Breeding for specific traits works - and to say it doesn't is to deny thousands of years of obvious evidence that it does.

To deny that specific traits result in predictable behaviour requires the denial that herding dogs herd, trackers track, retrievers retrieve. You cannot make a herder out of a hound.

Dogs that are bred to protect or to fight are the dogs that most frequently seriously attack and kill.

To say that dogs bred for violence are no more prone to violence is both false and dangerously irresponsible.

But because of our dual cultures of crime and dog-owning, there is now a huge problem of violent dogs in our midst. Governments have a duty to protect citizens from attacks; animal-welfarists have a duty to protect dogs from the cruelty of dog-fighting and from lives of isolation on chains and in yards. AAS is lobbying for the dog-loving and humane dual solution of regulations of breeding, selling and ownership of the breeds of dogs that both suffer most and attack most and the banning of yard/guard dogs.

(The AAS web site www.animaladvocates.com has many yard dog reports with photostories; protection breeders in the Breeders Database, etc. The AAS messageboard has many posts (below) on yard dogs, attack statistics, letters to the Mayor and the BC SPCA, etc.)