Dogs very rarely kill people. But it does happen. So a group of researchers — epidemiologists and experts on dogs and their behavior — produced the most comprehensive study yet published on dog bite related fatalities (DBRF). You can access an infographic that summarizes their findings here. Since only about 1 in 40,000 emergency medical responders are called upon to deal with a DBRF in a given year, it may not be immediately apparent how research on these terrible events is relevant to their work. As it turns out though, this study (published in the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association)1 reported findings that can, in fact, shed light on practices that could enhance the safety of EMS personnel and of the members of the public they assist.
What the authors didn’t find may be the most relevant discovery here. They exhaustively reviewed each DBRF in the United States over a 10-year period, mining every source of information available, interviewing police investigators, examining their reports along with autopsy reports, court proceedings and media reports. The last required much scrutiny, given their many inconsistencies and just plain inaccuracies. They found that a variety of factors, all having to do with how owners chose to live with and care for their dogs occurred in most of these cases.
But the breed of the dog was simply not one of these factors. In fact, in more than four out of five cases, the researchers couldn’t even determine the breed of the dog or dogs involved with any reasonable degree of confidence. Often, the same dog had been labeled with several different breed names by different information sources. Media outlets might change their reports on these labels from one day to the next. A “Bullmastiff” on Tuesday might become a “Boxer” on Wednesday and a “Cane Corso” on Thursday. People in general, and even people with expertise about dogs, get it wrong much more often than they get it right when they try to make these identifications just by looking at the dog. And even among the very small percentage (18%) where the authors could identify breed, the dogs were scattered among 20 different breeds, plus two dogs known to be mixes.
Related
EMS Assessment and Treatment of Dogs and Cats Involved in Fires
EMS Transport of Service Dogs & Support Animals
What this tells the EMS responder is that, whether he or she is responding to a call about someone injured by a dog, or there is simply a dog on site on a call regarding some other emergency, there is no reason to be more or less apprehensive when encountering a dog of one appearance than another. It also means that EMS personnel making their own guesses in reporting on the circumstances of calls can only add to the confusion and perpetuate biases that lead to bad decisions.
In fact, the reasonable caution needed to simply avoid direct contact with dogs encountered is the best approach in almost all emergency medical situations, since fewer than 1 dog in 2.5 million is involved in a DBRF annually. Even bites that just reach the level of the person seeking any medical care (most of these are minor), involve fewer than one dog in 200.
The researchers made a number of discoveries about owner choices that are usually found in these events. If emergency medical service agencies decide that their role includes gathering information that might help prevent DBRF’s and other serious dog bites, the study findings could provide a guide. Dogs who are isolated from daily positive human contact, spending their lives confined in yards or basements for example, lack opportunities to develop the social skills to interact appropriately with people. When a dog is then left unsupervised with a vulnerable person, one whose unfamiliarity may make the dog uneasy, problematic situations can quickly develop. Of course, many dogs are subjected to these kinds of stressors, along with the others the study details, and never get into conflicts with people. But their presence in these most serious encounters should not be ignored.
Notes on dog bite injury calls that record the responders guess about a dog’s breed have no hope whatever of providing information that will help prevent future injuries. Notes regarding the factors discovered in this study very well might.
Reference
1. Patronek, G.J., Sacks, J.J., Delise, K.M., Cleary, D.V. and Marder, A.R., 2013. Co-occurrence of potentially preventable factors in 256 dog bite–related fatalities in the United States (2000–2009). Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 243(12), pp.1726-1736.
