What to do after a dog bite

For a minor wound, CDC says to "Wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water," apply an antibiotic cream, and cover the wound with a clean bandage [17]. For deep wounds, "Apply pressure with a clean, dry cloth to stop the bleeding" and "Seek medical attention right away." [17] CDC says to call 911 or local emergency medical services "if you cannot stop the bleeding or you feel faint or weak." [17]

CDC lists when to see a healthcare provider: the wound is serious or deep, the wound becomes infected, you do not know whether the dog has been vaccinated against rabies, or it has been more than 5 years since your last tetanus shot [17]. It adds that infected wounds "may be red, painful, or swollen, or cause a fever." [17] For one specific infection, CDC says that if symptoms such as blisters around the bite area, fever, vomiting or headache appear "within 14 days of getting bit by a dog or cat," you should contact a healthcare provider immediately and say you were recently bitten by an animal [18]. A healthcare provider, not this page, decides what care a bite needs.

Dog-bite liability is set by state law, and the four launch states do not use the same words. This table only points to the statute each state section below quotes; it is not a summary of what applies to a specific bite.

An attorney can explain how a statute applies to your facts. For deadlines, see the state deadline pages: Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina, or the deadline calculator.

Alabama Code § 3-6-1 says: "If any dog shall, without provocation, bite or injure any person who is at the time at a place where he or she has a legal right to be, the owner of such dog shall be liable in damages to the person so bitten or injured, but such liability shall arise only when the person so bitten or injured is upon property owned or controlled by the owner of such dog at the time such bite or injury occurs or when such person has been immediately prior to such time on such property and has been pursued therefrom by such dog." [7]

Section 3-6-2 says who counts as lawfully on the owner's property: a person is "lawfully upon the private property of the owner of such dog" when on it in the performance of a duty imposed by state or federal law or postal regulations, reading meters, delivering milk, making repairs to a public utility, or "upon the invitation, either expressed or implied, of the owner or lessee of such property." [8]

Section 3-6-3 lets the owner "plead and prove in mitigation of damages that he had no knowledge of any circumstances indicating such dog to be or to have been vicious or dangerous or mischievous," and if he does so, he "shall be liable only to the extent of the actual expenses incurred by the person so bitten or injured as a result of the bite or injury." [9] Section 3-6-4 adds that nothing in the chapter diminishes any right or liability for dog bites existing under other Alabama law. We have not read those other rules.

Reporting and the 10-day rule. The Alabama Department of Public Health says: "In Alabama, potential exposures must be confirmed by a licensed physician before ADPH can issue quarantine orders." [21] It adds: "The county health department should be notified by you or your physician or in some cases by the local law enforcement agency that is involved." [21] And: "If the animal is owned, it can be quarantined for 10 days under the supervision of a licensed veterinarian." [21] That source is the department's rabies manual FAQ dated July 2015; we did not find the matching statute on the official code site, so we do not state a legal reporting deadline for Alabama. Deadlines: Alabama deadlines.

Title 4, § 42.1 says: "The owner or owners of any dog shall be liable for damages to the full amount of any damages sustained when his dog, without provocation, bites or injures any person while such person is in or on a place where he has a lawful right to be." [10] Section 42.2 says a person is lawfully on the owner's private property when performing a duty imposed by law, reading meters, making repairs to a public utility, working at the owner's or tenant's request, or "upon the invitation, either expressed or implied, of the owner or lessee of such property." [11]

Section 42.3 contains a limit on the act: "Provided that this act shall not apply to rural areas of this State or to any cities or towns that do not have city or village United States mail delivery service." [12] It also says nothing in the act diminishes any right or liability for dog bites that already exists under state law. We do not interpret how this limit applies to any location.

Dangerous dogs. Section 44 defines a "dangerous dog" as one that "has inflicted severe injury on a human being without provocation on public or private property," among other things, and defines "severe injury" as "any physical injury that results in broken bones or lacerations requiring multiple sutures or cosmetic surgery." [14] [14] Section 42.4(A) makes it unlawful for the owner of a dog that previously, unprovoked, bit or severely injured a person, or created an imminent threat of injury or death, "to permit such dog to run at large or aggressively bite or attack any person while such person is lawfully upon public or private property," and the owner "shall be liable for damages as provided in Section 42.1." [13] Conviction is a misdemeanor punishable by "imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one (1) year, or by imposition of a fine not to exceed Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or by both." [13]

Reporting and the 10-day rule. The Oklahoma State Department of Health says after any animal bite to "Wash all bite wounds immediately with soap and water, and continue washing for at least ten minutes" and "Contact your healthcare provider as soon as possible." [20] Its page says to "Call the local county health department sanitarian to report animal bites." [20] For a dog, cat or ferret that bit someone who does not own it, it says the animal "should be quarantined with a licensed veterinarian for 10 days from the date of the bite," and if it "remains healthy after ten days, it was not infectious with rabies at the time the bite occurred." [20] [20] This is a health-department recommendation, not a statute we read. Deadlines: Oklahoma deadlines.

