Beyond the snapshot: A new framework for assessing dog bite risk

A client brings in her 4-year-old boxer for his annual wellness visit. He has been a patient since puppyhood and has been well behaved at every appointment. Midway through the exam, you ask whether anything has changed at home. She hesitates but then mentions that he has been a bit grumpy lately. She tells you that last week he nipped her teenage son on the hand. It was not serious, so she did not think it was worth mentioning.

Three weeks later, that same dog bites a neighbor’s child. Animal control investigates, classifies him as potentially dangerous, and orders him impounded. What happens next depends entirely on where this family lives.

In some jurisdictions, the animal control officer’s incident report is the only assessment that will ever be made. In others, the pet parent hires an attorney, fights the classification, and someone is found to assess the dog and testify. This could be a dog trainer, a behavior consultant, or someone from the local shelter. The assessment often takes 20 minutes in a kennel and involves, among other things, inserting a rubber hand into the dog’s food bowl.

On the basis of that isolated behavioral test, an administrative hearing board will decide whether this dog lives or dies.

The problem with “point-in-time” assessments

Most veterinary professionals will recognize some version of this. Less familiar is the growing body of research questioning the behavioral assessments that often sit at the end of that chain.

These point-in-time evaluations can influence life-and-death decisions, yet their scientific foundations and predictive value have increasingly come under scrutiny. It may just be that veterinary professionals, through the conversations they are already having with clients, could play an important role in interrupting that chain before it begins.

A commentary published in Animals in March 2026 by researchers at the University of Lincoln argues for a fundamental overhaul of how dog bite risk is assessed, drawing directly on forensic psychology methods developed to predict human violence.

The framework is still under development and has not yet undergone the large-scale validation required for widespread adoption. This commentary, titled The Use of Structured Professional Judgement: A New Way to Understand and Assess Bite Risk from Dogs, outlines the new approach and what is needed to determine how structured professional judgment might best be applied to dog bite risk assessment.

A public health crisis with no reliable way to assess risk

According to the AVMA, more than 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs in the United States each year, with approximately 800,000 requiring medical attention. Children account for more than half of all injuries. In 2025, dog bite liability claims cost homeowners’ insurers nearly $1.86 billion, a 25% increase on the previous year, according to the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm.

These figures capture only what surfaces in medical or insurance records. Studies suggest that at least half of bites go entirely unreported.

The legislative response in the United States is fragmented. There is no federal dangerous dog statute. Much of the legislation in place focuses on specific breeds, which only adds to the confusing legal landscape. More than 700 cities have enacted some form of breed-specific legislation and at least 22 states have preemption laws limiting or prohibiting such ordinances. What appear consistent across jurisdictions are the poor standards required for behavioral assessments used to make decisions about individual dogs.

The authors of the University of Lincoln commentary are based in the UK, where a national Dangerous Dogs Act creates a more centralized framework and breed-specific bans are highly politicized. The underlying failure they identify is not specific to the UK, though. It is a problem wherever dogs bite people and professionals are called upon to assess what should happen next.

A behavioral snapshot cannot measure risk

The published commentary is clear that behavior assessments used in dog bite cases rely on unstructured professional judgment and unstandardized provocative tests, and there is no requirement for the factors assessed to carry empirical support. A dog is in an unfamiliar environment, exposed to artificial stimuli on a single day, and the responses observed are treated as predictive of future behavior in a domestic context. Assessors do not need to hold any specialist qualification or use standardized methodology for this type of expert opinion to be admitted in legal proceedings.

The research literature is equally direct about the predictive value of these tests. Studies cited in the paper show that shelter-based behavioral evaluations have very limited ability to predict how a dog will actually behave once rehomed. One study found that out of 37 screening factors routinely used by rehoming staff, only four were evidentially supported as associated with human safety risk.

Veterinary professionals accustomed to evidence-based medicine may question whether many current behavioral assessment approaches for bite risk meet the standards of empirical support expected in other areas of practice.

Helen Howell, PhD, forensic behaviorist and Fellow at the University of Lincoln, is one of the authors of the commentary. She explains why it is so important to change the way assessments are done when evaluating bite risks in dogs.

