Talk:List of fatal dog attacks in the United States/Archive 11

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Archive 5

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Archive 9

Recent edits.

Thanks for a large amount of recent edits. It is an unpleasant and largely thankless job, so thank you. Keep up the good work: Just a few points:

Is this one or two attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States&diff=prev&oldid=625009351 ?
In 2006, can the dog rightly be said to have "attacked" Kaitlyn Hassard?
In 1942, the dog was chasing a car, tripped Dorothy Whipka, and she hit her head. Is this a dog attack? Chrisrus (talk) 18:54, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
In 1977, in the Jon Setzer, Jr. attack, the source seems to be saying that the Irish setter was not suspected in the attack.

Again, I know how painful researching these attacks can be and appreciate everything you have done with these recent edits. I don't know how you were able to do these Google searches but am willing to help but when I search Google News for these events I get no results, see here: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22Fern+Atchley%22+dog+attack&safe=off&tbm=nws Chrisrus (talk) 20:27, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be 1 attack, and I was following the convention set by the 1967 Goodman Brothers incident.
I wouldn't say this is definitely an attack, but I also wouldn't call many of the other events on the list a definite "attack." For example, Darla Anne Harper and Salvador Cotto. We've had a difficult time coming to a consensus on how to define an "attack" on this page in the past. So for now, I'll continue to interpret it broadly. If we want to define attack as always involving biting and always involving intent to harm, we should start a new section and we will need to revisit most of the entries on this page to make sure they meed that definition.
See above.
The source says they cut open the dog's stomach to see if it contained human remains. That suggests that they did suspect that the dog was invovled in the attack, but they determined that he did not actually ingest any of the victim. Onefireuser (talk) 20:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so I consolidated the Goodman Brothers attack now.
Dogs do attack their toys. Attacking things can be a fun game for dogs, as opposed to an aggressive attack. But a toddler is not a toy. A play attack is still an attack if the child is being used as a chew toy or "tug" toy. But the girl and dog were playing with the scarf and it somehow got around her neck and he ran away, ran AWAY from her, dragging her accidently and strangled her. It wasn't even a play attack, it wasn't an attack at all. If they'd been running and she tripped on it and died that isn't an attack. It's not even a play attack. We only collect attacks here.
This dog was not attacking her even in a playful way that got out of hand. It was chasing a car and ran through her legs and she tripped and hit her head and died from tripping and falling. If I trip on Casey in the middle of the night, because he sleeps on the top of the stairs sometimes, and I'm not careful, I might trip on him and tumble down the stairs and break my neck and die, is that a fatal dog attack. There's no reason to think that dog even noticed her. Now, if I'm two years old and a great dane thinks I'm his chew toy and bites me and shakes me like a terrier shakes a rat or rag, and I die of that, well, that's a fatal dog attack, because it was only a play attack, but an attack nevertheless because the dog bit me and shook me.
The way it reads, they felt they cleared the setter from any suspicion. The source and our wording in the description imply that at first they thought maybe the setter was involved but decided it wasn't. There's no sign anyone believed that the setter was involved after they checked the stomach. It seems everyone, even the author of our description of the attack on this list, was trying to say that the setter was involved. So if it's now agreed the setter wasn't involved, then it shouldn't be on the list at all. Chrisrus (talk) 07:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you; the Dorothy Whipka case does not sound like an "attack." It should be removed. This is supposed to be a list of "fatal dog attacks." This whole discussion makes me think that we need to come up with a clear definition of "attack" and put it out there at the front of the page. I will start a new section below so we can discuss this. Onefireuser (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Whether to include the Rita Pepe attack on this list.

First, let's collect available sources on this topic. Please contribute to this list, as it may not be complete. Then, separately, let's have the discussion in subsection:

Sources on the Rita Pepe dog attack

Discussion

The Rita Pepe Dog Attack should be included on the list because sources that she died of dog attack complications. Chrisrus (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - the first link does not mention her death and the second states she died a month and a half later in her own home from kidney failure. I don't think the sentence "that doctors told him the trauma and extended inactivity as a result of the attack accelerated her condition" makes the attack itself a fatality, especially if she had a preexisting condition. PearlSt82 (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The doctor said she died of trauma and extended inactivity as a result of the attack. It only says "probably" kidneys. The doctor said she died as a result of trauma and extended inactivity as a result of the attack. This means that the attack caused trauma and three weeks in the hospital, which caused her death. Please respond. This is death by complications resulting from the dog attack. Chrisrus (talk) 20:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

