Fatal dog attacks in the US

As Americans have spent more money on pizza in restaurants, more of them have been fatally attacked by dogs, a correlation that connects the delivery economy to canine aggression with the uncomfortable directness of a delivery driver encountering an unsecured yard dog. The coefficient is 0.854 across nineteen years, during which both metrics climbed steadily. One does not wish to suggest that pizza delivery is dangerous, but the data is doing its best to imply it.

Pizza restaurant spending grew from about 36 billion to over 65 billion between 2005 and 2023, driven by delivery apps, fast-casual chains, and population growth. Fatal dog attacks grew from about 28 to over 50 per year, driven by larger breed popularity and the pandemic adoption boom. Both trends track the same growing, suburbanizing economy: more pizza is ordered to more homes where more dogs live. The delivery connection is not entirely spurious—delivery drivers (pizza and otherwise) are among the most common victims of dog bites, though fatal attacks on delivery workers remain rare. Both metrics scale with the number of American households and the number of dogs in them.

Nineteen years of pizza and dog attacks growing together is a correlation that sits uncomfortably close to a real mechanism: more deliveries to more homes with more dogs means more encounters. The pizza arrives, the dog objects, and the correlation between them is partly demographic and partly the sound of a doorbell ringing in a house with an unsecured pet. The cheese melts. The leash does not hold.