Dog Bite Prevention Week: Understand dogs to help kids stay safe

Understanding that dogs are pack animals that do not think like people is key in preventing dog bites, experts say.On Feb. 28, a Paterson 8th grader was found dead near an icy creek after being attacked by a 115-pound bull mastiff that jumped the fence of its yard.

The boy and a friend had been walking home from school in a wooded area near the yard. While they apparantly ran in different directions, both were bitten. As his friend’s bite wounds were being treated at an area hospital, authorities and family members searched for Kenneth Santillan. The 13-year-old was found dead hours later, in an incident that still has numerous unanswered questions.

Neighbors said the dog was kept outside even in freezing cold and that it was taunted by passing children. A lawyer for Kenneth Santillan’s family says the dog, Trigger, bit the boy numerous times. The dog was later euthanized.

When tragedies like this occur, it underscores the need to improve public awareness of dog safety practices, says Melissa Berryman, author of the self-published book “People Training for Good Dogs.” During National Dog Bite Prevention Week, Berryman and others have bite-prevention advice that covers unfamiliar dogs as well as those that are our family pets.

Berryman says human error of all sorts is usually behind dog bites. She believes part of the solution is to help people understand the nature of dogs as pack animals. “Dogs bite for purposeful reasons, and those reasons depend on the context,” she says. “The two contexts are, within their group, with people and animals they have relationships with, and outside the group, with those they have no relationships with.”

Outside their group, dogs bite in fight-or-flight situations, because something appears to be prey or appears to be a foe, she says. “Within the group, dogs bite over status and resource issues. If a dog is below someone in its group in status, it will defer. If it believes it is above that person/animal, not only won’t it defer, but it will punish the subordinate for any insubordination. Dogs only have their mouths to do this with.”

National Dog Bite Prevention Week: Why dogs attack

Berryman cites a case where a dog with obedience titles attacked the 5-year-old son of its owner, resulting in the boy’s death. “The mother had recently gotten another male dog and the two dogs were not getting along. To cope, she put the dog in question out.” Doing so created disorder in the dog’s pack, which in the dog’s mind included the boy.

“Any pack disorder leaves dogs unsettled and uneasy,” she says. “Now let out a 5-year-old to play in the yard with the dog who has been disposed of its place in the house, is uneasy and unsettled about the pack disorder, and don’t watch them.”

There were no witnesses to interactions between the boy and the dog before the attack. The unsettled dog might have been annoyed by something as ordinarily innocuous as the sound of the boy’s swing. The boy was strangled by the chain of his swing set during the melee. People can only speculate about the details surrounding the incident, as with that of Kenneth Santillan.

“Many folks fail to see the point, sometimes feeling that in pointing out why something happened I’m in some way blaming a victim,” Berryman says. “It’s important to keep the focus on the shared objective of dog-bite injuries meaningfully decreasing, and for deaths to be totally prevented,” she says. “It’s impossible to do this if the dog continues to be the only thing blamed.”

Berryman, a former animal control officer who holds an undergraduate degree in pre-veterinary medicine and a master’s in public administration has worked with more than 10,000 dogs. She coaches communities, rescue groups and bite victims on safe dog interaction in Massachusetts, where she lives.

Berryman notes that people within a dog’s family, as well as those who approach unknown dogs, often make tragic mistakes that lead to dog bites and attacks. Even in cases where a person doesn’t die from a dog bite, dogs often pay with their lives for mistakes made by people, Berryman says.

“Prevention has to be the priority,” she says. “It’s cute to us when the baby hugs the dog, but dogs do not say ‘I love you’ with a hug. When one dog ‘hugs’ another, it’s an act of domination,” she explains. “It should be a given that people do not hug dogs, yet the message for children to hug dogs is prevalent in our culture and the facial bites continue.”

More than 4 million Americans are bitten by dogs each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Half of them are children. Among children, bite injuries are highest among those 5 to 9 years old, according to the CDC. And often, it’s the family pet.

National Dog Bite Prevention Week: Active supervision is crucial

To avoid potentially dangerous situations,  supervise all interactions between children and dogs — even if your dog is gentle, both Berryman and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advise.

