I've been bitten more than a few times in my life. Fortunately, none were that serious except for when Kimo went a bit nuts -- though that was my own fault. Anyway, I had no idea there were so many people bitten each year. From Yahoo news:
An estimated two million Americans are bitten by a domestic animal each year and 50 percent of Americans will be bitten in their lifetimes, posing a potential major public health issue. According to a study published in the March 2006 issue of The Journal of Hand Surgery, dog and cat bites to the hand can result in serious injury, sometimes requiring hospital admission and surgery. Many of these injuries, however, can be lessened or prevented through early treatment and more careful animal handling.The old adage, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you," apparently does not apply to man's four-legged friends: In more than 80 percent of domestic bite incidents, the victim knows the animal. Of the nearly 4.7 million dog bites that occur each year -- accounting for approximately 80 percent to 90 percent of domestic animal bites -- about 2 percent of these bites require hospitalization, constituting 1 percent of all U.S. emergency room visits.
Learning about animal behavior and how animals communicate would help a lot.
When I was five we had a cat. One day I was petting the cat and the cat wanted to be put. I resuled to put her down. So she finally clawed my face.
So I go crying to mom, who tells me, "When a cat wants you to put her down, you put the cat down."
It would also make a big difference if people would learn the difference between mouthing and biting. Puppies bite, dogs mouth.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg at May 12, 2006 04:21 PM