Most aggressive dog breed....

[Pippin's person]

Interesting article reported in the Daily Telegraph about relative aggressiveness in dog breeds.

 

Top 3: Dachshund, Chihuahua, JRT.

 

Here's the link to the Telegraph article:

 

The story is based on a not yet published study in the journal, Applied Animal Behavior Science--if you have access to that journal, the study is available on-line. The study is based on a standardized survey of owners about aggressive behaviors in their own dogs and comes from two independent samples (which showed the same results). There was significant enough within-breed variation that generalizations about breeds can only be made with caution.

 

There's a lot of interesting material in the study generally, including about the relationship of fear and aggression.

 

Those three breeds above had the highest percentage of dogs rated as exhibiting aggression toward humans generally

ACDs scored high on aggression toward strangers

Cocker Spaniels and Beagles scored high on aggression toward owners;

 

JRTs, Pitt Bulls (which included AmStaffs; Staffies and American Pitts) and Akitas had a high percentage of dogs rated as exhibiting aggression toward other dogs.

 

Overall, aggression toward other dogs was rated as greater than aggression toward humans

 

Least aggressive across the board: Goldens, Labs, Bernese Mountain Dogs, Brittneys, Greyhounds and Whippets

 

The study also compared conformation and field-bred English springer spaniels and labs and found the conformation-bred spaniels were more aggressive than field-bred spaniels and the reverse was true (only for owner-related aggression) in the labs.

 

BCs ranked a little above average for aggression towards humans and other dogs.

[Shetlander]

I'm surprised Labs are rated so low. I can't tell you how many I've seen that are very nasty towards other dogs. Not all of them of course, but enough that they're a breed I avoid out in public (though in fairness, I try to keep interactions with all strange dogs to a miniumum). I figured the aggressive labs around me were fall-out from being the most popular breed.

[Sue R]

The motto of the research is "watch out for your ankles"!

 

Lots of people get smaller terriers (and vermin/varmint dogs like the dachsund) thinking they will have a great "small pet dog" and don't stop to realize that the background selection for terriers and vermin dogs was for toughness, aggressiveness, fearlessness, and determination (maybe easily summed up as "attitude").

 

A "terrier lady" friend was always frustrated to see how people would get terriers and vermin dogs thinking they would make great pets and would find they have extremely strong personalities, can be very nippy, and often are willing to let you "make their day". People who select them for pets often wind up finding out they have more dog than they can handle, just in a little package.

 

The little ones may be cute but they are surely not for everybody, and often don't make a great family dog unless well-bred and raised right.

[KrisK]

A "terrier lady" friend was always frustrated to see how people would get terriers and vermin dogs thinking they would make great pets and would find they have extremely strong personalities, can be very nippy, and often are willing to let you "make their day."

 

YEP...the two terrierests I have are by far the most fearless of all critters. Zachary, at 13 1/2 was head first in a hole with a skunk and Dusty BA (Bad As*) is THE most determined of all. Just TRY to redirect HIM when he has a snake in his mouth !! But I love them both

[Pippin's person]

The motto of the research is "watch out for your ankles"!

 

Lots of people get smaller terriers (and vermin/varmint dogs like the dachsund) thinking they will have a great "small pet dog" and don't stop to realize that the background selection for terriers and vermin dogs was for toughness, aggressiveness, fearlessness, and determination (maybe easily summed up as "attitude").

 

A "terrier lady" friend was always frustrated to see how people would get terriers and vermin dogs thinking they would make great pets and would find they have extremely strong personalities, can be very nippy, and often are willing to let you "make their day". People who select them for pets often wind up finding out they have more dog than they can handle, just in a little package.

 

The little ones may be cute but they are surely not for everybody, and often don't make a great family dog unless well-bred and raised right.

 

No kidding--I guess they don't call them ankle biters for nothin'

 

It's interesting in the study the Dachsies and the Chihuahuas (and Yorkies) were rated far above average on both aggressiveness and fear--I could imagine that is tied to more recent breeding since there aren't that many badger hunting Dachsies around anymore. JRTs, not surprisingly, ranked low on the fear scale.

[MrSnappy]

Chihuahuas are big dogs trying to squeeze out of small dogs' eye sockets!!

