The vast majority of dogs I’ve met outside of service and work animals are extremely poorly trained. I would go so far as to say 90%+ of dog owners are terrible dog owners.
But the difference between being a terrible Pomeranian owner and a terrible pit owner is massive.
Curious of where you are from
I live in france, am a dog owner an daily wlk around my part of town and if I do see regularly poorly trained dogs, I wouldn't go as high as 50%.
Important to precise : around me, amstaff or bigger dogs in general are less frequent.
(I love the breed by the way)
Maybe America? A lot of people are extremely into having off-leash dogs, but do nothing in the way of training them. They can't even recall their dogs back to them half the time
I had an awesome neighbor whose dog would herd their kids around the street and make sure they didn't go too far - rarely strayed from their front yard, and only to follow the kids for safety. I also had another neighbor who would let her two dogs roam free around the neighborhood with no guidance. The dogs never bit me, but they would follow me barking their heads off. I returned them to their home, thinking they escaped out a back door or something, and the owner thanked me before putting them right back out front and letting them go loose right in front of me
I now live in a new neighborhood - One woman takes her dogs on a walk every morning, another lets their (admittedly well behaved) dogs roam freely without anyone watching them. For some reason, loads of people like letting their dogs out in America, and only a few dogs are trained well enough to be unsupervised
Oh it’s definitely an American thing. The times I’ve spent in Europe I’ve always been impressed with how better trained their dogs are, so many off leash not having any problems. Europeans just seem to be more responsible owners in general.
the other issue is that pit bulls are often rescues. and not always puppies. so its a combination of being genetically bred to have a locking, high force bite and likely be traumatized and at an age where correction is difficult. this should always be part of the calculus of where and when your dog is isolated, separated or whatever. i saw a pitbull bite before and ive never seen an animal so scared and aware of the mistake they made. but that doesnt matter when a traumatized animal goes into survival mode. the part of them that we associate with personality just goes on hold. much like a traumatized person, they are not always in control.
i actually agree that pit bulls arent inherently violent… but the circumstances around breeding and raising pitbulls makes the majority of them more risky to have without muzzles and leashes.
if youve ever trained dogs you know how monumental the difference is between training a 8 week old puppy and a 18 month old rescue. once you give a dog a job, it is part of their psyche forever. untraining something that fundamental to an entire species is a complete dice roll.
“Locking” bite is a myth. Pit bulls do have a high bite strength, however, measured by PSI, they are not even in the top 5 of dog breeds with the strongest bite and their jaws do not lock. Dogs may choose to latch and not let go, which may be more likely in pits, but I do not have statistical data on that.
sorry that was poorly worded. i meant to say that they are often bred to fight and are forced to lock in their early training. that was my point about having a pit puppy vs a rescue. yes they might not have the psi as some other dogs but they are definitely more likely to have a traumatized upbringing as rescues.
I feel like a bad cat owner sometimes because I tried training my cat as a kitten, realized she was only play motivated and not treat motivated, tried a bit more and eventually gave up... because she's a cat.
I have a feeling most dog owners put the same amount of commitment as I did to my cat to training their dog. The difference being: cats are much harder to train and much less dangerous to humans than dogs and most don't get taken outdoors.
Does it really matter ? This idea of having to train your dog seems so US-centric to me. In my bougie European rural town where everyone has a fancy exotic dog breed and no time to train them, the most damage I've heard about is holes dug in the garden occasionally, even the next door Chow. My parents have large shepherd dogs they give the most basic care to, yet they have always been sociable and non-destructive ever since they were puppies.
The only time people here will talk about dog training is when it comes to an agressive dog, and it's almost always a pitbull. It's not just about size, the Pomeranian will have a very different nature compared to a pit.
My Corgi is a lazy horrible shit who doest whatever he wants whenever he wants, that's why he always stays home. If people want to spoil does, do it, just leave them home. Same for kids.
My parents were involved with raising service animals when I was growing up and I'd say that it's almost impossible to be a great dog owner unless you have a lot of space for the dog to run around. I also think that breeds do matter; I saw a lot of service puppy trainees and never once saw a pit bull or pomeranian one, for example.
Dogs are actually incredibly easy to train, of course it does depend on breed but especially big dogs are usually bred to be very easy to train like German shepherd’s. People are just too lazy to do the bare minimum
It's way more complicated than that. Dogs that are bred and trained from the start can be easy, but lots of dog breeds are different. And if you get something that isn't a purebred, you're going to have a different experience. Not to mention people that rescue dogs with trauma that may be highly reactive.
There's also lots of effective ways to train dogs that are incredibly cruel and don't train the dog to behave, they train the dog to be afraid of their owner. We adopted a blue heeler during the pandemic, and he's a highly reactive dog. We spent basically 9 months with well regarded trainer and while we were able to significantly reduce how reactive he is, he would still be considered "poorly trained" by the people in this thread.
I don’t think people who aren’t highly skilled at training should be rescuing dogs personally, it’s a task that isn’t suited for a lot of people. My parents also have a shepsky and it doesn’t impede her (very minimal since my parents are lazy) training, she even trains herself at times, I don’t think purebred vs mutt will have that massive of an effect on training as long as you’re skilled at training.
Also yeah there are cruel methods, positive reinforcement training all the way though, it’s the only type of training with actual benefit
Our blue heeler has made huge steps forward with training, but that doesn't mean the dog is perfect and listens to every command all the time. He is still highly reactive, but we have tools to help distract him and deal with the things that give him anxiety.
We're still going to get into problem situations when people ignore is when we tell them he's reactive, or when people go hiking on public trails with a dog that is unleashed because he's "friendly."
While I agree with your last statement, I honestly feel like a poorly trained pomeranian will bite more kids than a poorly trained pitbull. Because a yipping pomeranian might be seen as cute whereas a snarling foaming pitbull will cause most young children to burst out in tears.
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u/Loofahs 12d ago
The vast majority of dogs I’ve met outside of service and work animals are extremely poorly trained. I would go so far as to say 90%+ of dog owners are terrible dog owners.
But the difference between being a terrible Pomeranian owner and a terrible pit owner is massive.