U.S. Postal Service releases dog attack national rankings | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Postal Service releases dog attack national rankings

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This part was disappointing: "Top 10 Dog Bite States" because it is probably driven by population and does not provide unique insight. It would be awesome to, minimally, scale this by state population -- or ideally, scale this table by unique mailing delivery addresses.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Also, some states (e.g. NY) may have a higher percentage of mail delivered to "mail hives" than other states (e.g. Ohio). I would think that delivering to a mailbox on the house-owner's property is a lot higher risk for dogbite than delivering to an apartment-renter's mail slot. Does that account for why Ohio is as high as NY? Maybe, but it's hard to say from this data.

I'll bet central mailrooms are a big driver for safety. In my NYC building, for example, the mailman does not even see any of the public space -- they enter the delivery room through the mailboxes' rear side and deliver en masse to all 110+ units' mailboxes. I imagine the higher the highrise the more efficient the delivery and the safer the delivery.

Now contrast that to crossing lawns individually house by house...

I was thinking the same thing. It should be something like dog bites per 1,000,000 residents or something like that. Then, the rankings would probably change.

Per resident or per number of dogs? City populations are going to have fewer dogs and the dogs in cities are going to be leashed or in doors and less likely to bite.

This doesn't really matter from the point view of the victims of the bite. It should be normalised by number of man-hours worked.

Scaled by population, at least for CA/TX:

39.51M / 782 = 72139

29M / 402 = 50524

Surprisingly higher rate, especially considering I'd -guess- more dogs in CA are kept indoors, although obviously the dog-ownership-rate is another important adjustment. This is all fairly meaningless data without loads more controls.

Erm aren't these numbers people per dog attack? So the higher number means fewer per capita attacks? Seems like a weird way to calculate a rate. Regardless, label your units people!

Isn't Texas often hot enough that it would be unfriendly to leave dog outside?

You swapped the results, and should be computing the reciprocal anyway.

782 bites / 39.51 M people = 19.8 bites per million people per year (CA)

402 bites / 29 M people = 13.9 bites per million people per year (TX)

Why would you guess more dogs are kept indoors in California? Much of Texas gets too hot for dogs to live outdoors during the summer.

But the fact that Houston is on top with nearly 20% more bites than LA yet LA having a much larger population leans toward it not being directly population related.

You need to normalize to the dog population at least - rather than the human population.

Probably need to normalize both to dog population and people population (perhaps normalize to dogs per capita?)

If I were a postal employee, I'd want it normalized to bites per hour worked

Rockford IL is punching way above its league!

*biting above its league.

I'll see myself out

Houston has less than half the population density as LA. Bigger properties / houses / yards almost certainly means more dogs per capita in Houston than LA.

Are they just trolling us by not doing a pro-capita version? "California is the most populous state, news at 11"

Edit: Turns out I'm a dummy and can't figure out how google works. I am totally wrong on this one!

What I found odd is why Huston is number 1. Seattle is known for how many dogs it has and is a much larger city! I wonder why they have more.

Huh?

No it isn't.

Seattle metro is 3.9M, Houston is 7M.

Sorry yeah I'm totally wrong about that. My fault!

Houston is the fourth largest city in the country. It has three times as many people as Seattle.

Yeah turns out I'm stupid. Sorry about that!

Per capita, or per letter delivered or something would be an obvious first step, but also it is measuring which cities have yards and driveways. Lots of people live in NYC, but not so many have enough space for a good dog attack.

> ...but not so many have enough space for a good dog attack.

Of all the reasons people cite for moving out of the city, I think this one is my favorite. :)

"Sure, Williamsburg was awesome when I was single and in my 20s, but now that I have a family, I'm looking for somewhere better suited for a good dog attack."

"Pet Peeve #208: Maps that are actually just population density"

https://xkcd.com/1138/

Government job security challenge: https://ibb.co/vxj3BKf

If you work for the USPS in California, you have a 1.23% chance of being attacked by a dog. This doesn’t adjust for repeat dog incidents, nor whther You have a desk job or are in the field. Likely much higher for mail carriers in the field which is nuts

In my country there is a simple rule: dog bites human; end of dog. This notion keeps owners a tad more involved. Not sure how that is in other nations.

While this is interesting, it would be far more useful if this was broken down by breed and zip code.

It would allow focused efforts on rescue and enforcement of aggressive dogs. And perhaps even give insight into crime in certain areas.

Too bad they don't track by breed

Labs. I just bet.

(I've been bitten twice when riding, both times by labs. They're goofy dogs, but have a mean streak if they don't know you.)

The breed doesn't matter, it's the owners that influence the temperament of the animal. The nonsense statistic you ask for simply causes people to associate certain breeds with attacks when in reality it's the owners who do not keep their dogs restrained who need to be analyzed.

I'll just leave this here for all the pit bull lovers: https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2020...

One problem is pitbulls are not really a standardized breed so a lot of mixed breed terriers get mixed in here.

