Online videos indicate human and dog behaviour preceding dog bites and the context in which bites occur

The Science and Social Validity of Companion Animal Welfare: Functionally Defined Parameters in a Multidisciplinary Field

Social validity refers to the social significance and acceptability of intervention goals, procedures, and outcomes. Animal practitioners, who are often guided by the principles of ABA, lack the benefit of verbal participants (at least with respect to target animals) with which to assess a client's needs and preferences. The study of a learner's welfare is useful for determining areas where intervention is needed or how the learner feels about an intervention that is underway. Three tenets of animal welfare measurement include physiological function, naturalistic behavior, and affect, where affect refers to private events, including emotions, which are a function of the same variables and contingencies responsible for controlling public behavior. The development of new technologies allows us to look "under the skin" and account for subjective experiences that can now be observed objectively. We introduce the reader to tools available from the animal welfare sciences for the objective measurement of social validity from the learner's perspective.

Legal epidemiology of paediatric dog bite injuries

BACKGROUND

Dog bite injuries cause over 100 000 paediatric emergency department visits annually. Our objective was to analyse associations between regional dog ownership laws and incidence of paediatric dog bites.

METHODS

This observational study used an online search to locate local dog-related policies within Ohio cities. Data collected by Ohio Partners For Kids from 2011 through 2020 regarding claims for paediatric dog bite injuries were used to compare areas with and without located policies and the incidence of injury.

RESULTS

Our cohort consisted of 6175 paediatric patients with dog bite injury encounters. A majority were white (79.1%), male (55.0%), 0-5 years old (39.2%) and did not require hospital admission (98.1%). Seventy-nine of 303 cities (26.1%) had city-specific policies related to dogs. Overall, the presence of dog-related policies was associated with lower incidence of dog bite injury claims (p=0.01). Specifically, metropolitan areas and the Central Ohio region had a significantly lower incidence when dog-related policies were present (324.85 per 100 000 children per year when present vs 398.56 when absent; p<0.05; 304.87 per 100 000 children per year when present vs 411.43 when absent; p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The presence of city-specific dog-related policies is associated with lower incidence of paediatric dog bite injury claims, suggesting that local policy impacts this important public health issue. There are limited dog-related policies addressing dog bite prevention, with inconsistencies in breadth and depth. Creating consistent, practical requirements among policies with vigorous enforcement could ameliorate public health concerns from paediatric dog bite injuries.

One Health Approach on Dog Bites: Demographic and Associated Socioeconomic Factors in Southern Brazil

Despite being an important public health issue, particularly due to rabies, dog bites and associated risk factors have rarely been assessed by health services from a One Health perspective. Accordingly, the present study aimed to assess dog biting and associated demographic and socioeconomic risk factors in Curitiba, the eighth-largest Brazilian city with approximately 1.87 million people, based on the post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) rabies reports between January/2010 and December/2015. The total of 45,392 PEP reports corresponded to an average annual incidence of 4.17/1000 habitants, mainly affecting white (79.9%, 4.38/1000 population), males (53.1%, 4.81/1000 population), and children aged 0–9 years (20.1%, 6.9/1000 population), with severe accidents associated with older victims (p < 0.001) and mainly caused by dogs known to the victims. An increase of USD 100.00 in the median neighborhood income was associated with a 4.9% (95% CI: 3.8–6.1; p < 0.001) reduction in dog bites. In summary, dog biting occurrence was associated with victims’ low income, gender, race/color, and age; severe accidents were associated with elderly victims. As dog bites have been described as multifactorial events involving human, animal, and environmental factors, the characteristics presented herein should be used as a basis to define mitigation, control, and prevention strategies from a One Health perspective.

