In comparison, dogs are fairly safe

Banning certain dog breeds isn't the answer, one author says.
By Denise Flaim
Long Island Newsday
Swimming pools and skateboards. Drapery cords and marbles. And don't forget the proverbial lightning bolt.
All are statistically more likely to kill you or your child than the average dog is, according to the provocatively titled "Dogs Bite, but Slippers and Balloons Are More Dangerous" (James & amp; Kenneth Publishers, $14.95).
Author Janis Bradley, an instructor at the San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers, says the book evolved from her own cognitive dissonance. Although she was familiar with the chill-up-your-back statistics that suggest a veritable dog-bite pandemic -- including a 1994 federal Centers for Disease Control study that extrapolated that 4.7 million Americans, almost 2 percent of us, are bitten by dogs every year -- they just didn't square with her everyday reality.
"Even though I was a dog person, I didn't know people who had been seriously injured by dogs," said Bradley, who started looking at the research in detail.
What she found was that of the bites recorded in the CDC telephone survey, "the vast majority had no injuries," she says. Another study that analyzed hospital visits found that "the severity for a typical bite injury was significantly less than of a fall."
Why is this?
To understand why the conventional wisdom is so out of whack with the actual risk, some Jungian analysis might be in order.
"Dog bites fit into pretty much all the categories that lead people to have an exaggerated fear of things," Bradley says. "We're more neurologically hard-wired to be afraid of predators with big teeth than, say, big machines on wheels that go 80 miles per hour." Fearing a hound dog more than a Honda "made sense in the environment in which our brain evolved," Bradley said.
All this said, dogs do bite. But Bradley cautions that legislation banning certain breeds is not the answer. "In England, they've had breed-specific laws for a long time, and the only study I've been able to put my hands on has shown no change in the rate of dog bites." And because of the plasticity of dog genetics -- and the relative ease with which aggression can be bred for -- banning one breed just leads to another one taking its place in a few years. Killer golden retrievers, anyone?
(As for that usual suspect, the pit bull, Bradley acknowledges that any discussion is a quagmire: "Breed identification is extremely problematic -- what exactly is a pit bull? And there is no data whatsoever on actual populations, so how in the world can you conclude over-representation" in dog-bite statistics?)
Using common sense
In her book, Bradley points out common-sense steps to reduce dog bites -- first and foremost, behaving in ways that are less likely to trigger defensive responses in dogs.
"If I had to change one thing about human behavior with dogs, it's getting rid of this idiotic, pervasive idea that if you see an unfamiliar dog, you should put your hand in its face." Not coincidentally, the majority of bites to adults are on the hands and arms.
Instead, Bradley offers the old dog trainers' joke: How do you approach an unfamiliar dog? Never.
Early and frequent socialization is another important factor.
"People don't understand that novelty is not usually perceived as benign by adult animals -- it's usually something to be cautious of," Bradley stresses.