Interesting research

[CorvusCorax]

Thought this might interest a few people, following recent mentions on the holidays thread of Restricted Breeds legislation in the Republic of Ireland and media coverage of dog bite incidents in GB.

*BREAKING NEWS*
New Published Scientific Research from Ireland Says "Dangerous" Dogs are NOT more Dangerous
Creedons College Press Release

A newly published scientific research paper in the Irish Veterinary Journal suggests that Ireland’s approach to targeting dog breeds to protect the public as not having any scientific basis, but could also be making things much worse.

The work was conducted by Nanci Creedon from Creedons College and Dr. Páraic Ó Súilleabháin from the School of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. They examined differences in dog bites from legislated and non-legislated dog breeds of similar size in Ireland.

The researchers did not find any differences between legislated and non-legislated dog breeds for the type of bite inflicted, and the medical treatment required after the bite. The researchers highlighted that when considering existing research showing no differences in aggression between legislated and non-legislated dog breeds, no apparent basis exists which would justify targeting specific dog breeds as being more dangerous than others.

Nanci Creedon said: “This gives weight to calls to re-assess the use of breed-specific legislation. This suggests that more appropriate dog-bite prevention be put in place which focuses on education, owner responsibility, and fair assessment of reported dogs. While gathering information for this study it became evident that data from dog bite incidents is not being collected. This uncollected data could provide invaluable information to gain insight on how to prevent future bites. I would encourage the government to review the absence of appropriate investigation post-bite incident.”

While the study did not observe a scientific basis for breed-specific legislation, the researchers also investigated if its introduction may have other consequences. The study found that dog breeds not legislated for were more likely than legislated breeds to bite with the owner present on own property, and on a business property. The study also found that dog-bite victims were more likely to report legislated dog breeds as angrier and less afraid when biting compared to bites from non-legislated dog breeds.

Researchers concluded that this is consistent with the prediction that people perceive a greater threat to legislated breeds and a correspondingly lesser risk related to non-legislated dog breeds. In other words, people may think non-legislated breeds are safer, more docile and tolerant than legislated breeds due to their non-legislated status.

The authors found that this was supported when investigating the reporting of dog bites to authorities. They found that non-legislated dog breeds were significantly less likely to be reported to any authorities both before, and after the bite occurred. The authors suggested aside from having a very serious effect of not identifying biting dogs, this may also be reinforcing the perceptions some authorities have in relation to legislated dog breeds.

The study also highlights other consequences with the introduction of breed-specific legislation in Ireland, which includes; animal welfare concerns due to some pounds not rehoming and accepting surrenders of legislated dog breeds, disability/assistance dogs of these breeds not being exempt from restrictions, and owner housing restrictions among others.

Dr. Ó Súilleabháin added: “This work provides good scientific evidence to explain why the use of breed-specific legislation to protect the public from dangerous dogs may in fact be making things much worse. The increased stereotype of risk to one group of breeds, and the lack of perceived risk associated with other breeds appear to be two sides to the same counterproductive coin, and neither identify a potentially dangerous dog. This research raises very serious concerns regarding the distinct bias in the reporting of dog bites from non-legislated breeds”.

How to cite article: Creedon, N., & ӒSúilleabháin, P.S. (2017). Dog bite injuries to humans and the use of breed-specific legislation: A comparison of bites from legislated and non-legislated dog breeds. Irish Veterinary Journal, DOI: 10.1186/s13620-017-0101-1

Full article available https://www.researchgate.net/public...from_legislated_and_non-legislated_dog_breeds

 

[Widgeon]

Thank you for sharing this, very interesting, particularly the "people's perceptions of different types of dogs" part. This is something I've been arguing for ages but it's always good to see evidence!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Ditto what Widgeon said.

 

[{97702}]

Thank you for sharing CC - my initial unmoderated thoughts are 'no **** Sherlock'...................

 

[GirlFriday]

Are the breeds legislated for (very) different in IRE/UK? I mean I can't think there will be many assistance dogs in the UK on our banned list?

