Education could nip dog bites

Tuesday, May 21, 2002 | 8:49 a.m.

Dog bite incidents are on the decline in Nevada, but children under age 9 are most vulnerable, a fact that greatly concerns a Nevada task force that announced the findings of its three-year study Monday.

Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-Las Vegas, a member of the Children's Dog Bite Prevention Charitable Fund and Task Force, said the study also found that $5.5 million was spent treating dog bites in Nevada from 1999 to 2001.

The results were released as the state and area municipalities Monday marked the start of National Dog Bite Prevention Week with proclamations supporting the task force's efforts to educate children.

"This shows we have a problem that no one knows about because until we did this study there were no statistics to support how serious the problem is," Chowning said. "Now we have the statistics to use to find solutions."

In Clark County 1,921 people were bitten by dogs last year -- a five-year low.

"Since 1998 in Clark County there has been a downward trend in dog bites, from 17.3 per 10,000 to 15 per 10,000," Ron Anderson, animal disease specialist for the Agriculture Department, said. "But we think we can do better."

But over the three years studied, preschool and through 9-year-old children accounted for 1,871 bites, the study says. Youngsters 10 through 19 experienced 1,269. No other age group had more than 1,000 dog bite victims.

The Clark County School District teaches children to avoid dog bites by not trying to play with dogs that are asleep, eating, nursing or playing with their toys and by never approaching a strange dog.

"Still, a lot of children are bitten by neighbors' dogs that they know or by dogs in their homes," said Virginia Smith, a registered nurse and administer of health services for the School District.

The program has been successful, she said, shown by the fact that the percentage of incidents involving children has gone down.

Chowning said perhaps the program needs to be expanded either in schools or at veterinarian offices or shelters such as the Lied Animal Foundation low cost spay-neuter clinic, where the task force met to announce its findings.

"We are trying to produce an eight-minute video to get the message out," Chowning said, noting the committee has raised $7,000 of the $40,000 it is seeking to produce the taped warning.

The problem of dog bites, while on the wane, is still expensive, the study found.

The study found that an average of six people a day are bitten by dogs in Nevada and that an average of seven of them each month require inpatient hospital care. Average inpatient hospital care for a dog bite victim is $6,316.

It has cost $1.63 million to treat dog bites in hospitals over the past three years, the study says. Outpatient care during that time has cost nearly $3.92 million, the study says.

Nearly three out of every 10 people bitten by dogs do not have insurance, requiring the state to pick up the bill, Anderson said.

Nationwide, more than 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs annually. It is estimated there are 400,000 domestic dogs living in Nevada homes.