(Beth Clifton collage)
Insurance business payouts for canine assaults elevated 8% in 2023 alone
OMAHA, Nebraska––An April 9, 2024 attack on a mail provider by a canine believed to be a pit bull close to sixteenth and Pinkney streets in Omaha, Nebraska, coming two days into National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024, provided a well timed reminder almost within the again yard of a number of of the most important U.S. insurance coverage firms of the chance that harmful dogs pose to supply personnel, the general public, and insurers themselves.
But few of the teachings illustrated by the attack are emphasised within the National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024 curriculum.
Some, to be honest, are talked about.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Ask permission” earlier than the pit bull you by no means noticed kills you
The “National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024” curriculum, for example, advises individuals to “Be responsible about approaching other people’s pets. Ask permission from the owner before approaching a dog.”
Unfortunately, mail carriers, different supply personnel, and informal passers-by not often have that possibility, particularly when attacked by a canine they didn’t know was there, who rushes out to attack as quickly as somebody opens a door, as reportedly occurred in Omaha.
Transported to hospital, the Omaha mauled mail provider might escape with solely stitches.
Others, nevertheless, are sometimes not so lucky.
Note a number of clues to the presence of a harmful canine on the scene of the Omaha attack on a mail provider. (Google photograph)
Warning indicators
Others might not discover upon strategy {that a} home the place no canine might be seen or heard for the time being, just like the one the place the attack occurred in Omaha, has a low chain hyperlink fence with concrete blocks haphazardly plugging a number of holes the place a canine dug out repeatedly, has chipped paint round a porch pillar the place a canine has been tethered, has blinds or curtains torn by a canine, has siding torn from the porch, and has paw marks stretching 5 ft up the entrance door, the place a big canine has vigorously and infrequently demanded to be let in.
All of those might be indicators not solely of the presence of a canine, however of the presence of a harmful canine.
(Beth Clifton photograph)
What we noticed
Shown a photograph of the Omaha attack web site, former police officer and animal management officer Beth Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7 seen all of those clues instantly.
But even ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton, logging deadly and disfiguring canine assaults since 1982, residing with a number of dogs of assorted breeds for greater than 35 years, didn’t––not rapidly sufficient to keep away from a mauling, if taking place by the home in person, unawares.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Always monitor your dogs’ activity”
“Always monitor your dogs’ activity, even when they are in the backyard at your own house, because they can be startled by something, get out of the yard, and possibly injure someone or be injured themselves,” the National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024 curriculum advises.
The curriculum says nothing, although, about efficient self-defense when attacked, together with the reminder that permitting a pit bull or different harmful canine to hurry up is inherently excessive danger, and {that a} wagging tail doesn’t imply the canine is “friendly” or “safe.”
The wagging tail might imply solely that the canine is worked up by the chance to dismember a sufferer who might naively stretch a hand out to be sniffed.
The most secure strategy to keep away from being attacked by a harmful canine is to place one thing between oneself and the canine: a parked automotive, a chair, a rubbish can lid.
After that, the following pointers might assist: How to guard your self, others, & your canine from a pit bull attack (2022).
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Research your dog’s breed”
For as soon as, certainly for the primary time within the 68 years that National Dog Bite Prevention Week has existed, the sponsors are usually not fully oblivious to breed-specific danger.
The media launch saying National Dog Bite Prevention Week mentions nothing breed-specific, however an accompanying infographic on “Be a responsible pet parent” begins with “Research your dog’s breed and the shelter before adopting.”
Possible translation: if the canine is a pit bull and the shelter has a historical past of pushing pit bull adoptions, together with by mislabeling pit bulls as different varieties of canine, keep away.
Diane Whipple & the Presa Canarios who killed her. (Beth Clifton collage)
“Spotlight on: Dog bite liability”
A secondary National Dog Bite Prevention Week media launch, headlined “Spotlight on: Dog bite liability,” mentions that, “Some insurance companies will not insure homeowners who own certain breeds of dogs categorized as dangerous, such as pit bulls.”
Several paragraphs down, “Spotlight on: Dog bite liability,” notes that, “In a 2002 California case, a woman and her husband were tried for second-degree murder after their Presa Canario dogs attacked and killed a neighbor. The woman was convicted of second-degree murder and her husband was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.”
(For full particulars, see Diane Whipple died for the sins of harmful canine advocacy.)
Not talked about, although, is that “murder by dog” instances, almost unparalleled then, are now not uncommon. Prosecuted a number of occasions per yr now, “murder by dog” instances sometimes finish with convictions for manslaughter.
Dog Bite Prevention Week spokesperson Victoria Stilwell & associates. (Beth Clifton collage)
Consolidation of sponsorship
The variations between the National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024 messages and people of previous years could also be partially resulting from an evident consolidation of sponsorship
Indeed, reviewing the listing of sponsors of National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024, underway from April 7 to April 13, is paying homage to wanting up on the Kremlin wall throughout a May Day parade in Moscow to see who’s who within the Communist politburo and who bought despatched to Siberia.
The 2024 National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition contains 4 of the standard suspects: the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Insurance Information Institute, the State Farm insurance coverage firm, and canine coach Victoria Stilwell, who markets herself as “Victoria Stilwell Positively.”