And it must be active supervision, emphasizes Dr. Ilana Reisner, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and consultant on dog bite safety. "Supervision is not well understood," she says. "Dog owners in general are lacking knowledge about what kinds of things dogs and children do that can be a risk. For example, they might go out of the room and prepare lunch while the child is alone with the dog maybe 10 to 20 feet away. That's not active supervision." 

ASPCA.org and CDC.gov offer advice to keep children safe with dogs. The lists -- which include advice not to tease fenced or chained dogs or bother a dog who is eating or sleeping -- should be reviewed with children frequently.

National Dog Bite Prevention Week: How to handle a dog threat

Berryman's advice differs slightly on the ways to greet an unknown dog (see below) and in the suggestion that those facing a threatening dog remain still (like a tree). Doing so will require maintaining that posture until the dog goes away, she says. “Who knows how long that would be? And when you do move, the dog can come back at you,” she says. “So, I prefer acting like a friend.”

“When a dog charges you, it is trying to decide if you are friend, foe or prey. Act like a friend and pretend you are not afraid. What we do in face of a charge is extremely important and counter-intuitive.”

Don't ever run from a dog, all experts strongly advise. Running could encourage the dog to chase you as prey, and the chances of outrunning a larger dog are slim. Here's what Berryman suggests: “Instead, stand facing the dog with relaxed body language, tap your thigh with your hand (like a wagging tail) and use a high-pitched voice for a friendly greeting like ‘Good girl.’ Fake it if you are afraid,” Berryman says.

Depending on the dog, this is the kind of courage that might be needed to save one’s life. Berryman says the dog will respond in one of three ways: Immediately wag its tail and relax (a low-ranking dog); stop short but still bark and be wary (a higher ranking dog); or run away (a flight-type dog). “It’s important to always keep the dog in view,” she says. “Turn and always face the dog if it tries to circle — all predators are hard-wired to bite where you’re vulnerable and can’t protect yourself.”

Following these instructions should give anyone an opportunity to move to a safer place and avoid being hurt, she says. If a child falls or is knocked down by a threatening dog, the ASPCA advises curling up in a ball with knees tucked into chest with fingers interlocked behind the neck, protecting neck and ears. "If a child stays still and quiet like this, the dog will most likely just sniff her and then go away," according to the organization's website.

Berryman shares two other commonly held myths about interacting with dogs.

Myth: When greeting a new dog, you should extend your hand for it to sniff.

Fact: Dogs don’t sniff each other’s paws when greeting and, like us, they prefer to be asked before being touched by a stranger. Instead of extending your hand, ask the owner and then also ask the dog by tapping your hand on your thigh simulating a wagging tail, and act friendly. The dog will either relax and nuzzle you, take some sniffs to get to know you better, or it will stay away.

Myth: Breed dictates temperament.

Fact: Dogs are, foremost, predatory canines that live in groups. What dictates temperament is a dog’s pack position and the role you, the human, play in the rank of group members. Just as children of the same parents can be very different, one cannot predict behavior or temperament by breed.

Reisner also believes breed plays a role in dog bites to children. "While breed bias often reflects unfounded fears toward breeds that may be a danger to our kids, it can also work the other way, when dogs considered to be "safe" are allowed to interact unsupervised with children," she says.

"Just because you happen to have a dog that's considered to be a great family pet doesn't mean that it would be safe for a toddler to crawl up to that dog and give him a hug when he's sleeping," she says.

“Any dog can bite,” Berryman advises, “especially when it feels threatened, is exposed to prey behavior or thinks that someone lower in rank threatens its resources, such as food, toys, bedding or the attention of its owner.”

With family pets, Reisner stresses the importance of having children understand that such behaviors are provocative to a dog. While most realize that poking, hitting or pulling the dog's fur could provoke a bite, Reisner notes that resource guarding is the cause for most bites. "So if a small child runs up to an owner, and the dog is lying near the adult, the dog might bite the child."

Learn more about Melissa Berryman’s programs and her book at PTFGD.com

Learn more about National Dog Bite Prevention week at through the American Veterinary Medical Association's website.