Police officer manages to survive dog attack without shooting dog....

Good thing it wasn't a gladiator type breed.

Reality is the cop didn't want to shoot the Aussie in front of the 4 year old. If it was a pit , it likely wouldn't have been a little nip/retreat based on their nature. As mentioned Aussies can nip but retreat. This is what they may do to a sheep.. Nip to send a message to move them along, then retreat to avoid a kick in the skull. If this were a proper attack, the bat would have come out. Or the pepper spray. Or the chunk.

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Originally Posted by welsh

This is true, Rick. How much damage a dog bite will do depends on exactly what gets bit, and there's no way to predict that.

I feel that in some of the examples we see, however, the officer involved is shooting where there is no real threat. Often with pit bulls and probably just because the media narrative on pit bulls teaches us to expect attacks.

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True but the pit bull has earned it's reputation.

Usually someone will post 'my pit bull is around kids all the time and nothing has ever happened. Great. That's how it's supposed to be.

Then someone posts 'my pit bull would just lick you to death if anything'.

Also great. Now let's look at breed wide facts. Using American data over the last couple of decades ...

Pit bulls (and related breeds that get lumped in like Staffordshire terriers etc) account for approximately 3% of the USA dog population.

Pit bulls account for a little over 50% of dog bites/attacks where the human victim requires hospitalization. That's about 17 times their population percentage.

Pit bulls account for a little over 60% of dog bites/attacks where the human victim is killed. That's 20 times their population percentage.

Sure labs bite more people. That's because there are 5 times as many labs. And lab bites requiring hospitalization are a microfraction of the total. Let alone deaths.

Some will say 'in the 80s it was the Doberman... Then the German Sheppard...now it's the pit bull they are blaming'

Nope. None of the other breeds have ever come close to those numbers the pit bull is (rightfully) famous for. Not remotely close. That 80s 90s thing just described what the popular tough guy dog was a d what tv and movies used. However the pit bull has dominated the hospitalizations and death stats for decades.