Dogs, Cats cause nearly 87,000 injuries for Americans annually

Written by Paul Martin -- April 3rd, 2009

roxy_maltese_terrierWow, these are crazy numbers, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have released some estimates in their weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

It has found that there are 86,629 injuries each year in American households because of dogs and cats.  It’s not all directly related to  the dogs and cats, but also to the toys that they might drag around and leave places.  We all know that cats are kinda crazy, and according to the movie Bolt: Cats are degenerate creatures of darkness.

Injuries to the extremities accounted for 51.8% of injuries associated with dogs and 47.6% of injuries associated with cats. The proportion of patients hospitalized or transferred was similar whether the injuries were associated with dogs (7.8%) or cats (10.4%). The majority of fall injuries occurred inside or in the immediate environment outside the home. Among falls involving dogs, 61.6% occurred in or around the home, and 16.4% in the street or other public place. A location was not specified for 20.3% of cases. Twenty-six percent of falls involving dogs occurred while persons were walking them, and the most frequent circumstances were falling or tripping over a dog (31.3%) and being pushed or pulled by a dog (21.2%). Falling over a pet item (e.g., a toy or food bowl) accounted for 8.8% of fall injuries. Approximately 38.7% involved other or unknown circumstances.

Most falls involving cats occurred at home (85.7%). Approximately 11.7% of injuries occurred while persons were chasing cats. However, an activity was not specified in 62.1% of cases. The most frequent circumstances were falling or tripping over a cat (66.4%.); 29.2% involved other or unknown circumstances.

The study was conducted from 2001-2006, in which the CDC analyzed data provided by, and this name is a real mouthful: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP)

Types of injuries caused by dogs:
Fracture: 30.8 percent
Contusion/Abrasion: 26.3 percent
Strain/Sprain: 18.5 percent
Laceration: 13 percent
Internal injury: 4.3 percent
Others/Unknown: 7.1 percent

-via CDC with additional reporting by CNN

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Health and Safety, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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