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Everyone loses when dogs bite
By Liz Palika
January 6, 2010
As a dog trainer, I meet lots of really great people whose potentially wonderful dogs have bitten someone.
The statistics from the Center for Disease Control concerning dog bites are horrendous, and I won’t quote them here because I know they aren’t accurate. I say that because their statistics come from reported dog bites, and I know from experience that if a dog bite doesn’t need medical care, it often goes unreported.
Many other organizations tabulate information on dog bites besides the CDC, and that includes DogsBite,org, the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, and The Canadian Safety Council, to name just a few.
While studying all of this information, I saw several things. First of all, children are bitten more than adults are. Boys under the age of ten years are more apt to be bitten than girls and that trend continues on into adulthood with young adult males bitten more than young adult females.
More than a third of the time the family dog is the biter while a neighbor or friend’s dog comprises another third of the bites. Interestingly enough a stray dog is blamed for only slightly more than ten percent of the bites. Slightly more than twenty percent say an unknown dog or dogs were involved.
Rottweilers, Pit Bulls, and other so called aggressive breeds always make the news when there is a dog bite situation but many other breeds have been named in dog bite situations. In addition, identifying a dog by breed is problematic; often the dog is labeled either by the police office taking the report, the person who has been bitten, the parents of the victim, or a witness.
The causes of the dog bites varied. In some incidences, the dog was running loose and the child was on a skateboard or bicycle and the dog chased and caught the child. Resource guarding (guarding something of high value – such as food, a bone, or something that belongs to the owner) was far too common. Territorial defense was also fairly common.
Other causes of dog bites included: a child was playing inappropriately with the dog; the child was tormenting the dog; the dog was old, grumpy, or in pain; the dog had never learned bite inhibition; the dog was playing and became over stimulated; the dog was sleeping and was startled awake (often by a child); and a mother dog was protecting her puppies.
When talking to other behaviorists and behavioral consultants, and in talking to my clients, I found that in the vast majority of cases when the dog was known, warning had been given by the dog prior to biting. The dog had repeatedly yawned, turned away from the person, or tried to get away. When those signals were ignored, the dog showed teeth, growled, or otherwise escalated the warnings. Bites often happened when those warning were ignored and the – to the dog – annoying behavior continued. Other bites occurred when the dog was punished.
Unfortunately when a dog bites, everyone involved loses – from the dog, the owner of the dog, the person who was bitten, the insurance company, other people paying insurance premiums, and on and on and on.
In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about dog bite prevention – both what I recommend to my clients and what I’ve found while doing all this often depressing research.
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When I was a teenager, our neighbor’s kid repeatedly teased our dog through the fence. We talked to the parents a few times, but they never did anything about it. The kid came in the yard to play with my little brother one day, and our dog jumped up and nipped him on the cheek. (Our dog wasn’t even a year old yet.) The kid’s mom was outraged, and my mom wasn’t home. I told her that if her kid hadn’t been teasing my dog unmercifully, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Luckily, this was before the age of lawyers. The kid never teased our dog again. I know in a perfect world our dogs won’t bite no matter the provocation, but this isn’t a perfect world and he deserved it!
Comment by C.L.H. — January 6, 2010 @ 7:57 pm
Never thought I’d see the BSL-obsessed, Clifton-quoting, breed-bashing site DogsBite mentioned in the same sentence as the CDC, the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program and The Canadian Safety Council. Kind of like seeing the KKK on a list of human rights organizations.
DogsBite is entitled to its own opinions; its own facts, not so much. DogsBite exists to promote legislation targeting specific breeds, and to highlight negative press involving those breeds. This is not the same thing as actually studying dog bites or trying to reduce their numbers or severity. I’m sorry to see organizations like the CDC lumped together with what is essentially a one-man hate site.
Comment by Luisa — January 7, 2010 @ 12:58 am
What studies there are of dog bites in the general population show between 10-15% of dogs bite. The CDC report is the most oft reported one that indicates 10% of dogs biting. It is certainly clear that this is no where near the number reported. Historically and now the dogs that tend to be reported are the larger male dogs. The family dog far less so. And most of the bites are minor. Children are highly represented because they are more likely to be reported than a similar bite to an adult. Recent studies indicate a very real lack of knowledge on the part of parents and dog owners regarding the risk of a dog bite. All too many of the “family dogs” are viewed as low risk, parents just do not seem to think “their” dog will bite the child. Yet it is very much human action and behavior that elicits a dog bite. People all too often view a bite as “unprovoked” when in fact the dog has consistently given warning signs. There is definitely a correlation with a growl, snapping and a bite. None of this of course is breed specific, so the biggest challenge is trying to educate. Public health officials and others have been saying this for the last 50 years.
Comment by TEH — January 7, 2010 @ 8:36 am
My favorite statement is “Oh, my dog won’t bite you.” EVERY dog will bite given the right circumstances. It’s a dog’s only defense. As with everything else, education is key.
Comment by C.L.H. — January 7, 2010 @ 8:50 am
Animal bites are hard to track because, as you mentioned, they just don’t get reported unless treatment is needed.
Until people get over their ideas that a pet “won’t bite” or that mouthing is okay and don’t teach good petiquette the problem is going to remain.
Personally, I believe that there are many animals that don’t have a fast inclination to bite and am frustrated with the lack of enforcement of regular laws governing animals—if those jobs were funded and staffed I think we would see less problems—especially in my area where we have one animal control officer for multiple communities.
Comment by Ark Lady — January 7, 2010 @ 10:53 am
Dog bites are also over-reported. Plenty of people are happy to call the cops and claim a dog bit for a startle - or even just to harass their neighbors. I think in some areas calls about bad dogs (dogs who are out or bit someone) are second only to noise complaints in nuisance calls to the cops. And of course, all calls have to be investigated and reported. And even if the report says there was no evidence of bite or there was no noise when the cops arrived, it’s still a report and there’s no way to no what really happened. (A classic is to say that the “bite” was actually sometime in the past and has now healed.)
Comment by batgal — January 10, 2010 @ 1:34 pm
i’m mid-argument in another forum sticking up for pitties. Can someone point me to wear I can get good recent bite statistics by breed. oh and is there a “bite severity” by breed stat that you guys trust?
Comment by Original Lori — June 11, 2010 @ 9:42 am