December 9, 2009

One California problem that might just solve itself

From the LA Times:
Animal shelters seeing glut of Chihuahuas
The once-fashionable little canines are replacing pit bulls as the breed most often left at shelters.

... And at the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo, "the number of Chihuahuas has eclipsed pit bulls as the most common breed" ...

Chihuahuas, pit bulls. Pit bulls, Chihuahuas ... It seems like there ought to be a solution to the dog pound overcrowding problem in there somewhere.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

35 comments:

Vernunft said...

What's the ratio at which the pit bulls lose? A fun question to ponder.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's pretty mean.

Anonymous said...

I often travel down into the Central Valley of CA to visit family near Fresno. The Mexican population is huge there, and both breeds of dogs are favored by our friends who've come from south of the border.

Here in Northern CA, they parade around their pit bulls, male and of course, un-neutured.

Bob said...

When I see a 30-year-old couple with a dogs instead of kids it reminds me of the depressing fact of the rapid decline of my people.

I have no doubt a reason for our falling birthrate is the growing dog ownership rate, especially in expensive places like Los Angeles.

Beyond the $1000 a year cost for food grooming and routine care, it requires people to buy more expensive housing. "Dog friendly" housing commands a real premium in cities like LA.

Then at the end of the dog's life there is often surgery costing $3000 or $4000.

The "like-dogs" genes, which I do think exist, may have been highly adaptive from 5,000BC to 1900AD, is now highly maladaptive.

Anonymous said...

Whoops, misspelled "neutered."

Mr. Anon said...

Moreover, the humane society could make an event out of it - invite specatators, allow them to bet on the bouts, and collect a portion of the pot to fund their operations.

Viva Vibrancy!

Anonymous said...

I hope you're not suggesting that the pitbulls kill off the chihuahuas. A very sad side-effect of the foreclosure/economic crisis is the huge spike in animals getting put in shelters, as people get evicted from their homes and can't take their pets with them. For some reason I find this more disturbing than homelessness among humans, or even the people getting evicted. In a way, the animals are more victims than the humans, because humans, at least in theory, should know better than to buy homes they cannot afford(how can Fido know this?). Of course HBD suggests some humans may not know any better.

Regardless, always always always get your animals spayed or neutered and rescue animals from shelters unless you have a very good reason to go to a breeder. If only we could start fixing some homo sapiens(animal shelters are "cheap", by comparison, if you know what I mean).

For some reason "man's best friend" seems to be the only other species besides humans in which "nurturists" vigorously deny that differences in dog intelligence and behavior are due to genetic differences between breeds/races.

Having read a number of websites about pitbulls, and having talked with a few owners, it is often puzzling how they can deny that genes influence pitbulls extremely aggressive, at times, murderous behavior. No, it is "how they are raised", they claim. Meanwhile, pitbulls are vastly overrepresented in dog attack incidents. Some breeds like cocker spaniels are very underrepresented.

Pitbulls originated among dogs used in dog-fights in the early 19th century. For over a century now breeders have been breeding them to be even more aggressive and monstrous.

They are now the breed of choice for drug-dealers and pimps. The inner-city of many U.S cities is literally a breeding ground for increasingly dangerous pitbulls and other aggressive breeds. Pitbulls are banned in many cities for this reason.

I can't remember the exact details, but hormone levels in pitbulls and the ratios of certain brain chemicals in the pitbull brain very strongly favors aggression(similar in many ways to the brains of violent criminals in humans). This unique brain chemistry and structure is very largely(though not exclusively) genetic, this dog-expert explained.

Middletown Girl said...

"Regardless, always always always get your animals spayed or neutered and rescue animals from shelters unless you have a very good reason to go to a breeder."

From personal experience dealing with animals in the ghetto and barrios, I must say such advice falls on deaf years in the non-white/underclass communities. A lot of people raise pitbulls for dogfighting, to scare people, or because it's badass cool. They don't care about the animals. If their pitbulls have pups, they are sold.

