April 13-19, 2025 is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. This week aims to bring awareness to the fact that, although dogs are part of the family and provide companionship and immense joy, any dog can bite. National Dog Bite Prevention Week focuses on preventing dog bites to humans. Most dog bites occur in children, and most children are bitten by the family dog or dogs belonging to friends. The Schwarzman Animal Medical Center has resources for parents to help them educate and protect their children against bite injury.

For National Dog Bite Prevention Week 2025, I thought I would focus my blogpost on a different type of bite injury – those sustained by dogs and cats from other dogs and cats.

Yes, Dogs Bite Other Dogs and Cats

Bite injuries are some of the most common injuries seen by veterinary emergency clinics. The Dog Aging Project, a long-term citizen scientist project measuring health factors and outcomes in a large sample of US dogs, reports bite injuries as one of the top ten most frequent medical conditions diagnosed.

The American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Veterinary Committee on Trauma (VetCOT), of which AMC is a member, also reports on bite injuries. Between April 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019, they recorded 24,000 canine and feline trauma cases. Bite wounds were clearly some of the most serious injuries seen. The registry reported 9,000 dogs and 938 cats with bite wounds. 15% of those dogs and 48% of those cats did not survive their injuries. These mortality rates are much higher than the average conditions reported in the VetCOT registry population, highlighting the severity of bite wounds in pets. Of the 24,000 animals in the study, 93% of dogs and 82% of cats were discharged from the participating veterinary trauma centers, a much better outcome than those dogs and cats suffering from bite injuries.

Dog Bite Injuries to Dogs

Dog to dog bites can occur in the home or out in public. Dog bites in public are more likely to occur between two dogs that don’t know each other. Keeping your dog leashed in public will go a long way to protect them. If you and your dog frequent dog parks, watch carefully for signs another dog is acting aggressively towards your dog rather than playfully.

Dog bites can cause serious injuries. When bites penetrate through the chest wall, dogs develop breathing problems because air accumulates around the lungs or the lungs become bruised. If a bite injury penetrates through the abdominal wall, a hernia can form, requiring surgical repair. Two good reasons to protect your dog against bite injuries.

Dog Bite Injuries to Cats

Information from Melbourne, Australia confirms the seriousness and high fatality rate of dog bites to cats found in the VetCOT registry. These injuries are life-threatening because they often include multiple bite wounds, with bites that penetrate into the chest or abdomen and even cause fractures. The best way to prevent bite injury to your cat is keeping it indoors or only allowing supervised outdoor activities.

Cat Bite Injuries to Dogs

Unfortunately, cat bite injuries to dogs have not been well documented in the literature, but we know cat bites to humans are serious. If you own both a cat and a dog, make sure the cat has a dedicated space where they feel safe and supervise cat-dog interactions, if necessary, to avoid conflict. As always, make sure both your cat and dog are up to date on their rabies vaccination.

Learn how to protect yourself against a cat bite using AMC’s free resources.