JAVMA Article on Dog Bite Related Fatalities Study

I recently reviewed an article published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association regarding a 9 year study (2000-2009) of 256 Dog Bite Related Fatalities (DBRFs). The article discussed what seemed to be a very well thought out and extensive study of DBRFs in the US during this time frame.

The first several pages describe the researchers analytic methods. The authors do point out that many DBRFs in current times have focused on breeds and genetics. They also point out that Breed Specific Legislation, a political reaction to dog bite problems in local communities, has been profoundly ineffective in providing any statistical improvement in dog bite frequency where it has been implemented. Also of note, the study was very meticulous in data sourcing - 95% of data for the report came from careful interviews and detailed analysis of reports from professionals - not journalists or politicians. Sources included law enforcement investigators, coroners, animal control persons and veterinarians involved with investigating individual incidents.

The report provides pages of detailed statistics, and I would encourage anyone interested in those details to find a copy of the report. For this post, I wanted to share what I thought were some of their more interesting findings.

- There are about 10 DBRFs in the US annually, or 0.38 fatal bites / 1M dogs.

- 45.3% of fatalities were in persons under the age of 5 years.

- 85.2% of the victims did not know the dog or did not know it well.

- 77.4% of incidents involved victims w/ probable inappropriate interaction w/ the dog due to age (most common), health, intox, etc.

- 87.5% of DBRFs involved male dogs.

- 84.4% of DBRFs involved intact dogs (not spayed or neutered).

- 7.0% of DBRFs involved neutered dogs.

- 57.8% of DBRFs involved a single dog, in infant deaths that percentage rises to 86.7%.

- 65.6% of DBRF in persons over 15 years of age involved locations with multiple dogs (although only 1 dog may have bitten).

- 76.2% of DBRFs involved dogs isolated from typical family interactions.

- 78.1% of DBRFs involved dogs owned more than 90 days, 10.9% for dogs owned less than 90 days.

- 74.2% of DBRFs occurred on an owner's property.

- 37.5% of DBRFs owners likely had prior knowledge of dangerous behaviors from dog.

There is further discussion on many points in this article, many of which suggest a strong statistical link between poor animal husbandry and increased likelihood of aggressive behavior. The article goes on to suggest that dogs living more fully as part of a family have more opportunities to understand and learn how to interact appropriately with people. It also discussed in depth the lack of reliable statistics related to breed, as currently there is no reliable way to make this determinations and the opinions of most professionals have statistically significant variance.

While I certainly agree that living conditions for a dog can have a profound impact on a dog's behavior, I also believe that heredity does play a role. Which is more important may never be determined absolutely, but I would suggest that some dogs may be isolated from family interactions because of hereditary factors that make them behaviorally unreliable in daily interactions with people. So this can be a bit of a question of which comes first - chicken or the egg, When I speak of hereditary influence, I'm not looking at breed as much as parental stock. The study did not look at any correlation between any aggressive dog and behaviors of it's parents.

There were also a few points I found a bit surprising. I didn't expect to see as high a correlation between DBRFs and un-neutered males as noted in this study. Also, I would have expected a higher likelihood that owners had some warning or precursory behaviors suggesting future aggression. The article did not explain in any detail how this statistic was obtained. Again, I would find it interesting to see whether there was any parental behaviors that may have been passed down.

I applaud the study's hard work and detailed analysis of an important topic - this is the most extensive study to date regarding the topic of DBRFs. As mentioned in numerous articles on this site, training is one of the most important components in getting the best behavior from any dog as it builds language and trust between owner and pet. I hope future studies continue to look at these challenging societal problems, and responsible owners continue to help their pets live well in our human world with strong leadership and training.