“The assessments that I see at the moment predominantly aren’t evidence-based. Not many of them actually consider a home environment and the owner’s ability to manage the dog safely. It’s very, very dog focused,” she said. “They are predominantly provocative tests, and an assessment is made based on the incident and the dog’s behavior in the assessment and while it’s been in kennels. There’s little regard for what’s going on in the dog’s home, how able the caregiver of that dog is to manage the dog safely and put risk management strategies in place, and things that may influence [behavior], like pain, are hardly ever addressed.”

Could human forensic psychology inform a new approach?

About three decades ago, the field of forensic mental health in humans faced a structurally identical problem. Courts were relying on clinicians to assess the likelihood of violent reoffending through professional intuition alone. The outcomes were inconsistent and the methodology was unaccountable.

The field’s response was structured professional judgment (SPJ). The best-known example is the HCR-20, a tool providing assessors with 20 defined risk factors spanning historical, clinical, and risk management domains. Assessors systematically work through each factor, document their reasoning, state their degree of certainty, and exercise informed professional judgment to reach a defensible conclusion.

The structured element reduces cognitive bias. The professional judgment element preserves the capacity to account for individual complexity. SPJ has since been extended to suicide risk and terrorism assessment, widely regarded as best practice.

Using SJP for dogs

Todd Hogue, PhD, emeritus professor of psychology, University of Lincoln, is a forensic psychologist. He has been studying how this model translates to dogs. His motivation is the same frustration that originally drove SPJ’s development in human contexts: Expert opinions are inconsistent, subjective, and very difficult to challenge.

Hogue explains, “Usually, if you have a simple solution to a complex problem, you know it’s probably wrong. And this is the thing that’s good about the structured professional judgment as a system. You should be trained in it as opposed to ‘it’s just a checklist.’”

The Lincoln team’s SPJ tool for dogs currently identifies 24 defined risk factors across four domains. These include the dog’s history and prior behavior, present clinical status, characteristics of pet parents and management practices, and their capacity to implement risk reduction strategies. All of these domains matter—and a one-off evaluation captures none of this.

Hogue describes the real benefits of this approach. “It sets out a different way to talk about risk to people, a different way to educate people in their homes about their dogs and safety and their children.” Hogue says the framework can also help reduce risk by encouraging pet parents who are considering bringing a new dog into their home (or working on the behavior of their current dog) to include bite risk in their decision. “It’s more comprehensive about thinking, maybe we only need to have one dog. Maybe we need to have a dog that fits with our lifestyle. Maybe we need to make sure we walk [them] more often than we used to. All of which reduce the risk for the bite risk.”

Pain as a root cause

For veterinary professionals, aspects of the SPJ framework are immediately relevant to clinical practice.

Unmanaged pain is in the paper as one of the most pervasive and most underrecognized contributors to human-directed aggression. The relationship is well established in veterinary literature, including a 2020 paper published in Animals looking at the relationship between pain and problem behavior in cats and dogs, and in a 2012 study published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, documenting 12 clinical cases of pain-related aggression in dogs.

Dogs mask discomfort effectively, and pet parents frequently miss even significant pain until it has progressed. The behavioral changes that accompany pain, like reduced tolerance for handling, lower threshold for reactive responses, and altered movement, can often present as a personality change rather than a clinical sign. By the time a bite occurs, the dog may have been living with unmanaged pain for months.

Ann Baslington Davies, a lecturer at Bishop Burton College and a PhD candidate at the University of Lincoln, is an expert witness in these types of cases and is also one of the authors of this commentary. She explained that during their research into risk factors, one finding stood out.

“We did a number of events where we talked to dog professionals. And they all said, ‘pain,’ ‘pain,’ ‘people don’t think about pain enough.’” Acute pain, caregivers recognize, but they often fail to notice things like achy hips or sore ears.

In situations like this, veterinary teams have opportunities during well pet appointments or other checkups to educate clients about any areas that may be painful for their pet, especially as the dog ages.

The human element of risk

Another key element is the pet parent and their lifestyle.

The SPJ framework explicitly positions behavior of pet parents, management practices, household composition, and the presence of children or vulnerable adults as central risk factors, not secondary considerations.

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs-commissioned study in the UK, and subsequent systematic reviews cited in the paper, identify human behavior and environmental context as the primary drivers of human-directed canine aggression. The AVMA’s own dog bite prevention guidance reaches the same conclusion: Risk does not exist solely with the dog.