As for Mexicans, they don't have a culture of orderliness or self-pride based on maintaining appearances. They park their cars everywhere, throw garbage everywhere, and aren't much into hygiene or thoroughness. They can work very hard when they have to, but taking things seriously and responsibly is not ingrained in their souls. A Mexican who carelessly throws garbage or abandons a dog isn't necessarily an evil person or intentionally out to do harm. They are either clueless or culturally sloppy. Things are very laid-back in the country they came from. Mexicans were oppressed but never disciplined and hardened into a people like the Prussians or the Brits. And because Mexicans never owned much themselves, they never developed a culture of pride and responsibility of ownership. Indeed, many of them had owned pretty much nothing prior to coming to the US. So, a Mexican may find a dog cute and keep it for awhile, but it's just not high on their priority. If they have to throw it out for some reason, the dog is no more than an old doll or garbage to a Mexican. This is unfortunate but true.

To be sure, poor people of all backgrounds tend to be less sentimental about animals than better-off people--as their minds are on survival--, but some cultures stress empathy, responsibilty--both personal and toward others--, shame/guilt, and sense of obligation much more. Mexicans, Russians, etc. aren't very good with animals. Germans are the best.

Carolyn said...

"A very sad side-effect of the foreclosure/economic crisis is the huge spike in animals getting put in shelters, as people get evicted from their homes and can't take their pets with them."

I have a friend who is very involved in animal rescue and she runs out to the San Bernadino shelter multiple times a week (apparently, the conditions there are appalling) to pull dogs out and place them with rescue groups. Foreclosures have really hit shelters and rescues hard, particularly in the Inland Empire (another sin to lay at the feet of unchecked immigration). Besides nasty pitbulls and chihuahuas, there are lots of designer dogs (and cats) to be had for cheap through rescue organizations. People who think they can afford a $500K mortgage on a drywaller's salary tend to be foolish with their money and buy fancy pets. She works a lot with barksoflove.org in Orange County if anyone is thinking of getting a pet. PetFinder.com is another great place to go to find a rescue animal.

Kylie said...

Anonymous said: "Pitbulls originated among dogs used in dog-fights in the early 19th century. For over a century now breeders have been breeding them to be even more aggressive and monstrous...They are now the breed of choice for drug-dealers and pimps."

There is no recognized breed called the "pit bull". That is a catchall phrase mistakenly used to describe APBTs, Staffies, and various other bull breeds and mixes thereof. It is about as meaningful and accurate a term as "Hispanic".

The APBT, the breed most often designated "pit bull" is neither aggressive nor monstrous. It is extremely loyal and has extremely strong jaws. Obviously, a dog with those two traits could be conditioned by an unscrupulous trainer/owner to become aggressive. Properly bred, conditioned and socialized, however, they make wonderful pets.

Anonymous says: "Having read a number of websites about pitbulls, and having talked with a few owners..."

My experience with the bull breeds is somewhat more extensive than that. I've interacted with APBTs, mastiffs, OEBs, among others, with no problems at all and have corresponded with a number of trainers, breeders, owners and rehomers about bull breeds. I currently own an Olde English Bulldogge (part APBT) and a bulldog. Neither is aggressive in the least. Both have been set upon by small children and by other dogs running loose. In terms of sheer physical strength and size, they could easily have killed the children or other dogs, if they'd wanted. Instead, their response was either to stand still submissively or tried to hide.

Unscrupulous breeders, owners and trainers are the scourge of the dog world and I have no doubt there are many APBT's, Staffies, Molossers, etc. that should not have been bred at all and have been trained to be aggressive. But as always, the underlying problem is with the people involved. I'd like to see people licensed to breed, train or own dogs the way they're licensed to drive cars.

Anonymous said...

Here is a very good proposed four-tier dog licensing system:

http://barkingdogs.net/fourtiersys.shtml

Simon said...

Kylie - APBT = 'American Pit Bull Terrier', right? How does that square with "there's no such thing as a pit bull"?!

Here in the UK actual pit bulls ("APBTs") were banned, so now the streets of my urban proletariat neighbourhood swarm with owners walking their Staffordshire bull terriers instead. Everyone knows though that Staffies aren't 'pit' bulls, they're still scary, but considerably smaller.