No, the doctor said the trauma and extended inactivity "accelerated her condition", referring to her kidneys. PearlSt82 (talk) 13:46, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Support and Comment - I am not all that familiar with this article page. I only just stumbled upon it by chance. In any event, why is the inclusion/exclusion of the Rita Pepe case controversial? You can just include it on the list and cite all of the relevant facts in the "Circumstances" column of her entry in the chart. It's all semantics as to whether her death "was" or "was not" caused by a dog. Certainly, there is at least some connection – regardless of how big or how small – between the dog attack and the death. So, just list the facts and readers can come to whatever conclusions they like. It's not as if including her death on a "list of fatal dog attacks in the USA" would be totally uncalled for, unreasonable, and unwarranted. Even if it's a "gray area" and a "close call", that's exactly what the "Circumstances" notations are for. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@USER:Joseph A. Spadaro Please do. Let me know if you need any help. Chrisrus (talk) 05:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@USER:Joseph A. Spadaro The reason she had not been included is because wikipedia is an encyclopedia and according to WP:RS "is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." Since, as the title says, this is a page about "fatal dog attacks," we should only include incidents for which we have WP:RS indicating that they were indeed fatal dog attacks. I've been trying to find a WP:RS that confirms that for the Rita Pepe case, but have not been able to. So far, all I have found is statements from her son saying that she died of kidney failure (extremely common in 90+ year olds) and that her condition was accelerated by the inactivity secondary to her attack. Again, according to WP:RS this "is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." Please help us find a WP:RS for this incident. Onefireuser (talk) 13:21, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

According to this one, the doctor said that, even though the immediate cause of death was "probably" kidneys, she died due to trauma from the dog attack and its treatment. I.e.: complications from dog attack. Chrisrus (talk) 14:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

So, is that source considered "good enough"? I would think so. But, as I mentioned, I am not a regular reader or editor on this particular page. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

You may be mixing up what is said by the doctor and what is said by the woman's son. No doctor appears to have been interviewed for this article. Also, nowhere does it say that the dog bite was a contributing cause of death. It says she probably died of kidney failure (something that has nothing to do with dog bites) and that the trauma accelerated her condition. Here is the actual quote: "Charlie Pepe said his mother... 'probably' died of kidney failure but added that doctors told him the trauma and extended inactivity as a result of the attack accelerated her condition." Onefireuser (talk) 22:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I just don't see what the "big deal" and the "controversy" is. The case is – at a minimum – tangentially related to a fatal dog attack. The "gray area" can be satisfactorily explained in the "Circumstances" notations. This has nothing to do with gossip and rumors. Wikipedia is not to be taken so literally. The title of this article means "fatal dog attacks" and other tangentially related events to that main topic. There is no rule – or reason – that Wikipedia needs to be taken 100% literally, especially when the result is to exclude relevant information. Just as an example, a Wikipedia list of the "verified 100 oldest people in the world" could (and probably does) have a section for "unverified claims" (which is clearly the exact opposite of the article's title, yet nonetheless related and relevant and, thus, information that merits inclusion). Same goes here with the Pepe dog attack case (I believe). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Should we start an "unverified claims" section? Onefireuser (talk) 01:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think there needs to be a new section called "unverified claims". I think the Pepe case should be listed just like any other case, and the "Circumstances" notations can be used to clarify the situation (as to whether or not it was "really" a fatal dog attack, or as to how the dog attack was or was not related to the death, etc.). Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:22, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Selection Criteria: definition of "attack"

According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style at WP:LSC, lists such as this one need clear selection criteria:

Selection criteria should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), membership criteria should be based on reliable sources."

We have already defined what counts as "fatal" when we wrote that "contributing factors" count: "Not all attacks listed here were determined by medical authorities to be the primary cause of death.
However, we still need to clearly define "attack" in the context of the page. The dictionary definition is "to act against someone/something aggressively in an attempt to injure or kill." Unfortunately, we cannot use that definition because several of our cases have been described as involving playful dogs that killed their young human playmates accidentally. At WP:LSC it states that in cases where criteria are subjective, membership "should be based on reliable sources." Although it seems that our criteria will likely need to be subjective, we unfortunately cannot base membership on reliable sources, because no reliable secondary sources exist to give a list of recent fatal attacks. How do people propose we deal with this? Onefireuser (talk) 14:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

