Dog Attacks: Chewing on Stats, Policy and Risk

In the wake of the fatal dog mauling at actor Ving Rhames' home, we are going to hear a lot of folks pontificating about dogs, one way or another, and most of that pontification is going to be from otherwise "smart" people who know little or nothing about the subject.

I found a nice quote on this phenomenon on the "Lassie Get Help" blog the other day -- a quote which author Susan Conant gives to one of her characters, Holly Winter:

"I'd often noticed that many people who knew absolutely nothing about dogs were highly educated types who knew a lot about everything else and consequently assumed that they knew a lot about dogs, too."

Nice quote, eh?

But not just true for dogs! People think they know about money because they have spent some of it, and they think they know about marriage because they've been in three of them already.

And so it goes . . .

But let us not curse the dark when it is so easy to shed a little light.

The first (hopefully) illuminating bit is a paper written for the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association entitled "Breeds of Dogs Involved in Fatal Human Attacks in the United States Between 1979 and 1998." The paper was published in 2000.

One point made in this paper is that dog bites are not a trivial matter, and the number of dog bites is on the increase.

"In 1986, nonfatal dog bites resulted in an estimated 585,000 injuries that required medical attention or restricted activity. By 1994, an estimated 4.7 million people (1.8% of the US population) sustained a dog bite; of these, approximately 800,000 (0.3% of the US population) sought medical care for the bite (332,000 in emergency departments), and 6,000 were hospitalized. This 36% increase in medically attended bites from 1986 to 1994 draws attention to the need for an effective response, including dog bite prevention programs."

The paper goes on to look at the dog breeds implicated in fatal attacks.

As one would logically suspect, the offending dogs are generally not Chihuahua's, but larger dog breeds.

Also, the dog attacks are not evenly distributed across breeds, but firmly lumped with two breeds. As the paper notes:

. . . [T]he data indicate that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs accounted for 67% of human DBRF (dog bite-related fatalities) in the United States between 1979 and 1998. It is extremely unlikely that they accounted for anywhere near 60% of dogs in the United States during that same period and, thus, there appears to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities.

With "problem" dogs, as with "problem" humans, the issue quickly devolves to a debate between "nature or nurture."

Or, as one character sings to Office Krupke in Westside Story: "He's depraved on account of he's deprived."

Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, Ya gotta understand--
It’s just our bringin’ upke
That gets us outta hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses -- natcherly we’re punks.

Gee, Officer Krupke, we’re very upset;
We never had the love that every Child oughta get.
We ain’t no delinquents,
We’re misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

Which is no doubt true. But pointing out that "deep down" all people (and all dogs) are "good" does not help officer Krupke too much does it?

Nor does it help that poor mauled fellow on a slab in the Los Angeles County coroner's office.

So what is a reasonable public policy response to the issue of dangerous dogs? Is there a solution?

One way to think about this is to look at successful programs that have been implemented to address other public safety and animal-care issues.

For example, in order to reduce accidental deaths in the woods, most states now require that new hunters take a Hunter Safety course. As a result, accidental shootings in the woods have plummeted.

In order to discourage young thugs and flighty romantics from purchasing falcons and hawks on pure impulse, prospective falconers must go through a rather intensive apprenticeship program before being granted a license to own and fly these birds.

For especially dangerous guns, such as fully-automatic machine guns, Congress decided to require police background checks and a relatively expensive federal license. As a result, there have been only two murders using otherwise legal fully-automatic weapons in the last 73 years, despite the fact that (as of 1995) there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF.

So there are things that can be done short of outright bans. The question is what are the trade-offs? Is it time to require licensing to own some breeds, and to have that licensing conditional upon having passed some sort of Canine Safety and Responsibility course?

Is this a bad idea? Or is there a better idea?

Or is there a problem at all?

This last question may seem counter-intuitive.

Of course there's a problem! Good Lord, man, there's a dead guy out there in Los Angeles.

And, of course there is.

In fact there are hundreds of them.

But of course most of these people were killed by drunk drivers, or are dead and cold on the slab due to stabbings or gun shots, electrocution, drownings, drug overdoses, choking, or falls. Only one person was killed by a dog.

In fact, dog deaths are pretty uncommon.

They are less common than deaths from bee and wasp stings for example, as this data on animal-related fatalities from 1991-2001 makes clear:





The numbers above, actually over-dramatize the relative risk from dogs, not only because the more common methods of mortality are left out (such as falls), but because some of the more common methods of dying from animals are left off as well.

Human deaths due to animal-vehicle impacts are omitted, for example, as are deaths from zoonotic diseases (such as avian flu, dengue fever, malaria, rabies, etc.), and deaths from other mammals (i.e. attacks from bears, cougars, lions, tigers, elephants, bobcats, etc.) are subsumed in the catch-basin entitled "Other specified."

In order to get a better handle on the relative risk of "death from dog attack," I looked up "odds of dying" data on the web site of the National Safety Council, and found a nice graphic, appended below, which was created by National Geographic using NSC data.

To this graphic, I have added a red arrow showing where fatal dog attacks fall (right click to open enlarged graphic in new window).

Put it this way: You are three times more likely to be killed by a horse than by a dog attack.

You are 1,000 times more likely to kill yourself, and are about twice as likely to die from legal execution by the State, than to be killed by a dog.

You are 100 times more likely to die from a motorcycle accident, and twice as likely to die from a bee, wasp or hornet sting, than you are to be killed by a dog.

You are 10 times more likely to choke on your own vomit, and you are more likely to be struck dead by lightning, than you are to be killed by a dog.

In short, while I am pretty sure you are going to die (Hey, I am just saying), death by dog attack is not something to worry about too much.

If you want to worry about something, worry about going to the store for groceries, or sitting down for dinner with your relatives. Lots of people die doing that kind of stuff!

And so the question remains: What are we going to legislate, and why?

Are we to do nothing about dog attacks just because so few are fatal? What about all those dog attacks that leave children physically scared or mutilated?

But if we decide to take some action, what action should that be? Is collective action needed, or is individual action (i.e., making sure your kids don't go up to a strange dog) enough?

Good people will disagree on this, of course. Some people want laws to protect them from everything. Others point out that life is inherently risky and suggest that the State should stop playing nanny.

Personally, I do not need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows. I no longer ride motorcycles, and if I am going to go out golfing, I am not going to wave a nine-iron around while a thunderstorm passes over head.

I quit smoking, and I do not drink or do drugs. I wear a safety belt when I drive, and I buy cars with air bags.

I am not moving to a Barrier Island off the coast of North Carolina (or to New Orleans) any time soon.

But there are some things I cannot easily control. For example, what if four Fila Brasileiro's or Pit Bulls were to move in to the house next door. Would I feel safer? I would not.

Sure deaths from dogs are rare, but dog bites are not, and four large molosser's next door is an odds-changer isn't it?

Sure the dogs might always be happy and gentle. Sure they might actually work to protect me. But in truth, four molosser's next door is a kind of Z.I.P function -- near Zero chance of something really bad happening, but Infinite Potential harm if it does. The larger the dogs, and the more of them there are, the greater the chance real tragedy will rear its ugly head. If not to me or my spouse and kids, then to my own small dogs.

Is it unreasonable for me to suggest that someone with Pit Bulls and Fila Brasileiro's take a Canine Safety and Responsibility Course as a condition of living next door? Is is unreasonable to ask that his premises be inspected, at least once, by someone who will make sure the kennels are secure, and that the fence is plenty high and very well-constructed?

Again, good people may disagree. On this question, however, I suspect where you stand may depend on where you sit . . . and where you live.

If you currently live on Ving Rhames's street, the debate is over..