Miami Dade County Dog Bite Numbers

I touched on this a bit in yesterday's roundup but another article came out that means I get to bring it up again.  In an article that Caveat brought to my attention last week, it was noted that the state of Florida is considering repealing its law forbidding cities from enacting BSL.  In the article it notes that Miami Dade County, which enacted its breed ban 20 years ago, has failed to keep any statistics to give any indication about whether the ban has worked, or not worked.

Later, the Miami Herald published the top 10 biting breeds for both Dade County (basically Miami and has a 'pit bull' ban) and Broward County (basically Ft. Lauderdale, and has no ban) based 0n 2007 statistics. 

Here are the numbers:

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL CONTROL

Total dog bites: 992

1. Terrier: 108

2. Labrador mix: 95

3. Shepherd mix: 90

4. Mixed breed: 81

5. German shepherd: 53

6. Chow mix: 50

7. Boxer: 39

8. Rottweiler: 33

9. Pit bull: 32

10. American bulldog: 30

BROWARD COUNTY ANIMAL CONTROL

Total dog bites: 616

1 Pit bull: 182

2. Labrador retriever: 50

3. German shepherd: 40

4. Rottweiler : 36

5. Shepherd: 29

6. Chow chow: 23

7. Bulldog: 17

8. Boxer: 14

9. Unknown (mixed): 14

10. Jack Russell Terrier: 13

I normally wouldn't have given a lot of thought to this except some 'pit bull' hate groups, which are apparently really horrible at math, have decided to try to use this information to 'prove' that the 'pit bull' ban in Miami Dade County is a great success - -because 'pit bull' bites are lower in Miami Dade County than they are in Broward County.  However, they've apparently failed to note that Miami Dade county has 61% more dog bites than Broward County.  Even when you take the population differences (Dade County has 35% more people) into account, Dade County still has a higher bite rate per capita than Broward County.

This doesn't even begin to note the flaws in their logic.  It should also be noted that there appears to be a significant difference in how breeds are reported when Dade County has 5 of its top 6 biting "breeds" being mixed breeds of some type, vs Broward County which has grouped all but 14 of their bites into nice, tidy breed categories which means a lot of the breed categories have become catch-all categories for mixes (which is fairly common for 'pit bulls' to get used as a catch all for any mixed breed Bulldog, boxer, bully etc). 

I don't put a whole lot of stock in comparing numbers between cities -- just because differences in demographics, lifestyles, ways bites are reported, etc can vary quite substantially.  Howevever I thought I'd bring this up to show how ridiculous some of the anti-pit bull groups have become in trying to read numbers without having any earthly clue as to what they're looking at.

Comments

[Caveat]

Interesting. Keeping in mind that 'pit bull' comprises multiple breeds and mongrels, we see that in Broward, they are still only responsible for about 30% of bites overall.

What about the other 70%?

As for Miami-Dade, they appear to have a problem with 'terriers', Labs and GSDs.

Since these stats are only for one year, they are pretty meaningless and of course, without any indication of
- severity or outcomes
- number of repeaters
- victim info
- maintenance info

and all the rest, stark numbers such as these are overall useless.

[KC KS Kills Dogs]

Interestingly enough the summer of 2006, Miami - Dade County called Kansas City KS to find out how they pulled off the "pit bull amnesty program". This sick city was actually interested in pursuing that angle.

For those not in the know; Kansas City KS's, Mayor Reardon ordered a 2 wk period where all pit bull owners could bring their dog or dogs to the city pound and have them killed in exchange for amnesty on criminal charges. When not enough stupid people brought their dogs to the pound AC seized any dog they thought they could get away with, even illegally seizing many innocent dogs out of backyards.

Around 233 supposed pit bulls were killed, not counting all the other strays of various breeds that were put down to make room for the pit type dogs all at taxpayer expense.

[Lindsay]

Terrier bite and pit bull bite...two different things.

[Brent]

Maybe Lindsay, maybe not. Given that so many of the dog bites are to young children, bites can be pretty devastating regardless of breed type under the wrong situation as can see by the fatal attack by a Jack Russell Terrier in Louisville back in January.

http://btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2008/01/fatal-dog-attac.html

Meanwhile, it is also really important to know how how the categories are classified -- it should be noted that all "pit bull" breeds are actually Terriers -- Bull Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, Staffordshire Terriers and Stafforshire Bull Terriers. Given that Dade County has a propensity to declare mixes given that so many of their top "breeds" are mixes, it's really hard to judge what the "terriers" actually are.

And even that is only one line item in the information. Even that statement simply ignores the 100% higher number of bites in Dade County by Chow Chows, German Shepherds and Shepherd mixes, Labradors, Boxers and Am. Bulldogs --- all of which are larger dogs than the typical "pit bull".

As Caveat noted, the information is really barely relevant information without its some baseline numbers...but they were worthy of note only because some folks who were really bad at math certainly seem to think they meant something.

[Brent]

I'll also note, that even if you take all of the "terrier" bites out of the equation (so "terriers" in Dade County, and Jack Russells in Broward County), Miami Dade county STILL has 47% more dog bites and more dog bites per capita than Broward County. That's WITH removing the number one biting group of mixes...

[PAMM - People Against Mad Mothers]

Pit bull bite, German Shepard bite...two different things. Pit bull fatalities, slipper fatalities...two different things and the slippers are more dangerous. Dog attacks, bicycle wrecks...bicycles kill more people. Horses kill more people than dogs...so do cows - who's givin up meat? Who's givin' up their cars? Pit bull attacks, parents - two different things and parents are more dangerous....

[ellie]

i completely agree with the fact that not all pits are brutal killers, but people who mistreat their dogs are to blame for the ban! after having to get rid of my american pit-bull terrier, i want to own an american bulldog, but i cant find a straight answer as to whether they are considered legal or illegal in miami-dade county..if you know the answer please let me know.

[Caveat]

Not only are not all 'pit bulls' killers, hardly any of them are at all - like most other shapes. If humans had the safety record of dogs, we'd all be living in paradise.

The bans are not about dog behaviour or breeds, or mixed breeds, or statistics, or scientific evidence.

The are about the AR stealth campaign and duplicitous politicans who want to try out eroding civil rights using a red herring.

Democracy is so messy, you know.

[picturemypaws]

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