By Sarah Klein
A University of Manitoba researcher says there has been fewer dog-bite injuries in the province since breed-specific legislation was introduction in Winnipeg in 1990.
Malathi Raghavan cautions that the results of the study do not prove cause-and-effect, but there is a significant and promising link between the law and dog-bite injuries.
The study was published in the journal Injury Prevention and used data on dog-bite injury hospitalizations seen in Manitoba from 1984-2006.
“All dogs bite but my understanding is that BSL is based on the assumption that certain breeds are more likely to cause more severe injuries,” Raghavan said. “If this were the case, we should expect to see a decrease in rates of severe injuries in jurisdictions with BSL compared with jurisdictions without BSL.”
