior is unsafe.

Even if some users comment that the dog is dangerous based on how it looks, that doesn't refute the trove of evidence that pitbulls can be an inherently unsafe breed compared to non-fighting breeds.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#92

Post by TameAntelope »

squidbeak wrote: post #67
TameAntelope wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pitbulls are not banned in areas where pitbulls are a problem, so no.

Pitbulls were banned in the UK in 1991. We still have fatalities from pitbull attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t...

I hope you see how that further demonstrates my point; the death volume would have remained at this value (approximately) regardless of the breed ban in the UK.

Bad owners are the problem, not bad dogs.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#93

Post by randomblast »

defen wrote: post #28
TameAntelope wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trusting your gut over a paper published in Nature. Bold move! Some people would use this as a moment to question what they know about dog breeds, but you choose to double down on your beliefs. Very human of you! [0][1][2][3] [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pathways-experie... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance [2] http://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2015/12/11/doubling-down/ [3] https://…

No, the issue is that the reporting on this study represents a general problem in science reporting. This study measured behaviors that for the most part have zero relevance to public policy. Whether a dog likes to eat grass, crosses its front paws, turns in circles before pooping, or enjoys life (Those are all real questions from the survey) are not things that the government or the general public has any conceivabl…

Did you read the paper?

They derived 8 behavioural factors from the survey questions, and there are a few which are very relevant to dog-human aggression.

#1: Human sociability #2: Arousal level #4: Biddability #5: Agonistic threshold (agonistic is the behavioural term encompassing aggression)

Those are probably the most relevant. There is an important consideration which does seem to be missing from the study, but only reinforces its conclusion:

Most, if not all of these factors can be altered with behaviour modification (training).

You can raise a dogs agonistic threshold with classical conditioning. You can increase its biddability with operant conditioning. You can lower its arousal level with both.

Does training rewrite DNA? Obviously not.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#94

Post by TameAntelope »

barry-cotter wrote: post #90
TameAntelope wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this is true, there are no known human subspecies, not to mention human subspecies differentiated by geography.

Who said anything about subspecies? All human groups can breed with no issue. Humans are clearly differentiated by geography. Swedes don’t look like Arabs. Arabs don’t look like Sub Saharan Africans. None of these groups look like Indians or East Asians. Quite visible geographic differentiation. If the specific claims I made about the length of reproductive isolation are false you will find it easy to provide sources…

All of those people you've named can and do look like one another, depending on circumstance. Every trait you can think of that you'd list as a "characteristic" of one of the groups you've named can be found in abundance in numerous other places as well, or accounted for due to environmental factors. There is no "canonical" "Swede" or "Arab".

Your reliance on stereotype is not only racist but it's factually wrong.

This is well studied, and if you are actually curious, there are many, many sources of information about this topic you can find yourself.

Race does not exist, genetically. Period.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#96

Post by thephyber »

defen wrote: post #47
tkahnoski wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots more details from the authors on twitter. https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251

The author says "We found no support for policies targeting particular breeds" [1] which is completely absurd even if you postulate that their study's results were even stronger than they are. Imagine that their study found zero correlation between breeds and behavior. Even if that were the case, the outcomes of that behavior are wildly different. Some breeds will bite you and not even break skin. Some breeds will bi…

> Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua?

I fostered dozens of dogs. In my (admittedly small sample size) set of fosters, a Yellow Lab was the one with the most reactive response towards people and the “pit bull”/bully breed mixes were the most docile with little people in my family. The only “bites” in my family are from two different trained police GSDs.

I agree with other commenters that kids (and even adults who are not well versed in dog behaviors) should not be around strange dogs with unknown histories or behaviors.

I have seen two significant dog-attack-dog events. Neither showed obvious signs or gave noticeable warnings before the attack. Children should not be around dogs with unknown behaviors/ traumas/ conditioning and probably shouldn’t be around dogs when not supervised by a dog-savvy responsible adult. Obviously more time and exposure can lead to increased trust with an individual.

I agree with both the title (which is generally true but unspecific enough to the point of being useless). I also agree that some behavior phenotypes have significant correlation to breeds, while there are almost always counterexamples.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#97

Post by tsol »

TameAntelope wrote: post #21
bpodgursky wrote: post #11

This is one of those studies where the conclusion is so obviously wrong that I don't even want to open it, and it makes me discount the credibility of Nature overall.

Trusting your gut over a paper published in Nature. Bold move! Some people would use this as a moment to question what they know about dog breeds, but you choose to double down on your beliefs. Very human of you! [0][1][2][3] [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pathways-experie... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance [2] http://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2015/12/11/doubling-down/ [3] https://…

One study doesn't make established science. Look at nutrition science for example-- there are reputable studies in major journals that say dietary cholesterol is terrible for your blood cholesterol levels, and there are reputable studies in major journals that say dietary cholesterol has no effect on blood levels. People have this strange idea that if a study says something it's incontrovertible fact. That's not how science works. Studies must be replicated and over time through discussion a new consensus is reached.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#98

Post by barry-cotter »

TameAntelope wrote: post #94
barry-cotter wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about subspecies? All human groups can breed with no issue. Humans are clearly differentiated by geography. Swedes don’t look like Arabs. Arabs don’t look like Sub Saharan Africans. None of these groups look like Indians or East Asians. Quite visible geographic differentiation. If the specific claims I made about the length of reproductive isolation are false you will find it easy to provide sources…

All of those people you've named can and do look like one another, depending on circumstance. Every trait you can think of that you'd list as a "characteristic" of one of the groups you've named can be found in abundance in numerous other places as well, or accounted for due to environmental factors. There is no "canonical" "Swede" or "Arab". Your reliance on stereotype is not only racist but it's factually wrong. Th…

I didn’t say anything about race. The word is useless, imprecise.

There’s no canonical Swede or Arab? You don’t say. As I mentioned no one who looks like a Swede existed 5,000 years ago. That there is overlap between population characteristics does not mean they are identical. Some populations don’t overlap though. Healthy Pygmy and Maasai adult men do not overlap in height distribution. If you restrict your sample of Swedes to those with all ancestors born in Sweden in 1800 and do a similar restriction for Congolese there will be no overlap in skin color.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#99

Post by dymk »

TameAntelope wrote: post #92
squidbeak wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pitbulls were banned in the UK in 1991. We still have fatalities from pitbull attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t...

I hope you see how that further demonstrates my point; the death volume would have remained at this value (approximately) regardless of the breed ban in the UK. Bad owners are the problem, not bad dogs.

No, it just means the breed ban isn't being enforced.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#100

Post by tsol »

barry-cotter wrote: post #76
TameAntelope wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people believe this demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of how genetics works. People have never been "bred" in any meaningful sense (e.g. for a long enough or in a consistently isolated way for selection to be relevant) in human history.

> a consistently isolated way The San diverged from the rest of humanity ~200,000 years ago. Australian Aboriginals ~40,000 years ago. Amerindians ~12,000 years ago. No one’s been breeding humans but there’s been plenty of reproductive isolation. Enough that differences in selection pressures could easily lead to differences in traits. For a visible example 5,000 years ago there were no populations that looked like S…

I don't see how one leads to another. The effect of living in Australia on a population of humans is entirely different than the effect of selectively being breeding dogs to be small and obedient. Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Humans the world over, despite different geographies, have the same problems to contend with-- that's not the same thing as what we do when we selectively breed chihuahuas and great danes.
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