What, me bite? I'm way too cute to bite!
Although we think every week should be dog bite prevention week, the American Veterinary Medical Asssociation (AVMA) sponsors one week each year to call attention to this very important issue. In may sound hard to believe, but in the United States alone, 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year, and approximately half of those are children.
We've rounded up some tips from two of our favorite sources to help you prevent and deal with the aftermath of a dog bite. But we thought we 'd highlight a few takeaways...
1. We all think we "know" our dogs and freely tell folks who ask (and even if they don't ask!): "Oh, my dog would never bite!" Well, what we think we know about another living creature isn't always correct. As you'll see from these discussions, there are many reasons why any dog can bite either a human or another dog.
2. We don't necessarily agree that if your dog has been bitten, you can treat it yourself, unless you are a veterinarian or vet tech. As with all things, we recommend the exercise of common sense. Parental Unit believes a quick trip to the vet to have them appropriately flush out the wound and check out your dog for other possible injuries, including internal injuries that laypersons are not trained to detect, is well worth the few bucks spent up front, and could prevent an infection and even more money spent later.
3. For those of you fortunate enough to have children and grandchildren, please teach them to ask the owner of a strange dog whether they may pet that dog...and then wait patiently for the answer before extending that cute little hand.
It's a glorious spring day here in central Ohio, and for those of you who have a long weekend, why not start enjoying it now? Play hooky!
4 comments:
I always compliment parents who approach my dogs respectfully (not running up or yelling loudly) and ask if they can pet the dogs. I believe postive reinforcement works. It reminds them they did do something right in teaching their kids and it encourages other parents to teach their children how to approach my dogs.
That being said I have to be the one who stands between my dogs and the kids who don't have responsible parents. For the most part I don't fear my dogs will bite. However, any dog when hurt or afraid can act out and as an owner it is your job to protect your animal from those situations. I've been in situations where DH or I have actually picked one or both of the dogs up and removed them from hands until we could get them out of a situation that couldn't be resolved by having the dogs walk away. It is unfortunate, but almost always even when the human starts the problem it is the dog who is punished.
As owners we have to be vigelent in making sure the interactions our pets have are safe.
Well sore topic as was bitten trying to break up a dog fight and ended up in hospital and had to have the bite cut and cleaned down to the bone so it was operation time and no kidding. Can be very serious. Good points raised. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
Thanks for making such a good point, Bailey. It is the Parental Unit's responsibility to protect us and to intervene on our behalf to remove us from a potentially bad situation...
And Molly, I we're so sorry your Parental Unit had to have such a horrible surgery-yikes!
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