 

[CorvusCorax]

In RoI:
Rules relating to certain breeds of dog

The Control of Dogs Regulations 1998 impose additional rules in relation to the following breeds (and strains/cross-breeds) of dog:

American pit bull terrier
English bull terrier
Staffordshire bull terrier
Bull mastiff
Dobermann pinscher
German shepherd (Alsatian)
Rhodesian ridgeback
Rottweiler
Japanese akita
Japanese tosa
Bandog

The rules state that these dogs (or strains and crosses of them) must:

Be kept on a short strong lead by a person over 16 years who is capable of controlling them
Be muzzled whenever they are in a public place
Wear a collar bearing the name and address of their owner at all times.

The rules on muzzling and leashing do not apply to dogs used by the Gardaí, the Dublin Harbour Police, State Airport Police and bona fide rescue teams in rescue operations. The rules on muzzling do not apply to guide dogs for the blind.

Local authority housing can also ban tenants from keeping the above named breeds in their properties.
The boxer was one breed which was removed after lobbying.

 

[Alec Swan]

All breeds of dog, whether listed as being considered dangerous —— breed specific or not, are capable of biting humans and all breeds have and do, and that's all fairly obvious. What separates those dogs on the Dangerous Dog's list from the every day pooch I'd suggest, is that the 'D-D' is far more likely to press home an attack and to continue with injuries being generally, substantially more severe. If the above report is in full then I'd suggest that it is rather narrow.

Of the list above and rather like the list of the world's most aggressive and/or poisonous snakes, there will be some which shouldn't be in public ownership and some which perhaps shouldn't be on the list.

Alec.

 

[CorvusCorax]

Did you get a chance to read the whole document and could you say why you thought it was narrow, and do you have any suggestions on how the authors could widen it?
It's good to debate these things.

I also identified recently with this piece by Michelle Stiegmeyer on the general topic of bite prevention. It reminded me of scenarios I have seen and read about, here and elsewhere and of owners I have met who don't identify that their dogs are stressed, unhappy and directionless

_________

I was pleased to have a dog owner reach out to me for help with a dog that had bitten a family member in the face. She asked if I worked with rescues that have random biting. So I asked some questions and here's what we got cleared up in one conversation...

The dog was a rescue that had been nipping already. The serious bite incident happened when the dog was on the owner's bed with a treat and another family member leaned in to pet the dog.

Let's address the "rescue" portion of this scenario. If you stand the Westminster winning dogs, dogs from rescues, feral dogs, protection dogs, detection dogs, therapy dogs, old dogs, young dogs, shelter dogs and everything in between in a long line...then take out that 1% that can't be trained by anyone, any program, any methodology...you will have a group of dogs that are pretty much the same. They all have their own "things" but they will respond to structure, boundaries, reward, punishment, and accountability well enough to not be a danger to society.

Somewhere along the way humans have put dogs that are obtained from shelters and rescues into their own category, and that category is one that says the dogs can't have anything negative in their life ever again. They have to be coddled and tiptoed around to make up for these perceived horrible events that have already happened to them. The truth is that a great deal of the dogs coming through shelters and rescues have unknown histories, and plenty of the owner surrenders come in with lies in order to make the owner feel better about surrendering them.

We love the story behind a homeless dog, how we "saved" it and how much the dog loves us for it. We love the attention we get when we tell someone how we "saved" this dog when all we did was sign a contract and pay the shelter or rescue their fee. With a very small exception I don't ask about the story on dogs I pull from shelters. The history doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the dog standing in front of me and how to make that dog a good candidate for your typical home.

As you can see, the dog in this scenario had already been nipping so the bite wasn't random. The bite was the escalation of the nipping that was already happening. How does this happen? It's actually quite simple, and I'll put it in human terms.

Little Johnny pokes another kid with a pencil and no one does anything. Then he starts tripping kids as they walk by his desk. Again, no action taken. Then he pinches a little girl so hard she cries and has a bruise for days. No action taken. Finally he punches a kid in the face at recess and breaks his nose. Was this random? No! There were plenty of signs, and those signs were escalating. So why do we feel that dog bites are random? Because we haven't payed attention to the behavior leading up to it, or even worse we've made excuses for it. We don't allow a child to run our home yet a four legged predator is given a free pass on some pretty entitled, bratty, and often times dangerous behavior.

