Dog Bite Prevention

The single most important action to prevent dog bites is the most obvious, though not always the easiest one: parental supervision of young children around all dogs, including the family dog.

The single most important thing to read — and I wish every dog owner would read it — is Chapter 3 [Socialization, Fear and Aggression] of Jean Donaldson’s classic book on dog training, The Culture Clash. This chapter could save a child’s life. I can’t emphasize enough how important the information in this chapter is for parents and dog owners.

This site is meant to be a collection of the most factual and authoritative studies on dog bites. Of course all the studies posted here were carried out in an effort to learn more about dog bites in order to prevent them — see the PubMed article on child swings, for example.

So while dog bite prevention is a paramount concern, a collection of links to the internet’s many dog bite prevention articles is, as they say, beyond the scope of this site. The primary exception is the definitive report by the Task Force on Canine Aggression and Human-Canine Interactions, listed in the AVMA section of the sidebar.

Both the AVMA and the CDC have pages on dog safety. The SFSPCA has excellent pages on dog aggression and dogs and kids, as well as information [and on-site classes] designed to help introduce the family dog to a new baby. Dog Bite Law, a huge site I plan to link to and discuss, has material on dog bite prevention as well. For a community approach to dog bite prevention, the AVMA report is unsurpassed. I hope visitors to this site will take advantage of all the links in this post.

[There is a permanent link to this post in the sidebar.]