Anonymous said...

A half-starved chihuahua showed up in my front yard last year. I couldn't bring myself to dump him off at a shelter so now he's mine. Perhaps this "California problem" has spread to central Indiana. In the past twelve years we've experienced a dramatic influx of a certain demographic.

Anonymous said...

pit bulls are essentially sweet and friendly dogs, the problem is wiht the owners. Here in Finland the pit bull populationn has exploded after the national broadcastinng company aired a documentary on the horrors of dog fights ...

I was walking my dog dog last week, was goinng in fenced area designated for the dogs to run free and paly, but there were too pit bulls making such a racket on the entrance that I decided to go the other way.

The other pit bull jumped over the fence and run after us ...

it was a young bitch who just wantedd to play ...

I walked back to gate to get that dog to her owner ... then the other pit bull escaped too ...

so I had to go in to get them to follow me ..

The pit bulls belonged tyo a young Gypsy/Romany guy, i Suspect he was intending to breed them ... anyway, the most angry dog was my old female labrador who who was irritated at the male pit bull's amorous advances, my dog was mostly interested in asserting her dominance over the female pitbull, who just wanted to play ...

Anonymous said...

The Koreans solved this problem long ago!

Ross said...

You're probably going to get more criticism for this post than a million about race.

Anonymous said...

> Having read a number of websites about pitbulls, and having talked with a few owners, it is often puzzling how they can deny that genes influence pitbulls extremely aggressive, at times, murderous behavior. No, it is "how they are raised", they claim. Meanwhile, pitbulls are vastly overrepresented in dog attack incidents. Some breeds like cocker spaniels are very underrepresented. <

The kind of magical thinking these people exemplify is what's ruining the world.

> pit bulls are essentially sweet and friendly dogs, the problem is wiht the owners. <

Uh-huh.

Bob said

> When I see a 30-year-old couple with a dogs instead of kids it reminds me of the depressing fact of the rapid decline of my people. <

Professor Lander thinks they're simply in training for having babies. I'm not so sure. I agree with Bob - they strike me as dysfunctional people going down to probable demographic destruction.

In my apartment complex EVERYONE (but not me) has a dog. Not little yap-yaps. Big monstrous full spectrum dogs, four and five feet long by eye and three feet tall, all of them cooped up in one-bedroom apartments. These dogs make a racket day and night that you can't even conceive of. The look of blissed-out stupidity on the faces of the owners of these poor, cramped beasts is annoying.

These are all basically graduate students (20s) and young folks (early 30s). They shack up with a girlfriend or boyfriend sometimes (a fair percentage are interracial couples) but not often and never for long. But dawg ain't goin' nowhere.

The girls of course have the biggest dogs...and are seen on the property doing all but French-kissing them. God knows what goes on behind closed doors. You just know the dog sleeps in the bed. You can SMELL the dog on these girls (as horsewomen smell of the stable).

As Swipply and Green as these morons are, they would one and all screech to the heavens were they to read this sensible environmental tip that was making the rounds last month.

headache said...

Watch the SWPL crowd enact some for of AA for chihuahuas.

Anonymous said...

Steve, I believe that your theory of affordable family formation fits well with what is going on with dog ownership.

First of all, when people feel that it is easy to afford a nice house with a back yard on an average man's salary, people tend to get married and have kids.

When people feel it is very hard to afford a nice house with a back yard on an average man's salary, they tend to have few kids or no kids.

Same thing with dogs - when a house seemed easy to obtain, people got dogs since they had plenty of space. And they anticipated that they could afford to keep the space (ie keep the house)

By the way, it has been way way too long since we had a thread on affordable family formation. May I suggest that you start one? Lots of new information to discuss on that front

Nate Winchester said...

Sweet! We can finally answer one of the oldest questions of all time.

Anonymous said...

> people got dogs since they had plenty of space <

No! All the dogs I see (big ones, too) are stuffed inside one-bedroom apartments. Do pet owners realize how abusive of their pets they sometimes are? A BIG dog needs a YARD. No wonder they're barking their heads off night and day...but moron luvs his Bo Bo.