Many of us lay the groundwork for the the incident to happen...free roaming in the home, access to the furniture, treats, barking at guests...it all adds up to the attitude that the house and everything in it belongs to the dog. I'm not against free roaming, dogs on furniture, treats or even barking AS LONG AS IT'S EARNED, and the barking STOPS when the human says so. When your dog is barking at a guest, most likely they're saying "Get the frack outta my house or there will be hell to pay!" Would you allow your children to talk that way to a guest? No way, right? Then why are you allowing your dog to do it?

Let's get to the real world scenario of a biting dog. Liability. You ignore the signs, nips turn to bites, then a bite on the wrong person and everything you've worked for is gone. And I'm not talking about you paying Redi Med for a few stitches. I'm talking about a lawsuit that you lose because you ignored the signs or refused to address the issue and you lose your home, your cars, your kids' college funds, your retirement savings.

If you have a dog that has no qualms about putting his mouth on humans, look at him right now and ask yourself if that dog is worth losing everything. EVERYTHING.

No? Then get to work.

 

[splashgirl45]

Did you get a chance to read the whole document and could you say why you thought it was narrow, and do you have any suggestions on how the authors could widen it?
It's good to debate these things.

I also identified recently with this piece by Michelle Stiegmeyer on the general topic of bite prevention. It reminded me of scenarios I have seen and read about, here and elsewhere and of owners I have met who don't identify that their dogs are stressed, unhappy and directionless

_________

I was pleased to have a dog owner reach out to me for help with a dog that had bitten a family member in the face. She asked if I worked with rescues that have random biting. So I asked some questions and here's what we got cleared up in one conversation...

The dog was a rescue that had been nipping already. The serious bite incident happened when the dog was on the owner's bed with a treat and another family member leaned in to pet the dog.

Let's address the "rescue" portion of this scenario. If you stand the Westminster winning dogs, dogs from rescues, feral dogs, protection dogs, detection dogs, therapy dogs, old dogs, young dogs, shelter dogs and everything in between in a long line...then take out that 1% that can't be trained by anyone, any program, any methodology...you will have a group of dogs that are pretty much the same. They all have their own "things" but they will respond to structure, boundaries, reward, punishment, and accountability well enough to not be a danger to society.

Somewhere along the way humans have put dogs that are obtained from shelters and rescues into their own category, and that category is one that says the dogs can't have anything negative in their life ever again. They have to be coddled and tiptoed around to make up for these perceived horrible events that have already happened to them. The truth is that a great deal of the dogs coming through shelters and rescues have unknown histories, and plenty of the owner surrenders come in with lies in order to make the owner feel better about surrendering them.

We love the story behind a homeless dog, how we "saved" it and how much the dog loves us for it. We love the attention we get when we tell someone how we "saved" this dog when all we did was sign a contract and pay the shelter or rescue their fee. With a very small exception I don't ask about the story on dogs I pull from shelters. The history doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the dog standing in front of me and how to make that dog a good candidate for your typical home.

As you can see, the dog in this scenario had already been nipping so the bite wasn't random. The bite was the escalation of the nipping that was already happening. How does this happen? It's actually quite simple, and I'll put it in human terms.

Little Johnny pokes another kid with a pencil and no one does anything. Then he starts tripping kids as they walk by his desk. Again, no action taken. Then he pinches a little girl so hard she cries and has a bruise for days. No action taken. Finally he punches a kid in the face at recess and breaks his nose. Was this random? No! There were plenty of signs, and those signs were escalating. So why do we feel that dog bites are random? Because we haven't payed attention to the behavior leading up to it, or even worse we've made excuses for it. We don't allow a child to run our home yet a four legged predator is given a free pass on some pretty entitled, bratty, and often times dangerous behavior.

Many of us lay the groundwork for the the incident to happen...free roaming in the home, access to the furniture, treats, barking at guests...it all adds up to the attitude that the house and everything in it belongs to the dog. I'm not against free roaming, dogs on furniture, treats or even barking AS LONG AS IT'S EARNED, and the barking STOPS when the human says so. When your dog is barking at a guest, most likely they're saying "Get the frack outta my house or there will be hell to pay!" Would you allow your children to talk that way to a guest? No way, right? Then why are you allowing your dog to do it?

Let's get to the real world scenario of a biting dog. Liability. You ignore the signs, nips turn to bites, then a bite on the wrong person and everything you've worked for is gone. And I'm not talking about you paying Redi Med for a few stitches. I'm talking about a lawsuit that you lose because you ignored the signs or refused to address the issue and you lose your home, your cars, your kids' college funds, your retirement savings.