How veterinary teams can help predict bite risk

A veterinary consultation is where both of these factors may surface. You might consider adding a brief behavioral screening question to routine wellness visits to identify pain-related risk or management concerns before they escalate. One example:

Have you noticed any changes in:

• your dog’s behavior
• willingness to be handled
• movement on walks

A question asking whether there have been any changes at home may also help provide a picture of what is happening in the dog’s life. Making these questions part of a standard clinical inquiry rather than expressions of concern about temperament tends to improve disclosure and client engagement.

Prevention is already the profession’s orientation. Across vaccination, nutrition, pain management, and early disease detection, the veterinary visit exists to identify problems before they become crises.

Behavioral health is no different, and the AAHA Canine and Feline Behavior Management Guidelines already reflect this, calling on practices to integrate behavioral management as a core competency, to recognize age-specific changes in behavior as they develop, and to give pet parents the guidance they need to seek help early.

The sequence the guidelines recommends when a concern surfaces includes:

• ruling out underlying medical causes first
• addressing management through behavior modification and client guidance
• referring to a board-certified veterinary behaviorist when the situation calls for it.

This maps directly onto the risk domains the SPJ framework is built around. The frameworks are pointing in the same direction.

Howell believes a short series of targeted questions, adapted from tools already used by assessors entering family homes, could give veterinarians something practical that fits within the reality of a 10-minute appointment.

Breed bias leads to unfair outcomes

Research does not support breed as a reliable predictor of individual bite risk, and the tendency to overestimate risk associated with breeds prominent in high-profile incidents demonstrably influences how decisions are made. In the US, where breed-specific ordinances and insurers increasingly exclude or surcharge certain breeds, the pressure toward breed-based judgment rather than individual assessment is institutionally embedded.

This is important clinically because breed assumptions can make it difficult for people with certain breeds of dogs to access veterinary care, leaving pain and medical conditions untreated. It also matters legally, because individual behavioral evidence can be overridden by breed classification in hearings and proceedings without a structured methodology to challenge it.

Howell says that while larger dogs are more likely to cause greater injury, she feels that stereotypes about certain breeds and types lead to individual dogs being treated unfairly. “There is a huge breed bias in the way that many of the courts see dogs and also in the police response to dog bite incidents. So I do personal injury claim work as well as the dangerous dog stuff and the difference in the way that dogs are dealt with if they are a bull breed compared to if they are a cockapoo or a spaniel is incredible.”

An SPJ-based assessment provides a documented, evidence-referenced basis for challenging that bias. Assessors are required to work through individual risk factors and treat breed as one context-dependent variable among many.

Prevention, not just assessment

Beyond the individual consultation, the SPJ framework is designed for risk management as well as risk assessment, and its contribution to prevention may ultimately matter more than its contribution to any individual legal proceeding. By highlighting dynamic risk factors, those that can be changed through intervention, it creates a basis for targeted recommendations.

Timely pain management is a dynamic factor. Client education to help them recognize stress signals is a dynamic factor. Appropriate behavioral referral at the right time, realistic conversations about household management, and matching dogs to lifestyles are all intervention points an SPJ assessment identifies in a structured way that a 20-minute provocative test in a kennel cannot.

For Baslington-Davies, good data is a necessary part of the equation, as reduction in bites is the ultimate goal. But she is equally focused on what better data would mean for the field.

“Can we start having some decent statistics about dog bites, rather than relying on hospital data, which is massively skewed towards severity rather than actually how risky the dog is?” Alongside that, she wants to see a cultural shift in how responsibility is understood. “Use of this tool would mean that there is more emphasis placed on the owners and their actions in how dog behavior is managed.”

A framework in development and a call to action

This commentary is a call to action rather than a validation study. The SPJ framework for dogs is still under development. Significant work remains on factor validation, training standards, and outcome tracking infrastructure. An app is being piloted to capture structured assessments and build the longitudinal dataset that rigorous validation requires.

But the direction is clear, and veterinary professionals are well placed to contribute.

Recognizing pain and medical factors as behavioral risk drivers, integrating brief screening into routine consultations, and being prepared to articulate clearly why breed alone is not a sound basis for risk judgment are all within existing clinical scope.

So many dog bites are preventable with better information, earlier identification, and more accurate assessment. The exam room is where a vital part of that can begin.

Photo credit: Daniel Megias/iStock via Getty Images Plus

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