How to prevent dog bites
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I’ve been bitten several times, as I’m sure have most people who work with animals, but I’ve never seen a specific number put to the risk that veterinarians have of being bitten. Since May 19-25 is Dog Bite Prevention Week I thought I’d talk about dog bites and who gets bit.
The most relevant statistic I could find was in a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publication that stated, “4.5% dog bite injuries were work-related (e.g., occurred to persons who were delivering mail, packages, or food; working at an animal clinic or shelter; or doing home repair work or installations).”
Being put in the same category as delivery people got me to thinking. I use much the same method of avoiding bites as does the gentleman who drops off packages at my home. When my 82 pound dog greets him at the door, he approaches with non-threatening body language, speaks to him in a calm tone of voice, and bribes him with a treat. This last approach has worked so well that my dog now drools and bounces up and down whenever and wherever he sees a big, brown truck.
Despite efforts at prevention, dog bites unfortunately still come with the territory for some professionals, but my heart really goes out to the kids who are bitten. According to the CDC, every year:
800,000 Americans seek medical attention for dog bites; half of these are children. Of those injured, 386,000 require treatment in an emergency department and about 16 die. The rate of dog bite-related injuries is highest for children ages 5 to 9 years, and the rate decreases as children age. Almost two thirds of injuries among children ages four years and younger are to the head or neck region. Injury rates in children are significantly higher for boys than for girls.
The elderly come in second to children as the group most likely to suffer from dog bites. One report states, “People more than 70 years old comprise 10% of those bitten and 20% of those killed.”
Obviously dog owners bear special responsibility for preventing dog bites. It is important to remember that most bites occur because a dog is afraid and not because he is being overly assertive. The best (only?) way to improve a behavior that is based in fear is to deal with the fear itself. Therefore, punishment of any kind is not an appropriate response. Yelling, hitting, jerking hard on a leash, etc., only confirms the dog’s feeling that he needs to defend himself.
The first step in alleviating fear-based behavior is to avoid the situations that cause the dog to become fearful. Instead, put the dog in an environment where he or she is confident and relaxed, get the dog to focus on his handler, and reward (with praise and a treat) that frame of mind. Then gradually the dog can be exposed to watered-down versions of the stimulus that invokes fear and be rewarded for remaining calm.
Dog bites are potentially too catastrophic of a problem for me to put forward a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with them here. If you’re worried about the possibility of your dog biting, please do us all a favor and talk to a veterinarian or behaviorist about his state of mind.
Dr. Jennifer Coates for PetMD
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I have a dog that is completely comfortable in his own environment, as long as no human comes into it that isn’t supposed to be there which includes just about everyone except my wife and I and maybe 8 other people. He hates delivery people so bad that he doesn’t even want their trucks on our street. I actually think it is the trucks rather than the people. Oddly, I have never been intentionally bitten by any dog even during the days when I was a police officer and had to go into unfriendly territory. Part of that, I believe is that I believe that there are dogs that will bite no matter what you do. They have anger management issues usually brought on by the owner who has deliberately caused them to be this way. Then there are dogs who are truly just protecting their territory, like mine, but can be approached with the right attitude. Trust me, dogs can read people a block away and I don’t think a person can fool them. There is one particular UPS delivery person who is female that has earned Rascals trust. Even in her truck as soon as he sees that it is her he immediately starts wagging his tail. On her first visit she met him eyeball to eyeball and just talked to him. She told me that she had several big dogs like Rascal. She had two things going for her. One, she was a she. Rascal has a tendency to like women; and, two, she was clearly a dog person. Rascal seems to be able to sense a true dog person. Rascal has only bitten one person and that one started out trying to hurt him. The guy was walking down the street and apparently did not like Rascal barking at him from the front yard. He picked up a stick and came into our yard with the intent of hitting Rascal with it. When I heard the change in Rascals bark I ran for the front door just in time to see the guy swing and miss Rascal and get bit on the butt for his troubles. I called Rascal in and went out to deal with the guy myself but by this time he was running down the street. Have not saw or head from the guy in well over a year now. I took Rascal to the vet to have him check out to make sure he didn’t catch anything from the guy.
I’ve been bitten several times. The first was when I was delivering papers in Escondido, California. I was about 11 years old. The next time I was bitten was when I was training a Doberman Pinscher who didn’t like my style, and finally by my own dog when I tried to break up a fight. A silly thing to do.
It mostly seems to be the owners who’ve trained their dogs to be aggressive – or allowed them to become aggressive and, being dogs, they are territorial and pack animals. Owners must train their dogs to understand that they, the owners, are pack leaders not their dogs.
Over here in Blighty most bites to children tend to be as a result of jealousy from the dog who sees the child as a threat to it’s (the dogs) status in ‘the pack’ or because unsupervised children pull the dogs tail or some such thing and the dog ‘defends itself’.
Doubt it’ll ever stop but all that can be done is to try and educate the sometimes uneducatable (is that a word?)