Dogs make wonderful pets and companions for many families. However, dog bites remain an unfortunate risk, especially for children. In Utah, over 1,300 emergency room visits occur annually due to dog bites. While a dog’s tendency to bite depends on multiple factors, understanding some basics about canine behavior can help Utah families stay safe and prevent biting incidents. If you or a loved one are attacked, a personal injury lawyer in Salt Lake City may be able to help.
Recognizing Aggressive Triggers in Dogs
Like humans, dogs have individual personalities that shape how they react in certain situations. However, some common triggers can provoke aggressive responses in many dogs:
Fear: When a dog feels afraid or threatened, their natural reaction is to warn the perceived threat away with growling, barking, or ultimately biting. Loud noises, strangers approaching family members, or unfamiliar environments can make dogs fearful.
Territory: Dogs are innately protective of areas they consider their territory. Their territories encompass areas they regularly inhabit or play in. Trespassing dogs or people may be viewed as threats.
Resources: Some dogs become aggressively protective around resources they value, like food, toys, beds. Children attempting to take away a cherished item could get bitten.
Pain or Sickness: An otherwise calm dog may snap or nip if hurt or unwell. Surprising a limping dog by touching their sore spot, for example, could provoke a bite.
Paying attention to body language is key to noticing signs of fear, territorial behavior, resource guarding, or pain before it escalates to biting. Subtle early signals like lip licking, averting gaze, furrowed brows, and stiffening tails convey discomfort. As dogs become more threatened, warning signs intensify from growling then snapping to ultimately biting.
Preventing Bites from the Family Dog
For a family’s own beloved dog, understanding their typical behavior provides the insight needed to prevent and safely manage aggressive incidents before anyone gets injured. Useful tactics include:
Socialization: Introducing dogs to diverse environments, people, animals, and experiences from puppyhood makes them more comfortable with novelty as adults. Well-socialized dogs are less likely to react fearfully or territorial in unfamiliar situations.
Obedience Training: Basic obedience training helps reinforce humans as the leaders and builds a cooperative foundation for safety. Essential cues like “sit”, “off”, and “leave it” give owners means to swiftly interrupt or prevent dangerous behaviors.
Veterinary Guidance: Veterinarians can offer breed-specific guidance on behavioral tendencies, recommend training approaches, highlight warning signs of illness-induced aggression, and prescribe anxiety medications if needed. Checking with vets helps optimize prevention planning.
Environmental Management: Knowing individual triggers allows customizing an environment to avoid setting a dog up for aggressive reactions. Securing trash cans, using baby gates to partition dogs from kids’ areas, and providing places for dogs to retreat help keep tensions low.
Staying Safe Around Unfamiliar Dogs
While supervision, training and management are key for family dogs, caution is essential around unfamiliar dogs encountered in neighborhoods, parks, or other public areas. To avoid provoking bites from unknown dogs:
Request Owner Permission: Secure the owner’s acknowledgement and consent before approaching or petting, even if their dog seems friendly. Respect the answer if the owner recommends not interacting due to protective, anxious or painful tendencies.
Avoid Running or Screaming: Children’s high-pitched voices and quick movements can trigger a dog’s prey drive and prompt chasing, even in playful dogs. Remain still and calm if approached by an off-leash dog.
Don’t Disturb Resting Dogs: Let sleeping dogs lie. Surprising a resting dog by touching or petting them can elicit defensive bites. The same applies for dogs focused intently on food or toys.
Notice Warning Signs: Growling, teeth baring, tail stiffening, intense staring and other warnings convey rising aggression before resorting to biting. Disengage immediately if these signals appear after an interaction begins.
Assessing Common Injuries from Dog Bites
When dog bites do occur, they frequently cause injuries beyond just breaking the skin. Understanding common after-effects helps victims better monitor health concerns and communicate needs to medical professionals after an incident.
Some of the most prevalent issues stemming from dog bites include:
Lacerations – Dog bites often leave ragged incisions or puncture wounds from penetrating teeth. These increase risks for infection and visible scarring if gaping areas remain. Sutures usually prove necessary to properly realign tissue.
Nerve Damage – Bites on the face or hands/fingers area that pierce deep can sever sensory nerves and motor nerves controlling fine movement. This nerve trauma creates ongoing challenges including numbness or chronic pain. Physical therapy helps for hand functionality loss.
Broken Bones – Dog bites connected to violent shaking or knocking victims down have the potential to fracture bones in areas like the wrists, arms and even spine vertebrae. Casting, splinting or surgery intervention aids bone healing depending on the severity.
Crushing Injuries – Large or powerful dogs can exert hundreds of pounds of pressure with their jaws. Bone fractures and extensive muscle or tissue crushing under piercing teeth may require reconstructive surgery and grafting.
Emotional Distress – Dog bites often emotionally traumatize victims beyond expected levels especially due to the social relationship people presume with dogs. Counseling helps counter symptoms like fear, anxiety, nightmares that may emerge afterward.
Properly tending bite wounds reduces risks for medical complications. However, infections occur in 15-20% of dog bite cases even with treatment. As dog mouths contain numerous strains of bacteria, antibiotics usually supplement wound care to prevent infected wounds worsening over time. Understanding risks beyond skin damage helps victims follow medical and legal routes toward comprehensive recovery.
Seeking Help After Dog Bites
Even with excellent prevention practices, dog bites still occur in the community every day. In Utah, state law holds dog owners legally liable for bites or injury caused by their dogs regardless of the dog’s history or temperament.
After medical treatment, victims of dog bites should consider seeking legal guidance from qualified Utah personal injury attorneys regarding their options for obtaining compensation from dog owners to cover medical bills, lost wages from missed work, permanent scarring and other damages. Photographing injuries, saving related medical documentation, identifying the dog owner’s home address and other key details can significantly help build a case.
While no dog owner sets out for their pet to hurt someone, any owner assumes liability when opting to care for an animal capable of biting. Understanding canine behavior patterns makes averting bites more feasible, but legal support empowers victims to recover damages when all precautions fail. With sound prevention knowledge and practical next steps after an incident, Utahns can more safely and confidently live alongside the dogs they love.
With 32 offices in 19 states including Utah, Kansas and South Carolina, we can help with your dog bite personal injury case. Call us today for a free consultation on (888) 477-0597.