[HN Gopher] U.S. Postal Service releases dog attack national ran...
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U.S. Postal Service releases dog attack national rankings
Author : infodocket
Score : 34 points
Date : 2021-06-10 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.usps.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.usps.com)
| davidw wrote:
| Are they just trolling us by not doing a pro-capita version?
| "California is the most populous state, news at 11"
| potiuper wrote:
| Government job security challenge: https://ibb.co/vxj3BKf
| ffffwe3rq352y3 wrote:
| 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.
| TylerE wrote:
| Huh?
|
| No it isn't.
|
| Seattle metro is 3.9M, Houston is 7M.
| ffffwe3rq352y3 wrote:
| Sorry yeah I'm totally wrong about that. My fault!
| 0110101001 wrote:
| Houston is the fourth largest city in the country. It has
| three times as many people as Seattle.
| ffffwe3rq352y3 wrote:
| Yeah turns out I'm stupid. Sorry about that!
| Y_Y wrote:
| 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.
| function_seven wrote:
| > _...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."
| foo92691 wrote:
| "Pet Peeve #208: Maps that are actually just population
| density"
|
| https://xkcd.com/1138/
| nxm wrote:
| Too bad they don't track by breed
| willis936 wrote:
| What information would that give?
|
| Too bad they don't track by socioeconomic status.
|
| Too bad they don't track by political opinion.
|
| Too bad they don't track by IQ.
|
| Too bad they don't track by skin color.
|
| The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually used
| to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then you'll
| do it to humans.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Please don't. It's just very weird to compare dogs and
| humans. Dogs have been _bred_ for certain behaviours, humans
| haven 't. Which is why It's relevant to ask for breed types
| for dogs. I just find it to be in very poor taste to try to
| draw parallels between "dog discrimination" and human
| discrimination.
|
| You can absolutely think broder collies are naturally driven
| to herd dogs, or Newfoundlands are naturally driven to fetch
| from water without being racist to your fellow human. I mean
| wtf!
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Dogs have been bred, and certain breeds are nature-inclined
| to certain behaviors, but the parent is somewhat correct in
| that the influence of that nature is limited.
|
| However, I think the more powerful correlation is that of
| owners selecting breeds and training for expected
| behaviors: Some Newfies can be trained not to jump in the
| water at every opportunity (mine is capable of this
| restraint, but will always let me know she wants to). Few
| Newfies will be afraid of the water. But dog owners who
| know they want their dogs in and around water may select
| Newfies, swim with them, and otherwise encourage that
| behavior. More relevant to the article, owners who want
| dogs to guard their property will select certain breeds who
| may have only a slight nature for guarding but will nurture
| that behavior.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > What information would that give?
|
| Which breeds are more likely to attack mail carriers.
| willis936 wrote:
| It would be a single correlation. If the assumption is then
| made that there is a causation and that is used to inform
| policy, then there are unequal prejudices informing public
| opinion and policy. Pseudoscience masquerading as science.
| Something bad masquerading as something good.
|
| You do it for dogs because you're not a dog, no big deal.
| Maybe you'd do it for people with a different skin color
| because you are not their skin color. It has happened
| continuously in the past 100 years and continues to happen.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > Pseudoscience masquerading as science. Something bad
| masquerading as something good.
|
| If a certain breed of dog is responsible for more attacks
| than any other breed, then breed-specific legislation is
| not pseudoscience.
| willis936 wrote:
| Yes it is. This is the very crux of the issue. Simply
| showing a correlation is not demonstrating that behavior
| is linked to breed. Show a single study that even
| attempts to prove dog nature is linked to breed. You'll
| find that actual science finds the opposite.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Dogs were engineered explicitly for various behaviors over
| the course of _tens of thousands of generations_. On top of
| that, treating one dog breed as a higher bite risk over
| another doesn 't have a severe negative impact on society,
| and a dog can't feel marginalized or belittled.
|
| The act of identifying dog breeds by behavior statistics and
| the act of socially discriminating human beings are nowhere
| near comparable - not in terms of real harm nor theoretical
| harm nor practical usefulness.
| [deleted]
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > If you do it to dogs then you'll do it to humans.
|
| How did you come to that conclusion?
|
| I used to have a couple dogs and now I have children. I
| walked the dogs on leashes and made them poop outside. I've
| never done either of those things with my children, or any
| human.
| dismantlethesun wrote:
| I have actually seen children on leashes. Heck, it was semi
| popular during he 80s and early 90s because of the stranger
| danger scare.
| willis936 wrote:
| The assumption is that different dog breeds are more
| aggressive than others, independent of their upbringing.
| Their _behavior_ is in their _nature_. This hasn 't been
| born out by science yet is still used to justify policy.
