Ms Nanci Creedon:

From a dog behaviour point of view, the dog's behaviour is likely to have a direct correlation to whatever is going in that dog's life. If a dog bites, we stop and look at what happened. Did that dog bite because it was over-excited, things were going on and it was chasing? Did it bite because it was being punished? Regarding whether or not a dog is dangerous, every dog can be dangerous. By having your dog as a family pet and interacting with your family and bringing that dog out on walks in parks and meeting people and other dogs, you are socialising that dog and minimising the probability of it displaying aggressive behaviours. However, if we are talking about built-up areas in terms of people getting dogs for status and choosing breeds of dog to look tough and hard, it is probable that those people will encourage aggressive behaviour in that dog, which will correlate to certain breeds showing aggressive behaviours because of how they have been trained.