Understanding Dog Bites: The Important Role of Human Behavior

ABSTRACT

This research contributes to extant knowledge about dog bites by using police department bite incident data to explore three sets of potential correlates of bites: traits of the victim, traits of the dog including the circumstances surrounding the bite, and traits of the neighborhood in which the bite occurred. It employs data on 478 bites, over a period of 8 years, in an urban setting that includes significant numbers of roaming dogs (both feral and owned), and incorporates a number of variables not included in past research. While environmental variables such as structural abandonment contribute to dog bite risk human error is most commonly at fault.

KEYWORDS:

• Dog bites
• urban public health
• dog bite prevention

Notes

1. It is possible that the differences in findings here are the result of methodology. The Westgarth, et al. study was based on interviews while the other studies employed police or emergency department data.

2. Rates of dog bites appear to have dropped recently in cities across the nation and this also appears to be the case in Detroit based on 2016 data (https://www.scribd.com/doc/27348222/Denver-Dog-Bite-Statistics-Does-BSL-Work; http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2016/08/05/detroit-dog-bites-adoptions/88316656/).

3. The City’s animal control also keeps data on dog bite incidents although they are not complete and do not include the level of detail provided by police reports. Staffing has also been seriously compromised limiting the agency’s role in dog bite investigations (see Reese, 2019 for a detailed discussion of the agency).

4. A number of sources have defined severity of dog bites. For example, the Dunbar Scale is frequently used among animal welfare professionals whereby there are six levels from a growl with no teeth touching skin to death (https://animalguardian.org/ian-dunbars-bite-assessment-scale/). The Scale has also been employed in recent academic research (Caffrey et al., 2019). Oxley, Christley, and Westgarth (2019) explored individual definitions of dog bites finding that there was better consensus regarding whether a bite occurred when it was more severe but less when there was no injury or the injury was minor. Again, severity was not able to be assessed from the police reports.

5. Data Driven Detroit (D3) is a statewide organization with a focus on the city of Detroit. D3 houses a comprehensive data system that includes current and historic demographic, socioeconomic, educational, environmental, and other indicators. This data system allows analysts to illustrate complex relationships by combining different datasets at the regional, city and block level. D3 is an affiliate of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA). http://datadrivendetroit.org/

6. City of Detroit Open Data Portal, https://data.detroitmi.gov/

7. Land bank properties in Detroit are owned by the city, county or state and include vacant, abandoned, and foreclosed property including side lots as well as a demolition program to remove unusable structures.

8. Complete frequencies available from the authors upon request.

9. Variance Inflation Factors quantify the extent of multicollinearity in OLS regression by providing an index that measures how much the variance of an estimated regression coefficient is increased because of collinearity. Values of more than 4 or 5 are often regarded as being moderate to high, with values of 10 or more being regarded as very high although these tend to be rules of thumb.

10. Full results available from the authors upon request.

11. Because of the lack of variation in race and gender, victim traits are not considered further.

12. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/2018/07/ … detroit … properties/609387002/; http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/abandoned-dog-left-alone-inside-house-for-weeks-say-neighbors

13. https://www.facebook.com/pg/chainedincinc/about/?ref=page_internal