Previous studies have suggested that children are more at risk of suffering from
serious dog bite injuries than adults. In order to generate an overview of
characteristics of dog bite victims in Europe, different organisations collecting data
on injuries at a national level were contacted in a number of European countries. The
incidence of child victims was found to be higher than that of adults.
A study was undertaken, at European level, to investigate whether the reason why
children are more at risk is due to their poor ability to interpret the behaviour of dogs
and therefore to appropriately interact with them. Children aged 4 - 10 years old
(n=430) and university students (mean age= 21.3 years, n=120) in Milan, Barcelona,
and Edinburgh, were shown videos of dogs performing simple behaviours
(friendliness, fear, aggression) and asked to interpret the state of dogs (happy, sad,
scared, angry). The participants were also asked to describe which features of the
dogs they were attending to in order to interpret the state of the dog. The ability to
correctly interpret the state of dogs was found to increase with age. Moreover, older
children and adults reported looking at the dog features necessary to make a correct
judgement on the dog state more than younger children. There were no differences in
the performances of the participants in the different countries.
