All you ... PEOPLE who support breed bans: Let's Play FIND THE PIT BULL!!

[baldguy]

122. The Clifton Report? Is this a joke?

"Compiled by the editor of ANIMAL PEOPLE from press accounts since 1982......designated by animal control officers or others with evident expertise..."

Not only that DNA testing wasn't really available until 2004, and still isn't widely used for breed identification. Certainly DNA testing was unavailable in 1982. Evidently, the breed was determined by visual clues only, by untrained personnel. The study referenced in this thread proves that visual breed ID is no better than 50/50 chance, even when done by dog experts. And that that "Pit Bulls" are over-represented in visual breed determinations. Any studies based on visual factors are useless.

But the Clifton Report has been widely discredited even before DNA testing has been available:

http://dogbitesinformationandstatistics.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-clifton-report.html:

Where's the Clifton Report?

Not here. This site presents factual information about dog bites and dog attacks.

Merritt Clifton’s tabulation of dog bite articles is incomplete, inaccurate and badly edited. Readers have no way to access the original news stories and follow-up articles; breeds of dogs aren’t accurately recorded; and there is a significant discrepancy between press accounts of dog attacks and actual hospital data.

In a single year [1994], for example, at least 6,000 people were hospitalized in the U.S. as a result of dog attacks, according to the CDC. Clifton, by contrast, claims that during the 24-year period covered by his study there were a total of 2,209 “[dog] attacks doing bodily harm” in the U.S. and Canada.

http://btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2011/09/merritt-clifton-when-the-numbers-just-dont-add-up.html:

While an initial look at Clifton's methodology shows some glaring flaws, the deeper you look at the numbers, the more glaring those flaws become.

In December 2009 the Clifton Report featured 2,694 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,493 "Maimings) in the 27 year stretch from 1982 to 2009. There were several "interesting" things about these numbers:

1) Clifton issued a 2006 report that suggested there were 2,209 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,323 "maimings". A little math then shows that from 2006-2009, there were 485 'attacks doing bodily harm" and 170 "maimings" -- however, during the same timeframe, showed that the total numbers attributed to 'pit bulls, rottweilers and presa canarios" went up by 509 and 215 respectively - or more than the grand total of all dogs combined. This is, of course, mathematically impossible.

2) While HCUP estimates show that there have been an average of about 7800 hospitalizations (requiring an overnight stay) in the past 16 years, Clifton's study only included less than 100 per year -- or about 1% of the total hospitalizations -- and because he relies primarily on media reports for his information (and not, say, hospital reports), his numbers are statistically not representative. Now, Clifton will say that his study isn't meant to be all inclusive, but only cover the "worst of the worst", he is basing which incidents to include off of media report information. It seems like it would be impossible to decide which incidents to include, and which ones to not include, based on media reports on the injuries, and impossible to assume that every, or even most, major attacks are covered by the media.

Not to mention that there are no dog experts or veterinary professionals anywhere that reference Merritt Clifton. Why don't you try the people that know the relevant law, medicine & canine behavior - the Humane Society of the United States, the American Veterinary Association, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Kennel Club, the American Bar Association, and the National Canine Research Council. None of them support BSLs.