Are children and dogs best friends? A scoping review to explore the positive and negative effects of child-dog interactions

Personal wellbeing is greatly influenced by our childhood and adolescence, and the relationships formed during those phases of our development. The human-dog bond represents a significant relationship that started thousands of years ago. There is a higher prevalence of dog ownership around the world, especially in households including children. This has resulted in a growing number of researchers studying our interactions with dogs and an expanding evidence base from the exploration of child-dog interactions. We review the potential effects of child-dog interactions on the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of both species. A search of the SCOPUS database identified documents published between January 1980 and April 2022. Filtering for key inclusion criteria, duplicate removals, and inspecting the references of these documents for additional sources, we reviewed a total of 393 documents, 88% of which were scientific articles. We were able to define the numerous ways in which children and dogs interact, be it neutral (e.g., sharing a common area), positive (e.g., petting), or negative (e.g., biting). Then, we found evidence for an association between childhood interaction with dogs and an array of benefits such as increased physical activities, a reduction of stress, and the development of empathy. Nonetheless, several detrimental outcomes have also been identified for both humans and dogs. Children are the most at-risk population regarding dog bites and dog-borne zoonoses, which may lead to injuries/illness, a subsequent fear of dogs, or even death. Moreover, pet bereavement is generally inevitable when living with a canine companion and should not be trivialized. With a canine focus, children sometimes take part in caretaking behaviors toward them, such as feeding or going for walks. These represent opportunities for dogs to relieve themselves outside, but also to exercise and socialize. By contrast, a lack of physical activity can lead to the onset of obesity in both dogs and children. Dogs may present greater levels of stress when in the presence of children. Finally, the welfare of assistance, therapy, and free-roaming dogs who may interact with children remains underexplored. Overall, it appears that the benefits of child-dog interactions outweigh the risks for children but not for dogs; determination of the effects on both species, positive as well as negative, still requires further development. We call for longitudinal studies and cross-cultural research in the future to better understand the impact of child-dog interactions. Our review is important for people in and outside of the scientific community, to pediatricians, veterinarians, and current or future dog owners seeking to extend their knowledge, and to inform future research of scientists studying dogs and human-animal interactions.

Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species

Predictions about others' future actions are crucial during social interactions, in order to react optimally. Another way to assess such interactions is to define the social context of the situations explicitly and categorize them according to their affective content. Here we investigate how humans assess aggressive, playful and neutral interactions between members of three species: human children, dogs and macaques. We presented human participants with short video clips of real-life interactions of dyads of the three species and asked them either to categorize the context of the situation or to predict the outcome of the observed interaction. Participants performed above chance level in assessing social situations in humans, in dogs and in monkeys. How accurately participants predicted and categorized the situations depended both on the species and on the context. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants were not better at assessing aggressive situations than playful or neutral situations. Importantly, participants performed particularly poorly when assessing aggressive behaviour for dogs. Also, participants were not better at assessing social interactions of humans compared to those of other species. We discuss what mechanism humans use to assess social situations and to what extent this skill can also be found in other social species.

A pilot study investigating human behaviour towards DAVE (Dog Assisted Virtual Environment) and interpretation of non-reactive and aggressive behaviours during a virtual reality exploration task

Dog aggression is a public health concern because dog bites often lead to physical and psychological trauma in humans. It is also a welfare concern for dogs. To prevent aggressive behaviours, it is important to understand human behaviour towards dogs and our ability to interpret signs of dog aggression. This poses ethical challenges for humans and dogs. The aim of this study was to introduce, describe and pilot test a virtual reality dog model (DAVE (Dog Assisted Virtual Environment)). The Labrador model has two different modes displaying aggressive and non-reactive non-aggressive behaviours. The aggressive behaviours displayed are based on the current understanding of canine ethology and expert feedback. The objective of the study was to test the recognition of dog behaviour and associated human approach and avoidance behaviour. Sixteen university students were recruited via an online survey to participate in a practical study, and randomly allocated to two experimental conditions, an aggressive followed by a non-reactive virtual reality model (group AN) or vice versa (group NA). Participants were instructed to ‘explore the area’ in each condition, followed by a survey. A Wilcoxon and Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the closest distance to the dog within and between groups respectively. Participants moved overall significantly closer to the non-reactive dog compared to the aggressive dog (p≤0.001; r = 0.8). Descriptions of the aggressive dog given by participants often used motivational or emotional terms. There was little evidence of simulator sickness and presence scores were high indicating sufficient immersion in the virtual environment. Participants appeared to perceive the dog as realistic and behaved and interacted with the dog model in a manner that might be expected during an interaction with a live dog. This study also highlights the promising results for the potential future use of virtual reality in behavioural research (i.e., human-dog interactions), education (i.e. safety around dogs) and psychological treatment (e.g. dog phobia treatment).

