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dog bite lecture.
exam questions will be on the coloring 
book.

in the 8 yrs since dr (beck?) has been here...he used to look at 
the ecology of urban animals, then got into public health...then in 1979 
he came here to purdue (huh?) oh, penn, to look at the other side of 
pets...

insurance companies, that do homeowners and other types of 
insurance, care about pets...some life insurance policies offer discounts 
to pet owners! 

animal bite is important for those of us in veterinary 
field, one b/c we are at high risk of bite, two we are percieved as 
sources of information and guidance by clients, MDs, legislature. many 
vets do work with humane societies, health departments, etc. 

so, animal 
bite - a bad thing animals can do to people. 
most data comes from 
reporting mechanisms. often, animal bite is in the system with reportable 
diseases. many places specifically require animal bite reporting. but 
only about 20 states do now, because animal bite incidence is goign down. 
at first, we reported animal bites b/c of risk of rabies, but that is way 
down too. so animal bites aren't always reported anymore. bites are 
important though. unfortunately, data is misread...
reported dog bites - 
vast majority are unknown animals that are biting people...but there is 
also a lot of unreported bites. many bites are reported only if they need 
medical attention - and those are the ones coming from unknown animals. 
if bite is from known animals or neighbor's animal or other owned animal 
it isn't usually reported. 

epidemiology of animal bite:
look at who, 
what, where, when, why, and control
who gets bitten? mostly kids. all 
studies including the ones he sent us which are updated (huh? what ones 
he sent us?) are updated. total bites are more common in people about 
9-11 yrs old. little among adults except those who work with animals. 
superficially, boys may be bitten more than girls. that may not be true. 


effects of animal bites - 
physical trauma
psychological trauma
infection

exposure to zoonoses.

time of day - bites may occur in big cities almost 
any time of day, but there is always a spike in the middle of the 
afternoon. why? that's when school gets out. it's the school age kid 
being bitten, most often. 

victim/dog interaction at time of bite: wide 
variety of behaviors. dogs especially and cats which are a household 
issue bite for many reasons. provoking animals is really a small part of 
this. just being around animal and behaving appropriately is a risk.


where do bites occur on the person? legs are bitten about the same amount 
but the right hand is bitten much more than the left. that's the hand you 
try to pet the dog with, right? face bites are a small percentage - but 
in kids, face bites are much more common. so b/c kids are most victimized 
and bites are in head area, this is a big problem. hands and face are 
both serious places to get wounds. if cat bite, you stop what you are 
doign immediately, wash out, go to MD right away.

face bite is a serious 
issue - generally it seems to be related to size of dog - bigger dogs do 
it more. 

why do dog bites occur in face? well, big dogs running free 
occurs more than small dogs, big dogs can reach face sooner than little 
dog...but why face? kids stick their face up to the dog, people kiss 
dogs, and also dog to dog communication often in dominance interactions 
involves the face, and when a dog bites a dog it does'nt do so much 
damage, but a young person's face is more easily damaged. 

dogs are 
larger
dogs seem to go in and out of phase and some dogs seem to have 
more bite potential than others. less so now but w/in last 5 yrs there 
was a real concern that serious bites were coming from pit bulls. general 
feeling was that this dog was the specific problem. many cities attempted 
to make breed specific legislation against pit bulls. people got very 
pissed off about that. england has a pit bull ban (er, what is a "pit 
bull"?) but in US we have "dangerous animal" laws, meaning that if you 
have evidence that the animal is dangerous - dog chasing people, 
attacking other animals, then you have a vicious animal, and that means 
trouble.

biting dogs - 
up to 1991, looked like "other" was the biggest 
category. german shephards, chow chow, akita, also overrepresented. pit 
bull not so much. lab is underrepresented. can you make the case that 
some breeds are "more dangerous"? there was an AKC book listing "bad for 
children" dogs. it was pulled from the market. it included GSD, dobies, 
chows - also things like certain terriers, chihuahua, it was kinda weird. 
but it was upsetting people. we really can't identify "bad" v "good" 
breeds that well. if your family isn't assertive, strongly dedicated to 
disciplining pet, etc - yeah, maybe you should avoid chow chows...

small 
increase in animals trained specifically to protect people, police dogs, 
whatever....other attack dogs used in business, etc. if person who owns a 
lumberyard brings in a GSD, ask if it is attack trained, if yes, have him 
handle it! (uh, what about yesterday's lecture?)

these animals aren't 
vicious. they are just trained to be less inhibited. with owner present, 
should be ok.

where do animals bite? 
mostly on or adjacent to owner's 
home. owner has animal running loose, animal hangs out in home range, 
person walks down the street, dog protects its turf. most common pattern. 
those bites do not get reported and people say it is stray dogs, but most 
bites aren't from strays.

