Beware of Dog: Impact of Air Pollution on Dog Bites

Abstract: As air pollution has been shown to affect the physical health of both human and animal, the natural question is whether air pollution has the same effects on the aggressive behavior of dogs as it has on humans. In this paper, I estimate the effect of air pollution on dog bite incidence by employing a Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) method on the dog bites data from seven US cities: New York, Dallas, Baltimore, Houston, Louisville, Chicago and Baton Rouge. To mitigate the possible endogeneity problem, I also use wind direction as an instrument for air pollution. Air pollution is found not to have a statistically significant effect on dog bites, animal bites, and animal aggression. However, weather conditions, especially maximum temperature, are identified as significant factors, showing a positive association with the number of dog bites.