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How to prevent dog bite injuries - Children misinterpret dog facial expressions

Authors:
Kerstin Meints at University of Lincoln
Kerstin Meints
Anais Racca at University of Franche-Comté
Anais Racca
Naomi Hickey
Naomi Hickey
Naomi Hickey
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Abstract

Almost half of school children reported that they were bitten (Beck & Jones,1985; Spiegel, 2000) and in other research, 20% of dog-owning parents reported their child bitten (Wilson, Dwyer and Bennett, 2003, see also Lakestani, Donaldson, Verga & Waran, 2006). Child-initiated interactions with the dog trigger up to 86 % of injuries at home. Recently, it was found that young children do not discriminate a dogs body signals, but look mainly at the dogs face (Lakestani et al., 2006). While there has been anecdotal evidence that children mistake an angry, teeth-baring dog face for a smiling one, there is to date no systematic empirical evidence on the misinterpretation of dogs facial expressions. We tested 4-, 5-, 6-year-old children and adults on neutral, aggressive and happy human and dog facial expressions. Results show that while adults make hardly any mistakes (less than 1%) on both stimulus types (dog and human faces), 69% of 4-year-olds interpreted aggressive dog faces as smiling and happy. Five-year-olds show 35% and 6-year-olds 25% misinterpretations whereas they are over 90% correct on all human facial expressions. This result indicates a severe lack in interpretation abilities in children of facial expressions of dogs which could contribute to the high incidence of dog bites, especially in younger children. Given this result, we can advise children and parents to prevent injuries and inform dog bite prevention programmes to help prevent further dog bite incidents.
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IP Safety 2010 abstracts
Injury Prevention 2010;16(Suppl 1):A1–A289A68
0246 HOW TO PREVENT DOG BITE INJURIES? CHILDREN
MISINTERPRET DOGS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
K Meints*, A Racca, N Hickey Correspondence: University of Lincoln, School of
Psychology, Bray ford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS, UK
10.1136/ip.2010.029215.246
Almost half of school children reported that they were bitten
(Beck & Jones,1985; Spiegel, 2000) and in other research, 20%
of dog-owning parents reported their child bitten (Wilson,
Dwyer and Bennett, 2003, see also Lakestani, Donaldson,
Verga & Waran, 2006). Child-initiated interactions with the
dog trigger up to 86 % of injuries at home. Recently, it was
found that young children do not discriminate a dogs body sig-
nals, but look mainly at the dogs face (Lakestani et al., 2006).
While there has been anecdotal evidence that children mis-
take an angry, teeth-baring dog face for a smiling one, there is
to date no systematic empirical evidence on the misinterpre-
tation of dogs facial expressions. We tested 4-, 5-, 6-year-old
children and adults on neutral, aggressive and happy human
and dog facial expressions. Results show that while adults
make hardly any mistakes (less than 1%) on both stimulus
types (dog and human faces), 69% of 4-year-olds interpreted
aggressive dog faces as smiling and happy. Five-year-olds show
35% and 6-year-olds 25% misinterpretations whereas they are
over 90% correct on all human facial expressions. This result
indicates a severe lack in interpretation abilities in children of
facial expressions of dogs which could contribute to the high
incidence of dog bites, especially in younger children. Given
this result, we can advise children and parents to prevent inju-
ries and inform dog bite prevention programmes to help pre-
vent further dog bite incidents.
IP16_Supp01_abstracts.indd 68IP16_Supp01_abstracts.indd 68 12/16/2010 5:24:38 PM12/16/2010 5:24:38 PM
group.bmj.com on August 21, 2015 - Published by http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/Downloaded from
misinterpret dogs facial expressions
How to prevent dog bite injuries? Children
K Meints, A Racca and N Hickey
doi: 10.1136/ip.2010.029215.246
2010 16: A68 Inj Prev
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/16/Suppl_1/A68.1
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Supplementary resource (1)

Meints et al. 2010 How to prevent dog bite injuries - Children misinterpret dog facial expressions
Data
April 2013
Kerstin Meints · Anais Racca · Naomi Hickey
... Both current dog owners and non-dog owners identified aggression better in dog faces compared to happiness and fear. These findings contrast those of others that found difficulties in human's ability to identify aggression and fear in dogs (e.g., Aldridge & Rose, 2019;Tami & Gallagher, 2009;Meints et al., 2010aMeints et al., , 2010b. However, compared to these previous investigations, our study was with an adult, rather than a child, population and utilised photographs of faces, rather than video clips. ...
