Preventing dog bites
any dog can bite there are nearly 72
million good dogs in the United States
they provide companionship fun and
unconditional love but even the gentlest
dog can bite that’s especially true if
they are unhealthy mentally or
physically if they’re in pain if they’re
frightened or perhaps even just
protecting food or a favorite toy
the number of Americans hospitalized for
dog bites nearly doubled in a 15-year
period there were 50-100 hospitalized in
1993 and 9,500 hospitalized in 2008 this
is according to a recent study published
by the agency for Healthcare Research
and quality to reduce the number of dog
bites it’s important to understand dog
behavior but it’s also important to
understand how they interpret our
behavior the most common scenarios that
lead to a dog bite include unattended
infants children playing outside
unattended with the dog and running with
a dog someone who knows firsthand just
how traumatic dog bites can be is 18
year old Kelly Voigt when Kelly was just
seven years old she was bitten severely
by a neighbor’s dog she required nearly
a hundred stitches to repair the damage
to her face hi my name is Kelly Boyd and
I’m devoted to preventing dog bites we
started a program called prevent the
bite after I was attacked by a dog when
I was seven years old I was walking
around my neighborhood and I saw this
dog that I knew before and pet before
but the difference was this time was
that the owner wasn’t there so I walked
up on a dog’s driveway and put my hand
out like this the dog jumped on me and
bit me right here in the face
so I squeezed the dog’s stomach and it
jumped off I turned around and tried to
run away but the dogs klawans to back my
coat so I wiggled off my coat and ran
home then my mom took me out hospital
ever since then we have been devoted to
preventing the incidences of dog bites
and going to classrooms libraries etc
trying to teach kids how to be safe
around dogs would prevent the bite we
like to use a lot of techniques to teach
the kids how to be safe around dogs
weight is the acronym we use to teach
the kids how to safely approach dog now
weight is what you do when you see a dog
that’s on a leash
with its owner that you think you may
want to pet now if you see a dog that’s
not unleash or not with its owner just
don’t pet the dog walk away say no thank
you
now we see a dog that’s on a leash with
its owner and we think we may want to
pet this dog so we follow the steps of
wait the W stands for wait you wait and
see if the dog looks friendly the a
stands for esque you ask the owner for
permission to pet the dog may we pet
your dog the I stands for invite curl
through hand in the fist put it to your
side and let the dog come to you and
sniff your hand first and the T stands
for a touch you pet the dog on the back
the way the fur grows to prevent dog
bites we need to find a common language
most dog bites are preventable through
appropriate pet selection proper
training responsible approaches to
animal control and education of dog
owners and potential victims for more
information about dog bite prevention or
any issues related to pet ownership we
hope you’ll visit our website at AVM
a.org