All attacks, whether aggressive or playful, should be included. That definition can't work because it speaks of "intent". While obviously dogs can attack, it's far from clear that they have "intent". They are just animals and it's far from clear that they can envision a future or have purposes in the way that "intend" implies. They do have emotional states, obviously, and something that we might call "agressive" or "playful". What matters is not their mental state but the simple fact of the attack. Chrisrus (talk) 15:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Yet, the question remains, how do we define attack? Does it need to involve a bite? A scratch? What if the dog is reported by all sources to have been playfully nipping the child and bit too hard by accident because it did not have adequate training with bite control? What if the dog was being attacked by a human and bit in self-defense? What if someone is feeding a dog and gets a small puncture wound on the hand and subsequently dies of infection? These are not hypothetical examples; they have all occurred and have been documented in our research. Perhaps this is why the scholarly sources tend to refer not to attacks but to DBRFs. Although the vast majority of the time it is obvious which fatalities are attacks, there have been enough ambiguous cases that we can't simply continue to use the Potter Stewart approach to defining attack. We need to bring this article in line with WP:LSC and preempt future disagreements about which cases belong on the list. Onefireuser (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

We should hesitate to set any strict rules as to what constitutes an "attack". We just should look at the details of the specific case. We can't predict the future nor what we will find in the past. There may be fatal dog attacks that involve neither of those things you mention, a bite or a clawing. One hears of canid attacks that amount to no more than a full-speed tripping or body-checking. So I can't really answer about those things until we see the details, because such things as knocking into another while running also are sometimes obviously not "attacks. As with every other referent on Wikipedia, (except some proper nouns), there is a gray area surrounding the central referent which includes some cases that both are and, at the very same time, are not that thing, depending on how you look at it. Hopefully, we won't have too many such cases, but if and when we do, I suspect that the solution might involve asterisks and caveats to "see text" and so on. And, as usual, discussion and editorial judgement.

Next, with regard such playful "accidents", even if it were as clear as in your example that it was merely a matter of bite control failure during play, yes, it should be included, if the person died as a result of the bite. Dogs don't always have to be in attack mode, mentally, to attack. Sometimes they attack when their brain is in play mode. Cats, for example, seem to pretty much always attack their toys as if they were prey. A play attack in which the dog and person are playing and it just gets way too rough and the person ends up dead, yes, the way I personally see that, it should be included in this list. However, It should be done in such a way so that the reader comes away with a clear understanding of what time of attack it was; that the animal, by all accounts, was not in attack mode but play mode when it play-attacked a human being to death.

Normally, on Wikipedia, when a person attacks an animal, and the animal attacks back, we consider it an animal attack on a person. Like if a person were spear fishing and hit a hammerhead and it turned around with the spear in it and killed the guy, we normally but that on the list. This happens a lot at Coyote attacks on humans; a coyote will attack someone's dog, and the human, defending the dog, attacks the coyote, and then the coyote bites the person, that goes on the list. It's just a series of attacks and counter-attacks. So we'd have to explain why we shouldn't do the same here if it ever happens that a person attacks a dog and the dog kills him in self-defence.

If a person were feeding a dog and the dog bites him and the bite kills him, that's an attack. If you're playing with a hand-puppet and the dog thinks elmo is real and attacks it and bites your hand through the puppet and you die, that's a fatal dog attack, too. And maybe an important lesson for our readers, who knows, it could be a very good thing for an individual reader to learn that such a thing can happen. Maybe they'd be more careful about that and someone might not get hurt or worse.

If a dog attacks a person and leaves a very small wound and the person shrugs off the would and doesn't get proper treatment and dies of a disease contracted by the dog bite, like Ada Clare, then we include it on the list. And as I recall, there was not too long ago a coonhound that, just out of nowhere, who knows why, bit its master just one short bite and release. He wasn't badly hurt so he didn't go to the doctor until he noticed it was more than just a little infected, but by then it was already too late. He'd gotten blood poisoning or septicemia or some such and died. A story well worth remembering for our readers! Just goes to show you, even a small animal bite can kill you if you don't get treated promptly. Wasn't a professor in Oxford who died that way after being attacked by a cat? Go to the doctor and get it treated promptly and either determine the animal wasn't rabid or start precautionary treatments. Rabies is maybe the worst way you can die.

