Where did you get your numbers? I'm so confused because the paper you linked doesn't seem to support what you're saying in the slightest. It really just seems like you hate dogs.

> [...] Dogs kill 25 thousand people a year

I don't see it in the paper and it's a HUGE discrepancy. Do you mean globally? Again where did you even get that number? The ONLY reference I see is this from a CDC paper [1]:

> From 1979 to 1994, dog attacks resulted in 279 deaths to humans in the United States, resulting in an average of 17 to 18 deaths per year.

Sooo... Less than 20 deaths per year, up-to 21 in the worst case estimate, in a country (USA) where ~34 million households have dogs. I'm seriously perplexed, dawg. Did you read the paper or just link to it assuming no one will even skim it?

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9182209/

> the paper you linked doesn't seem to support what you're saying in the slightest.

The paper was part of my edit just looking at the 4.5 million attacks in the USA alone (where rabies is essentially gone) to point out that it isn’t just rabies that makes them unsafe. Here you can read about the 25k deaths:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-36320744

So you used an "estimate" as fact omitting that it's an estimate, from a BBC click-bait article, that offers NO citations. Pretty damn disingenuous, I think you should feel some shame for intentionally lying.

> Dying from an actual dog bite is much more rare. There is no reliable worldwide data, but of the estimated 4.5 million dog bites in the US every year, only about 30 people die on average.

I'd bet that high number of households that have dogs is one reason we have lower rates of dog related injuries. Well fed pets behave quite different to street dogs

That’s a nonsensical number from some clickbait article.

The deaths are from impoverished countries like India where rabid dogs run rampant and people are too poor to get treatments.

The 4.5 million bites (not individuals bit) is a discredited number based on some projections from ER visits and other reports where no standard protocol for reporting exists. It’s similar to the drunk driving related statistics, where if you are a drunk cab passenger and the car get into an accident it is considered “alcohol related”.

> That’s a nonsensical number from some clickbait article.

Here are three sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-36320744

https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-deadliest-animals-201...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_h...

> The 4.5 million bites (not individuals bit) is a discredited number

Care to provide a source? I provided mine but all you came in with is conjecture. In fact here is the stat again straight from the American Vetrinary Medicine Association.

https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/dog-bite-pre...

> Dogs kill 25 thousand people a year

Huh? The cited article gives US statistics. "During this 27-year time period there were 504 deaths reported. An average of 18.67 deaths occurred per year, with a range of 11 to 33 deaths." That's about the same as US deaths from lightning strikes.[1]

[1] https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-fatalities19

That is worldwide - I added US attack statistics as part of my edit to point out that something can be dangerous without causing death. Here you can read about the 25k deaths: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-36320744

Dogs are not safe? As in, the therapy dog that comforts sick children in the hospital might actually bite their face off at any moment?

The vast majority of those deaths are from dog spread rabies right?

In most non-western countries, yes. Not so in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t... A lot of those happened after an epileptic seizure. Which are not quite rare in doctors offices.

This is highly misleading without context. Humans kill roughly 475,000 humans every year [0]. Should we avoid having humans at the doctor's office?

[0] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...

Well, the chance that your doctor would intentionally murder you is likely higher than the chance your doctor would be using a rabid feral dog from a 3rd world country, which are responsible for nearly all of the "kill 25 thousand people a year" you cited.

And the 4.5 million annual attacks in the USA alone?

Break it down by dog breed - it isn't Beagles doing those attacks (with extremely rare exception). Of course, one area where total delusion enters the debate is with people who think all dog breeds are equally inherently aggressive and likely to attack and thus any dog can be substituted with any other and be equally dangerous.

Even as someone who absolutely adores dogs and always is happy when one is around, this is a pretty silly argument. It's clearly possible to operate a doctor's office with zero dogs present, but I've yet to see one successfully operate without at least one. That said, for the past two years, every time I've been to a doctor's office, there _have_ been measures in place to keep the number of humans there as small as possible, which I think is entirely reasonable.

Dogs are definitely used for palliative and mental health purposes in hospitals they are pretty trivial to manage without any danger to humans with a marginally competent handler.

What kind of take is this? You need to interact with humans.....

Hospitals near me have a security force which prohibits humans from entering unless they have a reason to be there, and removes any human who may exhibit dangerous behavior.

So if something kills less than 475k people we should consider it safe? What kind of reasoning is that?

What is so misleading about that number? That's 8 times 9/11, every year! Your comment is whataboutism.