stray animals are like wild animals - you have 
to try to get bitten by them.

when own family dog bites a child, boys 
and girls affected equally. for neighborhood dogs, boys are more likely 
affected - probably because girls stay closer to home.

wild dogs/unknown 
dogs - not a big problem. 
they checked the response to approach by 
humans of owned and stray dogs.
if you approached a stray dog, most of 
them would retreat to an unknown area, and very few respond by barking or 
showing aggression. the loose pet was much more likely to show aggression 
or barking - they aren't afraid of people. the closer to home they are, 
the more aggressive they are. so you see why leash laws are important.


people who have to enter other people's homes are at risk...

mailmen...30% of letter carriers annually lose at least one day/yr due to 
dog bite. few other industries have this level of occupational hazard. 
it's still #2 after slips and falls for letter carrier, though. most 
bites aren't significantly damaging, but still. 
meter readers who have 
to go further into propery have even higher bite rate - 200%!

but this 
isn't uniform. within the population there are bite prone and less bite 
prone people. differences - training, being in new area or new field - 
after first year, rate goes down; so what is the story with letter 
carriers?

they checked letter carriers out by following them and seeing 
how they acted, then charted behavior and bites against whether mailman 
owned a dog or not. those that owned dogs were more likely to be bitten - 
took more chances than those that didn't own dogs. the lecturer thought 
that it would be the other way around but he was wrong, and we were 
right, neener neener neener....

meter reading is being phased out - they 
are going to checking via phone lines - b/c of biting problem.s

what 
about serious bites, with legal implications? you are often asked to 
understand what is going on. animals kill 12-17 people per year here. 


we had to look at a case from women's SPCA - 

one case - perfectly well 
behaved dog just bit someone, caught the head of a 4 day old baby - dog 
was unsupervised at the moment - dog just bit the baby on the head and 
killed it. this is one type of thing. usually very young infant with 
medium/large dog. these dogs aren't superaggressive.

the other type of 
thing that happens is where dogs are socially isolated usually b/c owner 
is isolated, and dogs are unfamiliar with the people who come in, and 
they act like predators - no normal inhibitions due to lack of 
socialization. this is more likely fatal. 

sometimes medium sized dogs 
can cause a lot of damage when it is socially facilitated. these 
small/medium dogs were raised by an isolated person who always kept dogs 
separate. the elderly mom was brought into the home and a rare visitor 
came one time and distracted him  so he didn't lock dog door - and the 
dogs attacked and killed the woman. 

he is showing really disgusting, 
graphic pictures of this dead woman. also the infant.

they simulated the 
event by putting a doll in there - one dog wouldn't bite - that was the 
one that was the pet. they returned that dog to the son.

so, number of 
deaths from dog bites - most are in people under 1 month of age. then up 
to 9 yrs, still kinda high. also higher again in people over 70. 

in 
terms of morbidity - about 10-12% of all animal bites go to ER, and about 
10% need medical treatment. 

risk factors for bites:
age, sex, 
occupation, behavior, training, knowledge...
cat bites do not cause 
mortality directly, btw. age groups affected - 25-39, more women. 
agent 
- type (wild, stray, pet), use, size, etc...
keep track of environment, 
season, setting, etc.

typical dog bite is a young boy, medium/large dog 
near home territory.

so....
you probably have seen cute pictures of dogs 
and kids with their faces right next to each other. this is how people 
interact with their pets - they kiss them and stuff. this two year old is 
licking the tongue of a boxer dog :)

probably very young kids should 
only be with dogs under supervision.

here, a two or three year old kid 
has a small terrier's face in her mouth.
early mouth to snout 
resuscitation?

there is documentation on how to introduce babies to 
dogs. you can't solve this by isolating the dogs from the infant and 
hoping they never contact each other. you try to incorporate the new 
littermate into the pack, reward dog for being nice to littermate, etc. 
also make it clear that new littermate is dominant. evenutally you end up 
with dog that will protect baby, not attack it. you have to keep some 
routine of playing with dog, sharing with dog, etc. even though it is 
sometimes a pain.

if dog is attacking...you shouldn't stare it down. do 
not run away. hold your ground, avoid eye contact, roll over and play 
dead if things are really out of hand. also for bear attack. 

know body 
language of dogs. teach kids, teach clients. also cats. but it is much 
harder to recognize cat behavior. 

you do not have to take a course in 
animal behavior to recognize an aggressive dog.  

you have to take dog 
bites seriously. not a joke, despite the RT French "people crackers for 
dogs". veterinary ads often show unsafe behavior situations. 

slide of 
infant with spaniel resting chin on its head. 

you may have to advise 
people re: animal control...there are sound horns, irritant sprays (post 
office uses red pepper spray), meter readers use high frequency sound 
emitters ( i had one of those, never worked) to startle or distract the 
dog. it impresses the dog and it goes away.