So how do you suggest we bring the article in line with WP:LSC to have selection criteria that are "unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources"? One way would be to change the title of the article to "Dog Bite Related Fatalities in the US." Onefireuser (talk) 13:45, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

That may have been the best editorial judgement for those editors in the context of that publication at that time, but from that fact it does not necessarily follow that we must do the same thing here given this quite different context. Wikipedia normally names such articles "() attack": Shark attack, Dingo attack, Tiger attack, and so on. Deviating from such precedent would change the usual nature and scope of such articles and could have widespread ramifications. It should therefore not be done without a good explanation of why an exception should be made in this case, or perhaps whether the rest of such articles shouldn't also follow suit, given the improved Wikipedia:PRECISION grounds being put forward as an override to WP:COMMONNAME that as apparently suggested by you above.

Taken as so argued, I'd reply with an appeal to reader welfare. On this page, we discuss article improvement, but improvement in the interest of who? The reader, of course. So, if it's true that people do die from not getting small bites treated or catching disease from dog bites, couldn't that conceivably be important information for the readers? I would appreciate being told that if it were true. This is why I have started a new sub-section, below, and the point I make there about Ada Clare. My point here is to ask how the reader will benefit from moving this to Dog bite related fatalities in the United States and the resulting effect on the nature of this article by narrowing the scope so as to restrict this article to only exsanguination and such, which might predictably skew the data towards those fatalities inflicted by animals much larger and more powerful than the one that killed Ida Claire. Let the editors of that article choose perhaps quite rightly to limit their scope as may be best in that context, and let us do the same for this one.

This is very much like the CDC's decision to exclude prisoners killed by police dogs and such from their data. There is no reason we should follow suit! A dog bite fatality in the USA is a dog bite fatality in the USA - period. So if we can cite a death by police dog attack, we should include it; the fact that the government chooses to ignore deaths by government dogs in government studies doesn't mean we should or have to as well. Chrisrus (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood me. By changing the title from Attacks to DBRFs, I would not expect to narrow the article but to broaden it, and simultaneously bring it in line with WP:LSC. Currently, if we are calling it "attacks", we should only be including attacks. But many people die of bites that are not attacks. We do not have good reliable sources in all cases to say which bites are really attacks and which are simply bites that for unfortunate reasons proved fatal. However, I am not saying that we need to change the title. All I am saying is that we need to bring the article in line with WP:LSC and one way to do that would be to change the title. I am sure there are other ways to do it as well. We need to define our selection criteria. They cannot be so subjective. Onefireuser (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Did Rabid Dogs Kill Many Americans??

If I may digress, speaking of Ada Clare, we only know about her rabid dog bite death because she was a so famous. Surely, she couldn't have been the only one. There must be some record somewhere of how many people have died from rabies as a result of dog bite in this country. I know it doesn't happen anymore, because pretty much all American dogs' have rabies vaccine tags, so they all jingle when they move. So there probably hasn't been a rabies death caused by a dog bite in the USA in a very long time. But there was a time when that wasn't so! Or so I thought, but once I tried to Google scholar up some sources about how many Americans died the same way Ada Clare did, but after a while I gave up because I couldn't find anything. I invite any reader to try your luck and research skills, because such events are definitely fatal dog attacks in the USA and should be included in this article. Chrisrus (talk) 04:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a topic I am quite familiar with through my work. As recently as the beginning of the 20th century, this country was seeing over 100 human rabies deaths per year.^[1] More than 90% of these were from dog bites. The number of deaths dropped rapidly during the 20th century and we haven't had a known human case from dog bite in at least a couple decades. However, as late as 1956, there were still tons of human deaths. For example, in that year, Texas alone had 4 human deaths from rabid dog bites.^[2] During 1980-1996, there were 2 people who died of rabies strains carried by US domestic dogs, but neither of them had a known bite from a rabid dog.^[3] During 1960-1979 there were 7 human fatalities from rabid dog exposures received in the US.^[4] These included some with known small bites and other with only saliva exposure. Some of the saliva exposure cases were clearly non-attacks: for example being licked by a friendly puppy. However, one patient had "a nonbite exposure to an aggressive stray dog." The incidence of rabies in domestic dogs in the US dropped dramatically during the 1950s, with over 8,000 cases in 1946 and only 412 in 1965.^[5] During 1946-1965 there were 236 confirmed human rabies deaths in the US, mostly occuring during the 1940s. Dogs in the United States were responsible for 119 of these deaths. Prior to the 1940s, there were dozens of human deaths due to rabid dogs per year. Some of these were reported in the news media, but there is no reason to think that collecting news reports would give an accurate picture of the true epidemiology of human deaths from rabid dogs. Some examples of the news reports are: 1932 1934 1906-1911 1923 1919 1891 1943

