Dog walking is dangerous business
Yes, you did read that right. A lot of strange things can send you to the emergency department. Go ahead and add dog walking onto that list.
Investigators from Johns Hopkins University estimate that over 422,000 adults presented to U.S. emergency departments with leash-dependent dog walking-related injuries between 2001 and 2020.
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With almost 53% of U.S. households owning at least one dog in 2021-2022 in the wake of the COVID pet boom, this kind of occurrence is becoming more common than you think. The annual number of dog-walking injuries more than quadrupled from 7,300 to 32,000 over the course of the study, and the researchers link that spike to the promotion of dog walking for fitness, along with the boost of ownership itself.
The most common injuries listed in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database were finger fracture, traumatic brain injury, and shoulder sprain or strain. These mostly involved falls from being pulled, tripped, or tangled up in the leash while walking. For those aged 65 years and older, traumatic brain injury and hip fracture were the most common.
Women were 50% more likely to sustain a fracture than were men, and dog owners aged 65 and older were three times as likely to fall, twice as likely to get a fracture, and 60% more likely to have brain injury than were younger people. Now, that’s not to say younger people don’t also get hurt. After all, dogs aren’t ageists. The researchers have that data but it’s coming out later.
Meanwhile, the pitfalls involved with just trying to get our daily steps in while letting Muffin do her business have us on the lookout for random squirrels.