If you have a dog that has no qualms about putting his mouth on humans, look at him right now and ask yourself if that dog is worth losing everything. EVERYTHING.

No? Then get to work.

EXCELLENT!!!!! what a sensible attitude...

 

[GirlFriday]

Did you get a chance to read the whole document and could you say why you thought it was narrow, and do you have any suggestions on how the authors could widen it?
It's good to debate these things.

For the sake of debate then...
- The study only looked at dogs that bit. It did not compare, for example, what % of dogs of different breeds bit becasue it did not identify a population of dog breeds, only sampled data on bites.
- Sample size is very small (only 40 legislated dogs, 100 non-legislated) so only medium/large differences would be identified
- There is no analysis of why legislated breeds were less likely to do their biting at a business premises e.g. a vet or groomer. Could this be becasue they are more likely to be muzzled in those circs as per the legislation about muzzling in public? There was speculation (but no research) that legislation may have lead to better dog supervision of legislated breeds
- The legislated breeds were more likely to be reported to authorities. Is this simply becasue if bitten the victims are more likely to think something could/would be done if a breed is covered by legislation?
- There is no analysis of why it is supposed that non-legislated breeds are more likely to be reported to bite out of fear beyond speculation that it could be a reporting error due to bias. Could it actually be true? The research doesn't address this possibility.

As far as I can tell the research doesn't really show any evidence one way or another about why any kind of dogs bite or how likely they are to do so (except that there is no difference in how often a legislated vs unlegislated dog bites again).

There does seem to be a genuine lack of difference between similar sized legislated/unlegislated dogs and severity of bite. But the study doesn't address the fact that ALL the legislated dog breeds are medium/large and so are likely to be more dangerous than the overall population of non-legislated dogs which includes plenty of small animals incapable of being as dangerous simply based on size alone.

I'm not an expert on study design, and I'm not against this piece of research, nor did I go through it with a fine tooth comb, but it does seem pretty clear that is is indeed, as AS suggested, narrow. And is certainly does not provide much evidence to support the view that certain breeds should not be legislated about.

 

[Parly]

Despair at the number of people I see and meet that honestly find it funny / cute and think I'm just being precious about them allowing dogs such as border collies to chase and herd their children. Just hearing “Oh give over he's just playing / being protective / it's cute” is soul destroying because you know when the same dog gives one of those kids a nasty bite it'll be given up or put to sleep on the grounds of its aggressive behaviour.

I worked as a legal secretary and exec in a former life and worked on some cases involving dog bites and attacks that specialist vets assisted us with. One gave evidence about a Staffordshire that was shot dead by a farmer and I specifically remember him saying despite its origins, they're not known for aggression but the bite in that particular breed inflicts the worst damage and highest number of fatalities out of any / all dogs. He also pointed out that despite the breed's bad reputation and place amongst the highest ranking in terms of severity or fatalities, the breed most likely to nip or bite children under 12yrs were herding dogs such as Collies and Aussies.

This I can well believe too but think they fall down the list because when they do bite it's rarely a full-on or sustained attack.

What I've also found in recent years is many people are keen to defend bully breeds so much that they head waaaaay over their side of the fence under the tree of absurdity and past the lake of nonsense where they love to tell you how Tyson the Staff is a rescue dog and "soft as anything and loves kids and doesn't mind them clambering on him and dressing him up... soft as anything...honestly they're such good dogs"

They are lovely dogs and shouldn't all be tarred with that same brush but like it or not they do attract owners that shouldn't be allowed a sodding guinea pig never mind a dog. If they know Tyson doesn't mind the kids dressing him in pink tutu's and riding him like a pony it means they've allowed them to do it in the first place so they're idiots. In any case dogs like Tyson or any other placid rescue that loves being dressed up like a **** still needs from training. I'd argue rescues probably need more careful training, socialisation and supervision than most irrespective of breed but when I've suggested this before the fire and pitch forks have been at the ready.

Sadly animal rescue centres and shelters have dogs pouring from every nook and cranny too and that makes life even harder for them and potential new owners.

It amazes me the government is going to such lengths and coming up with various ideas about BSL but still hasn't gone back to basics and re-introduced dog licensing laws. Pretty sure if everyone had to apply for and pay a fee for registration, licensing and mandatory insurance we'd see half the idiot owners gone straight away because they just wouldn't be willing to go to so much time, effort or expense.