Microbiological Characteristics and Surgical Management of Animal-Bite-Related Oral & Maxillofacial Injuries: A Single Center's Experience

The objective of the current study is to retrospectively evaluate animal-bite injuries and to gain insight into the epidemiology, accident consequences and treatment concept of these accidents in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Data of patients, who were admitted January 2015 and April 2021, were retrospectively evaluated regarding the patients’ characteristics (age, gender), facial distribution of substance defects/partial amputations, duration of hospitalization, operation treatments and antibiotic treatments. Data of 75 patients were included. Patients were bitten by dogs (n = 69.92%), cats (n = 4) and horses (n = 2). Lower eyelid/cheek complex was the most affected region (n = 37, 32.74%). Most of the patients between 0 and 3 years had to be operated on under general anesthesia (p = 0.011), while most of the adults could be operated on under local anesthesia (p = 0.007). In the age group 0–12 years, 30 patients (68%) were operated on under general anesthesia. Ampicillin/Sulbactam (48%) was the antibiotic most used. Antibiotics were adjusted after wound swabs in case of wound infections or critical wound conditions. This means that resistant antibiotics were stopped, and sensitive antibiotics were used. Structured surgical and antibiotic management of animal-bite wounds in the maxillofacial region is the most important factor for medical care to avoid long-term aesthetic consequences. Public health actions and policies under the leadership of an interdisciplinary committee could improve primary wound management, healing outcome and information status in the general population.

Dog Tethering in Slovakia: Legal, Ethical and Behavioral Aspects and Dog Welfare Implications

Simple Summary

On the basis of legislative provisions and the behavioral needs of dogs, the authors describe the potential consequences and negative impacts of the long-term tethering of dogs. Dogs should be kept under conditions that allow them, with respect to their size, temperament, stage of their development, and degree of adaptation, to maintain good health and meet their physiological, ethological, and social needs. Despite the adoption of new legislative provisions, this issue has not yet been resolved and we are still coming across various cases involving cruelty to animals of various character and intensity. The current situation can be changed by adopting legislative regulations that explicitly define the responsibilities of owners/keepers including a ban on the tethering of dogs in order to prevent potential circumvention of the legislative rules.

Abstract

Long-term tethering of dogs, or their keeping under unsuitable conditions can result in issues related to changes in their behavior as they may not satisfy their basic needs of life. These needs are discussed in this paper, along with cases when dogs unnecessarily have to endure cruelty and pain. The unavoidable tethering of a dog must not cause trauma and must be arranged in a way that it guarantees physical comfort. Failure to meet the basic needs of an animal may result in manifestation of fear and subsequent aggressiveness. Owners of animals are responsible for their life and health, and their obligations include eliminating the possibility of them hurting themselves or other beings. The relevant adopted legislative provisions should provide protection to animals and be enforceable, which currently appears rather difficult. Controlling and observation of the legislative provisions related to the tethering of dogs raises some difficulties for animal protection inspectors. It is necessary to focus on the specificities of keeping conditions of various dog breeds and on their individual features. Based on research and the relevant Slovak legislative provisions, this paper discusses various views on the practice of tethering dogs from the point of view of public safety and the ethical consequences of permanent dog tethering. Data on dog tethering in Slovakia were evaluated based on a survey and Slovak legal rules governing this issue were analyzed along with various views of public safety and the ethical consequences of permanent dog tethering.

Preventing Dog Bites: It Is Not Only about the Dog

Simple Summary

Dog bites can have an array of negative health impacts on human victims. Research on the correlates of bites focused on limited sets of variables and produced conflicting findings. Data were drawn from police department reports of dog bites in the city of Detroit between 2007–2015. This project expands knowledge about the correlates of dog bites by exploring a comprehensive set of variables related to the breed type of dog, the nature of its surroundings, and the circumstances surrounding the bite. The greatest risk of bites does not come from wandering feral dogs, nor is it primarily related to the nature of the victim. Based on multiple regression, the victim was most likely bitten in their own yard by a single neighborhood dog that escaped from its home or yard. Human error often contributes to bites.

