By: Rebecca Rose, In Clover founder and product developer
I don’t usually read the MUST READ emails but the one in today’s inbox caught my eye. So I opened it. It started with a warning for all owners of dogs that belong to a “dangerous breed” category. It went on to say not to leave your dog with a small child unattended under any circumstances, not even for a moment. The email then scrolled down to a picture of a 3-year-old boy in his pajamas drawing a mural on a very complacent and highly decorated white, red, blue and orange pit bull. The warning was from the dog.
I was at a vet conference last week where I had the opportunity to learn more about responsible pet ownership in general and dog bites in particular from the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs. A well-researched, quantitative survey of Colorado Animal Control Officers found the following points:
- Most Dogs Do Not Bite, less than 1/3 of 1% of dogs were reported for biting.
- Many Different Types of Dogs were Involved Reported Bite Incidents, 129 different breeds of dogs were reported to have bitten a human in the one year study.
- Many Bites Were Not the Result of Aggression, But Occurred When the Human Intervened Between Fighting or Play Between Dogs.
- Children (14 and under) Were Bitten Disproportionately to Their Population, nine-and ten-year-old boys were the most common victims.
Let’s all be better informed about being responsible guardians to our dogs. Go to livingsafelywithdogs.org for the complete survey findings.