Table 1.
Dog owner and dog ownership factors studied.
Dog owner and dog ownership factors studied, categorised into four categories: ‘owner household’, ‘owner antisocial behaviours’, ‘husbandry/ animal view’ and ‘animal treatment’.
Table 2.
Descriptive data on gender of owners of confiscated dogs.
Owner gender as count and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames, with no identified significant difference between the two time frames (P≥0.05), for owners of 374 confiscated dogs.
Table 3.
Descriptive data on sex and neutering status of confiscated dogs.
Dog sex as count and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames, for 374 dogs confiscated after a biting incident.
Table 4.
Descriptive data on victims involved in dog biting incidents preceding confiscation of 374 dogs.
Descriptive data on victims of biting incidents involved in biting incidents preceding confiscation of 374 dogs, presented as counts and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames.
Table 5.
Descriptive data on dog owners providing assistance at the biting incident preceding confiscation of 374 dogs.
Descriptive data on dog owners providing (‘yes’) or not providing (‘no’) assistance to victim(s) of biting incidents leading to confiscation of 374 dogs, as counts and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames.
Table 6.
Descriptive data on dog owners’ dog control situation, at biting incidents leading to confiscation of 374 dogs.
Descriptive data on dog owners’ dog control situation, at biting incidents leading to confiscation of 374 dogs, presented as counts and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames. The dog’s roaming applied significantly more so to these situations in the second time frame than the first (χ2 = 16.5, P<0.001, df = 3, and for pairwise comparisons see S1 Appendix in S1 File).
Table 7.
Descriptive data on dog owners’ reactions upon their dog’s biting of a human and/ or animal, at biting incidents leading to confiscation of 374 dogs.
Descriptive data on dog owners’ reactions upon their dog’s biting of a human and/ or animal, at biting incidents leading to confiscation of 374 dogs, as counts and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames. No significant differences were found between the time frames (χ2 = 8.5, P = 0.21, df = 6).
Table 8.
Descriptive data on the number of biting incidents reported for dogs in 374 confiscated dogs.
Descriptive data on the number of biting incidents reported for dogs in 374 confiscated dogs, as counts and as % of column total for a first time frame (2008–2010, tf1), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022, tf2) and overall for both time frames. Pairwise comparisons between tf1 and tf2 revealed a significantly lower count for dogs confiscated after a first biting incident in tf2 (χ2 = 4.2, P = 0.04, df = 1, residual -2.1). We found a contrasting significantly higher count for dogs confiscated after ≥3 biting incidents in tf2 (42%) than tf1 (32%; χ2 = 4.6, P = 0.03, df = 1, residual 2.1). Note that the incident number includes the last incident that resulted in the dog’s confiscation.
Fig 1.
The severeness of dog bites, indicated based on Ian Dunbar’s biting scale for two time frames (2008–2010: tf1 and 2020-2022-mid-May: tf2), with animal-directed more frequently than human-directed bites falling in to the third -most severe- category of biting, that included death as a result.
Table 9.
Dog ownership factors applying to 374 cases of dogs confiscated for human-/ animal-directed biting incidents.
We present percentages of cases (and counts between brackets) that a dog ownership factor was reported on, sorted from highest to lowest overall frequencies for 30 identified dog ownership factors for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames. Pearson Chi-square values are indicated for the pairwise comparisons between the two time frames, per factor (P<0.05, df = 1; significant differences in bold).
Table 10.
Multifactorial situation within four categories of dog ownership factors applying to 374 cases of dogs confiscated for human-/ animal-directed biting incidents.
We present percentages of cases (and counts between brackets) that a dog ownership factors within the categories of owner household, owner antisocial behaviours, husbandry/ animal view and animal treatment was reported on as a multifactorial situation (≥2 factors within a category applying to a case) for a first time frame (2008–2010), a second time frame (2020-mid-May 2022) and overall for both time frames. Pearson Chi-square values are indicated for significant differences in pairwise comparisons between the two time frames, per factor (P<0.05, df = 1).