Abstract

Background: Dog bites can have an array of negative health impacts on victims. Research focusing on the correlates of bites focused on limited sets of variables and produced conflicting findings. Objective: To expand knowledge about the correlates of dog bites by exploring a comprehensive set of variables related to the nature of the dog and the circumstances surrounding the bite not commonly explored in extant research. Methods: Data were drawn from police department reports of dog bites in the city of Detroit between 2007–2015; 478 dog bites were reported. Multiple regression was used to determine the significant correlates of dog bites, focusing on the nature of the dog and the circumstances surrounding the bite. Results: Bites were caused by a neighborhood dog. Thirty-two percent of the reports involved dogs running loose; 25% dogs that had escaped from a fenced or unfenced yard; 9% escaped from their home; and 8% had broken off a chain, were being walked, or were in their own home. Based on multiple regression, the victim was most likely bitten in their own yard by a single neighborhood dog that escaped from its home or yard. Breed of dog was not correlated with bites in multiple regression. Conclusions: The greatest risk of bites does not come from wandering feral dogs. Based on multiple regression, the victim was most likely bitten in their own yard by a single neighborhood dog that escaped from its home or yard. Human error often contributes to bites.

Humanity's Best Friend: A Dog-Centric Approach to Addressing Global Challenges

No other animal has a closer mutualistic relationship with humans than the dog (Canis familiaris). Domesticated from the Eurasian grey wolf (Canis lupus), dogs have evolved alongside humans over millennia in a relationship that has transformed dogs and the environments in which humans and dogs have co-inhabited. The story of the dog is the story of recent humanity, in all its biological and cultural complexity. By exploring human-dog-environment interactions throughout time and space, it is possible not only to understand vital elements of global history, but also to critically assess our present-day relationship with the natural world, and to begin to mitigate future global challenges. In this paper, co-authored by researchers from across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities, we argue that a dog-centric approach provides a new model for future academic enquiry and engagement with both the public and the global environmental agenda.

Perception of dynamic facial expressions of emotion between dogs and humans

Facial expressions are a core component of the emotional response of social mammals. In contrast to Darwin's original proposition, expressive facial cues of emotion appear to have evolved to be species-specific. Faces trigger an automatic perceptual process, and so, inter-specific emotion perception is potentially a challenge; since observers should not try to “read” heterospecific facial expressions in the same way that they do conspecific ones. Using dynamic spontaneous facial expression stimuli, we report the first inter-species eye-tracking study on fully unrestrained participants and without pre-experiment training to maintain attention to stimuli, to compare how two different species living in the same ecological niche, humans and dogs, perceive each other’s facial expressions of emotion. Humans and dogs showed different gaze distributions when viewing the same facial expressions of either humans or dogs. Humans modulated their gaze depending on the area of interest (AOI) being examined, emotion, and species observed, but dogs modulated their gaze depending on AOI only. We also analysed if the gaze distribution was random across AOIs in both species: in humans, eye movements were not correlated with the diagnostic facial movements occurring in the emotional expression, and in dogs, there was only a partial relationship. This suggests that the scanning of facial expressions is a relatively automatic process. Thus, to read other species’ facial emotions successfully, individuals must overcome these automatic perceptual processes and employ learning strategies to appreciate the inter-species emotional repertoire.

Pet dog bites in children: management and prevention

Dog bite injuries are a significant public health problem and many are sustained by children. These injuries can be complex, both physically and psychologically, and in rare cases fatal. This paper will review current evidence-based approaches to treatment, explore identified patterns in biting incidents and discuss the effectiveness of prevention strategies. Safe management of these patients requires a comprehensive approach. Physical injuries need to be accurately assessed with a high index of suspicion for underlying injuries, particularly in younger children less able to communicate. Treatment depends on severity and location, but all bites must be irrigated to reduce the risk of infection but may not always require prophylactic antibiotic use. Careful exploration of the circumstances in which the bite occurred is essential to make safeguarding decisions and prevent future bites. Reducing the incidence of paediatric dog bites requires education of both children and parents that any dog can bite, regardless of breed, and all child-dog interactions must be highly supervised. However, education alone is unlikely to prevent dog bites. Policies that support environmental changes need to be developed such as provision of pet dogs less likely to bite (or bite as severely), through breeding for temperament and appropriate socialisation. Additionally, investment in psychological support for bite victims and their families is required to reduce the long-term impacts of being bitten.