Dog dies 4 days after pit bull mauling

[kristopher]

40. I think that's partially true

As you can see with the JAVMA published study, there are a number of preventable factors that are present in fatal attacks. That may or may not be the same for nonfatal attacks, I don't know.

Your summary is a good gut-instinct explanation, but I'd probably leave a little room for changing demographics. The world has become much more urban/suburban in the past 50 years, and sometimes it just takes a couple of generations before change works its way into the social fabric.

When I was young I lived in several regions of the country, all of them rather rural. No one fenced in their yards or used leashes for their dogs. We moved to a suburban area, though, and within two years a friend of mine was mauled by a pair of leashed dobermans the owner couldn't control. The owner unquestionably fit your profile, but here's the thing - he was living in a place where he grew up; a place that had gone from farmland rural in his childhood to being in the middle of suburbia in his late middle age.

Social change at the individual level is sometime unfortunately slow.