• TiredSpider@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      admittedly that’s an issue with the study and I’m glad you brought it up. This runs into the issue of how else could you collect the data? If you just go off reports or surrendered dogs you will miss out on smaller breeds like chihuahuas whose aggressive behaviour isn’t seen as serious enough to do anything about, as well as bias in the form of being more likely to label an aggressive dog a pit.

      I think the more important thing to put forward here is that many of the participants didn’t actually know their dogs genetics. Like pointed out in the video if you have a mutt you really have no idea of it’s dna without testing. If aggression was a genetic issue you might expect the owners of smaller dogs like chihuahuas to admit to aggression, since doing so would not put their pet at risk, then the dna testing could show a commonality between their genes and the genes of more maligned breeds. Unless aggression if specifically linked to traits like a big muscular head, this seems like the smoking gun that this is a cultural issue.

      I also haven’t seen any studies with different methodology find a link between aggression in certain breeds with genetics in any statistically significant way. This was just the largest study I’ve seen.