I think thats a fantastic idea +1

This is an incredibly disingenuous statistic. The 25,000 is from rabies due to bites from feral dogs. This would not be an issue in medical settings where the canines would be vaccinated.

Worldwide or in developed countries?

You seem to have a fear of dogs. Want to talk about it?

I’m afraid of most of the things on this list (including plenty of humans)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to...

Well yes, I've been in far more life-or-death situations with dogs than humans, and they give me panic attacks.

On multiple occasions I had a group of dogs chasing me on a mountain road while I was on my bike with trucks on one side and a cliff on another.

Don't fault me, I had every right to be there in peace, and enjoy my bike ride. No wild animal bothered me, just the goddamn dogs.

I don't want dogs anywhere near me.

And yes, statistically they are far more dangerous than bears, mountain lions, and wolves combined, in terms of both injuries and deaths, even if you exclude rabies cases.

Dogs were bred to fearlessly attack anything unknown and that's exactly what they do.

Wild animals, on the other hand, generally fear the unknown and stay away from it.

Dogs chase people and things for many reasons. Almost always it’s for play. If a dog has its ears and tail up, it’s looking to play with you, not tear you to pieces. Dogs have clear signals and behaviours that need to be understood.

> Dogs were bred to fearlessly attack anything unknown and that's exactly what they do.

This is completely untrue and the complete opposite of how dogs evolved. Dogs were domesticated to live among humans in harmony. If you experience a poorly behaved dog, it’s the owner at fault. Some owners mistreat their dogs and/or raise them with poor social habits, causing the dog to behave aggressively towards humans. It’s learned distrust, for which you have people to blame. Good owners will treat their dogs well. Such dogs will not attack another person unless their owner is being physically harmed. I don’t know if you’re living in America, most dogs in North American society come from well-adjusted homes where people treat them as members of the family.

You can learn how to make friends with any dog. It can be taught. The fear you experience is learnt and can be unlearnt.

I'm generally fine with dogs, but the typical American dog owners' entitled attitudes do get a bit grating. And when one's approaching one of my kids without a leash or a hyper-attentive owner (which is extremely common, even on kids playgrounds where they're not allowed to be off-leash), it makes my blood pressure spike. The most recent time, it was just to eat my kid's cookie, but I've heard too many direct anecdotes to just be chill about it.

> Almost always it’s for play.

No, fuck that. Being chased on a mountain road is life-threatening and it's the dog's fault, not mine. Literally no other animal does this, they are nuisances.

> If a dog has its ears and tail up, it’s looking to play with you, not tear you to pieces. Dogs have clear signals and behaviours that need to be understood.

No, fuck that. In MY language:

    mellow purring = friendly
    barking = threat

Period. If it barks, I will bark back and assert my dominance, followed by pepper spray and rocks if it continues to approach and threaten.

If I move away or yell at an animal, that means NO and do NOT follow me. Almost all other animals including cats usually understand CONSENT and what "NO" means very well.

> If you experience a poorly behaved dog, it’s the owner at fault.

Well, 90% of dogs I've encountered don't have owners and many of them threatened me. Often in packs. The few dogs I've met that have owners, at least half of them were very badly behaved.

100% of bears and coyotes I've encountered don't have owners either, and to this date every single one I encountered has left me alone.

> You can learn how to make friends with any dog.

I really just do not want to. Like most cats and porcupines, I really just want to be left alone by dogs. That's my choice, and I want to be respected and dogs to respect that I do not wish to be approached, sniffed, barked at, or chased.

I'm more than happy making friends with other animals, and do not need dogs in my life at all.

> If I move away or yell at an animal, that means NO and do NOT follow me. Almost all other animals including cats usually understand CONSENT and what "NO" means very well.

Are you seriously…expecting “packs of wild dogs without owners” to understand “consent” and “no”? I mean I get in your experience your not going to be trustworthy of the animals, but if you are encountering wild dogs, they by definition are not domesticated and likely not to be all that familiar with commands and human behaviors. They know 3 things…eat, procreate, and protect the pack. If you are barking at wild dogs and asserting your dominance in their territory, you are a threat…and it’s no wonder they would act aggressively.

> Are you seriously…expecting “packs of wild dogs without owners” to understand “consent” and “no”?

Yes. Almost EVERY other animal understands that if you stomp, roar, hiss, and yell at them that you don't consent to be approached. This is common instinctive language across all animals. Most wild animals will just leave you (and anything unknown) alone in the first place. Even the most fierce predators don't go around attacking random shit for the hell of it unless they are actually hungry.

Dogs aren't a natural species, they were bred by humans and bred to be something that evolution would have never naturally created.

