The postal service announced today, as part of National Dog Bite Awareness Week, that more than 5,300 postal carriers were attacked by dogs in 2022. They list California and Texas as the top dog attack states, but of course this is only because California and Texas are the biggest states. A different story emerges if you adjust the top ten states by population:
Missouri, it turns out, is the true dog attack capital of the US. Why? Who knows. But California is fairly average and Texas is positively low. Their dog attack reputations are wholly undeserved.
Texas is low, which is good, but Florida is a LOT lower. That makes perfect sense--you don't want your dog chasing away the guy who brings your SS check and/or your dividend checks.
And you don't want your dog roaming loose in FL to be eaten by an alligator.
I am amused to see that here in MO we're number 1! I have no clue why that is. I will say that here is the most unreliable mail service I have ever encountered (that includes my days of living in Canada, when my local post office was also the local luandromat).
Our postal folks seem to have no clue that the red flag on the mail box being up means "Please pick up the mail". They also seem to not know that the street numbers on the front of an envelope should correspond to the numbers on the house, and that the two should match, more or less.
We're also number one for puppy mills; and no, I'm not going to speculate on a connection.
As Josh Hawley explains in his book, owning a dog that comes from a Missouri puppy mill is manly.
In western Washington the little red flag is a signal to the druggies: "mail ready to steal here".
And? But? So? Therefore?
Ohio isn't that far behind.
What do they have in common, rust belt ruins and farms?
I think you have to adjust for things like the number of dogs per capita, the type of dogs popular in various locations, and climate. Maybe folks in Missouri just own more dogs than people in Florida. Retirees (of which there are many in Florida) might be more likely to keep their small breed dogs inside, and even if they do get out and attack a mail carrier, might be less likely to generate a report. This is the kind of raw data that is pretty useless unless someone is willing to do the work to analyze it properly.
You're right about the small breeds in Florida. My two toy poodles fancy themselves as terrorists, but that is only accurate if the symptoms of terror are smiles and laughter.
"California is fairly average and Texas is positively low"
IN THE TOP TEN. What a bizarre way to interpret the statistic. Being 9th out of 50 makes you low?
Yeah, this reads like Mr. Drum forgot what data he put in the chart by the time he finished writing the post.
Chart is incorrectly labeled. Reads "Top ten, per capita", which is incorrect.
Go to the UPSP link provided, The states are the top ten, nominal. There is no data for the other 40 states.
Label should be: "Per capita for ten states with the largest (unadjusted) number of bites."
UPSIDE: At least Kevin didn't do a 2nd order curve fit within a time frame of his choosing, which is SOP for posts about inflation.
It's the subheading on the chart that's messed up, not the reasoning, although I agree that it makes the whole thing hard to understand. These are the top 10 states in *total* attacks -- i.e., mostly big-population states -- then re-ordered by our host by attacks per capita. The original data set in the linked announcement only gives data on the top-10-by-total, with no information one way or the other on the other 40 states.
So, it could actually be Wyoming that is the #1 per capita.
It would make sense that dog bites are more prevalent in urban environments (places with sidewalks), since mail delivery is done more on foot. In my location, about 1 hour north of NYC, the mail is delivered from a truck to my mailbox. The UPS/Fed Ex guys need to get close enough to drop the packages at my front door or garage.
The favorite dog breed in Missouri is the Rottweiler. Don’t know if that makes a difference, but Rottweilers are not always cute and cuddly.
Everyone seems to be assuming these dogs are owned by someone.
The cities in Michigan where mail carriers deliver on foot are mostly poor and struggling.
With poverty comes unattended or completely abandoned animals that turn nasty.