Middletown Girl said...

Generally, people who have kids thoughtlessly raise--and even discard--them thoughtlessly. Look at African parents willing to sell excess children to Hollywood millionaires.

People who 'buy' homes without much thought walk away without thought.

People who buy pets without thought abandon them without thought.

Some cultures are more perfectionist than others, with greater sense of pride AND shame attached to certain behavior. So, a Japanese or Germans--traditionally at least--both took great pride and felt great shame in regard to how well they performed their tasks, responsibilities, and duties as citizens. Some cultures are slacker and lazier. One could argue that the Japanese and Germans are too anal while Mexicans and blacks are too crap-all-over. German culture not only stresses cleanliness but respect/love of animals. Germans feel much pride in their humane treatment of animals and would feel shame if they treated animals like shit. Germans go too far with this stuff though as control freaks.

But, this is also partly a political issue, with the left tending to be more responsible than the right. There are many strains of conservatism, but two kinds are not necessarily good for animals: libertarianism and virile machismo. Libertarianism is opposed to political controls, social engineering, and etc, and this attitude spills over into the treatment of animals. Libertarians argue people should be able to raise animals any way they choose. Also, some are likely to see neutering or spaying as a form of statist eugenuics.
As for virile machismo, it says that animals are animals and we must let them have fun--and live and die--as animals. In RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING, Pat Buchanan said his family raised dogs and cats without much supervision. They wandered, fought, bred, died, etc, and the bloody process was seen as, well, natural. Mexicans feel much the same way. Dogs are dogs, and their doghood shouldn't be removed by neutering or spaying. Mexican males want macho dogs, and mexican females want horny dogs. If some get pregnant, oh well, that's just how animals behave. If you can't raise all the pups or kits, just throw them out in the streets and let them fend for themselves. It's just animals being animals. Not all conservatives think this way, but the right, more than the left, is more laissez faire about animals in both nature and in our homes. So, Rush Limbaugh doesn't care if polar bears or owls die out. They should make way for the natural expansion of man's estate. And many southern whites don't neuter or spay their dogs or cats either. It just aint manly.

Of course, most control-freak dogshow participants and purebred freaks are right-leaning, but that's another kind of sickness--cold-hearted than non-chalant--where the worth of a dog or a cat is judged by ridiculous sets of esoterica.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"I have no doubt a reason for our falling birthrate is the growing dog ownership rate, especially in expensive places like Los Angeles"

I suspect causation is the other way around. It's not the expense of a dog causing the drop in birth rates. It's the unaffordable family formation causing couples to get dogs as baby substitutes.

Since living in White areas is expensive, White women in most areas must earn half the household income. Being a working woman is just not compatible (feminist cant about work/family balance nothwithstanding) with childbearing. So she wants a dog as a child substitute, and since she doesn't *have* to pay daycare, as a working woman with small children would, (though -snerk- doggy daycare is a growth industry marketed at SWPLs) she spends that money expensive "premium" dogfood, pet spas, other silliness to pamper her Precious.

SF said...

Maybe the best way to spin this is that the noble and honorable first nation inhabitants of this land ate dogs.

Anonymous said...

Dogowners and parents directly and aggressively compete with each other for recreational space in cities, also.

Mercer said...

Steve you have the same regard for man's best friend as Michael Vick and gangster rappers. Are you proud to be in such company? What's next? Posts in praise of fathering children with several different woman? The virtues of being in a gang and having a prison record?

"It's the unaffordable family formation causing couples to get dogs as baby substitutes."

I agree. There are certainly people who pamper their pets but I think it would be hard to spend as much on a dog as a kid.

Another factor is that to be considered a proper middle class parent kids have to be constantly under adult supervision. Parents are supposed to spend every hour not at work with their children until they are teenagers. It looks exhausting and probably discourages potential parents.

This was not always the case. When I was in elementary school I played with kids in the neighborhood. Parents were not constantly driving kids around to adult supervised activities. I have not seen anything written about why parental expectations have changed.

Steve Wood said...

