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
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.