The Minnesota legislature is about to legalize what many of us have been doing anyway — sitting with our dogs at outdoor restaurants and coffee shops. In Europe, dogs are often allowed inside restaurants and other places that sell food. So this begs raises the question: Why the difference?

I thought maybe it was because of Americans’ greater obsession with cleanliness and infectious diseases, so I called Jeff Bender, an expert in zoonotic (animal-to-people) infections at the University of Minnesota. He said he really didn’t know the origin of the state laws banning dogs from inside restaurants. It might be just the nature of dogs, he said.

“Tough to encourage dogs to wash their paws,” he said.

Officials at the Minnesota Department of Health didn’t really know when or why the laws were established, so I moved on to Dr. Joni Scheftel, our state veterinarian. Turns out that, yes, there are some infectious diseases people can get from dogs, especially from “puppy poop,” she said. But the greater concern by far, she said, is dog bites. In contrast to Europeans, it seems, we are not very good at controlling our dogs.

“Most dogs are not that well behaved, not like in Europe where you see dogs everywhere. No question, they do a better job of training their owners,” she said.

She said her office gets 2000 calls a year about animal bites, and those are just the people who take the trouble to call. It’s getting worse. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of dog bites treated at emergency rooms increased by 40 percent in Minnesota, according to one study published last year in Minnesota Medicine. Most of the victims were children, and most were bitten by their family dogs, the study found.

Still, Scheftel worries that when a lot of badly-trained dogs gather around kids and food in crowded places — such as outdoor cafes — the number of dog bites could increase. Scheftel said she likes to take her dog to outdoor cafes, “but he’s been to obedience school,” she said. And so has she.

There are some things you and your kids can do to be safer around strange dogs.

Do not approach an unfamiliar dog.
Do not run from a dog and scream.
Remain motionless (e.g., “be still like a tree”) when approached by an unfamiliar dog.
Do not let kids play with a dog unless supervised by an adult.
Avoid direct eye contact with a dog.
Do not disturb a dog that is sleeping, eating, or caring for puppies.
Do not pet a dog without allowing it to see and sniff you first.

And here’s more from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.