Dogs Bite, But Balloons and Slippers Are More Dangerous
by Janis Bradley
We all know dogs are dangerous. They can and do bite. The bigger, more powerful dogs are perfectly well able to kill an adult human, especially if they attack in a pack. Children are even more vulnerable. And yet we continue to welcome dogs into our homes, and in fact we do so in ever-increasing numbers. Why?
We do it because we get a lot of benefit from having dogs in our lives. Dogs do a lot of practical work in our lives, not just traditional dog work such as hunting, herding, or rodent control, but new jobs as search and rescue dogs, drug sniffer dogs, and assistance dogs for the handicapped. Even more than these obvious practical jobs, though, dogs also provide us companionship, lower our blood pressure, increase our social connections. Children raised in households with dogs and cats are less likely to suffer from asthma and allergies. Children, adults, and the elderly are all significantly healthier, both physically and emotionally, with dogs in our lives.
But Janis Bradley looks at the other side of the equation—how dangerous are dogs, really? And she looks at that question with hard numbers, statistics, and comparisons to other dangers of daily life that we don’t fret about nearly as much.
Dogs kill about fifteen people a year—so few that we can’t get any meaningful statistics at all from examining these cases. Cars kill about 44,000 people a year. Slippers, balloons, bathtubs, forklifts, and lightning each kill more people every year than dogs. Being struck by lightning—not killed, just struck—is so rare an experience it’s a synonym for an unforeseeable act of God, but lightning still kills five times as many people every year as dog attacks do.
Non-fatal bites are more common, of course, but are still amongst the least common of household injuries that send people to the emergency room seeking treatment—and this despite the fact that people go to the ER for treatment of dog bites for far less actual injury than for injuries from other causes.
Janis Bradley lays out the facts of just how safe dogs are, in absolute terms and compared to other common dangers we worry about far less. She looks at the available studies and the available statistics, explains the strengths and weaknesses of each, and ends by discussing some simple rules for reducing even further the already low risk of dog bites. In addition, she analyses why we so disproportionately about dogs while blithely allowing children to play on playground equipment, or letting adults take care of them (by far the greatest danger to children.) This book is short, highly readable, utterly rational, and helpful.
Highly recommended.
Reviewer Bio:
Lis and AddyLis Carey is a librarian with an odd sense of humor, who finds excitement in helping people find the information they need, and in the varied corners of library work--reference, cataloging, circulation, resource development, reader's advisory. She reads voraciously and enjoys a wide variety of material--including, of course, fiction and non-fiction about dogs and cats. Addy, her Chinese Crested, is always happy to keep her company while reading, and occasionally tries to help write the reviews.
Check out her Blog Lis Carey's Library for more Book Reviews.