Though this is an important metric. I don't think pitbulls are inherently more likely to bite, but I do think they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Minor bites are unlikely to always be reported. Note that all of the dogs listed are big powerful jawed dogs.

USPS doesn't have a set schedule to come to your house, and they have to enter your (perhaps fenced) yard.

It's very plausible that a responsible dog owner would have a dog out in the fenced yard when a postal worker came by, and then the breed is definitely going to be a factor.

Dogs have completely different personalities across breeds and yet you won't even entertain the possibility the breed has something to do with how aggressive a dog is?

This is why usps should've released that info.

There is already data out there about this

This is why the data would help.

Most people saying this have no proof of their claim.

The volume of dog owners who can't control their animal is shocking to me.

My neighborhood it is pretty good. A few blocks over is complete chaos. Every house has a dog that seems frantic and freaks out over everything and they're all only held back by an invisible fence.

I don't get it. What do these people get out of a dog that is clearly frantic / stressed like that when any person comes by, or another dog or anything?

If you're not going to invest some serious time / effort to train your dog, please don't get one.

I think it’s probably fair to say a lot of people get dogs as pets without too much regard for training them.

Usually if the dog is well socialised then you’re unlikely to have too many issues. If not, it can be difficult to correct the behaviours and I’d wager most people in that situation probably just put up with it.

Yeah the contrast is amazing. All but maybe one dog in my neighborhood are happy to hang out in the front yard and they're cool with anyone who comes by.

Most don't even need a leash, they're content to just hang out, play, and socialize if someone shows interest.

Other neighborhood, it's dog chaos.

I don't get it either.

Rural VA/WV vs suburban VA is night and day. The former has ill-tempered dogs roaming at large - rare is a weekend I go cycling out there and don't get chased by at least one dog (and of those, 1/10 are willing to bite). Locally, the dogs are on leashes and generally more socialized.

And suburban VA compared with anywhere in Scotland is again night and day. Dogs everywhere in Scotland, mostly off-leash in open areas (on leash in where appropriate), but almost always well-behaved. At least when I've visited family (Edinburgh, various towns in Perthshire, plus some time vacationing in the Highlands). Totally different culture with dogs - allowed in pubs, people don't freak if the dog is off-leash like they do here, etc.

I have a huge American Bulldog. He's playful, fun, obedient and extremely well trained ... and outright terrifying when someone approaches the house. We say "I see them, thank you" and he's friendly again. He'll go find us to alert us to people in the yard. At night, we have to go walk through the house together if he's on edge.

Everyone is quite intimidated until they come visit and have a proper meeting. He also remembers guests quite well, and reacts differently to them. He learns mailpeople's faces / walks and gives a cursory "gruff" for old ones, and the full-throated threats to new ones.

That's a feature: Dogs are the best break-in / intruder deterrent around. My wife originally bought him for that reason. There's never been a problem with kids, friends, neighbors, or anything, but if you were walking through our neighborhood and saw him threaten you, you'd probably say he was a menace. He's not.

I don't doubt it works.

In fact I keept a chewed up tennis ball and dog dish next to my back door for ages. No break in attempts, despite it happening to neighbors ... no dog, but it seemed to be enough ;)

Having said that as a more practical point if I were some super burglar (granted I suspect most criminals are not) ... I really think most angry dogs would happy change their mind and be your best friend if you just dropped some treats for them. They really wouldn't care what you did after that.

Dogs are a great alarm, decent deterrent, and wonderful companion. They somehow react to the very human uncertainty that someone feels when a big-toothed animal is acting aggressively. It's unsettling on a primal level.

If we need more deterrent, there are other options in the house, but it's nice to have early warning at least, I'd imagine.

This is why Switzerland past very strict laws which require you to take several dog courses with your dog or you will not be able to own it (all dogs must be registered). Certain aggressive breeds are also illegal or are required to wear a muzzle when out.

All this after kids and people getting mauled by dogs back on the 90s became a common news item.

>All this after kids and people getting mauled by dogs back on the 90s became a common news item.

Again, this proves the original point of people not being able to control their dogs. I'm not a fan of certain dog breeds, but that's my hang up and I'm certainly not going to tell someone that the can't or shouldn't own a dog because of my own preference. I'm all for the mandatory training and registration, but the outright banning of breeds seems unnecessary if you trully are enforcing the training.

Some people keep dogs to discourage break-ins. We had a moderate level of crime in the neighborhood where I used to live, but my neighbor’s big black noisy dog ensured that our houses and cars were left alone. This is probably also the reason in many rural areas.

On a semi-related note, I bet the number of "frantic" dogs is up these days. As more people stayed home last year, more dogs were adopted, but the owners couldn't properly socialize them with other dogs or even different people in public places or just by having guests, which I reckon is a big part of the problem.

"Houston, we have a problem"

did you know the dog breed most implicated in dog bites is the golden retriever? they're bred to retrieve hunted water fowel so their bites are soft and rarely require hospitalization after an attack

Woof

somewhere on Dog Internet there’s a detailed ranking of states where homes are most frequently invaded by strangers bearing mysterious parcels

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