Additionally, more than three quarters
of the bites to the face were directed towards familiar people.
Knowing the dog and being indoors when bitten are closely related
to being bitten on the face (Reisner et al., 2011). Moreover, people
are probably more likely to pet dogs in the dog’s home, yard or
garden. However, although indoor location and familiarity with the
dog play important roles in the potential risk for a facial bite, they
are not necessary conditions.
In nearly half of the incidents, children were bitten on the face
in the presence of their parent. A similar statistic was also observed
when the dog owner was present. Thus, the mere presence
of an adult is not an effective barrier to prevent a dog from biting
a child’s face. The proximity of an adult does not necessarily imply
adequate supervision because caregivers can be unaware of bite risks,
or they might underestimate the risk of bites and be less vigilant
when the child is being quiet or affectionate with the dog (Mathews
and Lattal, 1994; Reisner et al., 2011). Even bite prevention programs
that have been shown to teach children to discriminate
between risky and non-risky behavior (Meints and De Keuster, 2009;
Schwebel et al., 2012) did not, when used alone in 3 h of training
over 3 weeks, prevent risky and species inappropriate behaviors in
an experimental setting using unfamiliar Delta Society-certified dogs
(Schwebel et al., 2012). Furthermore, evaluation of parental behavior