Every year, more than 4.5 million people in the United States are bitten by dogs. Nearly half of those bites involve children, and according to the Insurance Information Institute, dog bite liability claims cost homeowners' insurers nearly $1.86 billion in 2025 alone. And yet, most of the assessments used to determine whether a dog is "dangerous" happen in a kennel, on a single day, using tests with little scientific backing.

A commentary published in March 2026 in the journal Animals by researchers at the University of Lincoln is making the case that we've been looking at this wrong all along. The problem isn't just the assessment method. It's where the assessment happens, and what it ignores: the home.

The Problem with Point-in-Time Assessments

For decades, behavioral evaluations for dog bite cases have relied on what researchers now call "point-in-time" testing. A dog is placed in an unfamiliar kennel environment. A rubber hand is inserted into its food bowl. A 20-minute assessment follows, and from that snapshot, a decision is made, sometimes about whether the dog lives or dies.

The researchers behind the new framework are clear about the problem: these evaluations have "very limited ability to predict how a dog will actually behave once rehomed." Out of 37 screening factors routinely used by rehoming staff, only four were evidentially supported as associated with human safety risk. And yet this approach continues to be used in legal proceedings across the country.

Helen Howell, PhD, one of the authors of the commentary, frames the core issue plainly: "They are predominantly provocative tests, and an assessment is made based on the incident and the dog's behavior in the assessment... There's little regard for what's going on in the dog's home, how able the caregiver of that dog is to manage the dog safely."

A Framework Built on Where Dogs Actually Live

The alternative the Lincoln team proposes draws from forensic psychology, specifically from structured professional judgment (SPJ), the same methodology used to assess risk of human reoffending. Applied to dogs, the SPJ framework identifies 24 risk factors across four domains: the dog's history and prior behavior, current clinical status, the pet parent's household and management practices, and their capacity to implement risk reduction strategies.

Critically, this framework treats the home environment as central, not secondary. Pain is explicitly named as "one of the most pervasive and most underrecognized contributors to human-directed aggression." Dogs mask discomfort well. By the time a bite occurs, the dog may have been living with unmanaged pain for months, something a 20-minute kennel test is virtually guaranteed to miss.

This matters for every vet team. As Todd Hogue, PhD, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Lincoln, explains, the framework "sets out a different way to talk about risk to people, a different way to educate people in their homes about their dogs and safety."

What This Means for How Pets Are Cared For

The implications go beyond legal proceedings. For veterinary teams and pet parents alike, this research reinforces a simple truth: animals don't behave the same way in a clinical or kennel setting as they do at home. Fear, stress, unfamiliar smells, and restraint all influence behavior in ways that have nothing to do with how a dog acts during a normal Tuesday afternoon on the couch.

Brief behavioral screening questions during wellness visits can help surface risks early: Has your dog's behavior changed recently? Any reluctance to be handled? Any stiffness or changes in movement? These questions open conversations about pain and home context that a point-in-time kennel test never could.

What this means for you:

  • Ask about behavioral changes at every wellness visit, framed as routine, not alarming
  • Consider pain as a root cause whenever a previously calm dog shows new reactivity
  • Recognize that what you observe in the exam room may not reflect how a pet behaves at home
  • Client education about pain signals and home management is one of the highest-value conversations you can have
  • For anxious or reactive patients, context-appropriate care in the home environment yields a more accurate picture than any clinic visit can

Bringing Better Care Into the Home

For pet owners whose animals are anxious, reactive, or managing chronic pain, getting accurate, context-appropriate care can feel out of reach when every clinic visit means a stressed, uncooperative patient. That's exactly the problem at-home veterinary care was built to solve.

Homelove, at-home vet tech visits that pets love, connects pets with credentialed care in the comfort of their own home, where animals are calmer, more cooperative, and easier to assess accurately. For practices looking to extend the reach of their care, and for pet owners looking for a less stressful option, at-home vet tech visits close the gap between what you see in the exam room and what's actually happening at home.

Source: "Beyond the Snapshot: A New Framework for Assessing Dog Bite Risk," Colette Kase, AAHA Trends, June 25, 2026.