Epidemology of Intraspecies Bite Wounds in Dogs in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The epidemiology of bite wounds in dogs that resulted from intraspecies conflicts and were treated at the Small Animal Clinic, Department of Surgery and Orthopedics, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Brno was evaluated from 246 records in 1989-90 and 337 records in 1998-99. The number of bite incidents fluctuated during the year. The majority of incidents occurred in summer months, i.e. in the second (n = 149) and third (n = 193) trimester of the year. In comparison, only 119 and 122 bite victims were treated in winter months, i.e. in the first and fourth trimester, respectively. The total number of bite victims increased (p < 0.01) between the first and the second period under study. Most treated dogs belonged to small (37.9%), and large (24.8%) breeds, followed by medium-sized (19.0%), giant (11%) and toy breeds (7.3%). A high proportion of the victims were 1 year (11.4%) and 2 years (15.6%) of age, and the proportion decreased with age down to 1% at 11 years. Also, there were indicators for a sex effect. Of the 571 cases where the dog´s sex was recorded 176 concerned a female (30.3%) and 405 (69.7%) a male. For 503 dogs the positions of the wounds were recorded. A large portion of the wounds was administered to the thorax (26.6%) and head (24.30%), i.e. the frontal body parts. More than one fourth of all head wounds were in the relatively small areas around the eyes (28.7%). Fewer bites were on the limbs (17.7%), neck (17.3%) and in the abdominal regions (14.3%). These data suggest that for dogs the risk of being wounded by a conspecific differs between seasons and depends on a dog´s age, sex and body size.

Behavioural Differences of Dogs of Various Ages in Czech Households

“…In agreement with this notion is our report (Baranyiová et al 2003) that seniors aged 12-to-15 years became victims of interdog aggression in only 1% of incidents. Ability of old dogs to perceive, process and remember information about their environment obviously diminished.…”

Dog Bites to Children in the Czech Republic: the Risk Situations

“…On the other hand, known dogs bit when the children approached or tried to take the dog's toy or caused them pain by accident. Similar to Hart and Miller (1985) and Rieck (1997) we found that male dogs bit more frequently than female dogs; analysis of dog-dog bites revealed about 70% biting males and the most frequent injuries in these conflicts were those of the head region (Baranyiová et al 2003) unlike injuries inflicted on children (Náhlík 2005).…”

Maxillofacial bite injuries treatment — 20 years experience

“…Dogs' bite injuries were localized in 80.7% patients in a single area of the face, while two or more areas were involved in 19.7%. These figures correspond to findings published by Baranyiova et al [17] As for the isolated soft tissue injuries, without bites impact on bones, we can assume that the injured person or some other person may have prevented the dog to continue it's attack and provoke more severe facial injuries.…”

“…It may be suggested that men are generally more interested in having a dog or that men develop rough relationship with dogs. Whatever the case is, it results in an increased risk for men to be attacked and injured by dogs [6,13,17]. Results of the present study are revealing that children and young individuals were more frequently bitten by dogs than older individuals, and there are several reasons that explain these findings.…”