 

JRTs freak me out. And all of my dogs are scared of Jacks as well.

 

I think that in certain parts of North America, Doxies and Chis are amazingly overbred. There are shelters in parts of California that regularly have up to a half dozen of each at any given time. They seem to be some of the BYB breeds of choice, so their temperaments are iffy. No big surprise.

 

RDM

[haleigh]

We have our chi/JRT mix and he is not the most friendly dog ever. He hates people, but he's all bark and no bite.

 

In Illinois last week, Linda Floyd had to have her dachshund, called Roscoe, put down after the dog gnawed off her big toe while she slept. Mrs Floyd, 56, woke up too late because nerve damage from diabetes had left her with no feeling in her toes.

 

This has me giggling in an odd sort of way because I can imagine some old woman screaming when she wakes up, to find her doxie chewing a big toe next to her bed.

[SoloRiver]

Chihuahuas are big dogs trying to squeeze out of small dogs' eye sockets!!

 

I dunno... the way I used to describe Skeeter the Yapillon's personality was, "He's not a big dog in a small body. He's a small dog who knows he's a small dog and is really, really angry about it."

 

The world is a threatening place when you're eight inches tall and weigh less than ten pounds. What is worse is that people can get away with laughing off a lot of small dog aggression (unless you are a small child, a seven pound Papillon is not going to be able to do all that much damage to you no matter how messed up he is) so there is little selection against it.

 

People are also more willing to call a small dog's bluff; when most dogs lift a lip at you, it is all show, and unless they are really pushed they probably are not going to bite you, which is why standing still and averting your eyes is the best way to deal with a threatening dog. The average person is way more likely to push it with a small dog than with a big dog, so I can imagine that a lot of small dogs out there feel very threatened a lot of the time.

 

If there were only JRTs left on the planet, I probably wouldn't have dogs at all.

[Soda-pop]

Neat study. We got lots of nasty little chi's and doxies at the shelter--which is a shame b/c I lerv doxies and had always only met nice ones until I started working at the shelter. Even though we get tons of nasty little turd chi's I still love them.

 

I am surprised Eskie's didn't make the list. We have had exactly ONE nice eskie at the shelter. ONE. She was fantastic too. But the others where amazingly aggressive.

 

Beagles shocked the heck out of me. We never get nasty beagles. Only really sweet, though fat, beagles that make great family pets.

 

We get lots of nasty labs too. Out of control, poor temperament labs. Will never own one.

 

And I agree with the Jack statement. That is one messed up breed thanks to puppy mills and byb'ers. I don't think we've had one that wasn't food aggressive.

 

neat article.

[SoloRiver]

Oh, I don't think JRTs are monsters because of puppy mills and BYBs. My main experience is with working JRTs who live at stables and are actually doing the job (or one of the jobs) for which they were intended. I think they are monstrous by original design, like most terriers, only more extreme. I am not a terrier person. They have very few of the characteristics that I consider enjoyable about dogs.

 

This of course probably means that one will follow me home one day, attach itself to my household, and I will be stuck with it.

[sweet_ceana]

I thought it was just my dogs who hated JRTs....glad my two aren't alone. There are two that live above us that come to our front window and start SH*& through the glass with Ceana and Poke.

[sjones]

I find it interesting about the dachshund. I grew up with a dachshund/terrier cross Sammy. She was very sweet, but determined to rid the yard of rouge chippies. I aslo had a purebred rescue dachshund BJ, not a mean bone in his body. I have never met a nasty one yet, but they might be dangerous if you trip over one on a late night stroll to the bathroom!

I have actually been seeing more goldies and labs that are dog and people agressive, probably because of careless breeders looking for a fast buck. Leave it to ignorant people to muck things up with dog breeds.

Samantha

[2 Devils]

I never really liked jrts until I met a lady that actually breeds some with really nice temperaments. They are total love bugs and even have off switches. I don't think I will ever own a purebred jrt unless it followed me home but if I ever decided to get one I would get one from this lady I know.

 

I have always said that smaller dogs are more aggressive since I have been bitten by small dogs more often. I did not read the article so did not see if the toy poodle (poodles in general) were on the list. If they aren't on the list I would be surprised. I have found many poodles to have some aggression issues.