There are obviously dozens more reports like this, but I do not see the value in including them in this page. All the scholarly works (in other words, all the WP:RS) on DBRFs have excluded deaths due to infection and it would be wise for us to do the same. Deaths due to infection are very different from deaths due to exsanguination or direct nervous system trauma. Onefireuser (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this, it's very interesting and would make a fine contribution to the article. Please reconsider your position and go ahead and add this information about Fatal Dog Attacks in the USA of the Ada Claire type. Why should they be excluded? Yes, they are different from other fatal dog attacks in the USA, but they are still fatal dog attacks in the USA. Chrisrus (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

^ "Human Rabies". CDC.
^ "History of Rabies in Texas". Texas Dept of State Health Services. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
^ Noah, Donald. "Epidemiology of Human Rabies in the United States, 1980 to 1996". Ann Intern Med. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
^ Anderson, LJ. "Human rabies in the United States, 1960 to 1979: epidemiology, diagnosis, and prevention". Ann Intern Med. PMID 6712036. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
^ Held, JR. "Rabies in man and animals in the United States, 1946-65". Public Health Rep. Retrieved 8 October 2014.

Additional Studies

There are two additional studies that go unmentioned, that are worth inclusion. The first is from the Puppycide Database Project, here: https://puppycidedb.com/analysis.html#dog-bite-death-rates

The second is from the National Canine Research Council, here: http://www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/dogbites/reported-bites-decreasing/

The two studies use death certificates; national vital statistics report, WISQARS, and a few other primary sources. Jay Dubya (talk) 21:10, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Alemeaner Dial

Please add this attack: http://www.fayobserver.com/news/crime_courts/year-old-rowland-woman-attacked-by-pit-bulls-dies/article_affb497a-8732-5154-a4aa-1bfbefc7b693.html Chrisrus (talk) 03:18, 1 December 2014 (UTC):

Good find! --Onefireuser (talk) 17:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion Criteria

According to WP:LSC, we need to define precise criteria for inclusion in a list such as this. In our research for this list, we are collecting primary news reports of dog incidents and we need to decide how to classify them. Specifically, we need to decide what counts as an "attack" and what counts as "fatal." Most of the time, these terms are unambiguous. However, we have numerous ambiguous cases. For example, there are cases where a friendly dog accidentally knocks a person over and the person dies of head trauma. That is clearly "fatal" but should we include it as an "attack"? On the other hand, there are incidents where a dog bites a nonagenarian numerous times all over the body; the nonagenarian survives but then dies months later of age-related illnesses that predated the dog bites. That case is clearly an "attack" but was it "fatal"? --Onefireuser (talk) 18:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I think "attack" should be defined as person-aggressive behavior on the part of the dog, and "fatal" should be defined as the death being caused a direct result of the attack. In the examples you listed, I would not include either on the list. PearlSt82 (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

DBO stats in lede

The recent RSN discussion concluded that dogsbite.org statistics are reliable to quote due to them being reposted by various media organisations including the Associated Press and Huffington Post. However, does this belong in the lede? The lede is supposed to sum up the article and the other stats/studies are part of their own section with no mention of DBO. Would it be undue to include this in the lede? PearlSt82 (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that the RSN discussion did not determine that the dgsbite.org stats are reliable to quote. All it determined was that HuffPost is reliable to quote when it says that dgsbite.org said something. This does not mean that the underlying statement from dgsbite.org is itself reliable. Onefireuser (talk) 14:13, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I personally agree but was threatened with sanctions for removing it so I'll defer to other users decisions here. PearlSt82 (talk) 14:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Recent edit to the Carra Bashold attack`

Tonight, someone added the fact that the mother of Carra Bashold had been cleared of all charges, citing https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=beNGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7fMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1443,709515&dq=&hl=en

A routine edit check failed to verify this information.

The article doesn't say what happened to the charges against Miss Bashold.

Normally, we'd undo this edit.

However, do we have to mention the charges against her at all?

Normally, we would, but please read on:

This newspaper article says Miss Bashold was a desperately poor, starving, young, single, migrant from the midwest and rape victim, who knew no one in Spanish Harlam.