... Firstly, we found that age did not significantly relate to the proportion of facial expressions correctly identified for either species nor beliefs about animal minds. Exploring age-related changes with these variables may, therefore, only be relevant with younger or elderly populations where developmental and cognitive abilities may play a role in emotion processing (Isaacowitz et al., 2007;Lakestani et al., 2014;Meints et al., 2010b). Secondly, we found that participants who identified as female scored significantly higher on beliefs in animal sentience and confidence in complex dog emotions compared to participants who identified as male (note that no participants identified as nonbinary or a different gender). ...
Accuracy of Canine vs. Human Emotion Identification: Impact of Dog Ownership and Belief in Animal Mind
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2021
Humans are adept at extrapolating emotional information from the facial expressions of other humans but may have difficulties identifying emotions in dogs. This can increase risk for compromised dog and human welfare. Experience with dogs, and beliefs in animal minds, may influence interspecies emotional communication, yet limited research has investigated these variables. In this study, participants (n = 122 adults) were asked to identify human and dog emotional facial expressions (happiness, fearfulness, anger/aggression) through an online experimental emotion recognition task. Experience with dogs (through dog ownership and duration of current dog ownership), emotion attribution (through beliefs about animal mind), and demographics were also measured. Results showed that fear and happiness were more easily identified in human faces, whereas aggression was more easily identified in dog faces. Duration of current dog ownership, age, and gender identity did not relate to accuracy scores, but current dog owners were significantly better at identifying happiness in dog faces than non-dog owners. Dog ownership and duration of ownership related to increased beliefs about, and confidence in, the emotional ability of dogs. Additionally, belief in animal sentience was positively correlated with accuracy scores for identifying happiness in dogs. Overall, these exploratory findings show that adult humans, particularly current dog owners and those who believe in the emotionality of dogs, can accurately identify some basic emotions in dogs but may be more skilled at identifying positive than negative emotions. The findings have implications for preventing negative human-animal interactions through intervention strategies that target animal emotionality.
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... For the dog, theoretically, the same communication channels are available when interacting with dogs or humans; however, these signals may often carry different meanings depending on the receiver (Topál et al., 2014). Visual cues between the two species can be less readily understood due to the distant phylogenetic relationship and vastly different anatomy (Meints et al., 2010). It has been proven that canine emotional expressions affect time spent gazing at specific areas of the face in both children (Correia-Caeiro et al., 2023) and adult humans (Correia-Caeiro et al., 2020). ...
View
... Limited ability in reading dogs' body postures and facial expressions can lead into dangerous situations [e.g., 29,53]. For example, children may assume that a dog with exposed teeth is smiling although the expression is a serious warning signal to keep distance [e.g., 16,54]. Another study reported that 5-6-year-old children were less adept than adults at reading dog emotions, except for anger and happiness that were also recognized by children [14]. ...
Matters of development and experience: Evaluation of dog and human emotional expressions by children and adults
Article
Full-text available
Emotional facial expressions are an important part of across species social communication, yet the factors affecting human recognition of dog emotions have received limited attention. Here, we characterize the recognition and evaluation of dog and human emotional facial expressions by 4-and 6-year-old children and adult participants, as well as the effect of dog experience in emotion recognition. Participants rated the happiness, anger, valence, and arousal from happy, aggressive, and neutral facial images of dogs and humans. Both respondent age and experience influenced the dog emotion recognition and ratings. Aggressive dog faces were rated more often correctly by adults than 4-year-olds regardless of dog experience, whereas the 6-year-olds’ and adults’ performances did not differ. Happy human and dog expressions were recognized equally by all groups. Children rated aggressive dogs as more positive and lower in arousal than adults, and participants without dog experience rated aggressive dogs as more positive than those with dog experience. Children also rated aggressive dogs as more positive and lower in arousal than aggressive humans. The results confirm that recognition of dog emotions, especially aggression, increases with age, which can be related to general dog experience and brain structure maturation involved in facial emotion recognition.
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... For instance, it is not always the case that adult individuals correctly identify fear-and anxiety-related behaviors in dogs during child-pet interactions (Demirbas et al., 2016). Children are also at risk of misinterpreting the pet's behavior, which can be a consequence of perceived stress or discomfort of which the person is unaware, and that can also lead to a bite injury (Meints et al., 2010). Furthermore, children are often more likely to approach pets because they can incorrectly identify their emotional behavior (Aldridge & Rose, 2019). ...
