Four Dog Defense Argumentative Analysis

Imagine that person is bitten by a dog, but the owner does not want to accept responsibility. The owner first claims that he has no dog. But as the victim keeps insisting, the owner keeps changing his story to their dog is not dangerous, their dog is dangerous but did not harm anyone, then finally yes the dog hurt the victim but it was the victims fault. What has been described above is a series of tactics called the Four Dog Defense. Chemical companies and other manufacturers use this Four Dog Defense to misguide consumers and to hide the fact that their products are hazardous to both health and the environment.
The first stage of the Four Dog Defense is ‘I don’t have a dog’. According to the Sustainable Food Trust, the company claims that …show more content…
The third strategy is ‘My dog bit you, but you are not hurt.’ This part of the denial agrees that the chemical is indeed dangerous; however, the levels or how people are exposed to are not sufficient to cause harm (Sustainable Food Trust, 2013). When it came to cigarettes, it was widely accepted that the risks of smoking varied greatly from person to person and must be considered at the individual level (Gardner and Brandt, 2006). Similarly, consultants for the styrene industry, a chemical used in tires, wrote an email to the EPA’s scientists. They claimed to have demonstrated that styrene and styrene oxide are non-toxic unless they are further broken down. The email was written at the same time as the EPA was drafting a risk report that classified styrene and styrene oxide as cancer risks, further stalling the updated report. The consultants essentially admitted that styrene had the potential to be dangerous, but claimed it was not in the form people would be exposed to. People tend to believe that they are above the odds or that the harmful effects will only happen to other people and not themselves (book citation). Companies used this belief and common flaw in reasoning to their advantage to continue to market their products as safe by playing down the …show more content…
In the fourth and final part in the Four Dog Defense, ‘‘My dog bites, and you are hurt… but it wasn’t my fault’, the companies claim they are in no way responsible for the harm the chemicals have caused (Sustainable Food Trust, 2013). Following this pattern, International Institute of Synthetic Rubber Producers submitted a study claiming that increased leukemia among rubber workers was caused by butadiene, another hazardous chemical used along with styrene, to the EPA (Sass and Rosenberg, 2011). Notably, Bayer, the pesticide producer, continued to follow the pattern of diversion and finger pointing. Bayer has worked to spread doubt the risk neonicotinoids pose to bee colonies, by citing that parasites and poor beekeeping as reasons for the decline in bee population (Sustainable Food Trust, 2013). Companies attempt to divert people’s attention to other theories and to swamp government regulatory bodies with paperwork and more