(See “Flesh & blood scattered everywhere”: Dog Bite Prevention Week 2023.)
Thirties pit bull terrier pusher Dolores Del Rio solely performed a nurse in films.
American Humane is out
Conspicuously absent this yr, for the primary time ever, is the American Humane Association, pushing pit bulls since actress Dolores Del Rio posed along with her bull terrier pit bulls for the AHA periodical National Humane Review in 1935.
Also conspicuously absent are another National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition members resembling a humane society or canine adoption company.
But there may be one bona fide pit pusher of nationwide notoriety on the National Dog Bite Prevention Week calendar.
Steve Dale, the vehemently pro-pit bull host of two nationally syndicated pet discuss exhibits, and denialist of breed-specific pit bull habits, “will be hosting a Facebook Live event on Thursday, April 11, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time,” says the National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2024 publicity.
Having argued that pit bulls are usually not inherently excessive danger, regardless of the info, on the American Humane Association nationwide convention in 2007, when pit bulls had killed solely 114 Americans and disfigured 648 within the previous 24 years, greater than all different dogs mixed, Dale might now be anticipated to comparably dismiss that pit bulls have since then killed 549 extra Americans and disfigured one other 5,202.
Fallen mail provider tries to achieve his mail bag. (From Oneil Colley video. See Michigan hero takes on pit bull advocacy with a music & a trash can.)
U.S. Postal Service can be out
Even extra conspicuously absent from the 2024 National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition is the U.S. Postal Service, the unique “Dog Bite Prevention Week” sponsor.
Arthur E. Summerfield, then U.S. postmaster common, declared the primary “Dog Bite Prevention Week” and assembled the unique “Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition” in 1956, after observing that 6,000 mail carriers had been bitten on the job in 1955.
None of the 1956 mail provider victims, nevertheless, have been killed on the job by dogs.
Including workers of different parcel supply companies, which didn’t but exist in 1956, the toll per yr is now far increased, and contains a number of deaths per yr.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Numbers have by no means come down
The U.S. Postal Service truly dropped out of the “Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition” in 2023, selling as a substitute a “National Dog Bite Awareness Week,” June 3-10, 2023.
Unclear is whether or not “National Dog Bite Awareness Week” is to proceed.
Neither “Dog Bite Prevention Week” nor “Dog Bite Awareness Week,” sadly, has ever truly diminished the ever-increasing numbers of both extraordinary canine bites or deadly and disfiguring assaults.
(Beth Clifton collage)
$1.12 billion in dog-related damage claims
Take it from 2024 “National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition” spokesperson Janet Ruiz, director of strategic communications for the Insurance Information Institute.
“U.S. insurers paid out $1.12 billion in dog-related injury claims in 2023 according to the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm,” Ruiz cheerily introduced in a “National Dog Bite Prevention Week” media launch.
“In 2023,” Ruiz continued, “the number of dog bite and related injury claims was 19,062, an increase of more than 8% from 2022 and a 110% increase over the past decade.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Payout per declare decreased
It is, maybe, encouraging that canine attack fatalities elevated solely 68% over that very same time, from 49 in 2014 to 72 in 2023, and that pit bull attack fatalities elevated solely 53%, from 30 to 57.
“On a positive note,” Ruiz continued, “the average cost per claim decreased from $64,555 in 2022 to $58,545 in 2023.”
What that will imply, primarily, is just that insurance coverage firms have turn out to be extra profitable in heading off canine attack victims’ insurance coverage claims, particularly excessive jury awards for egregious and life-altering accidents.
Philip Moon, 2023 National Letter Carriers Association Hero of the Year
(Carissa Dobbs photograph)
National Hero of the Year
Meanwhile, the National Association of Letter Carriers on March 27, 2024 honored 37-year mail provider Philip Moon of Amarillo, Texas, as its 2023 National Hero of the Year for having “risked his own safety by saving a bloodied woman from a large pit bull.”
Explained a National Association of Letter Carriers media launch, “On his route in October 2023, Philip Moon was in his mail truck when he heard a commotion. The carrier saw a customer with her two small dogs under attack from a large dog.
“Moon, a member of Amarillo, Texas Branch 1037, jumped out to help.
“He managed to fight off the attacking dog and pull the woman and one of her dogs into his truck. The woman was bleeding badly from dog bites to her left leg.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Floorboard filling up with blood”
“The whole bottom of the floorboard was filling up with blood,” Moon recounted.
“Moon called 911 and then took off his shirt to use to compress her wounds, which helped stop the bleeding,” the media launch recounted.
“Then the pit bull came back and bit down on her other leg,” Moon stated.
“The pit bull forced its way into the partly closed door of the truck,” the media launch continued, “forcing them both to fight off the pit bull as best they could.
“The woman’s husband had heard the struggle and came to help.”
“Then the pit bull went after me,” Moon stated.
The pit bull bit into Moon’s shoe, “slightly injuring his ankle,” the media launch resumed.
“First responders arrived and animal control officers caught the pit bull while emergency medical technicians tended to the victim.
Beth & Merritt Clifton.
“Moon drove back to the post office,” the media launch completed, “and that night, he visited the woman in the hospital, where he was told she had passed out twice from loss of blood.
“You saved her twice,” police responders instructed Moon—as soon as from the pit bull and once more from bleeding to demise.”
