KC DOG BLOG

Is No Kill leading to more dog bites in Austin? No, but DBO again pushes for failed policy

Earlier this month, Colleen Lynn, writer of dogsbite.org, approached the city council of Austin, TX. In her presentation, she noted that dog bites have increasing in Austin since 2007, and blamed the city's adoption of "No Kill" policy for the increase in bites.  According to Lynn, the combination of pit bulls "flooding" open admission shelters and No Kill leading to "reduced screening of potential adopters and behavior testing, is a considerable public safety risk".

Lynn then went on to kind of propose, but not really propose (it's kind of confusing what she's asking for here) either differential licensing, mandatory spay/neuter, or both.  You can read all the documentation here.

Last week, I got the opportunity to be on the Pit Bulletin Legal News radio program last week and Fred and his team assembled some data to take a deeper look at the situation in Austin.

To be fair, Lynn's data is actually correct -- in as far as it goes. Dog bites have been going up in Austin. It is her desire to only collect and reportthe data that she feels supports her point that causes her to have dramatically inaccurate conclusions in an attempt to provide causal correlation.

First, let me note that there is no evidence (and still no evidence) that No Kill in any way decreases public safety. No Kill is about saving lives. It's about keeping animals in homes that don't need to be removed from homes. It's about increasing adoptions so that animals that find their way to the shelter are given the opportunity to live. Aggressive/dangerous dogs are still humanely euthanized.  And adopters are still screened (although No Kill would does not set arbitrary rules that lead to homes being needless turned away). 

Meanwhile, the city of Austin put together a response to Lynn's assertions -- which involved a much broader range of data.

According to their data, here is the number of dog bites by year over the past decade:

2000        909

2001        947

2002        858

2003        764

2004        776

2005        778

2006        995

2007        1015

2008        1065

2009        1074

2010        1222

2011        1449

Based on the report: "Simply showing a broader timeframe shows that the upward trend in bite reports has remained consistent since 2003 -- 6 years before the Council's resolution."

Whoops.

The report goes on to show the increase in population for the city of Austin and Travis County -- which is now the fastest growing metro area in the country.  Given the large swing in population over the past decade (from about 800,000 to more than 1.05 million), it would seem fairly obvious why there is an increase in dog bites.  Thus, according to the report, "Therefore, the passing of the no-kill resolution has no substantive correlation to bite report increases, whereas population growth provides a strong correlative relation for a consistent increase in bite reports."

Wow, things are going downhill quickly for the dogbites.org folks.

So one other thing I want to highlight are the difference between minor, and severe dog bites.

Again, looking at the data from the city of Austin, here are the number of dog bites by type over the last decade:

Year            Minor            Moderate        Severe        Unknown

2000            610                    218                47                34

2001            689                    188                39                39

2002            607                    167                49                35

2003            599                    113                15                37

2004            583                    138                22                33

2005            603                    133                15                27

2006            687                    207                52                49

2007            708                    228                32                47

2008           682                    260                52                 71

2009            711                    260                44                59

2010            732                    350                45                95

2011            873                    402                62                112

A couple of important points here:

#1) Over the past 12 years, Austin, a city that now has more than 1 million people and an estimated 525,000 dogs, has averaged less than 40 severe bite incidents a year.  Most dog bite incidents are very minor (68% were minor and 23% moderate), again showing how absolutely safe dogs are relative to the populatin of people and canines.

2)  Of the total population of owned dogs, only .007% were involved in a severe bite.

3) Only 1 of the severe bites in 2010 and 2011 were attributed to dogs that had been adopted from the City Shelter.

In conclusion, the city report notes:

"When looking at a more thorough dataset than used by dogsbite.or, we can conclusively say that we do not believe there is any evidence that suggest the no kill plan has any direct affect on bite report volume."

I think this is outstanding information for everyone to read and be aware of. I've often heard the accusations that No Kill = a decrease in public safety, and this is essentially the first real analysis that I've seen address this issue (and shows that the assertion is false).  It also shows that DBO continues to push for inneffective legislation that is aimed at unnecessarily killing dogs that would have no positive impact on public safety.

