Dog Bite | Animal Behavior Expert Witness For Attorneys

Richard H. Polsky, Ph.D. CDBC
Los Angeles, California

“Bringing the science of animal behavior to attorneys”

[do_widget id=sow-editor-3]

Database for dangerous dogs?

Q. I am a GIS analyst that puts together a lot of spatial databases and I came across your name on your website you maintain. Do you know of anyone compiling a Dog Bite Database to show where risky dogs live? -State level -County level -National? I have always thought this would be a good database to show the areas on a map in certain neighborhoods.

Deric Morgando Senior GIS & Data Analyst
Explore Information Services

A. I know of no database that tracks supposedly dangerous or risky dogs anywhere in the USA. however, one may have started in the state of Virginia, after a dog bite fatality that took place in Spotsville approximately 3 years ago. I also read somewhere that the state of California was trying to do something similar to this, but I did not know whether or not anything has come of it.

There probably would be difficulty with doing this with so-called risky dogs because how do you define a “risky” dog? Probably the best way to do this would be to get a database on dogs who have been reported to local animal control authorities for attacking people within each municipality (not necessarily a vicious attack), but getting these records from local animal control probably would be difficult.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email