Make it harder for people to buy, own, sell or breed dogs. Pretty sure that in itself would be a good starting point.

If I can find a link to the info about herding / working dogs being most likely to bite kids under 12yrs I'll post a link but ultimately every dog is capable of biting and injuring.

The more clueless and negligent the owner - the more likely the dog is to bite so tackle them first and start making people see dog ownership as a privilege instead of a God given right.

 

[{97702}]

like it or not they do attract owners that shouldn't be allowed a sodding guinea pig never mind a dog.

The more clueless and negligent the owner - the more likely the dog is to bite so tackle them first and start making people see dog ownership as a privilege instead of a God given right.

I very much like all of your post Parly but I hate long quotes, so these are my favourite bits! All so very true!

 

[Parly]

I very much like all of your post Parly but I hate long quotes, so these are my favourite bits! All so very true!

No worries I tend to chop bits off quotes too! Saves people from migraine

 

[splashgirl45]

agree it should be harder to buy a dog and licensing could also help, but regretfully the people who shouldnt have any animals will take no notice of any regulations and will still get their hands on dogs and make them aggressive deliberately...i dont know what the answer is,,,

 

[Alec Swan]

A first class article from Ms Stiegmeyer. I've never heard of the lady, but then why would I? What so few seem to grasp and as you may agree, stopping unwanted behaviour in it's early stages (during puppyhood) is generally relatively simple and doesn't call for severity. As the pup progresses and grows and as the scale of unwanted conduct increases and becomes entrenched, so the correction methods become ever more severe until the point where the poor sod is only fit for either a serious pro-apprach, or destruction …….. and all because the poor creature never learnt where the boundaries are and before it had a chance to decide for itself.

I'll admit to only ski-reading the article after a while, because every point made was and is open to further discussion and quoting individual points tends to tangle things, a bit. My argument remains that I consider such reports to often be narrow because the focus seems to be set upon media or populist arguments rather than also considering our environment.

There are dogs which are aggressive and dangerous because that's how they are and it has little to do with lists or breeds. There are also those dogs which by breed are dangerous because of generations of breeding and because they're now owned by those who may not be qualified to 'handle' them. Let's take two breeds, the GSD and (out of the hat) the Akita. Both by breed are known to bite. One is seen in regular competition and the other rarely. One (hopefully!) has a disposition which has it as manageable and trainable and the other hasn't. Considering the breed which tends to be, shall we say a bit pig-headed, do we ask ourselves why the sport trainers don't use them, and why they don't as far as I'm aware, feature on any military or police rosters? Do we then follow that question with the next and obvious question, why is it that the all so often intractable and difficult, and so dangerous, dogs are sought out by those who perhaps don't know what they're doing?

There are those (most I suspect) who acquire a sense of kudos when owning those breeds which are listed on the D_D list. All so often, these dogs are shut away from human contact and perhaps rightly. The problem of course is that if they're let off a lead to run about in a park and with predictable results, so any form of public contact would be highly inadvisable. I wonder if the core list of dogs so listed, though having the potential, ever have access to victims and ever actually make contact. The reason why most dogs on the dreaded list rarely feature in the media is because their opportunities to realise their ambitions, are limited, thankfully.

Were there a way of explaining to the puppy buying public that there are those breeds of dogs, and they are many, which though bred to be man's servant, there was never an expectation that they should be particularly compliant. Though hardly dangerous, per se, let's consider the Foxhound; has anyone ever seen one in an obedience test? I haven't. They weren't bred for that and just as there are those breeds which in their homelands may well have been bred as compound dogs, so they don't take well to discipline as it was never previously a requirement.

I suppose that it all boils down to the fact that all dogs have the ability to bite and many do. How we separate those which are of a breed with a propensity to do so, I'm not sure.

Forgive the generalisations, but it's the theme of the original quote and as a caveat, I'm quite sure that there are those on here with dogs which are on the D_D's list and which are paragons of virtue.

Right, I think that's about it!! Alec.

 

[Moobli]

I very much like all of your post Parly but I hate long quotes, so these are my favourite bits! All so very true!

Agreed - but quoting Lévrier because it is quicker than having to cut and paste text