Previous studies have suggested that children are more at risk of suffering from
serious dog bite injuries than adults. In order to generate an overview of
characteristics of dog bite victims in Europe, different organisations collecting data
on injuries at a national level were contacted in a number of European countries. The
incidence of child victims was found to be higher than that of adults.
A study was undertaken, at European level, to investigate whether the reason why
children are more at risk is due to their poor ability to interpret the behaviour of dogs
and therefore to appropriately interact with them. Children aged 4 - 10 years old
(n=430) and university students (mean age= 21.3 years, n=120) in Milan, Barcelona,
and Edinburgh, were shown videos of dogs performing simple behaviours
(friendliness, fear, aggression) and asked to interpret the state of dogs (happy, sad,
scared, angry). The participants were also asked to describe which features of the
dogs they were attending to in order to interpret the state of the dog. The ability to
correctly interpret the state of dogs was found to increase with age. Moreover, older
children and adults reported looking at the dog features necessary to make a correct
judgement on the dog state more than younger children. There were no differences in
the performances of the participants in the different countries.
Two short questionnaires were created, one to evaluate children’s attitudes to dogs
and another one for adults. These were distributed to the participants of the
experiment described above. Pet owners had more positive attitudes to dogs
independently of age and country. Surprisingly, victims of dog bites had a more
positive attitude to dogs. Overall, and independently of the country, the participants
had positive attitudes to dogs, suggesting that banning dogs may not be an
appropriate solution to the problem of dog bites.
A short educational intervention was created to teach young children how to interpret
the state of dogs. The aim was to train children before they are most at risk of
suffering dog bites in order to prevent accidents. The intervention was therefore
aimed at educating 4 year old children because they were found to have the lowest
ability to correctly interpret dog states and previous studies had suggested that
children are most at risk of suffering from dog bites between the ages of 7 and 9
years old. The intervention was successful in increasing the children’s ability to
interpret the state of dogs and to attend to the appropriate dog features in order to
evaluate the state of the dog.
These results suggest that prevention programmes aimed at preschool children may
be an effective way to reduce dog bite accidents. Moreover, the same programme
could be used in several European countries since children and adults in Italy,
Scotland and Spain appear to have very similar attitudes to dogs