Affiliative Bonds and Cruel Behavior in Childhood Interspecific Relationships: A Conceptual Framework on the Psychodynamics of Affect Regulation
Article
  • Dec 2022
Background: Childhood interspecific relationships can be viewed as a mirror of the person’s capacity to interact with other living beings. The interspecific relationship can involve different attachment styles, affect regulation skills, transitional object dynamics, and self-awareness and mentalization processes. Yet interspecific relationships can also be disrupted, since they can be associated with cruel behavior toward animals, which is in turn related to possible psychopathology. Method: We provided a conceptual framework based on the literature addressing the interspecific relationship in both its adaptive and positive features as well as in its disrupted aspects. Discussion: Pets have often been regarded as attachment figures that can aid children in socialization and growth processes. They have been deemed to represent “social catalysts” that tend to facilitate human relationships, thus increasing prosocial behaviors. On the dark side of the pet-child interaction, childhood abuse of animals tends to be associated with behavioral and emotional problems that have been thought of as underlying psychopathology (e.g., conduct disorder and antisocial personality traits). Childhood cruelty to animals seems to accompany emotion dysregulation, poor social information processing, and low empathy. Conclusions: Since the child-pet relationship has substantial implications for the individual’s mental health and for the potential development of psychopathology, addressing children’s attitudes toward animals can aid in understanding the affective and emotional dimensions of their interpersonal experience.
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... People, on the other hand, do not seem to share the same capacity to read dog visual signaling (Borgi & Cirulli, 2016;Jalongo, 2018;Csoltova & Mehinagic, 2020). Although aggression is generally the most readily recognized expression (Lakestani, Donaldson & Waran, 2014), children often misinterpret aggression in the facial expression of dogs (i.e., baring of teeth, Bradshaw & Rooney, 2016) as happy and smiling (Meints, Racca & Hickey, 2010;Meints, Brelsford & De Keuster, 2018) with dangerous consequences. Some adults have also been noted to interpret dog behavior in this way (Demirbas et al., 2016). ...
Are children and dogs best friends? A scoping review to explore the positive and negative effects of child-dog interactions
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2022
Personal wellbeing is greatly influenced by our childhood and adolescence, and the relationships formed during those phases of our development. The human-dog bond represents a significant relationship that started thousands of years ago. There is a higher prevalence of dog ownership around the world, especially in households including children. This has resulted in a growing number of researchers studying our interactions with dogs and an expanding evidence base from the exploration of child-dog interactions. We review the potential effects of child-dog interactions on the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of both species. A search of the SCOPUS database identified documents published between January 1980 and April 2022. Filtering for key inclusion criteria, duplicate removals, and inspecting the references of these documents for additional sources, we reviewed a total of 393 documents, 88% of which were scientific articles. We were able to define the numerous ways in which children and dogs interact, be it neutral ( e.g ., sharing a common area), positive ( e.g ., petting), or negative ( e.g ., biting). Then, we found evidence for an association between childhood interaction with dogs and an array of benefits such as increased physical activities, a reduction of stress, and the development of empathy. Nonetheless, several detrimental outcomes have also been identified for both humans and dogs. Children are the most at-risk population regarding dog bites and dog-borne zoonoses, which may lead to injuries/illness, a subsequent fear of dogs, or even death. Moreover, pet bereavement is generally inevitable when living with a canine companion and should not be trivialized. With a canine focus, children sometimes take part in caretaking behaviors toward them, such as feeding or going for walks. These represent opportunities for dogs to relieve themselves outside, but also to exercise and socialize. By contrast, a lack of physical activity can lead to the onset of obesity in both dogs and children. Dogs may present greater levels of stress when in the presence of children. Finally, the welfare of assistance, therapy, and free-roaming dogs who may interact with children remains underexplored. Overall, it appears that the benefits of child-dog interactions outweigh the risks for children but not for dogs; determination of the effects on both species, positive as well as negative, still requires further development. We call for longitudinal studies and cross-cultural research in the future to better understand the impact of child-dog interactions. Our review is important for people in and outside of the scientific community, to pediatricians, veterinarians, and current or future dog owners seeking to extend their knowledge, and to inform future research of scientists studying dogs and human-animal interactions.
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... A dog's distress signals are often misinterpreted or even go unnoticed (MARITI et al., 2012), especially by young children who may not understand the meaning of warning signals (FRANK, 2013). For example, it was shown that children are often unable to read a dog's expressions or mental state and can misinterpret the face of an angry dog as a smiling one (MEINTS et al., 2010) or have problems identifying fearful dogs among shown videos (LAKESTANI et al., 2014). Overall, dog owners generally lack knowledge about safe interaction with dogs and warning signs of aggression and potential risks associated with aggression and bites (REISNER and SHOFER, 2008) and parents often do not offer the supervision and intervention needed during a child-dog interaction (ARHANT et al., 2016). ...