That day, she waited as long as she could for the government to deliver promised baby supplies, but the social worker never came.

She had to get a $20 out of her stuff that she'd left at the hospital where she'd had the baby, to buy food for the dog and baby and herself.

She left the sleeping baby in a blanket and on the floor with the starving dog to protect her because the government had not delivered the crib as they said they would and she had to leave to get them all some food.

So in this case the charges were probably dropped.

Also, we know that someone today out there somewhere seems to assert that the charges were dropped.

We could omit anything about charges or let the edit stand, and maybe move the dropped charges claim to an uncited part of the sentence or something.

Chrisrus (talk) 04:50, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Plea for WP:RS citation for www.dogsbite.org claims about the Fredrick Crutchfield attack

On http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2015.php#frederick-crutchfield, which we don't cite here, it reads:

"Five months after his mauling death, in response to an email inquiry, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office confirmed that the dogs involved in Crutchfield's death were three pit bulls, the fatal attack occurred on the dog owner's property, none of the dogs were chained, and that Crutchfield had known the dogs well."

We don't cite www.dogsbite.org, but we could improve this article with such information about the Crutchfield attack if appropriate reporters would also so contact the sheriff and publish what he says somewhere WP:RS because it looks like it isn't available anywhere else right now.

Who are the appropriate reporters and should we send them a link to this talk page subsection or somethng? Chrisrus (talk) 21:18, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Somehow I don't think us corresponding with reporters asking them to confirm/deny DBO data is the way to go here. PearlSt82 (talk) 14:41, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

The point is, if a reporter also so contacted the sheriff and published whatever they'd learned, it wouldn't be "DBO data". Chrisrus (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't reporters be doing that of their own volition though? Presenting issues to reporters from a WP perspective asking them to generate a source we can use in an article strikes me like it would fall foul of WP:COI. PearlSt82 (talk) 17:27, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Article improvement is not the type of "interest" referred to by Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is about not having certain interests other than mere article improvement. Chrisrus (talk) 11:46, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

This isn't mere "article improvement", its presenting a certain set of information to a reporter (which may or may not be biased), and then asking them to generate a source which can then be used for the purpose of RS. If you're seriously considering doing this, you might want to clear it at WP:COIN first. I personally don't think its a good idea. PearlSt82 (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

What if we don't present any information, we just ask them to ask the sheriff and publish whatever he says? Chrisrus (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Please add De'trick O. Johnson, 36.

http://www.arkansasmatters.com/story/d/story/kark/39918/AFh0K7_6CkecosYuejgAIA

Ok but why do I have to do everything by myself? Please try and don't be afraid to ask I promise to try to help you. Chrisrus (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, how's that? As I read this, it's not clear that the eighth dog was involved, is that how you understand these articles? Chrisrus (talk) 03:16, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Plagiarism and possible violation of NPOV

An editor at 71.54.205.176 has been posting material that is directly copied and pasted from dogsbites.org. I have removed this material, but the un-registered editor has replaced it. When I have attempted to fix those edits, he/she has also reverted my changes. Since the editor is not registered I assume that he/she is just unaware of our policies. It is very important that wikipedia not copy and paste unreferenced material from other pages and that we also maintain NPOV. I hope that other editors will also step in to maintain the integrity of this page. Onefireuser (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

You are right. I will try to find time to Google WP:RS sources and to summarize and cite if no one else will. But I really hope someone else does because I don't like doing this especially when it's a young child and I also am busy. Chrisrus (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you. I also am working on making this updates, and I hope that 71.54.205.176 will stop reverting them. Are you saying that you think 71.54.205.176 is a young child? Do you think the page needs to be protected from unregistered users? Onefireuser (talk) 18:24, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I think the child refers to the victim(s). Don't see the need for protection yet, but might be worth revisiting in a week if it persists. PearlSt82 (talk) 20:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

What we need is someone to help this person do what (s)he is trying to do properly. I will do some but am busy and get sick to my stomache learning about little children ripped apart by animals so we need a person like this to help but (s)he needs help, that is all. We should appreciate what (s)he is trying to do. Chrisrus (talk) 21:24, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we need more editors to help keep the page up to WP standards. However, as far as I can tell, the only thing this anonymous editor is doing is copying and pasting from dogsbite.org. Turning this page into a mirror for dogsbite.org does not advance the Wikipedia project. All it does is raise issues of WP:NPOV and WP:CV. Onefireuser (talk) 19:13, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Mesocephalic bulldog?