[Tranquilis]

The motto of the research is "watch out for your ankles"!

OK, THAT got a laugh!

 

I needed one, too.

 

I've never cared for Chis - Not their fault, they just make me uncomfortable - I'm always afraid I might accidentally injure one. I've known a lot of them over the years, and some, many even, are absolutely sweet and well-behaved, but I'm still worried... I'm so big, and they're sooooo small!

 

Dachshunds, I don't care about either way - They're generally big enough to be seen.

 

JRTs, well, I find their intensely "in your face" attitude to be wearing. OK, they were bred to be serious pocket killers; ready, willing, and even eager to go to war with varmints and vermin on their home turf, but they're just not for me.

[mbc1963]

How very strange!

 

Of all the dogs we meet, JRTs are one of Buddy's absolute favorite breeds. He generally starts to get happy when he even sees a JRT down the hiking trail. Some of his best friends are JRTs - and he doesn't have many friends, believe me.

 

I always wonder what his early history was, to make him have such very specific tastes in doggy companionship.

 

Where I live (Massachusetts) I've liked the JRTs I've met. Some seem a bit twitchy, but I haven't had experiences with any being really mean.

 

Mary

[MrSnappy]

I dunno... the way I used to describe Skeeter the Yapillon's personality was, "He's not a big dog in a small body. He's a small dog who knows he's a small dog and is really, really angry about it."

 

Yeah, but Papillons aren't all pop-eyed and shizzat.

 

RDM

[Tranquilis]

I dunno... the way I used to describe Skeeter the Yapillon's personality was, "He's not a big dog in a small body. He's a small dog who knows he's a small dog and is really, really angry about it."

One of our senior volunteers has an out-sized* Papillion that simply thinks he's a BC. He's big enough, for a Pap, that if you told people that Bing was a runt BC, or a Mini-BC, they'd likely buy it. Bing's got ALL the BC behviors, except that he lacks "eye." I could have Bing around all day long and never regret it.

 

 

*How out-sized was he? So outsized that he went from very expensive show prospect to effectively abandoned until rescued. Maybe 15 pounds, about 1/2 the size of a fairly standard BC. Beautiful B&W markings, too.

[ljrphoto]

The findings have angered owners of small breeds. Chris Moore, secretary of the Northern Dachshund Association, said: "As far as breeders in the UK are concerned, this is rubbish. It is not in the dogs' nature. I have never been bitten in 25 years."

 

I'm a little surprised this guy could say this with a straight face. IMO, dachshunds are nasty little dogs. Their breeding purpose has already been mentioned by someone else and based on that I'm not sure how someone so involved with the breed can say "it's not in the dogs' nature." Come on!!

 

Anyway, I'm prejudiced against the breed as I was viciously attacked by an unprovoked dachshund almost 30 years ago. I was a tall child and the dog broke skin on two spots on my upper thighs plus the doozy where he got me on my calf. I still have scars.

[Alaska]

Aarrgghh. Not such a "neat study" if you ask me. I wish more of you could access the actual study online and then see what you think. Terrierman has taken a stab at picking it apart. I don't feel that all of his criticisms are valid, but they're certainly worth mulling.

 

Some troublesome aspects of the study design:

 

Each dog's aggressiveness was rated by its own owner. From the study: "dog owner reports have a greater potential for subjective bias compared to more objective behavioral observations (Hsu and Serpell, 2003)." See the Terrierman link for speculation on the kinds of subjective bias owners might exhibit about their own dogs. If you don't want to be bothered, just consider how likely it is that the owner of an aggressive pitbull would jump at the chance to describe that aggressiveness in a survey.

 

One third of the owners were solicited from 11 AKC breed clubs. Ten of those breeds did not make the list of "top 8 aggressive breeds." Hmmm.

 

The rest of the owners (internet respondents) participated for unknown motivations. From the study: "This sample of dog owners is therefore self-selected which we note as a potential source of bias." Noted perhaps, but not dealt with in any way that I could see. Furthermore, many of the second group of owners were likely members of the top 20 AKC breed clubs, since that's who the survey was marketed to, yet the study did not in any way acknowledge the potential for bias by using "breed club members" as a representative sample of "dog owners".

