People With Vicious Dogs May Be Vicious Too

A new study in Ohio suggests that people who own vicious dogs such as pit bulls have significantly more criminal convictions than owners of gentler dogs such as beagles.

The study of 355 dog owners in Ohio says that every owner of a dog breed known for aggression had at least one brush with the law, from traffic citations to serious criminal convictions.

And 30 percent of people who owned an aggressive breed of dog had at least five criminal convictions or traffic citations. This compared to 1 percent of owners of low-risk dogs such as poodles, beagles or collies.

"Owners of vicious dogs who have been cited for failing to register a dog, failing to keep a dog confined on the premises ... are more than nine times more likely to have been convicted for a crime involving children, three times more likely to have been convicted of domestic violence ... and nearly eight times more likely to be charged with drugs than owners of low-risk licensed dogs", said Jaclyn Barnes of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Although director of The Childhood Trust at the University of Cincinnati added that these results may not mean much since social deviance could have been what led thw owner to choosing that dog to begin with: "One can argue that choosing to own a vicious dog is a marker of social deviance because a vicious dog is, by definition, a socially deviant animal".

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