| People care less when it's done to dogs because people are
| not dogs and it's easy to just say "sure, that sounds
| right" without digging any further.
|
| Show a single study that finds that dog breed influences
| aggression. Just one. You'll find plenty that correlate the
| two and maybe even some that stop there and ignore the
| existence of other factors. It's The Bell Curve for dogs.
|
| https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/dogbite.pd
| f
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Correlation vs causation is irrelevant in most dog bite
| contexts, where the practical concern is harm avoidance.
| [deleted]
| willis936 wrote:
| Then why only look at one correlation? Wouldn't it make
| more sense to look any many correlations that could
| potentially correlate better, such as owner demographics?
| Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs
| and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use
| USPS.
|
| If harm avoidance is the goal then why not take it on by
| promoting better dog upbringing?
| function_seven wrote:
| If it turns out that pit bulls are 10x more likely to
| bite me than golden retrievers, it doesn't matter whether
| this is due to genetics or to correlated owner behavior.
| I'm walking down the street, see a pit bull, and have
| only that information to go on when assessing whether I
| should proceed cautiously or turn around and increase
| distance.
|
| Also relevant is that the breed has an effect on the
| seriousness of injury if an attack does occur. Obviously
| I'm going to be less fearful of a chihuahua even if
| they're more aggressive than the terrier. It's the
| difference between antibiotics and stitches vs. facial
| reconstruction.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Who is only looking at one correlation? We all take into
| account the information we have. More information is
| better. If they had provided more information, it would
| have improved each reader's overall picture.
|
| >Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs
| and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use
| USPS.
|
| I don't know what this means.
|
| >why not take it on by promoting better dog upbringing?
|
| I do promote that. I don't know where you're getting this
| from.
|
| Back to the idea of harm avoidance:
|
| Let's say we discover that the only factors that
| determine bite risk are how the dog is raised and how you
| behave around it. And let's say there is a non-causative
| correlation showing breed X has a high bite risk. Then it
| would be reasonable when adopting a puppy to not consider
| breed X a high bite risk, but it would also be reasonable
| to consider breed X a high bite risk when encountering
| one you didn't raise yourself, and therefore e.g. not
| allow your child to interact with it (or whatever
| precaution makes one feel comfortable). More information
| is better.
| willis936 wrote:
| >>Or would it be better to only discriminate against dogs
| and not their owners? We all know how much the dogs use
| USPS.
|
| >I don't know what this means.
|
| I'll explain my meaning with a hypothetical.
|
| What if one breed were responsible for a high number of
| USPS delivery worker attacks? Promoting this information
| begs a policy response against this breed. What if most
| of this breed were owned by a certain demographic? From
| the outside this looks like a policy response against a
| demographic with window dressing to justify it. The
| outcome is what matters.
|
| I agree with your later point. However, dog owners and
| parents are responsible for their dogs and children
| (respectively). More information is better, but selecting
| some specific information here is clearly targeting
| something or someone, regardless of intent. That is what
| I take issue with. Target the issue, not the demographic.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I understand your concern about dogs, but the question is
| why we would think what a person believes about a breed
| of dogs impacts how they approach humans. You said it
| well yourself:
|
| > People care less when it's done to dogs because people
| are not dogs
| threatofrain wrote:
| > The assumption of nature over nurture has been continually
| used to justify unequal treatment. If you do it to dogs then
| you'll do it to humans.
|
| I mean, okay.
| wiredfool wrote:
| 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.)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gbanne wrote:
| 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
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| 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.
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| 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.
| sschueller wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >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.
| sul_tasto wrote:
| 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.
| Kognito wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| alistairSH wrote:
| 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.
| subw00f wrote:
| 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.
| sc90 wrote:
| "Houston, we have a problem"
| TuringNYC wrote:
| 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.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| 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.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| 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...
| cwt137 wrote:
| 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.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| 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.
| erulabs wrote:
| 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.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| 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!
| maxerickson wrote:
| Isn't Texas often hot enough that it would be unfriendly to
| leave dog outside?
| foo92691 wrote:
| 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)
| pwinnski wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| rwcarlsen wrote:
| You need to normalize to the dog population at least - rather
| than the human population.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Probably need to normalize both to dog population and
| people population (perhaps normalize to dogs per capita?)
| klyrs wrote:
| If I were a postal employee, I'd want it normalized to
| bites per hour worked
| justaman wrote:
| Rockford IL is punching way above its league!
| dahfizz wrote:
| 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.
| antisthenes wrote:
| 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.
| philco wrote:
| 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
| tristanoneil wrote:
| Woof
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| somewhere on Dog Internet there's a detailed ranking of states
| where homes are most frequently invaded by strangers bearing
| mysterious parcels
| dddw wrote:
| 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.
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(page generated 2021-06-10 23:02 UTC)