Which Dogs Bite?

[nicky187]

123. I'd be far more interested in knowing ...

... what the incidence for biting is, relative to the population size. We don't know the population of dogs of each breed, and the proportion of those the bite of that population. This is a case-control study, which focuses on the number of cases compared to a non-case control (or controls) for each case.

The idea here is to distinguish between the cases and controls based on how they differ in terms of the hypothesized causal variables. It doesn't tell us how breeds are inclined to act. The authors can include breed (hard to quantify without DNA testing for both cases and controls) as a causal variable, but I wouldn't put much emphasis on it, as it's a categorical variable rather than one which is quantifiable (e.g., size, weight, bite strength, etc.).

Just my $0.02.