Nearly 77 million nice dogs…but any dog can bite

National Dog Bite Prevention Week® takes place during the second full week of April each year, and focuses on educating people about preventing dog bites. The dates in 2020 are April 12-18.

With an estimated population of nearly  77 million dogs living in U.S. households , millions of people—most of them children—are bitten by dogs every year. The majority of these bites, if not all, are preventable.

• In 2017 there were nearly 350,000 people treated at hospital emergency rooms for non-fatal dog-related injuries.
• Of those people, there were nearly 10,600 children two years old or younger who visited emergency rooms as a result of dog bites​.
• In 2018, insurers paid $675 million in claims related to dog bites, according to estimates from the Insurance Information Institute.