Fatal dog attacks are rising – and are hard to predict. But some common themes emerge.

When a pack of dogs attacked her three children as they stepped off the school bus last Thursday, Courtney Williams dashed over to help. The dogs then turned on the 35-year-old Quitman, Georgia, mom, who was later found dead in her neighbor's yard.

Williams' cause of death has yet to be released. Regardless, the attack left the family grieving just three days before Mother's Day. And she wasn't the only one harmed.

During the scuffle, Williams' 12-year-old son had pushed his 10-year-old sister out of the way and was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Fatal dog attacks, while rare, claim dozens of lives in the U.S. each year. Although experts say it's difficult to predict when a dog will attack, dog owners and lovers can take precautions to avoid the risk of their dog or dogs in their area inflicting bite wounds.

Several people have been killed in dog attacks across the U.S. this year.

In March, a dog fatally mauled a 3-month-old baby boy and seriously injured his parents at the family's Woodbridge, New Jersey home. Police pronounced the baby dead at the scene, while his mother, 21, and father, 27, were treated at a hospital and released the same day. The dog, a pit bull, was put down after the incident, according to the local prosecutor's office.

That attack came weeks after an English Bulldog killed a 4-year-old named Beau Clark in Hartselle, Alabama, in late February. The boy's family was close with the owners of the dog, and it had no history of violent behavior and knew the child well, according to Morgan County deputies.

The same month, a Los Angeles man died after at least one of his pit bulls mauled him, authorities said. The 35-year-old man may have been feeding the dogs at his Compton home when they became violent, officials said. A friend witnessed the attack from next door and called 911, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department told the Los Angeles Times. Five adult Pitbulls and at least eight puppies were later found in the yard, according to animal control officials.

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Fatal dog attacks, though rare, have risen sharply

Although 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year, according to the World Health Organization, being fatally mauled is extremely uncommon. Just 81 people died after being bitten by dogs in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Experts say the number of annual fatalities from a dog bite is small enough that measuring year-to-year trends becomes difficult.

"The numbers are just too small to crunch," said Janis Bradley, director of communications and publications at the National Canine Research Council. "What that means is that there's nothing meaningful statistically that you can do with that if it changes somewhat from year to year, even if there appears to be a trend."

That hasn't kept scientists from trying to draw correlations. A study released in 2013 that Bradley called the "gold standard" on the topic investigated "potentially preventable factors" in the 256 dog bite-related deaths in the U.S. between 2000 and 2009. It found that in the vast majority of cases – 223, or 87.1% – no able-bodied person who could intervene was there. The second most common factor was the victim having an "incidental or no familiar relationship" with the attacking dogs (in 85.2% of cases).

Other factors identified by the study had to do with the dogs' previous treatment and interactions with humans. In most attacks, the victim's ability to interact appropriately with dogs was "compromised" or the dogs had been isolated from human contact. Most attacks also involved non-neutered male dogs.

The scientists couldn't reliably point the finger at any single factor being the catchall.

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When dogs get aggressive

Although it's hard to predict that a dog will injure someone, most dog bites aren't unforeseeable. Dogs typically bite as a reaction to something in their environment, said Lori Teller, former president of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

"If a dog feels like it's in a really stressful situation and has no other way out, it may bite to defend its territory," she said. "Some dogs may bite because they've been very scared or startled or are feeling threatened about something."

In some cases, dogs will bite to protect something, like a mother protecting her pups, Teller said. Pain or sickness can also trigger a reaction in dogs. "We've seen dogs who have been hit by a car and somebody goes to rescue them to try to get them to appropriate veterinary care. And they bite just because it hurts," Teller said.

The keys to teaching dogs not to bite are training and socialization, she said. Puppy owners should train their pets until they learn not to bite or nip. "Some people think it's really cute, and it may be really cute when you have a 3-pound puppy, but it's not so cute when you have a 30, 40, 50, 100-pound dog," she said.

Even lifelong dog lovers should always ask strangers before petting their dogs. "Just because you love dogs doesn't mean that all dogs love all people," Teller said. "Some dogs may be skittish around strangers and not want to be petted."

Small children are the most common victims of dog bites and they frequently suffer more serious injuries. With this in mind, parents should teach kids how to interact with dogs. "They should not be allowed just to go run over and try to pet or hug that dog without knowing how the dog is going to react," Teller said.

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There's a longstanding controversy in dog circles about pinpointing some dog breeds, with some saying certain breeds tend toward violence or aggression.

Teller said the data to back that up isn't fully fleshed out. The focus on a dog's breed leads people to overlook the importance of its training. Teller stressed that it's "much more important to focus on the individual animal, making sure it's trained, making sure it's socialized."

Bradley, from the National Canine Research Council, said the only real factor that can predict if a dog will bite is if it has done so before. Even then, dogs can change, she said.

"When you think about it, it's the same way with people," she said. "You don't really know whether somebody is going to haul off and deck somebody, no matter how angry and red in the face they are if they hadn't already done it. You don't know how much they're going to inhibit that impulse. It's the same with dogs."

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her on email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fatal dog attacks are hard to predict. But some common factors emerge