Interesting Stats about actual dogbites ect. - Page 1

http://www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/default.asp

This web site and the subject title here is a bit misleading as it really only deals with fatal attacks. Fatal attacks are rare, but they are horrible too.

In fact, there are very good statistics kept by the Centers For Disease Control and others that demonstrate that there are hundreds of thousands of dog bites annually in the U.S. Most occur at home, and most are from dogs known to the family. And most are to children who, like the client I had here dropping off dogs for boarding yesterday, have failed to teach children to properly behave and respect a dog. In the case yesterday, three beautiful little girls, none older than about 7 are essentially mauling the two mixed breed 8 month old pups they just recently adopted from a prison training program. One little girl grabbed one of the dogs by the muzzle and was squeezing it so hard the dog was crying and attempted to get loose. I pointed out, after sending the girls outside, these same statistics and suggested the owner teach her children to interact in a proper manner with the dogs and to respect the dogs. Fortunately, she appreciated this advice, but too often such behavior as I witnessed leads to a bite.

People fail to teach their children proper respect for dogs, and to be fair, the parents themselves are ignorant of how to behave around dogs.  Media has mislead as have so called "canine experts" with no real behavioral training.  Dogs are not little people in fur coats.  Someday, hopefully everyone young and not so young will be educated on how to respect others both two legged and four.