Joseph Krugh is only 7, but he knows fear.
He didn't trick-or-treat last year because he saw a dog running across the lawn at the very first house he went to.He won't ride his bike down his Prairie Village street because sometimes he sees a dog in the neighborhood.
Joseph had 100 stitches and two surgeries after an attack on Feb. 22, 1996, by an Akita, but he is not healed.
"It will never go away completely," said his mother, Jan Krugh. "I've talked to so many adults who were attacked or were bitten. You never get over it. You've seen the possibilities."
Attacks like the one on Joseph and those Thursday that killed an 11-year-old boy near Milford, Kan., and a 4-year-old boy in Lamar, Mo., are raising public awareness of the danger from dog attacks and increasing calls for tougher animal-control laws and regulations aimed at specific breeds.
Krugh said she sometimes was overwhelmed by the enormity of the attack on her son, which she ended by clubbing the animal with a hockey stick. She was reminded of it Thursday night when she learned of the deaths of Christopher Wilson near Milford and Derrick Brandell of Lamar.
Christopher was killed in an attack by three Rottweilers at his school-bus stop. Derrick died in an attack by two pit bulls at a house where his parents were mowing the lawn.
"The bottom line is, owners have to accept the awesome responsibility it is to own a large dog," Krugh said.
Dog bites are an under-recognized problem in the United States, according to the journal Pediatrics. Dog bites cause about 20 deaths a year in the United States and an estimated 585,000 injuries that require medical attention or restricted activity, the journal said.
In comparison, injuries from playground equipment cause about 17 deaths a year and 170,000 injuries that require medical attention, the journal said.
Pediatrics in June 1996 said a study of 109 dog bite-related fatalities from 1989 to 1994 showed pit bulls were involved in 24 of them. Rottweilers were the next most commonly reported, at 16, and German shepherds were next with 10.
The journal recommended public education, stronger animal-control laws, better enforcement of laws and better reporting of bites.
Junction City, Kan., the county seat of Geary County where Christopher died, is considering tougher laws.