 

Political Irrationality

I love, love, love this presentation by Michael Huemer at a recent TEDX Talk. For those of you not familiar with TEDX, it is essentially a gathering of 15 minute (ish) speeches of the best and brightest people in various fields that are great ways to learn how experts in other fields think.

This is one of my favorites I've watched from TED. In the talk, Huemer focuses on the irrationality of politics -- and it has a wide variety of practial applications for the purpose of this blog.

First off, Huemer talks about the "War on terror". He displays charts that show the number of US Citizens killed in terrorist attacks by year.  He then overlays a chart of the number of people killed by other people who are non-terrorists in those same years.

The difference is pretty astonishing. And while there is much talk politically about the "War on Terror" there is little discussion (especially nationally) about combating a much bigger societal issue -- US Citizens killing each other -- which make up over 99% of the total people killed by other people in this country.

I've talked about this before -- how media reporting can prey on our emotions and make us fearful of things that we are statistically safe from, while ignoring "every day" threats.

Huemer then goes on to note the actual cost (both financially and in terms of lives) our policy FIGHTING the war on terror  -- and notes that our policy for fighting the war on terror has cost 70x more lives (and more than double US lives) than the terrorism we are fighting.  He notes that this evidence makes it very much irrational policy.

Huemer also has some really great insights on why we, as a nation, are irrational -- primarily that political information is costly with negligable rewards for being knowledgable about particular policies. 

Part of the "cost" of being rational is that you no longer get to believe what you want to believe.  If you're truly wanting to be rational, you are taking in new information every day and may have to challenge your belief system.

Huemer warns though, that it is easy to convince people that other people are irrational -- and that people believe that  - -and quickly dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as "irrational". That's most certainly not the point of his speech. But he does give some advice to acknowledge when you have biases and are being irrational.  Here are a couple:

- If you have strong opinions about a subject before aquiring relevant evidence about it

- If your opinions do not change as you gather evidence

- If you think the people who disagree with you must be evil -- if you are under the impression that a large part of the population is evil, so if you're under that impression then you are most likely being irrational

And one of my favorite quotes:

"If you think the community of experts on this subject are wrong, particularly if you are unable to state their arguments, then you are almost certainly the one that is wrong"

Obviously this has a huge play in peope who support Breed Bans. In spite of the reality that virtually every bit of professional, expert opinion on the topic of breed specific legislation is OPPOSED to breed specific laws because it based on bad science and is ineffective there are still a select few who strongly support such laws. And in the process, are very keen on saying that all of these groups oppose breed specific laws because they are dog fighters, or breeders, or somehow profiting off of the dogs.

But when you're the only one with your point of view, inspite of all of the experts being opposed to breed-specific laws, you're almost certainly the irrational one.

Enjoy the video.

H/T: Marginal Revolution

New Dog Bite Study from HCUP (and some thoughts on the media coverage of it)

The Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project just released a new statistical brief on Emergency Department visits relating to dog bites (based on #s from 2008. The study doesn't go into a lot of detail on methodology, but it does seem to be a more comprehensive study than many that are out there.

According to their numbers, there were 316,200 emergency department visits in 2008 from dog bites.  Of those, 9,500 involved overnight stays.

*Now, note that there are 77.5 million owned dogs in the US -- that means that .4% of dogs will be involved in an incident that requires an ER visit and .01% will be involved in an incident that involves an overnight stay.  So with that many owned dogs, only 1 out of 10,000 will be involved in an incident that would require a hospital stay each year.  So dogs are incredibly safe.

Also, according to the study there were more than 30 million emergency department visits a year, and nearly 3 million hospitalizations -- so about 1% of all ED visits and .3% of hospitalizations are from dog bites.

Of the injuries involved in hospitalizations, 43% included skin and tissue infections, 22% open wounds to extremeties, 10.5% open wounds to the head, neck and trunk, 5.3% fractured upper limb, 2.1% tissue disease, 1.1% infective arthritis and osteomyelitis, 1.1% Septicemia, 1.1% crushing injury or other internal injury, 1.1% fractured lower limb.

