Being bitten by a dog can certainly be a problem for the people involved, but how common a problem is it? An article published in late 2008 in the journal Injury Prevention addresses this question (Gilchrist, J., J.J. Sacks, D. White, and M-J Kresnow, 2008, Dog Bites: Still A Problem? Injury Prevention 14: 296-301).
The authors of the study analyzed data from a telephone survey conducted in 2001-2003 from 9684 households, and compared the results with those from a similar survey conducted in 1994.
The 1994 study estimated that 4.7 million Americans were bitten by dogs, and 800,000 people had to seek medical treatment for the dog bites. The 2001-2003 survey yielded an estimate of 4,521,300 people bitten per year, or 15.8 people bitten per 1000 people, with an estimate of 885,000 people (or 3.1 per 1000 people) needing medical attention.
These results show that the overall incidence of dog bites did not change in the 10-year period. However, there were some significant changes.
The good news is that children are being bitten less by dogs than before.
In 1994, the overall incidence of dog bites in children was 24.5 bites per 1000 children, or 29.2 per 1000 for boys and 20.0 per 1000 for girls. This number decreased in 2001-2003 by 47 percent to an overall rate of 13.1 per 1000, and for boys it was 12.7 per 1000, while for girls it was 13.1 per 1000.
The bad news is that more older adults are being bitten.
There was a 43 percent increase in the incidence of dog bites among adults older than 45. In 1994, the incidence of dogs bites in that age group was 7.9 per 1000, and in 2001-2003 the incidence went up to 13.8 per 1000.
Surprisingly enough, the chance of people getting bitten went up depending on how many dogs were in their household. People who had no dogs had a bite incidence of 7.2 per 1000, while people with one dog had a bite incidence of 29.7 per 1000 and people with two or more dogs had a bite incidence of 34.3 per 1000. Although people often think that dogs only bite strangers, the numbers show that dogs most often bite people within the dogs’ households.
Unfortunately, the study did not address the breeds of dogs that are most typically responsible for the dog bites.
However, a Canadian study published in 2001 gives us some insight into the risk of being bitten (Guy, N. C. et al. 2001. Risk factors for dog bites to owners in a general veterinary caseload. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 74: 29-42). The authors interviewed 515 dog owners in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, assessing the age, weight, and living conditions of 227 biting dogs and 126 non-biting dogs.
A major finding of that study was that small dogs (less than 44 pounds or 20 kg) were more likely to bite than larger dogs (greater than 44 pounds or 20 kg). The authors speculated that this might be due, in part, to the dogs’ owners being more tolerant of aggression if the dogs were smaller.
So if adults who are older than 45 tend to have smaller dogs now than they did 10 or 15 years ago, this might explain the increased incidence of dog bites among that age group.
And the answer to the initial question, are dog bites a problem, appears to be “yes.”
I have a little dog that is too protective of me and bites at people feet if they come to close to me. I thought it was kinda funny until my best friend told me she hated coming to my place because of the way Buster would run after her. Anyway I saw this article with tips for preventing dog bites. Thought it might be helpful. http://my.arfie.com/profiles/blogs/n...ite-prevention
Posted by: Ginger | May 19, 2009 at 03:43 PM
I don't own a dog, but I was bit by a dog when crossing a heavy pedestrian street in San Francisco. I tripped on the sidewalk and lunged forward only to have a startled dog come up to me and bite. I know it was a fear reaction, but I was bitten and it freaked me out. Took me a long time to get past a large dog without a little bit of fear.
Posted by: Ajlouny | April 28, 2009 at 07:56 PM
thank you
you have nice blog !
Posted by: Trade and Travel | March 27, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Are dog bites increasing, or decreasing? --We frequently get asked this question. The short answer is that we're just not sure.
As stated in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) website report, "CDC releases epidemiologic survey of dog bites in 2001”, Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the Dangerous Dogs division of the AVMA stated, “There are enormous difficulties in collecting dog bite data... no centralized reporting system for dog bites exists and bites are typically relayed to a number of entities, such as police, veterinarians, animal control, and emergency rooms, making meaningful analysis nearly impossible.”
Perhaps that's why the results from our 2004-2007 Dangerous Dogs Investigation stand in stark contrast to the CDC's recent results. Our findings suggest that dog bites are increasing, rather than decreasing or remaining static.
During our 3-year investigation, we found that the vast majority of dog bites go unreported, likely because society as a whole does not yet realize that small bites often lead to big bites, (i.e., a dog that has learned that an act of aggression achieves its objective will resort to using its teeth to achieve success in the future, typically with an increase in the intensity of aggression exhibited as confidence is gained).
In most cases, victims and witnesses did not report minor bites unless and until a more serious bite had occurred. Owners tended to excuse and justify even severe bites from their own dogs. One dog ripped his owner's ear off and the owner had his brother, a cosmetic surgeon, sew it back on. The bite was never reported, and the owner shrugged off the vicious attack as, "It's my fault -- he was tired of me hugging him." This is an extreme case of a pervasive tendency for owners to minimize or justify even severe acts of aggression.
We confirmed that in the vast majority of Dog Bite-Related Fatalities, previous acts of aggression and even other bite incidents had preceded the attack. This is consistent with what the CDC found in their study Breeds of Dogs Involved in Fatal Human Attacks in the United States Between 1979 and 1998, “…problem behaviors (of dogs and owners) have preceded attacks in a great many cases, and should be sufficient evidence for preemptive action.”
We found that the majority of dog bite victims who were friends or family of the dog's owner did not report the bite as such because they didn't want their dog, or their friend's dog, to "get in trouble". We found this to be the case, even if the bite was severe enough for the victims to seek treatment at a hospital. In these cases, bites were frequently reported as injuries from a variety of falls, (off bikes, down stairs, in the woods, etc).
We found that veterinarians, vet-techs, groomers, boarding kennels, and trainers were experiencing an increase in dog bites which they rarely reported as such because they did not want to alienate clients.
Finally, it was also our experience that people have less free time now and are thus socializing and training their dogs less, and that this is likely contributing to the observed increase in dog bites. But again, without a centralized repository of dog bite information, conclusive data on the number and type of bites occurring is simply not available.
For more information on the corrective actions identified during our three-year Dangerous Dogs Investigation, please see the 7-Step Dangerous Dog Risk Mitigation Protocol available at no cost from our websites: www.PreventDogBites.com, and www.PreventDogBites.ca.
Tamara Ann Follett
President/CEO,
Dog-Trax North America
Event Host: 1st World Congress on Mitigating the Risks of Dangerous Dogs
Posted by: Tamara Follett | March 25, 2009 at 08:03 AM