Mental trauma, including specific phobias and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), succeeds 1 in 7 dog related injuries, while over half of cases result in the need for time off work and/or loss of earnings, suggests a study of personal injury claims data for England and Wales, published online in the journal Injury Prevention.
As most of these claims involved unrestrained dogs in non-residential locations, mandating lead use on highways and in public spaces should now be explored to boost public safety, urge the researchers.
The latest estimates for 2024 indicate that there are 13.6 million dogs in the UK. Hospital admissions for dog related injuries have risen from 4.76/100,000 people in 1998 to 18.7 in 2023 in England. In Wales, they rose from 16.3/100,000 people in 2014 to 23.7 in 2022, note the researchers.
The information on these injuries isn't as comprehensive as it needs to be, suggest the researchers. Currently, hospital records don't differentiate between dog bites and dog strikes (any dog-related injury not caused by a bite); not everyone who needs hospital treatment will be admitted to hospital; and there's little or no information on the longer term effects.
While civil claims data are more informative, these claims are only pursued when there are sufficient assets to cover damages and legal costs, point out the researchers.
Most solicitors' firms, however, collect initial contextual and impact data before making a judgement as to whether the case can be taken on. If these initial data were routinely collated and analysed, this would remove the inherent socioeconomic bias of analysing court records, they explain.
To find out if this might be a viable option, and how informative these data would be, the researchers analysed anonymised civil claims enquiry data from 1 January 2017 to 31 March 2024, provided by a specialist law firm operating throughout England and Wales.
The enquiry data contained information about the injured person, including their age and sex; date, location/land use, and context of the incident; breed and level of restraint of the dog; and consequences including physical injuries, mental trauma, medical treatment, time off work and loss of earnings.
Data were categorised into incidents involving dog bites and those involving strikes or other types of behaviour.
Analysis of the data showed that 816 dog-related incidents, comprising 842 individual claims, were recorded between January 2017 and March 2024.
Most (94%) incidents occurred in England and primarily involved dog bites (just over 91%); 7% were dog strikes.
Half of dog bite victims were male (53%), while dog strike victims were mainly female (70%). Women were more than twice as likely to be involved in a non-bite incident as men. Most of the injured didn't know the dog involved (80%).
The three most common locations for dog bites were in front of a private residential property (just over 34%), on a highway or pavement (18%), and inside a private residential property (11%).
Almost half of non-bite incidents occurred in public spaces (49%), the most frequent of which were outdoor recreational areas, such as parks and nature reserves (34%), highways or pavements (23%), and 'forestry, open land and water' (11.5%).
Delivery workers made up over 1 in 4 (28%) of those bitten, most often during a delivery to a private residential property, when an unrestrained dog came out of the front door (12%). Other situations involved walking, exercising, playing in public without a dog (11.5%); and walking with one's own dog (11%).
The most common circumstances for non-bite incidents were either with a dog when out walking, exercising, or playing in public (34%) or without (27%); and when a dog escaped from a private property (10%).
In both types of incident, most of the dogs weren't restrained at the time: 79% of biting dogs; and 86% of non-bite incidents. Most dogs involved in a bite (69%) or non-bite (77.5%) incident were reported to be with their owner.
Almost all (98%) of bite, and 78% of non-bite, incidents ended up with a physical injury. Fractures comprised nearly 4% of injuries, while tissue loss or amputations made up 3%. Non-bite incidents were primarily described as fractures (73%), muscle/tendon/ligament damage (9%), and soft tissue damage (9%). The head was injured in 1 in 7 bite cases.
Most of those injured reported psychological consequences: (90%) of those who were bitten; and 76% of those who were the victims of other types of injuries.
In all, 15% (1 in 7) of all those injured were formally diagnosed with a mental illness as a result of the incident, while 6.5% were diagnosed with a specific phobia and 4% with PTSD. Other mental health consequences included anxiety, disturbed sleep, and avoidance.
Most of the physical injuries sustained resulted in a hospital visit. A quarter of those bitten, and nearly a third of those who weren't bitten, required surgery.
Of the claimants still working when injured, 59.5% of those bitten and 56% of those who weren't bitten took time off work, up to a maximum of 5 years. Over half of those bitten (54%) and 41.5% of those who weren't reported loss of earnings as a result of their injuries.
There is no centralised registry of these cases across all law firms. And the researchers acknowledge that their study was based on data from one law firm and therefore may not be fully representative.
But they suggest: "These data implicate unrestrained dogs in non-residential locations as a major inciting factor for dog-related injuries, and injury prevention strategies need to explore how lead use can be effectively legislated."
They add: "Most claimants reported that dogs were with their owners and off lead. Almost half of bite and more than 80% of non-bite incidents occurred in non-residential locations and the majority involved unrestrained dogs… These findings raise concerns over owner control."
Current national legislation on lead control doesn't affect public highways or urban green spaces, where most injuries occur, they argue.
The Highway Code advises that dogs should be 'kept on a short lead when walking on the pavement, road or path shared with cyclists or horse riders', but this is only guidance, not law. And while local authorities can introduce Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs), it's unclear how often these are applied or how much of a deterrent they are, they highlight.
"We recommend that national legislation is updated so that all dogs should be on a fixed- length short lead (less than 2 metres) on public highways and in urban green spaces (unless a local authority provides provisions for off-lead areas, or make areas exempt).
"This exemption provision is to ensure that the important balance between public safety and dog welfare can be achieved. This should be partnered with a nationally coordinated public communication campaign," they conclude.
