Dog bites man more during summertime

Summer often means lots of outdoors fun on area lakes for Austinites. But for others folks, these hot "dog days of summer" can mean something completely different as dog bite incidents tend to increase during summer months.

Dr. Adam Weinfeld is a plastic surgeon who sees more dog bites during the summer.

"It's not suprising at all -- we certainly notice an increasing number of consults in the emergency room, children that have been injured in dog bites," he said.

Weinfeld added that children are often more likely than adults to become victims of bites often because they're exposed to them more.

"They're outside more often certainly because they're not in school during the summer so they have more unsupervised time alongside of dogs," Weinfeld said.

A nonprofit organization called "Prevent a Bite" said children are three times more likely than adults to get bit. Add that with The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reporting 29,000 reconstructive surgeries last year due to dog bites nationwide.

It is a statistic that attorney Len Gabbey sees play out regularly during the summer.

"Infants and toddlers are more at risk," Gabbey said. "They are at an eye level that is more akin to a dog's eye level, which can be seen as threatening to a dog. When you have kids over at friends' homes, for example, sleepovers during the summertime with their friends or barbecues, when you're just not doing that except in the summertime."

Healthcare professionals said if you have a dog keep it on a leash. If you're out somewhere and the dogs are running around loose, watch your distance from the animal. You don't want to fall victim to another dog bite.