 

Conclusions about some breeds appear to have been based on a very small number of allegedly aggressive individuals. For instance, there was a total of only 63 beagles in the study, of which only 5 (7.9%) allegedly displayed the top level of owner aggression ("snaps, bites or attempts to bite"). Who knows what the story was for those 5 dogs and their owners, but considering that they represent 5 responses out of 3791, I'm pretty sure one could show that such a result could easily be a statistical fluke (i.e. as likely attributable to random chance as to the beagle breed actually being among the most owner-aggressive of the 33 breeds in that sample).

 

Breeds with fewer than 45 responses were not considered, so the study says nothing about breeds not on the list (e.g. corgi and dalmation, whose absence Terrierman complains about, or eskies, as sodapop noted). (Poodles were in the study, but there's no indication whether they're referring to standard, minature, toy, or all of them together.)

 

To me, it doesn't seem possible to draw very many legitimate conclusions about the breeds themselves from this study, because of all the unaddressed sources of potential bias among respondents. Some of the sweeping conclusions the authors draw seem more than a little ambitious. For instance, they write "We found large and consistent differences among dog breeds in the prevalence and severity of aggression..." but a lot of those differences are neither large nor consistent according to the data presented. The scores given by breed club members show that 9 of 11 breeds did not statistically differ from each other with respect to owner-drected aggression. For dog-directed aggression, goldens, labs and shelties all rated lower as a a group than the other 8 breeds, but there is so much within breed variation that those 3 are not statistically distinguishable from each other for this trait, nor is it possible to distinguish among the 8 breeds in the higher group. A more reasonable conclusion would be along the lines of "we were able to distinguish some differences between breeds in owner-rated aggressive behavior, but we found significant within-breed variation and many breeds were indistinguishable in this regard."

 

I don't deny that the dachshund results are striking, but they fairly cry out for some attempt to explain them, as you all have explored above. The paper says merely: "In general, the highest rates of human-directed aggression were found in smaller breeds whose aggression is presumably easier to tolerate." Brain-dead.

 

Oh, and the sentence above is yet another example of a grandiose conclusion that the authors did not actually bother to provide any analysis to support.

 

Here's the reference if anyone wants to track down this piece of splendid research for themselves: Duffy, D.L., et al., Breed differences in canine aggression, Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. (2008, in press)

 

Aarrgghh, I need to stay away from the Politics and Culture forum.

[Pippin's person]

I thought the authors attended to many of the critiques you make fairly reasonably--they deal pretty extensively with the issue of respondent bias in their conclusion and they also caution against drawing sweeping conclusions about breeds at several points in the study. I personally would probably use a term other than "aggression" for some of their scales, but the survey is nonetheless a consistent unit of measurement--of human assessments of aggression, to be sure, but of course, human assessments of aggression are really the only ones that various decisions and legislation are based on.

 

Theirs was the first study to offer corroborating evidence from two independent (though non-random) samples. And, the larger sample had the same ratings as the breed club sample with respect to the breeds that overlapped the two samples. It's certainly true that we don't have evidence of breeds that weren't included in the study and those might change things considerably, but that doesn't mean that the findings for the breeds that were included or their rankings relative to one another are wrong--the authors didn't claim to represent all possible types of dogs.

 

The point about the relative frequencies is a good one; however, the statistical modeling (which was consistent across the two, independent samples) is a more useful gauge of tendencies in the relevant populations than are relative frequencies--of course, statistical modeling isn't ever going to give you evidence about *individuals* or make accurate predictions about *individual* outcomes which in and of itself cautions against making assumptions about specific dogs based on their breed while still offering an assessment of some expected differences across breeds.

 

The beagle example should be looked at as 5 examples out of 63, which is the group of beagles in the sample, rather than 5 examples out of 3791, which is the whole sample. The whole point of statistical modeling is to find out whether or not a particular finding is random--their model found that it wasn't random but tied specifically to the dog breed variable. Surely, their model could be wrong for the data, but it's unlikely that the beagle findings were random within the context of that model.

 

They note in footnote B on Table 2 that the poodle category includes standard, miniature and toy poodles.