The total number of of hospitalizations of 9,500 is the highest number since numbers were recorded in 1993.  And the number have been steadily increasing over that time -- however, much of that is due to an increase in population -- as the number of hospitalizations per 100,000 people has been pretty consistently between 2.7 and 3.0 over the past 13 years (with a peak of 3.4 in 1995).  This also doesn't take into account the significant increase in pet ownership over the past 2 decades.

Children 5-9 were most likely to visit an emergency department, followed by children under 5 and children 10-14.

Hospitalizations were most common among older adults 65-84, 85+, followed by children under 5 and children 5-9. This makes sense as the older groups and the younger groups would be more vulnerable.

Not a lot in this study is truly earthshattering. I think most who follow this blog or the work of the NCRC will find these numbers consistent with what they already know.

I think of intrest is how the media has decided to cover this news -- which only wants to focus on the increase in total dog bite cases (without context from the  increase in dogs or people):

Los Angeles Times - Man's Best Friend?  Severe dog bite injuries have increased.

Health Leaders Media - Hospital Admissions, ED Visits for Dog Bites Surge

USA Today - Dog Bites man: Hospitalizations rise 86%

And all of the other reports to date have had similar headlines. So while they could have focused on the bites per capita remaining pretty consistent, or that dogs remain infinitely safer than almost anything else humans come in contact with (including other humans). But the dramatic fear mongering is the lead so far in all cases.

Which then leads me to our 'friend' Merritt Clifton's numbers. Clifton has what he believes to be a detailed dog bite 'study' by breed. Clifton's study covers dog attacks over the past 27 years - and includes 2,695 dog bites - so roughly 100 attacks per year. One hundred attacks per year represents 1% of the total hospitalizations from dog bites each year and .03% of all emergency department visits each year.

Because Clifton relies only on media reports for his 'study', it is not only not complete, it's not a representative sample -- because it is subject to media bias -- which has shown that it would rather focus on the dramatic and fear mongering.  And Clifton buys into it hook, line and sinker.

Public officials need to focus on actual data when making policy decisions.  By doing so, they can make an actual impact on the number of hopsitalizations from dog bites vs paying lip service to it. And the data continues to show that dogs do not represent a major risk in most communities -- and that the majority of the risk involves young children.  That risk can be minimized through educating parents on how to introduce dogs to young children and to never leave their children alone with dogs unsupervised. But making decisions based on actual data, and not dramatized fear-mongering is the only way to make positive steps.

Inaccurate media reporting, follow-up fails, and why most most dog-bite studies fail

Over the weekend, the NCRC released a follow-up report on the February incident involving Carolyn Baker.

If you remember, the 63 year old Baker was found outside her family's home and the media instantly reported the woman's death was caused by the family's Rottweiler -- that was found in the yard with her.  The woman was said to have "bite marks and severe right arm and shoulder injuries."

The next day, several media outlets followed up to report that the family was convinced that Ms Baker was not killed by the dog -- but that the woman was dead and the dog tried to drag her to the back door.

Then, silence. For three months, nothing.

However, according to the coroner's report obtained by the NCRC notes that Ms Baker had previously suffered both a stroke and a heart attack. While usually another family member let the dog in the house for the night, on this night, Ms. Baker went out to let the dog in. It was a cold night and she wore only a this, polyester nightgown. 

The Cuyahoga County  coroner said that Ms. Baker's death was due to cardiovascular disease. Contributing factors were hypothermia and blunt force trauna to the head (froma fall, not from a dog bite). While there were some claw marks on the woman's body, there were no bite marks found. This would be consistent with a dog trying to wake the woman up vs actually attacking her.

While the  autopsy report has been completed since March, the media has never reported that the dog was innocent and that the woman's death was an accidental tragedy. My heart still goes out to Ms. Baker's family.

You can read the full report here -- along with a history of the news headlines. 

