Turns out, dog bites hurt.
The Dog Bite Incident
I’ve been dog-sitting fairly often lately to add money to my savings… and because I love dogs. However, a potential dog-sitting job went wrong yesterday. The owners told me the dog was friendly but I came to find out it wasn’t trained, wasn’t friendly, and had never had strangers in the house. Or even people! The dog did not react well and ended up lunging at me and biting my hand.
OUCH.
Puncture wounds, ripped skin, lots of blood, tons of pain. Now that I know how much a big dog’s bite can hurt, I’m changing my dog-sitting ways to only include dogs I know and smaller dogs owned by people I know and trust. It’s not worth the pain to let someone lie to me about their dog.
Luckily, my boyfriend is a first aid whiz and his mom is a nurse so they patched me up well. After I stopped crying hysterically, of course. It was a shocking turn of events I wasn’t expecting that day so it threw me for a loop!
Going to sleep last night was hard because the day’s events caused lot of anxiety. I kept thinking about how much worse it could have been and how terrifying it is that people have these kinds of dogs that are aggressive and barely trained. They could get out at any time and cause terrible damage to people or other pets. Yikes!
Not All Dogs
However, not all dogs are bad and not all dogs are poorly trained.
The incident sucked but it made me so grateful for Juju, who I’ve worked with a lot over the last few years. She’s gone from a dog that totally could have done something like that out of fear to a sweet and lovable dog that enjoys getting tummy rubs from everyone that comes through our house. She meets a lot of new people and handles it like a champ – tail wagging and happy to get pets by strangers in and out of the house (mostly at the park! PARK!).
She gave me comforting cuddles last night when I got home and felt sad. She’s definitely Mary’s best friend (and workout buddy)!
Because I love my dog so much, I’m going to share some fun videos of her! I’ve been collecting some of her quirky habits on video for fun lately and here they are!
Isn’t Juju the cutest? Playing with her and my roommate’s dog when I came home made my day and helped me forget how scary getting bit was.
I won’t let one painful dog bit scare me off dogs forever, obviously, but it was an interesting experience. Have you ever been bitten by a dog? Did it scare you away from dogs?
Mrs. O says
Gosh! Glad to hear you’re okay after that scary incident. It really is sad that not everyone sees the importance of training their dogs. Incidents like yours are what start giving certain breeds a bad name when in reality it isn’t the dog’s fault, it’s the owner’s fault. Some people just don’t realize that owning any pet is a much bigger responsibility than just feeding and providing shelter.
I was bitten by a Chihuahua when I was 8 years old and it took years for me to get rid of my fear of dogs. In fact, I wasn’t able to curb most of my fears until after I did some volunteering at the ASPCA for half a year.
Mary says
It is a big responsibility. Too many people don’t think about that. My hand is still bandaged and painful two days later and it will probably need a few more days to heal…. it’s crazy what just one bite can do!
Sorry you were bit and afraid! I’ve found small dogs are even more likely to bite and not be trained. People think they are small and since they can’t cause as much damage they just don’t worry about it. It’s crazy!
Vanessa says
Hope you’re on the mend soon! That must have been so scary. I was bit by a German Shepherd years ago. I had an appointment to see an apartment which was a cottage behind a house. I let myself in the gate only to have the dog appear. He was barking and definitely not friendly – and the landlady definitely not there despite the planned appointment – but I stayed calm and backed up to the gate only to have the dog bite my calf as I turned to leave. Fortunately I was wearing jeans so while it left a terrible bruise it didn’t break the skin. And needless to say, I didn’t take the apartment!
I truly believe there are no bad dogs, just bad owners but still so sorry you’ve had this experience. Xo
Mary says
Oh that’s so scary! I’ve heard a bunch of leg bite stories. It’s crazy how many dogs bite people’s legs!! I agree that there are no bad dogs, just bad owners! Dogs can be great but they need a lot of training and attention.
kwithme says
I was bitten by a neighbor’s dog while out for a walk. I had met the dog but was definitely still in stranger category. I was on the side walk, the owner was about 10 feet away and the dog approached me in a relaxed manner and growled and bit my glute as I passed the dog. There was zero warning, the growl was about a half second before she bit me. The only reason we could figure out was, I was walking between the dog and my neighbor’s 3 year old son. My neighbors were very nice, reimbursing me for the dr visit (tetanus) and the pants it tore. Fortunately, I did not need stitches.
Funny story though, my husband and I were doing parent baby swim lessons at the time, and when I showed up for lesson, there was a whisper through the other parents. I had forgotten that I had a HUGE bruise, the size of a dinner plate, on my buttock and upper hamstring. I did let them know, it was from a dog and not from some kind of mistreatment.