Dog bites: a complex public health issue

Abstract

The first 'UK Dog Bite Prevention Week' was introduced on June 6 and 7 with a two-day conference hosted by television presenter and dog trainer Victoria Stilwell in association with the University of Lincoln. The event attracted a mix of academic and professional speakers as well as delegates from a wide range of backgrounds. Rachel Orritt, who is researching the perceptions, assessment and management of human-directed aggressive behaviour in dogs at the University of Lincoln, reports on the proceedings TWO hundred and fifty people attended the National Dog Bite Prevention and Behaviour conference, including vets, behaviourists, teachers, groomers, police officers, emergency service personnel and researchers, to learn about the individual prevention and national management of dog bites. Speakers at the meeting, which was held at the University of Lincoln, also came from a range of disciplines, including Daniel Mills, professor of veterinary behavioural medicine at the University of Lincoln, Trevor Cooper, a solicitor with a particular interest in the law relating to dogs, and Kerstin Meints, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Lincoln.Despite the diversity in perspectives, there was a great deal of concordance between speakers regarding dog bite terminology. Veterinary behaviourist Kendal Shepherd argued that the term 'dog attack' -which, she said, suggested a degree of premeditated action -should be replaced, and, instead, 'dog biting incidents' (DBIs) should be used for the purpose of objective discussion.

Children are victims of dog bites due to irresponsible dog ownership, parenthood, and managers of school institutions in Serbia

“…Dog bites are recognized as a public health problem in many societies. It is a main reson why a great number of authors who studied dog bites put these two words in titles and texts of their published papers (Beck, 1975;Maetz, 1979;Voelker, 1997;Beaver et al ,2001;Mengistu, 2011;Orritt, 2015) emphasizing that dog bites are really a public health problem. The population pattern of this health problem is not solely dependent on the characteristic of dog bite victims or dogs who injured victims, but also on the interaction between these individuals with each other and a great number of other factors in a social setting, including behavior, knowledge and responsibility of dog owners, the general interest of the society for this problem and many others.…”

“…Dog bites to children are still the main public health and animal welfare problem and the interesting topic that attracts an attention in many scientific journals and media. Because dog bites were recognized as a public health problem (Beck, 1975;Maetz, 1979;Voelker, 1997;Mengistu, 2011;Orritt, 2015), they are the subject of epidemiology -basic science of public health (Parrish et al, 1959;Agarwal and Reddajah, 2004;Overall and Love, 2001;De Keuster et al, 2006). Therefore, epidemiology of dog bites studies the frequency of bites in a certain population using measures such as a prevalence and incidence (Schalamon et al, 2006;Georges and Adesiyun, 2008;Venkatesan et al, 2017;Westgarth et al, 2018) and their determinants such as causes and risk factors (Gershman et al 1994, Overall andMessam et al 2008Messam et al , 2012Messam et al , 2018 Data on dog bites received attention in all countries (Arhant et al, 2017;Messam et al, 2018;Oxley et al, 2018, Ramgopal et al, 2018Westgarth et al, 2018).…”

Aggressiveness as a latent personality trait of domestic dogs: Testing local independence and measurement invariance

“…Assessments of aggression are of particular concern, where aggression has been divided into different aggressiveness traits, such as owner-, stranger-, dog- or animal-directed factors [ 29 , 37 , 44 , 45 ]. Improving inference about aggressiveness in dogs is important because dog bites are a serious public health concern [ 46 ], especially for animal shelters rehoming dogs to new owners, and aggressive behaviour is undesirable to many organisations using dogs for various working roles [ 47 ].…”