If a dog bites occur on private property, you are often times able to determine whose dog it is. Let me give you an example. You come up to a home and a dog comes running out of that home, and you are standing on the front porch and that dog bites you. It is very easy to identify whose dog it is, and whose responsibility it is to cover your losses for that dog bite. Now, what if you are out on a public street, and maybe you are walking your own dog, or you are jogging or riding your bike and all of sudden a dog comes up from behind you and bites you. At that moment in time if you are going to be able to peruse any claim for the injuries that are caused by that dog you need to figure out where that dog came from and if that dog belongs to somebody. If you do not know who owns that dog, or where that dog came from you may never be able to recover for those injuries suffered. So following a dog bite, the first thing that you are going to want to figure out is who owns the dog. It does not matter if you are on public property or private property if someone has allowed for the dog to escape from their yard, or if on its own it has escaped from its yard, then the person who owns the dog can be held responsible for the injuries suffered by you as the dog bite victim.