Sinkspur, so you are saying Cairn Terriers never bite people? Are you really that naive? They are terriers. Terriers were bred to bite and kill animals. All Terriers. They tend to be hyper, and they tend to be far more reactive (apt to bite) than more mellow breeds. My Cairn breeder friend had more than one that killed stray cats dumb enough to wander onto their property.
Taken from http://www.thedogplace.com/library/articles156.htm
is the following:
"For an entire category of bites, there is no reporting at all. This is for so called provoked bites. Bites that occur at veterinarian offices, dog groomers, and boarding kennels in many counties are automatically declared to be provoked bites. Those that know dog bite statistics from the inside out are those that work with animals for a living. I recently polled a number of animal shelter workers and this is what they said about dog bites. Most of the bites have been by small unfriendly Terrier type dogs and Cocker Spaniels. Occasionally they have seen a larger dog on a bite case but the vast majority of the bites were from small to medium sized dogs."
I think the point is that most small dogs don't do enough damage to make the news or get reported... not that they never bite.
No. I never said that, but you are trying to change the subject.
Small dogs can and do bite, but very few actually kill children and adults.
For grins, I typed "Cairn Terrier attack" in google. Got stories on muzzles, and attacks on the Cairn, but nothing about a Cairn killing anybody.
I also typed in "Pit Bull attack" and got five stories on death and mauling on the first page.
It is disingenuous to imply that "bite" is the same thing as tearing out an animal or human's throat.
That was a good editorial. Should have been posted to that insurance thread the other day.
Even if we assume the CDC statistics - i.e, absolute #s - are pure, accurately account for truly vicious vs truly unreasonably provoked, and all bites are reported (not just big dogs) they are misleading as far as "viciousness probability".
There are 60,000 German Shepherds 1 year. 100 "attacks" were reported from different dogs.
There are 20,000 Cairn Terriers 1 year. 100 attacks were reported.
Who is more likely to be vicious based on these raw data? .2% of GS attacked; .5% of Cairns attacked. .2 is < .5. Who has the greater probability of being "vicious"?
(This is purely an example.)
You cannot tell how vicious a breed/type is by simplistic stats such as "how many out of all the bites in the country this year were GS bites". Wrong relation, wrong % analysis. But that's what CDC does all the time.