 

ETA: I went and looked at Terrierman's comments. My goodness, there's a man who knows how to properly paraphrase what he reads. I don't believe "According to the authors of the study, after those killer Dachshunds comes the killer Chihuahuas, the killer Jack Russell terriers, and the killer Beagles" in any way, shape or form accurately represents the study he is discussing nor does much else of what he has to say, including his apparent lack of understanding of how probability and normal distributions work. Jeez.

[Tea]

I know you folks are not going to believe this.....but....... on the rez in Browning Mt a grizz was getting into a friends house and his 'herd' of chihuahua's got out and chased it away.

 

It was a second year bear. But still!!!!!

[Sue R]

Tea - If a pack of Chihuahuas were coming after me, I'd beat it out of there, too. Smart bear!

[Bo Peep]

When I worked at the humane society clinic, the 2 ones that we and the vets feared most were chows and shar peis I know of a couple that breeds doxies and see the parents and their off springs and they are so gentle and well mannered. Maybe it's all in the breeding, because some of these owners are true idiots.

[Guest SweetJordan]

I'm surprised Labs are rated so low. I can't tell you how many I've seen that are very nasty towards other dogs. Not all of them of course, but enough that they're a breed I avoid out in public (though in fairness, I try to keep interactions with all strange dogs to a miniumum). I figured the aggressive labs around me were fall-out from being the most popular breed.

Labs are known for their temperments. Of course I guess that's what happens with popularity. My poor lab has been attacked numerous times while minding his own business while out a walk, because people where I live cannot understand the concept of not letting their dog run loose. They think they don't need a leash or that they can have the dog loose on their front lawn(and they are always the people who don't have control over their dog). And I always get the same dumb response "oh sorry." I think his thick neck has been the only thing to save him as he doesn't fight back. He's a lover not a fighter. He has been attacked by goldens, another lab almost attacked him(I was able to move him just before the bite). Then the dog's dumb owner grapped her stupid dog. One of the bully breeds, a great dane, and the list goes on.

Now when Riley was out biking with me one day (attached to my bike) a dumb doodle mix ran out and bit her on the back leg. Riley dropped to the ground and screamed. And the dog was still standing over her huffying and puffing and was probably three times Riley's weight. I yelled at the guy to get his dog off of her. The doodle was mixed with either lab or golden, I don't really know. Of course she didn't want to run after that. It was dark. I couldn't see where she got bit until we got home, and I found the blood and fang marks. This really made me mad because ever since I adopted Riley we have been working on her fear of strange dogs(mostly dogs bigger than her). We made a lot of progress and that set her way back. Now she's even more terrified then she was to begin with.

 

I was suprised that beagles where so high up there. I've never met a mean beagle not even with all the crazy dogs where I live. I had a dog who was part beagle and she thought everyone and everything wanted to be her best friend. Perhaps some of their popularity has had an effect too, but that one really suprised me.

 

Now the doxie did not suprise me. My mom has one(she adopted from a shelter) and she is a bit of a wack job, but Riley thinks she is the greatest thing since sheep.

[tripsis]

Forget pit bulls, rottweilers and Rhodesian ridgebacks, it's the sausage dog that's the most aggressive breed.

 

People only classify those breeds as aggressive because if they get upset/threatened, they have bite to back up their bark. Most people disregard small dogs as being aggressive because well... they're small and therefore must be harmless, right? Wrong. Yes rottweilers and pitbulls and dobermans, etc. can be aggressive.. but they're only punished for it because they have big "weapons" (strength, strong jaws, etc.) that cause them to do more damage than a smaller, even more aggressive breed. Size really doesn't matter when it comes to aggression, bravery, etc. There are plenty of giant breeds who think they're lapdogs or are huge cowards. And on the contrary, there are plenty of small/toy breeds who think that they're T-Rexes.

 

Furthermore, it is often difficult to make these kind of conclusions unless you take the OWNER into consideration. For example: the owner whose dachshund chewed off her toe.. do we know the details behind that? Was the dachshund trained to not chew anything but his/her toys when he/she was a puppy? Anyone who LETS their dog get out of control through lack of training/discipline is at fault.. it is typically not the breed itself.