Journalist Willard Shepard reported from outside Dade County Animal Services:

http://media.local10.com/photo/2015/12/22/Dog%20that%20mauled%20Nyjah%20Espinosa_1450832830244_1335745_ver1.0_1280_720.jpg "NBC 6 exclusively obtained a photo of the dog authorities indicated was involved in the (Nyjah Espinosa) attack.] ...Animal Services described the dog as a male American Bulldog mix that is 5 years old and weighs 95 pounds."

Animal Control must have seen some documentation that the dog had such parentage, because there's no sign of bulldog in that skull!

We can see a classic pitbull-type skull, not a bulldog skull. Chrisrus (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Visual ID is extremely unreliable and short of DNA identification, there is no way to be completely certain as to genetic makeup. PearlSt82 (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

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Buddy, dog of the Suzanne Story attack

We can be more specific in describing Buddy, the dog that killed Suzanne Story last February.

Instead of simply a "pitbull", as the present source says, we see that its head is too round and muzzle too short to have much terrier in the picture in the source article we are using.

So I Googled "Cheryl Davino of Norfolk", who gave the victim the dog, and found this article: http://pilotonline.com/news/local/n-c-woman-killed-by-dog-she-had-adopted-from/article_bbec153e-4449-5a8c-b690-fb4f5708abff.html

It calls Buddy a "boxer/pit bull mix", a much more reasonable claim given the pictures, in an article interviewing the original owner. Chrisrus (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

---

I edited it to include that it was a mix, as this was consistent with all the sources. Also edited the attack synopsis to refer to "the dog" instead of "the pit". 68.42.243.74 (talk) 00:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Why don't you log in under an anonymous user name? It's better than the default IP address, which tells anyone where you live. I want you to stick around and contribute because you contribute well. Chrisrus (talk) 20:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

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No Canadian attacks, please

Please just link to another article, Fatal dog attacks in Canada. This article is long enough without adding Canada. Chrisrus (talk) 20:15, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Uniform tables

Is there a reason the tables don't have a uniform layout for every year? 68.156.95.34 (talk) 05:40, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

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Standardization of breed names

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

Over the next few weeks, I'm planning to spend some time standardizing (to the extent possible) the dog breed names on the main page. Currently, the main page contains a variety of different formats (capitalizations, hyphenations, and sometimes spellings) for breed names. For example, the Labrador Retriever is capitalized in a variety of ways on the main page including: Labrador Retriever, Labrador retriever, and labrador retriever. While there are a number of different suggested ways to capitalize and hyphenate breed names, I think it would make sense to follow the format that the American Kennel Club and United Kennel Club use which is to capitalize all names in a breed name, for example: Labrador Retriever. In the case of mixed breeds, the format is also to capitalize all breed names but not the word "mix", for example: Labrador Retriever-Husky mix. In the case of pit bulls, since "pit bull" is not a proper breed but a dog type (a category of dog consisting of at least 4 breeds as listed on the pit bull Wikipedia page), the proper way to capitalize pit bull is with both names lowercase: pit bull (unless it is the first word in a sentence, then it would be: Pit bull and "bull" should not be capitalized). If one of the proper pit bull breeds is identified, then all of the names in the breed name would be capitalized (like any other proper breed), for example: American Staffordshire Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, and Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Also, the format of identifying the number of dogs involved in an attack varies throughout the main page as well. For example, if two German Shepherds were involved in an attack, it can be listed as: 2 German Shepherds, German Shepherds (2), or German Shepherd (2). I suggest the following format: German Shepherd (2) as this allows the breed name to be consistent throughout the main page by keeping it singular.

Examples of breed name format, as suggested:

Labrador Retriever
Labrador Retriever mix
Labrador Retriever-Husky mix
German Shepherd
German Shepherd mix
German Shepherd-Husky mix
Doberman Pinscher
American Staffordshire Terrier
pit bull
pit bull mix
mixed breed dog
pack of dogs

Examples if two dogs of the same or mixed breed are involved in an attack, as suggested:

German Shepherd (2)
Doberman Pinscher (2)
mixed breed dogs (2)
pack of dogs (2)
pit bull (2)
Doberman Pinscher (2), German Shepherd (2), pit bull mix (2)

Let me know if anyone has any comments or feedback. I'm hoping this standardization effort will improve the overall aesthetic of the main page. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacobm co (talk • contribs) 00:47, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Have they gone way up?

