Dogs Bite but Balloons and Slippers Are More Dangerous Book

Bradley provides a sensible, balanced view of dog behavior, aggression and "the dog bite epidemic". She provides a nice overview of available statistics/research and their scientific relevance. She notes that the rate of dog bite deaths has remained very steady for decades despite that the population has increased and we tend to spend more time with our dogs (inside vs. backyard solitary confinement). She also notes that dog bite injuries occur much less often than other common injuries such as slipping, having a car accident or falling off your bicycle. Available ER and hospital data indicates that as a class of injury receiving medical treatment dog bites on average are considered much less severe than injuries caused by falls. The point Bradley repeatedly drives home is that "Dogs almost never kill people, and they don't actually bite very often, and when they do, we're seldom injured, and when we are, it's seldom serious".

I think Bradley also does a nice job of looking at canine aggression; triggers, normal dog behavior and common sense strategies for behaving safely around dogs (simple things like not bothering a sleeping dog, teaching children not to take food away from dogs trying to eat, asking strangers for permission to interact with their dog before running up to it and grabbing it in a bear hug (that happens, I've seen it)and a variety of other common sense approaches to dogs that would come close to eliminating all dog bites if adults heeded them and children were taught the proper way to behave around dogs and supervised - the same way they're supervised around swimming pools).

I also like the way she pulls in current research which dispels the notion that any dog that growls or snaps or even delivers an inhibited bite is dangerous. That may be too much for the general public to process, but from a behavioral stand point "The only good predictor of future injurious biting is prior injurious biting." Bradley does a nice job of explaining the ways in which dogs communicate, making the point that if we better understood their communications and hard wired behaviors...there would be less misunderstandings and errors on the part of humans leading to bites.

I don't think this book will turn around anyone who doesn't like or is fearful of dogs; but it is a good reference for the average person wanting to better understand canine behavior. It also presents a solid argument against current efforts towards dog bite legislation and examines how our litigious society fueled by media frenzy and sensationalism created the "dog bite epidemic".