*****

Unfortunately this story doesn't reprent a strange anomoly when it comes to media reporting of dog bites. It's not terribly uncommon to find reports of dog bites/attacks with significantly wrong information (remember, all early reports had the woman having bite marks on her, which was not true).  And often, by the time more accurate information (breed ID, cause of death, severity of injuries) is known, the media has already moved on to other stories and if the truth ever gets out there, it is usually only by a sole medium, instead of the multiple media outlets that cover the initial "breaking" news.

Unfortunately, there are some out there who rely very heavily (or often solely) on media reports to base their opinion on dogs and dog aggression. Obviously, with suspect (or often completely wrong) reporting, their opinions are then based on suspect (at best) information.

This again highlights why it is essential that when we make policies about aggressive dogs that we listen to the experts on the topic and take their advice -- and the experts nearly unanimously agree that targeting dogs based on their behavior, not breed, is the most successful way to solve the problem of biting dogs in communities.

Creating Fear in the Media and Politics - on terrorists, pit bulls, & mis-information

   Earlier this week, Ottawa Citizen Journalist Daniel Gardner wrote a great article entitled "Dangerous Media Explosion" about the attempted terrorist bombing in Times Square, NY - -and noting that even though the bomb didn't go off, the media fear-mongering certainly exploded. Gardner writes:

"On talk radio, a blowhard breathlessly informed his audience that, although the bomb didn't actually -- you know -- explode, it could have, and if it had it could have killed "hundreds of people, maybe thousands," which would be difficult given that the deadliest such attack in history was a 12,000-lb. truck bomb that killed 241 U.S. Marines inside a crowded barracks in Beirut in 1983. But if the vehicle in Times Square had been packed with a completely different bomb, and if thousands of New Yorkers had strapped on bandoliers of hand grenades while balancing jars of nitroglycerine on their heads, and if those New Yorkers had huddled around the vehicle and waited until it exploded, it is indeed possible that it could have killed "hundreds of people, maybe thousands."

Gardner's article even appeared before this week's edition of Newsweek came out (pictured above, left) with the "Terror in Times Square" headline and the 53 number similar to TV Show "24"''s time-ticker number.

Gardner then goes on and mentions his book, the Science of Fear, which is a GREAT book about the media, businesses and politicians fear-mongering their way into gaining readers, viewers, sales and votes. If we have something to fear, we are more likely to pay/vote for someone to "fix" this problem for us. With nothing to fear, there is nothing to fix, and thus, we don't buy, or vote for change, or whatever it is they want us to do.

I wrote a long series on Gardner's book last fall -- you  can see all of blog postings on this book, along with related posts, here.

In the Ottawa Citizen article, Gardner talks about fear about other statistically unfounded fears (in Gardner's book, he notes that the true fear of Terrorism is statistically overblown, because we could have a 9-11 type attack every week in the US and still have fewer people die from terrorist activities than die in automobiles each year -- and yet, we have no fear of automobiles) and in particular the subject of safety in schools. Parents are notoriously concerned about safety in our schools following highly publicized attacks like Columbine and at Virginia Tech University, and yet, while tragic, students are infinitely safer in our schools than they are in our homes, or in transport to school. Gardner writes:

Excessive fear can inflict a terrible cost. It can diminish the quality of life, obviously, but it can also result in squandered resources, since schools that spend money on security consultants, metal detectors, and lockdown drills have less money for textbooks, musical instruments, and healthy food in the cafeteria.

He's right of course, there are many things we spend dollars on that curb our fears -- and yet other things we SHOULD allocate those dollars toward that would alleviate real statistical concerns in our society -- like poor educations or health conditions from poor food quality in our school cafeterias. But we don't, because we don't always act rationally and let fears drive our decision-making process.

*******

The day after Gardner's article ran, the Toronto Star ran a typical example of a fear mongering piece (I've posted a picture of the page to the left -- yet can catch it online for yourself here and get a 14-day subscription for free).

The column ran in conjunction with an article about Cheri DiNovo tabling a bill in Ontario's Parliament that would recind the provincial breed ban on 'pit bulls' -- which I wrote about yesterday. 

