Green Bay Dog Bite Lawyer

Dog bites in Green Bay can happen anywhere: on the East River Trail, along the Fox River Trail through Astor and Navarino, or on the sidewalks of Allouez, De Pere, and Ashwaubenon. When a bite breaks the skin, exposes tendon, or leaves a child with facial scarring, Wisconsin law gives you some of the strongest recovery tools in the country, but only if you preserve the right evidence in the first few days.

Wisconsin Statute 174.02 makes dog owners strictly liable for the injuries their dogs cause, and Wis. Stat. 174.02(1)(b) doubles those damages when the bite broke the skin and caused permanent scarring or disfigurement and the owner was notified or knew that the dog had previously, without provocation, bitten a person hard enough to do the same. That double-damages rule is unusual, powerful, and misunderstood by most insurance adjusters. On this page you will find the Green Bay ordinances, hospitals, animal-response contacts, and Brown County court information you need, along with a plain-English walkthrough of strict liability, double damages, comparative fault, and the 3-year filing deadline.

Dog Bite Laws handles dog attack claims across the country and focuses only on this kind of case. If a dog bit you or your child in Green Bay, Brown County, or the surrounding communities, this page is a starting point. Then call us for a free case evaluation.

Wisconsin does not make animal bites a state-level notifiable disease, so there is no single published annual count of dog bites in Green Bay or Brown County. The best available Wisconsin-specific data comes from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) WISH injury dashboard, which counts hospital-treated dog-bite injuries by ICD-10 external-cause code W54.0, and from national CDC estimates.

A CDC report cited an estimated 4.7 million dog bites in the U.S. in 1994, with about 800,000 people needing medical care, and CDC says nearly 1 in 5 people bitten by a dog needs medical attention. A CDC report estimated that U.S. hospital emergency departments treated about 368,000 people for dog bite injuries in 2001, and about 98 percent of them were treated and released. CDC counted an average of 43 deaths a year from being bitten or struck by a dog from 2011 to 2021. That CDC report also found that children ages 5 to 9 had the highest rate of dog bite injuries, and that most injuries to children under 4 were to the head or neck.

In Brown County, animal-response reports come in from every part of the metro: the near east side neighborhoods of Astor and Olde North, the west side around Fort Howard and Seymour Park, the university corridor near UW-Green Bay, and the suburbs of Ashwaubenon, De Pere, Allouez, Bellevue, Howard, and Suamico. Bite calls spike around Packers home games, holiday gatherings, and the summer months when off-leash contact at parks and trailheads is highest.

Unlike some Wisconsin cities that operate a stand-alone “Animal Services” division, Green Bay handles animal response through the Green Bay Police Department, with the Wisconsin Humane Society Green Bay Campus serving as the city’s contracted shelter for stray animals. Outside city limits, calls in unincorporated Brown County go to the Brown County Sheriff’s Office.

Key contacts:

• – Green Bay Police Department, through the Brown County non-emergency line. Phone: (920) 391-7450, then select 8. Call this line for bites and aggressive-dog complaints inside Green Bay city limits.
• Wisconsin Humane Society, Green Bay Campus. The city’s contracted shelter for stray animals found in Green Bay.
• – Brown County Sheriff, dispatch center. Phone: (920) 391-7450. Handles animal complaints outside Green Bay and in unincorporated parts of the county.
• 911. Any bite in progress, any at-large dog acting aggressively, and any bite requiring emergency medical care.

A dog that bites a person in Green Bay is quarantined for 14 days, either at the owner’s home or at a place the Brown County Health Department approves, so the animal can be checked for signs of rabies. Do not let an owner talk you out of a formal report. Without an official bite record through Green Bay PD and the Humane Society, your claim is missing its paper trail.