Debunking the stats To the editor: RE:How to lie with statistics

Merritt Clifton certainly knows a bit about lying with statistics. His study, which was compiled by examining press reports of dog attacks, is vague and misleading. He does not include the year or location of specific dog bites, nor does he indicate that there is a large gap in numbers between press reports and hospital reports of dog bites. Clifton also neglects to indicate what he means by "pit bull" -- American Staffordshire Terrier? American Pit Bull Terrier? Dogo Argentino? All the bull-type dogs or only a few? While he lists most of the other dogs as purebred or crossbreed, the pit bull category receives no further clarification. What he does do is split the Blue Heeler into three separate categories by name (Blue Heeler, Australian Cattle Dog, and Queensland Heeler) and identify something called a "chox mix" in two attacks. For a man whose primary job was editing, he seems to have dropped the ball here. 

Neither the Center for Disease Control or the American Veterinary Medical Association use breed in determining the likelihood of dog bites. From the AVMA: 

"Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite. Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem. This should be expected, because big dogs can physically do more damage if they do bite." 

For a more thorough debunking of the Merritt Clifton report: 

http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2007/08/dangerous-breeds-dog-bite-statistics.html 
http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2007/08/pit-bulls-dog-bite-statistics-and.html 


Taylor Scanlon
http://www.castanet.net/news/Letters/54119/Debunking-the-stats