> Even the most fierce predators don't go around attacking random shit for the hell of it unless they are actually hungry.

That is incorrect. Some predators do. You do, and you are not random. You are a threat on their territory and by your own admission, an aggressive threat with no respect for them as a pack or their territory.

It seems many people build their identity on liking dogs. So if you say anything remotely negative about dogs, these people feel personally attacked and act accordingly. One who does not like dogs is at least weird to them, if not outright evil. I hear it is the worst in the US, but it gets increasingly common here as well. Some of them will try everything to get more dogs involved, including: classroom pets, pets in offices, fake emotional support animals. I wonder if they also manipulate studies like in TFA...

I’ve been on more mountain roads and trails than I can recall, encountered plenty of dogs and not had a single threatening moment let alone an injury.

I regret to hear of your phobia, but both of our experiences are just anecdotes with no weight to argue from.

Gaslighting is not welcome here. You might be lucky. Your words come off as essentially arguing that just because you haven't experienced X that the problem is not significant. Many people attempt to use logic like this for X={racism, sexism, ...} but it applies to other things including traumatic interactions with dogs.

Also, there are plenty of people I know with the same experiences as me.

How on earth are you calling my comment gaslighting? I merely pointed out that both of our examples are a single person‘s data point, and we cannot draw broad conclusions from them.

I don't think being chased by packs of dogs on several dozen instances in at least 5 countries counts as a single data point.

Maybe dogs hate the way I smell and love the way you smell but that doesn't make it right.

I do carry defenses (rocks, pepper spray) to deal with the situation and avoid injury but having to be on guard for dogs at every second and ready to pull out these things on a moment's notice is NOT a pleasant way to cope.

I said it’s a single person‘s data point. And it is. You’re hypersensitive on this issue. Clearly you know the math and the statistics to know what one persons experiences mean to drawing conclusions.

I respect your wish not to feel threatened and I tried to show that, no need to make incorrect replies.

> You’re hypersensitive on this issue.

https://repeller.com/what-youre-too-sensitive-really-means/

I'm an American dog lover, and was surprised when all of my Vietnamese-family-by-marriage voiced similar perspectives. Stray dogs were a serious, common threat that could kill you.

If we were to believe your comments, there would be wild packs of dogs all over. Do you have any stats to back this up? I hike all of the time in the US and only wild pack of animals I have encountered is coyotes. Are you confusing coyotes with dogs?

> I hike

I have to say it is less of a problem while hiking. Coyotes do leave me alone. It's much more of a problem if walking, running, or bicycling through suburban areas. Yeah, I know, Americans (especially those living in massively gentrified areas) tend to just tell me I shouldn't do these activities and get in an SUV instead, but that's not how most of the world wants to live.

> in the US

Yeah, the US isn't the world. This might be why you haven't seen how dogs can be a huge problem. The US isn't representative of the stray dog problem that plagues very large parts of the world, including eastern Europe, east and southeast Asia, Middle East, central America, and sub-saharan Africa.

> know, Americans (especially those living in massively gentrified areas) tend to just tell me I shouldn't do these activities and get in an SUV instead

Cut the shit, you don’t know anything about the US based on your own comments. I talked about hiking because animal encounters are even less of a problem when walking in neighborhoods/cities. Nobody said anything about riding in an SUV.

It sounds like your problem isn’t with domesticated dogs then and is with feral ones instead. You do know this entire conversation and article is not about wild dogs right?

You are not being gaslit - you applied a singular experience on your part as an argument in a more general sense.

That doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen to you or wasn’t meaningful, just a poor persuasive argument.

It is not gaslighting to point out that your anecdotes are not data, or that the plural of anecdote is also not data.

I'm allergic. Want to talk about it?

If you read the article and not just the title, the majority of the discussion is using dogs for diagnostics of collected samples. They (for that use) would not be around patients like you so wouldn’t trigger your allergies.

But for those applications, you would probably prefer giant pouched rats that are much cheaper to train and keep.

If they work as well or better for the purpose, then sure.

Sure, I get the allergies argument, especially if the reaction is a deadly one. It’s a good reason to avoid dogs. I have an allergy too, although not to dogs. It’s not EpiPen level, but I do keep a bottle of Benadryl handy at all times. I totally get the life or death vibe.

But calling dogs killers because one is allergic to them is a bit disingenuous no? People are allergic to many things. It’s not the thing that’s the problem, rather the individual body’s overreaction in the presence of the thing. The problem is with the body, not the allergen, wouldn’t you agree?