S.C. Code § 47-3-110(A) says: "If a person is bitten or otherwise attacked by a dog while the person is in a public place or is lawfully in a private place, including the property of the dog owner or person having the dog in the person's care or keeping, the dog owner or person having the dog in the person's care or keeping is liable for the damages suffered by the person bitten or otherwise attacked." [15] A person is lawfully in a private place when on the property in the performance of a duty imposed by state or federal law, or "upon the invitation, express or implied, of the property owner or a lawful tenant or resident of the property." [15]

Under (B), the section does not apply if "the person who was attacked provoked or harassed the dog and that provocation was the proximate cause of the attack," or if the dog was working in a law enforcement capacity and meets the conditions listed in (B)(2) [15].

Reporting. Section 47-5-90 says: "If no physician attends to the bite, it is the responsibility of the bitten adult or the parent or guardian of a bitten minor child to report the bite by the end of the next working day to the county health department." [16] A physician who attends must report by the end of the next working day [16]. The Department of Public Health says that if you provide care for a bitten patient, you are "required to report the name, age, gender, weight, address and telephone number of the person bitten to DPH no later than the end of the next working day." [19]

Quarantine. Section 47-5-100 says the county health department "shall serve notice upon the owner of a dog, cat, or ferret which has attacked or bitten a person to quarantine the animal at the expense of the owner upon his premises or at an animal shelter or other place designated in the notice for at least ten days after the animal has attacked or bitten a person." [16] Deadlines: South Carolina deadlines.

Section 44-8-413(a)(1) says: "The owner of a dog has a duty to keep that dog under reasonable control at all times, and to keep that dog from running at large." [1] It continues: "A person who breaches that duty is subject to civil liability for any damages suffered by a person who is injured by the dog while in a public place or lawfully in or on the private property of another." [1]

Subsection (a)(2) addresses what the injured person does not have to show: "The owner may be held liable regardless of whether the dog has shown any dangerous propensities or whether the dog's owner knew or should have known of the dog's dangerous propensities." [1]

Who counts as the "owner." The statute defines "owner" as "a person who, at the time of the damage caused to another, regularly harbors, keeps, or exercises control over the dog, but does not include a person who, at the time of the damage, is temporarily harboring, keeping, or exercising control over the dog." It adds that "land ownership alone is not enough to qualify a landowner as a regular harborer even if the landowner gave permission to a third person to keep the dog on the land" (§ 44-8-413(e)(1)) [1].

"Running at large." A dog is running at large when it "goes uncontrolled by the dog's owner upon the premises of another without the consent of the owner of the premises, or other person authorized to give consent, or goes uncontrolled by the owner upon a highway, public road, street or any other place open to the public generally" (§ 44-8-413(e)(2)) [1].

Subsection (b) says the owner's liability under (a) does not apply when:

Whether an exception applies to a specific bite depends on facts this page cannot assess.

Subsection (c)(1) changes the rule for one setting: "If a dog causes damage to a person while the person is on residential, farm or other noncommercial property, and the dog's owner is the owner of the property, or is on the property by permission of the owner or as a lawful tenant or lessee, in any civil action based upon such damages brought against the owner of the dog, the claimant shall be required to establish that the dog's owner knew or should have known of the dog's dangerous propensities." [1]

Under (c)(2), that knowledge element is "in addition to any other elements the claimant may be required to prove in order to establish a claim under the prevailing Tennessee law of premises liability or comparative fault." [1] In practice this means a bite at someone's home is treated differently from a bite on a sidewalk or in a public park. See slip and fall for how notice works in premises cases.

The statute's text covers injuries "in a public place" and defines running at large to include "any other place open to the public generally." This page does not state how the statute applies to any particular park, whether public or privately run, or what rules a park posts; we have not read those rules.

The statute sets its own limitations rule by reference: "The statute of limitations for an action brought pursuant to this section shall be the same as provided in § 28-3-104, for personal injury actions." (§ 44-8-413(d)) [1]. Section 28-3-104(a)(1) says injury actions "shall be commenced within one (1) year after the cause of action accrued." [2] See Tennessee deadlines. Different rules can apply to minors (§ 28-1-106) [3].

Tennessee's comparative-fault rule can apply to injury claims: a person may recover "so long as a plaintiff's negligence remains less than the defendant’s negligence the plaintiff may recover," with damages reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s share of the fault (McIntyre v. Balentine) [4]. Subsection (c)(2) itself refers to comparative fault. See Tennessee fault rules.

This page does not list a full set of local steps. Which agency responds depends on where the bite happened, so check with Memphis Animal Services or the Shelby County Rabies Control program. Two official pages say:

• Inside the City of Memphis. Memphis Animal Services says it responds to requests "for animal control within the City of Memphis only." Its page says that to report "a dog bite, please call 901-545-COPS, the police non-emergency line," and to call 911 for "an emergency affecting the safety of a person." [5]
• Arlington, Lakeland, Millington and unincorporated Shelby County. The Shelby County Health Department says its Rabies Control program investigates "animal bite reports and rabies control cases" in that service area [6].

We did not find or read a medical or veterinary source for dog-bite severity "levels" or "stages," so this page does not describe them. It does not state Tennessee reporting rules, any breed statistics, or any estimate of what a claim may be worth. Ask a healthcare provider about your wound and an attorney about your facts.

• Slip and fall
• Tennessee deadlines
• Alabama deadlines, Oklahoma deadlines, South Carolina deadlines
• Tennessee fault rules
• Medical records and bills