Tracking Dog Bites in San Diego

Which San Diego communities have the most dog bites?

It’s the dog version of county jail: a back wing at the San Diego County Animal Service Building, where more than a dozen dogs are serving a 10-day “time out” for biting.

The quarantine is typically part of a warning for first-time offenders. However, if they bite a human again in the next four years, they’ll be classified as a “dangerous dog” for life.

Orange County supervisors have been considering a website to alert community members about “dangerous dogs”. It would be like Meganslaw.com, which tracks sex offenders, except it would list the addresses of dogs classified as dangerous.

The idea is something San Diego County animal officials have considered in the past, but they say it isn’t practical.

“The recidivism rate of people who have a declared dog that then go on to bite or attack is so minuscule compared to the number of actual dog bites we get in the county that it wouldn’t be the best use of those statistics,” said Lt. Kalani Hudson.

Hudson says almost all of the bites are from first time offenders, so the site wouldn’t do much good.

The department does track dog bites closely and provided NBC 7 with a list of zip codes within their jurisdiction where the most dog bites occurred between July 1, 2012 and June 30 of this year.

View the list here.

The 92113 zip code-- which encompasses areas like downtown, Barrio Logan and Logan Heights-- had the most dog bites in San Diego with 113 reported incidents.

Contact Us