Risk factors for dog bites involving children
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2022
Although children are the most frequent victims of dog bites, gaps remain in understanding of the factors that lead to biting incidents. Using a retrospective and victim self-report questionnaire, risk factors for dog bites with respect to younger and older children in Slovenia are examined. The results showed that younger children were more commonly bitten in a non-public place, outside or inside a house when the owner was absent. They had approached and interacted with a dog they knew, which had a history of aggression and had displayed tense or aggressive behaviour before the bite. Older children were mainly bitten outside in a public space, when the owner was not there. They were approached and bitten by an unknown dog while running or cycling, while entering the dog's personal space, or it was completely unprovoked. The dog involved had a history of aggression and before the bite the victims had neither interacted nor attempted to interact with the dog. These results suggest that the risk factors for dog bites involving children might be age-related calling for due attention and further assessment.
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... As mentioned, childhood animal cruelty is often unintentional and may have cognitive roots, resulting from misinterpretation of animal behaviour and welfare needs, as well as a lack of knowledge about appropriate and safe behaviour towards animals, and lack of ability to recognise emotional signals in pets (Hawkins & Williams, 2016;Lakestani, Donaldson, Verga & Waran, 2006;Meints & De Keuster, 2009). Reducing acceptance of animal cruelty (indicative of cruelty behaviour) through education is a key goal, which could be achieved through the inclusion of emotional material aimed to increase beliefs about animal minds, how to accurately identify emotional signals (Hawkins & Williams 2016;Lakestani, Donaldson & Waran, 2014;Meints, Racca & Hickey, 2010), and through examples of animal cruelty and neglect (Hawkins, Williams & Scottish SPCA, 2017a). Educational materials need to be child-friendly and ethically appropriate, without distressing images. ...
The Development and Pilot Evaluation of a ‘Serious Game’ to Promote Positive Child-Animal Interactions
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  • Dec 2020
Animal welfare education aims to nurture compassion, respect and kindness to animals but there remains a need for more rigorous evaluations of such programmes to assess the most effective approaches. Incorporating technology into animal welfare education is a relatively novel field. This study examines the process of designing, developing, and evaluating the effectiveness of a new theoretically-driven educational computer game intervention. Pet Welfare was designed for children aged 7-12 years, to promote positive child-animal interactions. A pre-test, post-test, test-control, quasi-experimental design was used using a self-report questionnaire that children completed within class. Participants included 184 primary-school children from schools in Scotland, UK. The results indicated a positive impact on knowledge about animal welfare needs, knowledge about appropriate and safe behaviour towards pets and beliefs about pet minds. Children were also less accepting of cruelty to pets. There was no impact on self-reported compassion. This study presents the first evaluation of a digital animal welfare ‘serious game’ for children, demonstrating the benefits of incorporating technology and game-based learning into animal cruelty prevention. The results of this study will inform future education directions for those wishing to promote positive and safe relationships between children and animals.
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Development and application of the first protocol to assess welfare of dromedary camels kept under pastoralism
Conference Paper
  • Oct 2024
A new protocol for measuring welfare in dromedary camels kept under nomadic pastoralists was developed (Padalino and Menchetti, accepted), adapting the currently available welfare protocol for dromedary camels kept in intensive systems (Padalino and Menchetti, 2021). This study aimed to apply the new protocol and assess the welfare of dromedary camels kept under pastoralism in Pakistan. A total of 44 welfare indicators (animal-, resource, and management-based indicators) aligning with animal welfare principles (‘Good Feeding,’ ‘Good Housing,’ ‘Good Health,’ and ‘Appropriate Behavior’) were gathered into two assessment levels: ‘Caretaker-Herd level’ and ‘Animal level’. Data were collected in 2023 in the Punjab province. A total of 54 herds for a total population of 1186 camels, of which 510 (495 females and 15 males; average age: 5-6 years old) at Animal-level, were evaluated and two animals under treatment for acute pathological conditions were excluded. Data were aggregated and analysed to obtain Principle Aggregated Indexes (PAIs) and a total Welfare Index (TWI). Using the PAIs classification, 4 herds resulted excellent, 42 satisfactory, and 8 unsatisfactory. Good feeding and Good housing were the most problematic PAIs. TWI varied from 55.7 to 82.2, and using a traffic light classification, 12 herds resulted green, 22 orange, and 20 red. As expected, camels kept under pastoralism had a higher level of welfare than camels kept in intensive systems. However, it was still possible to suggest guidelines for the improvement of those herds with criticalities. Our findings are a first step to propose welfare standards for dromedary camels.
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