Letters
Emergency medicine History and humanities
Volume 196 - Issue 4

Dog bites in Australian children

Authors:  Katina D'Onise and Ronald L Somers

Med J Aust 2012; 196 (4): 244. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10054
Published online: 5 March 2012
To the Editor: Kimble and colleagues have implied that the main strategic intervention to reduce the risk of dog bites is the education of dogs, owners and children, which is the equivalent of claiming that the most important way to prevent road accidents is for people to drive..
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To the Editor: Kimble and colleagues have implied that the main strategic intervention to reduce the risk of dog bites is the education of dogs, owners and children,1 which is the equivalent of claiming that the most important way to prevent road accidents is for people to drive more carefully. There is no good evidence that education-only approaches reduce the risk of dog bites.2

In dog control, as in road-accident control, the most promising way forward is environmental modification rather than behavioural modification.3 Desexing dogs is an environmental measure to reduce dog attacks,4 which also has a range of health and welfare benefits for dogs and their owners. There is further evidence that dogs that kill people are more likely to not have been desexed.5 Measures that encourage desexing of dogs (and responsible breeding) along with supportive education is required in Australia to reduce the risk of dog attacks. Community education is to be encouraged, but not as a sole remedy for this very addressable hazard.

Authors

  • Katina D'Onise1
  • Ronald L Somers1
  • 1. South Australian Department for Health and Ageing, Adelaide, SA.

Correspondence: katina.d'onise@health.sa.gov.au

Competing interests

No relevant disclosures.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Helen Thomas, Epidemiologist, South Australian Department of Health and Ageing, for her helpful comments on the letter.

References

View this article on Wiley Online Library

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