In The Star's column, it takes a quote from Merrit Clifton stating that without the provincial breed ban -- "all hell would break loose."

However, there is no evidence that would support Clifton's claim.If you look at the number of dog bites by year in Ontario, there has been virtually no change in dog bites since the ban was put into place at the end of 2005 -- in fact, bites have remained very constant (except for 2003, before the ban took effect, numbers were dramatically lower).  Maybe even more telling is that in the past 45 years, the entire nation of Canada has only seen one fatal attack by a pit bull type dog. 

So there appears to be no evidence that all hell had broken loose in the years before the ban -- and no evidence that if the ban were recinded there would be any problems either. So it appears to be yet another attempt by the media (and Clifton) to stir up a fear of all hell breaking loose without any evidence that it would. Meanwhile, as with Gardner's school example, the resources being used to enforce this unenforceable breed ban -- a ban that is based on fear-mongering and not solid fact - would be better used in multiple other ways to deal with REAL problems and concerns....not just made up ones.

But the media -- and politicians like those who were responsible for enacting the ban in the first place - are great about creating fear -- it garners good eyeballs, and votes.  If Ontario wants to really improve public safety (from dog bites and from all other) it will ignore those who rely purely on fear-mongering to try to create policy, and rely solely on those who are using fact-based measures to determine what would be effective policy--and all of those professional organizatoins are 100% against the province's breed ban.

******

I would be remiss if I finished this post without a couple of comments on Merrit Clifton.

Clifton has made a bit of a name for himself for his feaux study on dog bites. I won't go a lot into a lot of detail on this here - -as I've covered his misleading attempts manipulate data to justify breed specific legislation to prevent shelter killing here, and Lassie Get Help has a really detailed break down of his "analysis" here and here and here.

It should go without saying that you cannot have an accurate study that is based 100% on media reports (where even the severity of an injury comes solely from a media report) that represents a mere fraction of a percent of the total dog bites that require hospitalization in this country and expect the numbers to tell you much of anything. Never mind that someone who doesn't know the difference between a Bull Mastiff and a Presa Canario, or the sameness of a Blue Heeler and an Australian Cattle Dog, should not be put in charge of tracking anything by breed.

But Clifton thinks it's statistical research -- which is problematic.

But Clifton's most recent "report" points to even a bigger comedy of mis-information that I just feel obligated to touch on - -and shows exactly what happens when someone tries so hard to make a point that they start literally creating data to support it.

In Clifton's 2006 study (that covers media-reported bites from 1982 - November 13, 2006), Clifton's numbers suggest that there were 2,209 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,323 "maimings".

In Clifton's 2009 Study (which covers bites from 1982-through the end of 2009), Clifton reports 2,694 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 1,493 "Maimings".

So from 2006 to 2009, Clifton reports 485 "attacks doing bodily harm" and 170 "maimings"

However, Clifton takes it one step further. He also pulls out the total number of attacks by "pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes".

In 2006, Clifton shows this number to be 1,638 "attacks" and 893 "maimings".  In 2009, he shows 2,147 "attacks" and 1108 "maimings".

So in the time frame, he shows 509 attacks doing bodily harm by his selected groups of breeds and 215 maimings. So in the past 3 years, Clifton's "report" shows that pit bulls, rottweilers and presa canarios were were responsible for MORE  attacks and maimings than he shows even happening -- which is obviously impossible.

For the life of me I cannot find any mathmatical error in the numbers -- and because Clifton doesn't provide any back up information it is impossible to tell where the error is. But needless to say, it pretty much distinguishes any idea that his report is valid if he is reporting three breeds of dogs as being responsible for more attacks than he reports actually happened during a 3 year timeframe.

And that folks, is what happens when you let the fear mongerers lead the parade.

We, as a society are better than this.  And shame on the Toronto Sun for running the fear-mongering article and for continuing to push fruitless, wasteful legislation.

H/T on the Toronto Sun Editorial to Brindle Stick.