Have fatal dog attacks gone way up, or is it just more documented now? Alex of Canada (talk) 03:17, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

DBRF 1891

"Katie Sloan (1866-1891), assistant post mistress of Punta Gorda from 1888-1891. She was with child when dogs attacked her in the streets of Punta Gorda which led to her death shortly after. Her gravesite is the only one in the cemetery with two burials." Indian Spring Cemetery, FL

I'm looking for more information on this DBRF. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SWFL Historical Researcher (talk • contribs) 22:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Try contacting the Charlotte Country Historical Center Society and see if they can tell you which newspapers were active in the area during that time, and which ones still survive on microfilm or in original form, and preferably if any were digitized. If you're limited to physical media they should be able to tell you which libraries hold what, or at least point you in the right direction. PearlSt82 (talk) 00:41, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism, Breed dispute for "mixes" 02/06/2019

On the morning of 2/6/2019 IP user 82.73.162.115 (now known as user Nymeriah) started making changes to obscure the breed of dogs, vandalizing the page. Dozens of entries were changed (guessing around 50). Anything that said "pit bull mix" was changed to "mixed-breed dog", and any breed like "Sharpei-pit bull mix" was changed to "Sharpei mix". This spanned from 1999 to 2018. I checked each edit and used UNDO to set them back, made a comment on the Talk page of 82.73.162.115 to read the policies about breed on page Talk:Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States. The editor (now called Nymeriah) responded on my Talk page, basically saying they will continue to make such changes. And they did, as Nymeriah. Rather than start an editing war, I'm not sure how to go about solving this problem (as I am a newish wiki editor). If they continue re-editing, or UNDOing my UNDOs (as they have already started), they will obscure dozens of entries and cause huge amounts of work to put things right. I did check several of those list entries IP 82.73.162.115 had done and found some dogs to be called "pit bulls" and not even "pit bull mix". This person obviously did not research any of the citations but simply has decided that anything mixed couldn't possibly be identified more precise than "mix". That's their argument, but it's not borne out in fact as the edits of non-pit mixes were left alone. (Example: "Labrador Retriever-pit bull mix" became "Labrador Retriever mix", whereas "Mastiff-Presa Canario mix" was left alone, as was "Leopard Cur mix".) In other words, this editor's intention was to remove as much "pit bull" as they could possibly get away with. These edits were their personal opinion and is not borne out in fact/citations. It's also against the policies of this wiki page, which basically says "whatever the news article says is what we put here." Nomopbs (talk) 03:17, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Update: Nymeriah writes that they won't be continuing editing this page. Nomopbs (talk) 19:47, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Identification of breed(s) involved in incidents

The dog breed(s) or dog type(s) identified in the "Category of Dog" field should match the breed information provided in a news or law enforcement source. In the case that there is a variance (or disagreement) of the breed(s) involved in one or several news sources, then both breeds should be listed in the "Category of Dog" field. For example, if one news source describes the dog as a "mixed breed dog" and another news source describes the dog as a "Mastiff", then the "Category of Dog" field should include both descriptions as: "Mastiff or mixed breed dog". In this case, both news sources should be provided as references - one source to substantiate the breed as a "Mastiff" and the second source to substantiate the breed as a "mixed breed dog". Note: In the case that a dog's description includes multiple (three more) breeds, then by definition it is a mixed breed dog and should be listed as a "mixed breed dog" in the "Category" field; however, the various breeds (if known) can be described in the "Circumstances" field.

When citing a specific study using their statistics on breeds involved should be used. The CDC study specifically said 56% of fatalities were pit bull and 10% rottweiler. Their finding has been removed. Crypticruin (talk) 15:18, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

[1] "Human Rabies". CDC.

[2] "History of Rabies in Texas". Texas Dept of State Health Services. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

[3] Noah, Donald. "Epidemiology of Human Rabies in the United States, 1980 to 1996". Ann Intern Med. Retrieved 8 October 2014.

[4] Anderson, LJ. "Human rabies in the United States, 1960 to 1979: epidemiology, diagnosis, and prevention". Ann Intern Med. PMID 6712036. Retrieved 8 October 2014.

[5] Held, JR. "Rabies in man and animals in the United States, 1946-65". Public Health Rep. Retrieved 8 October 2014.

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