Brief Report: Don’t Kiss a Sleeping Dog: The First Assessment of “The Blue Dog” Bite Prevention Program

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The authors attempted to remedy the current lack of empirically evaluated dog-bite prevention programs for children under 7 by assessing children's learning success with the "Blue Dog" CD. METHODS: Ninety-six 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children used the interactive CD in an initial exposure phase, a training and a testing phase. Half received verbal feedback, and the other half additional practice with parents. All children were re-tested after 2 weeks. RESULTS: There were significant increases in safe choices after the training phase at all ages, with older children performing better than younger children. Children still retained their ability to make safe choices after 2 weeks. Interestingly, children practicing with parents performed better than others when under 6 years. Verbal feedback did not play a role, the CD is equally effective without. CONCLUSIONS: Children learned successfully about safe behavior with dogs; thus, the CD can help educate children about dog-bite prevention.