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Pit bull
attack stats may surprise you
Thursday, July
07, 2005
Last week, I received a phone call from someone wanting to know the
truth behind pit bull statistics. And, on June 12, in a letter to the
editor, a reader wrote about his fear of pit bulls. He said, "These dogs
have killed more than 100 individuals in the past five years. If an
automobile had a defect that killed 100 people, there would be a public
outcry."
After you start looking a little deeper, the numbers tell a different
tale. According to "Fatal Dog Attacks, the Stories Behind the
Statistics," by Karen Delise there were 431 deaths because of dog
attacks in the years from 1965 to 2001. Children 12 younger were the
victims in 79 percent of the fatal attacks.
In 37 years, 342 children were killed by dogs, an average of about nine
children a year. Shockingly, approximately three children are killed
each day, or 1,100 per year, by their parents. Delise notes that "A
child in the United States is over 100 times more likely to be killed by
his or her parent or caretaker than by a dog."
Even more surprising is that approximately 50 infants die each year from
broken baby cribs, and 250 newborns die at the hands of their parents or
guardians. In comparison, two infants, on average, die a year from dog
attacks.
Pit bull and pit mixes account for 21 percent of all human fatalities,
while mixed breed dogs account for 16 percent and other nonspecified
breeds, 15 percent. Delise's study demonstrates that the breed of dog
should not be the sole factor by which an attack is judged. Other
factors include inherited and learned behaviors, genetics, breeding,
temperament, surgical sterilization, environmental stresses, owner
responsibility, victim behavior, size and age, timing, and the physical
condition and the size of dog.
Of the 28 dogs responsible for a fatal attack between 2000 and 2001, 26
were males and two were females. Of the 26 males, 21 were sexually
intact; the reproductive status of the remaining five male dogs could not
be determined. The male dog that killed the 12-year-old boy in San
Francisco on June 3 was protecting his female dog in heat.
An owner's understanding of dogs, supervision of dogs and children,
sterilization and chaining as a primary means of confinement all can
play roles in attacks. Whether dogs were obtained for protection,
guarding, fighting, are newly acquired or not properly introduced to
newborns are among other issues.
In the end, many factors contribute to dog attacks. A popular slogan
seems to capture the sentiment perfectly, "Judge the Deed Not the
Breed."
- Laura Maloney
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