Dog Bites And Their Effect On Society

Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and other Hollywood stars have been to known to lug their dogs around in cute little bags and pamper them with expensive accessories and are often seen as a way for the public to see their owners as responsible people, the opposite of what people usually would see in entertainment news.

Dogs are adorable and considered as mans best friend but what most people dont know is that dog bite accidents occur every 40 seconds in the whole United States and this can add up to 4.7 million dog bites annually. Although this figure represents only a small percentage of overall hospital visits, 60% of dog bite accidents involve children with almost 100% of severe bite injuries occurring with children below 10 years of age.

Children see dogs as fluffy, friendly and huggable animals but kids are not aware of the danger that they may face if the dog gets aggravated. Puppies, on the other hand, are considered to cause more injury than an adult dog.

An increase in the population of large dogs has also increased the severity of bite injuries. Dog bite injuries include:

Cuts

Lacerations

Abrasions

fractured bones

punctures

tissue loss

sprain injuries

infections like rabies, etc

in rare cases, death

Dogs who have been involved in a dog bite accident are usually known to their victims, statistics show that this is the case 77% of the time. There is no clear way of knowing why dogs attack people all of a sudden but some theories presume that the dog may have been in pain or may have felt that they were being threatened.

A Community Approach to Dog Bite Prevention, a study by the American Veterinary Medical Association shows that there are five factors that can be associated with dog bites:

The dogs genetic make-up. Its breed as well as its parents will help determine if the breed has been known historically as an aggressive breed.

The owners habit towards dog ownership. Do owners allow their dogs to regularly socialize with other people as well as with other dogs?

Training. There are several kinds of dog training out there and each has a different discipline. A dog trained as a threat to unwanted people is considered a threat.

The dogs health. Pain and sickness may induce a dog to bite anybody nearby as a medium to disable pain receptors in their brain

The victims behavior at the time of the dog-bite accident.

Dog bite accident lawsuits involve civil, criminal and administrative laws. Civil laws awards damages to the victim, criminal law seeks to punish the dogs owner while administrative laws publish preventive measures against dog bite injuries.

Like the whole country, Los Angeles upholds that animal owners as responsible for any injury or damage caused by their pets. This is without exception but the state of California has a two-year statute of limitation for dog bite victims to file their lawsuits with a personal injury attorney. This is documented under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 335.1.

Dog bite accidents can be prevented by following safety measures that are provided in private dog-ownership training classes.