I have been bitten by a cat that meant it and a dog that meant it. I would rather be bitten by a dog. The cat hit bone. The dog did not. The hamster bite bled profusely, but otherwise wasn't too bad. Based on the information in this comic, I am going to avoid birds.
The cat was my pet probably 20 years ago. He jumped on the table and landed on a plate of barbecue sauce, so I had the bright idea to try to give him a bath to wash it off. He didn't like baths.
The dog was probably 37 years ago. I was around 13 or 14. The dog was attacking a neighbor kid who was about 6 years old, so I was intervening to save the kid. The kid got away and my yelling attracted the dog's owner's attention. Not until after I got bit. It was some kind of German Shepard mix. My parents and the parents of the six year old reported him to the police, but nothing really happened. I think the owner was a cop.
I hated that dog. He was usually on the other side of a big fence and would bark super aggressively whenever anyone was near. When I intervened he had the kid's head in his mouth. I kicked him in the ribcage as hard as I could, and he turned on me.
I got stitches from both incidents. Four for the cat bite and I think 12 from the dog. Cat was on the hand near the base of my thumb. The dog was on my right forearm.
No stitches for the hamster, he was a pet, but not very domesticated- probably because we had cats in the house too. I was probably about 8.
The thing about dogs is that they don't damage you by puncturing. They try to grab onto your body parts and tear your flesh out by moving their head furiously. In that regard PSI can be a useful metric as it describes how hard it will be to open their jaws.
Fun fact, german shepherds bite more people annually than any other breed!
shows off super-villainesque face scars
And the vast majority of bites are from animals improperly socialized or cared for, and then of course police and military duty. My shepherd bite was from the family dog that my father abused pretty severely.