Why I’m not a Katz person
I don’t like Katz in general for a variety of reasons. One of which is that I can’t see owning a pet that requires me to keep a box of turds in my house. The other is that they are shitty friends. In a righteous fisking, another pit bull blogger XRLQ points that that Katz:
Knows nothing about dogs.
Knows nothing about numbers.
Expects dogs to behave in very un-dog-like fashion.
Seems to be surprised at the result of a fight between a Lab-Pit mix and a Pekingese.
Ironically, Katz paints a horrific picture of the dog in this story before pointing out that ascribing human characteristics of morality to dogs is a fallacy. The facts are that the woman whose dog was killed either had a defective leash or she was incompetent in putting the leash on the dog. Her dog attacked a properly restrained dog. The properly restrained dog defended itself and its owner.
Begging to Differ points out that vicious dog laws present a consistency test for libertarians. Actually, I’d say it depends on the particular vicious dog law. Those laws that require that the dog be, you know, proven vicious present no such test. However, such laws based on breed do. Breed specific legislation is largely ineffective.
Additionally, Stitch in Haste chimes in noting that no dog is pre-disposed to violence. I tend to disagree. The more accurate statement is that no breed is pre-disposed to violence toward humans. Some pit type breeds were bred to be aggressive toward other dogs as they were bred for fighting. However, socialization will usually take care of this. Dogs are inherently territorial any way and, in the right circumstances (over food, territory, and sex) all dogs can be aggressive to other dogs, like the Pekingese above was. You have to train that out of them.
In my experience, small dogs tend to be the worst behaved dogs and it’s not their fault. The owners tend to tolerate certain behavior that they wouldn’t tolerate in a large dog because the smaller dog can’t really do damage nipping or mouthing a person.
