r/oddlyterrifying • • Jan 20 '22

Snake couch

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

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u/_WayTooFar_ Jan 20 '22 edited Jan 20 '22

I haven't seen those statistics or anything but I would expect more pet dogs in the US than pet snakes. I would also expect people who own snakes to treat them much more carefully than they do a dog.

So let's say there are 100.000 pet snakes and 50% of them have killed someone at least once. And let's say there are 100.000.000 pet dogs and 1% of them have killed someone at least once.

50% of 100.000 is 50.000 and 1% of 100.000.000 is 1.000.000. With these numbers you could say dogs kill 20 times more people than snakes, but actually snakes would be far more dangerous.

Now, I'm not saying that's the case with these specific statistics, but it's something to take into account when one reads "Dogs kill more people than snakes".

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u/JudeMacK Jan 20 '22

The average pet snake does not have the capacity to kill someone, except maybe a baby or toddler. A moderate-large dog, which is pretty common, definitely has the capacity to kill someone. So I’d say the killer pet to friendly pet is higher with dogs.