In as much as each and every breed has their own specific traits, dogs are dogs when it comes to personality towards and around people. There is not a dog in the world that humans have been able to change the genetic makeup of the breed over a few decades due to ignorance or criminal behavior. It was simply the treatment that the particular dogs received that lead to their behavior, whether it was good or bad. Socialization is an enormous factor in this and a biting dog can most assuredly be traced back to something the human did wrong or something the human didn't do, but should have.

I have been doing rescue for full time for over 20 years with the breed of Dalmatians. I have successfully placed over 2,500 of them into good loving homes after they were abandoned and abused by irresponsible and severely uninformed humans. That is the basis of this story here. There are few exceptions to that claim.

Dalmatians, as you know became famous after the release of the series of Disney movies featuring the breed. People actually expected the dogs to open the doors for them and to be able to turn on the water also. They did not read up on the breed to recognize their need to run 50 miles a day till they are 7 or 8 years old. They did not read up on the breed to realize that they should be fed foods with protein levels at or below that of a senior dog's diet or they are likely to develop kidney stones from purines and that the breed of Dalmatian should never be bathed with any form of soap product, but left to roll in the grass and then rinsed with clean water. If not, they are very likely to get hot spots, dry skin and to loose their hair in clumps. This particular breed cannot be forced outside at night for similar reasons, but the good news is that they produce no dander, so they are literally hypo allergenic, just like the standard poodle. Both are perfect in home pets for those with allergies.

Dogs are, compared to other 'hazards' we accept without question in our society, fantastically safe. My friend and colleague, Janis Bradley, has been researching this issue for an upcoming book on the subject and has compared dogs to everything from kitchen utensils and water buckets to strollers, Christmas trees, balloons and marbles. To these items they compare favorably. They compare even more favorably to things like swimming pools, bicycles and playground equipment.

What's amazing about dog bites is that we are grimly trying to count them: "There is no other such phenomenon that anyone even attempts to study when it doesn't produce physical harm." In other words, no one talks about the paper-cut epidemic, the chef's-knife-injury epidemic or the falling-in-bathtub epidemic. Why do dogs get to have "an epidemic" when five-gallon buckets, which are more dangerous, don't?

We are each "five times as likely to be killed by a bolt of lighting - not just struck by one, mind you - killed" than to be killed by a dog or dogs. Considering that less than 20 per cent of lightning strikes are fatal, this makes being struck by lightning 25 times more likely than being the victim of a fatal dog mauling. If the risk by exposure is then considered - there is one dog for every four or five people in the United States for instance, and most of these dogs encounter several people every day of their lives - dogs are almost incalculably safe.

And, contrary to the shrieking newspaper headlines, dog-related deaths are not trending upwards. The rate has remained astonishingly steady over all the decades that records have been kept.

With these points in the mix, it is clear that breed specific legislation is just an excuse for not obtaining the proper information and placing the blame on the wrong source. The blame will undoubtedly fall on that of the humans responsible for the particular dogs reaction to any and all situations. Basicly, it is an irresponsible human who will allow this from their pets. It can be practically any breed known to man.
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The source for the following is Dog Behavior Expert Dr. Richard Polsky Ph.D., CAAB Certified applied animal Behaviorist www.dogexpert.com

---Mixed breeds and not pure bred dogs are the type of dog most often involved in inflicting bites to people. The pure-bred dogs most often involved are German shepherds and Chow chows.

---Canines not spayed or neutered are three times more likely to bite than sterilized ones.

---Dogs forced to reside outside the home at night are 80% more likely to bite than ones who live inside with their human counterparts.

----The list of breeds most involved in both bite injuries and fatalities changes from year to year and from one area of the country to another, depending on the popularity of the breed.

---The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document that a chained dog is 2.8 times more likely to bite than an unchained dog.

---Of the 27 people who died as a result of dog bite attacks in 1997 and 1998, 67% involved unrestrained dogs on the owner's property; 19% involved unrestrained dogs off the owner's property; 11% involved restrained dogs on the owner's property; and 4% involved a restrained dog off the owner's property.

---- Until 1992 Dalmatians were never in the top 25 of biting dogs. From 92 through 2000, they wavered from 2nd to 4th most likely. In 2001, the breed dropped from 4th to 18th. As of the end of 2003, they are again no longer in the top 25.

These facts and others are all supported by the Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyers Association as well as www.goodpooch.com which specializes in statistics for all forms of animal actions.

Routine discussions about dog bites frequently become derailed due to one persons' recollection of a particular event that seems to justify their every fear. IT DOES NOT. That is simply an anecdotal point that only carries weight with that person. In time, with more humane education, we can only hope that cooler heads and better decision making will prevail.