a behaviorist developed 
these broom handles - you can stick that stick in front of the dog - 
don't HIT the dog - and this is soft wood - dog will bite the pole, you 
hold your ground, you impress the hell out of the dog. then you tell the 
dog to go away and it does. if you do not hae a stick, you can feed your 
jacket to dog, use a shoe, something.

this is  - this is serious in 
terms of frequency. more animal bites than childhood diseases. amount of 
injury is widely variable, mostly trivial unless involving rabies. but 
some are serious!

the major area is sort of remembering that especially 
in almost all cities true stray dogs are an urban myth up there with 
alligators in the sewer or cats sucking babies' breath. myths 
inappropriately influence policy.

have studies looked at intended use of 
dog as risk factor for biting? most of the data available is marketing 
data. people who say they got the dog for health or companionship or 
whatever - we have this data, but we haven't correlated it with biting 
behavior. 50% of all homes have some animals in them. but we tend to 
ignore problems with biting. every year someone tries to put animal 
ownership on the US census...never do though.

it wouldn't be surprising 
if animal bites were related to intended use. 

kids were asked what are 
favorite animals. there was a positive correlation b/w being bitten by 
dog in past year and having dog as favorite animal!
with girls, being 
thrown off horse didn't change dedication to horse. 

--next segment.


dog warden from chester county...

alternative point of view - 
when 
sympathy doesn't lie with the dog...
dr smith has been bitten 3 times. 
75% of dog bites occur when person didn't even know dog was 
there...walking past property, biking near property, etc. dr smith has 
changed bike route 5 times to avoid being chased by dogs. sure, maybe 
wound is trivial, but it still hurts, forces change in routine, it's just 
no fun. 

ok, this warden woman, maureen something, will talk to us 
now...
she is employed by the PA dept of Agriculture. she is a PA State 
Dog Law Enforcement Officer. 

dog law - most people don't even know it 
exists. the first one was in 1804 where there was some tax thing. 
existing dog law was written in 80s and revised twice since then.

if you 
call warden and say you have been bitten by dog, you try to get owner 
info. if a stray, try to confine it but you can't. so people go for 
rabies shots. the state is taking rabies really seriously. so if you call 
in about a dog bite and you do have info, first they verify rabies vacc. 
then they set up a quarantine, and the warden decides what quarantine is. 
the law just says that it requires "isolation." warden has to view the 
dog and set up a 10 day quarantine. when she gets there, she asks where 
they will keep dog - has to be away from animals and humans - if this is 
impossible, it is boarded somewhere at owner's expense. the other problem 
is trying to determine history. asking the owner isn't that useful. if a 
dog has a history of biting, they can charge it as a dangerous dog. 
dangerous dog laws are really difficult. the victim wants the dog gone. 
the owner wants to keep the dog. if dog is destroyed, owner suffers 
horribly. owner can sue for loss of property. 

recently a dog was 
charged as dangerous, it had killed cats. after this happens people must 
enclose dog in 6 foot fence buried 2 ft into ground. dog not allowed to 
leave. required to get $50,000 insurance policy on it. so this law tries 
to force people to euthanize pet. in this case, the owners sued, to 
appeal the dangerous dog charge.
the judge threw it out b/c he said it 
hasn't been proven that cats do not automatically provoke dogs. that has 
everyone upset b/c now if you write up a dangerous dog charge, it's 
meaningless.
another case - couldn't prove dog had a propensity b/c 
witnesses wouldn't come in, didn't want problems in neighborhood. 


education is important - young children should be educated about animals, 
take info home to parents. vets should work with pediatricians and law 
enforcment. should do clinics. 

if someone reports a bite and they 
interview the owner - owner says why should i quarantine it if it is up 
to date on vaccines? just explain it - even though it is up to date, may 
not have had good immune response. 
when she inspects foxhound kennels, 
she finds most of them use 3 yr vaccines annually. 

regarding labelling 
of dangerous dogs, does a dog that chases and kills cats constitute a 
dangerous dog? what about chasing and killing squirrels? people who own 
the cats are upset but is this part of some normal dog behavior? 

part 
of the problem is that telling someone their dog is bad is like telling 
them their kid is bad. people get extremely upset. it's like a 
pediatrician telling parents the kid needs a psychiatrist. 

has anyone 
tried to implement intervention - when a complaint comes in, are owners 
required to do any obedience work or behavior things? no. never. believe 
it or not. if your dog bites someone and was on your property and "not 
provoked" then nothing is done. ever. 

she is unaware of the legal 
definition of "provoke" - if walking past a dog is always a trigger for 
dog to bite, and you walk past it, can that be termed provocation?




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