[dogs] I am reading Pit Bull by Bronwen Dickey and it's so fascinating, y'all.

I knew a lot of the stuff about breed being genetically difficult to really pin down and that most everything in the media about pibbles was a lie, but the way she's going through the whole cultural history of both pit bulls but also all breed panic is so cool.

I mean, also so dumb.

I had no idea that before we understood rabies, the fact there were so many spitzes in NY meant people... thought they were uniquely prone to the disease, because they were "basically undomesticated" and essentially of a lower class of dog.

Sorry, I missed the bit where a LOT of rabies cases shows up in spitz-type dogs, hence the association.

So in the 1870s there was a spitz scare.

She also talks about this nonprofit that instead of taking dogs away from people who aren't caring for them properly, they look at the underlying, systemic reasons. Maybe they come from a community without access to good dog care education. Or can't afford a fence. Etc etc.

I really like this approach and had never thought about how animal welfare rubs up against other issues of race/class/poverty

Indeed, she draws a pretty convincing line through racism and eugenics to breed obsession.

And also looks at studies showing that the vast majority of dog professionals cannot actually ID breeds by looks. Since dog genes are so malleable, almost anything can look like anything within a few generations.

ANYWAY it's a very interesting read.

YEP

like, otis is 1/4 chow. he looks and acts like a working-bred border collie!

hella good book

(so i have heard, from u obvs but also others!)

I knew the genes were flexible, but they've run breeding experiments where if you take two pure bred dogs from different breeds, breed them together, then breed those together, you get every body shape.

And a lot of what goes into a breed is unseen. So you can have a chihuahua but when you run the test all the insides are like, great dane or something

So basically all the panic over breeds is extra ludicrous, because it just doesn't mean a whole lot. A lot of the assumptions made about behavior, too, can't really be proven.

We all just operate on our experience and stuff.

We had a Pittie German Shepard mix and he was the best and most friendly dog even we had him from the time I was 2 until I was 8 (he got K9 leukemia). The only time her got super angry was when a total stranger my uncle brought over walked into my bedroom while I was a sleep when I was 4. Even that is was just cornering him and and barking very loud

Until my dad came in

Which is very reasonable everyone thought

oh i want this book