Steve you have the same regard for man's best friend as Michael Vick and gangster rappers. Are you proud to be in such company? What's next? Posts in praise of fathering children with several different woman? The virtues of being in a gang and having a prison record?

Oh, come on. This is just Swiftian irony. Steve doesn't really want to feed chihuahuas to pit bulls any more than Swift wanted the Irish to sell their babies as food for the rich.

At least, I hope that's the case. Otherwise, I would not only have to delete iSteve from my Bookmarks but replace the word "sailor" with "mariner" in my vocabulary forever.

Anonymous said...

Make a joke about killing animals and you will suffer the wrath of ten-year-old girls of every age and sex.

A moral equivalence between human life and animal life is not "rational" or "clearing away mystical notions", it is diseased.

A mature, healthy human mind cares much more about people than animals, much more about his people than other people, and much more about his family than his people. Any more "universal sympathy" is pathological. To me this is rather the whole point behind the immigration debate, so it surprises me to see so many ten-year-old girls here at isteve.

Mercer said...

"suffer the wrath of ten-year-old girls of every age and sex."

I did not know that Vick was sent to prison by "ten old girls". Do you consider the police, prosecutors, judge and jury all to be ten year old girls.

I don't think a "mature, healthy human mind" would consider our criminal justice to be made up of "ten year old girls". I don't think even a mature ten year would write such nonsense.

kudzu bob said...

In high school I had a summer job delivering pizza. One run that I had made many times before took me to a dilapidated apartment building with a bleak, dimly lit stairwell right out of David Lynch's Eraserhead that was barely wide enough for two people to pass each other, and which no doubt violated the spirit if not the letter of the local fire safety code. Not that I cared. Every Friday night there was party of some sort on the third floor with a lot of stoned, hungry people, and I was expecting my usual good tip.

This trip turned out a little differently, though. I had nearly passed the second floor with my armful of pies when I heard a brief snarl an instant before something tugged at my leg almost hard enough to make me stumble. I looked down to see that a palsied, rat-like Chihuahua had appeared from out of nowhere to clamp its jaws onto the cuff of my new pants.

The first thing I tried was cussing at the dog, of course. The second thing was to stand there on one foot and attempt to shake it loose from my other leg, in the meantime hopefully not dropping all those pizzas and also not breaking my neck by falling down the steps. (Talk about death by misadventure.)

No luck. That vicious little bastard knew that it had me, and simply would not let go of its prize. Things would have gone a lot easier for me if I had had a place to set down all those pizzas and maybe grab hold of a handrail; but as I said, that stairwell was not exactly designed for emergencies.

Eventually I had to resort to swinging my leg around so that the Chihuahua in question kept getting slammed into the wall over and over. Again, thanks to the narrowness of the stairwell I couldn’t really work up as much speed or force as I would have liked. Or maybe the Chihuahua was a lot tougher than it looked. Either way, it seemed to take forever before the thing at last released its grip, fell loose, and ran off down the stairs, toenails clacking.

The pants were ruined, of course.

Anonymous said...

"I did not know that Vick was sent to prison by "ten old girls". Do you consider the police, prosecutors, judge and jury all to be ten year old girls."

He said 'making a joke about killing animals", which if you may recall is not what Michael Vick was imprisioned for.

Middletown Girl said...

Hey, I have an idea. How about NO DOWNPAYMENT pethouse loans for pitbulls and chihuahuas? Call it Bow-wownership Society.
And don't forget homeless cats. Meownership Society.

And, we won't need the anti-cruelty society anymore.

Obama should do this since he is, according to Will Smith, the next stage in human evolution.

Hello Omega :) said...

anonymous it was a young bitch who just wantedd to play ...,

I guess you don't read roissy huh?

young bitches are the only type that alphas play with.

dog skin solutions said...

Genes pitbulls are aggressive most of the time, I don't think you have to know proper training with your dog.

Dog Dry Skin said...

After the Chihuahua, I wonder what would be next.

Was Hollywood to blame for California's surplus as suggested by animal lovers?

If so, they could do good too. Inculcate responsible pet ownership in your fans.