In the Feb 15th issue of JAVMA there's a new retrospective study (that means they look through paperwork from the past) into contributing factors in dog bite cases.

Here's a link to the abstract (also attached as a pdf below).

Without having the read the entire paper, which I'll buy later, it's difficult to say how they reached their conclusions.

Multnomah County, Oregon had a population of about 660,000 people in 2003 (the study reviewed 2002-2003).  In the US, to estimate how many dogs exist in an area, we divide by 4, so there would be around 165,000 dogs in the county.  They have licensed 47,526, or around 29%, which is pretty good compliance.

They had 636 bite reports, severity/outcomes not reported. So about 0.4% of their dog population was reported as biting someone.  Again, that's a pretty good record and obviously a very small sample of the existing canine population.

Yet these were the conclusions:

Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Dog bites continue to be a source of preventable injury. Prevention programs should target owners of sexually intact male and purebred dogs and owners who live in lower income neighborhoods.

My personal opinion on the 'intact male' thing is that it's a red herring and while it may be specific to some cases, claiming it is a widely applicable factor is much too sweeping.

First of all, several studies indicate that neutering males makes them more excitable and active, not less so as the popular folklore would have one believe.

In other studies, sterilized females exhibit more reactivity and more territorial aggression as well as a greater propensity to bite than intact ones.

It appears, and obviously we need more serious inquiry to reach a firm conclusion, that behavioural changes after sterilization can be the opposite of those intended.

It's odd that when I was a kid many decades ago nobody neutered males, only females because they didn't want pups.  That was when dogs were let out to wander around the neighbourhood for awhile and they all associated with their friends and avoided their enemies.  Fights and scuffles were few and far between among all these intact males of different ages and breeds (it was mostly purebreds in my 'hood in midtown Toronto in the 50s and early 60s).

So, I honestly believe that reproductive status is irrelevant.

As for the low income factor, there may be a few reasons for increased dog bites in those areas.  I base this on my own experiences living in low income neighbourhoods for many years.

1. People live at closer quarters overall.

2. People live more out in public than those in wealthier areas.

3. Poor areas tend to have more transient populations because rentals outnumber owner-occupied properties.

4. Poor areas tend to have higher crime rates overall.

5. Poor areas tend to have friendlier neighbours who socialize more with each other.

Here is why I think reproductive status may come into play as a finding, but not necessarily a pertinent or generalizable one.

Let's face it, veterinary care is extremely expensive these days and costs have skyrocketed over the past 10 years or so.  If you are tight for money, you are probably less likely to visit the vet for routine or emergency care.  Therefore, you are less likely to be confronted with the advice to neuter which can be almost militant in presentation these days.  It would be of interest to also know the immunization status of the dogs, since that would confirm my guess (and personal observation) that low-income people tend to visit vets less often, if at all.

When lack of routine and emergency vet care is combined with the inherent qualities of core urban (most low income) areas I sketched out above, it seems almost inevitable that there will be more dog bites and more incidents of all kinds overall, due to population density.

KC Dog Blog did an excellent series of investigations into the whys and wherefores of the low income-crime-dog problem connection and if you haven't seen it, it's well worth a look.  Here's Part I, the rest can be found in 'Best of KC Dog Blog' down his left sidebar.

As for the purebred status, that is a bit of a confounder. 

Since purebred dogs are expensive and breeders are quite fussy about who gets one, I think the purebred moniker may be false.  Shelters are reluctant to place dogs with low income people, those without fenced yards, those who rent,  etc.  Most people who won't pass muster with a breeder or shelter will obtain their dogs through the newspaper or from a backyard breeder, friend or market vendor.  This may also contribute to increased reports, since the dogs are going to unscreened and possibly inexperienced homes.

We'd need to know how the dogs were identified as purebred, how many low income dogs were identified as purebred, how breeds were determined and more to attribute importance to this finding.

So, while it's certainly conceivable that the low income finding is accurate in the studied county in Oregon and in other areas of the US, when we review bite, attack and fatal mauling statistics in Canada we do not observe these conclusions as being especially important or common.

Dog owners of all socioeconomic levels, with many different breeds and mixed breeds, neutered and intact have been involved in incidents in this country.

Owner incompetence or improper victim behaviour seem to be the only common, preventable factors in dog bite cases here in Canada.

I'm off to buy the journal article because I suspect the extinction forces in AR and political offices will be latching on to these findings quite soon.

More meat for the grinder, as it were.

h/t DoLittler