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on a more selfish note my heart sinks with each new story...My own family has now suggested i should stop bringing my puppy on my visits (even though they acknowledge she is the best trained and softest dog they have ever met!) because she is a rottie and therefore a risk around my neices and nephews!!!!! she has never so much as jumped at one even as a very young pup!
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I am so sorry that you've been asked that question. It really does go to show you how bad a name these dogs get because of the media.
Fatal Dog Attacks, a book by author Karen Delise, states;
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Today’s media is filled with sensational headlines of dog attacks. Routinely quoted in these newspaper accounts are dated statistics from the Centers for Disease Control. The last CDC study released documented which breeds of dogs caused the most human fatalities from 1979 through 1998. While the CDC did an admirable job of studying fatal dog attacks, and went to great lengths to point out that
irresponsible owners were the cause of most of these incidents, the
media and lawmakers continue to use CDC statistics to substantiate claims that certain breeds of dogs are inherently more "vicious" than other breeds"
She also states: It is necessary to emphasize that a fatal dog attack is an exceptionally rare event, yet many communities and cities believe that the solution to prevent severe and fatal dog attacks is to label, restrict or ban certain breeds of dogs as potentially dangerous. If the breed of dog was the primary or sole determining factor in a fatal dog attack, it would necessarily stand to reason that since there are literally millions of Rottweilers, Pit Bulls and German Shepherd Dogs in the United States, there would have to be countless more than an approximate 20-25 human fatalities per year. Since only an infinitesimal number of any breed is implicated in a human fatality, it is not only unreasonable to characterize this as a specific breed behavior by which judge an entire population of dogs, it also does little to prevent fatal or severe dog attacks as the real causes and events that contribute to a fatal attack are masked by the issue of breed and not seriously addressed.
A study was conducted not to determine which breeds of dogs caused fatalities, but rather to examine the circumstances and events that precipitated an attack. Knowing how many Pit Bulls or Rottweilers caused a human fatality has little applicable value, only when examining each case individually can we hope to gain insight into the HUMAN and CANINE behaviors that contributed to these tragic events. Only when we become more knowledgeable, humane and responsible in our treatment of dogs can we hope to prevent future tragedies."
If people were educated correctly, without the media's sensationalism, this breed wouldn't get such a bad name.