You get what you pay for.
Every now and then, I go and do something incredibly stupid.
This would be one of those times.
I got "attacked" by a stranger's dog, today.
No, really.
I, a person who has educated herself about canine behavior since she could read, got attacked by a dog for the very first time, today. This morning.
The only good thing this story is for is that it is perfect proof that ANY dog possessing teeth can and will bite someone. See, it wasn't a Doberman, "pit bull," rottweiler or even a German shep--it was a King Charles spaniel. Possibly a Cavalier KCS, but a KCS nonetheless. Purebred, male, black and tan lap dog. Here, let me repeat that - I almost got taken out by a fluffy walking carpet.
I'm on spring break, by the way.
And really, this is all Keeva's fault. But that's alright, because she's also the hero of this story.
She had a lot of misplaced, pent up energy this morning, and given the beautiful weather this morning, I decided to humor her and give her an early morning walk. But we hadn't gotten very far in our neighborhood before we came face-to-face with a small, strange dog.
Keeva doesn't have a great track record with loose dogs. She's fine and friendly with dogs on leads, she hates dogs behind fences that bark at her, but she gets very stiff and uncomfortable around dogs off leads and without owners. And rather than face a potential dog fight that would undoubtedly end in a greviously injured if not dead Strange Dog, I immediately made a 180 and headed back to the house.
The stupid thing followed us.
Ok, whatever. Apparently, he's friendly, or at least curious.
Rule Number One about strange dogs; always get them to come to you, and never go to them. If he was following us, that meant he was used to human contact, he was socialized and he was healthy. Also, I could hear its tags chiming when he moved.
So he belonged to someone, obviously. Acting as a good Samaritan, I put Keeva in the back yard, closed the gate behind her, and enticed Strange Dog to come and greet me. He had tags, which meant he had a number, which meant I could call and tell the owner to come fetch him. I mean, if Keeva or Cricket got loose, I'd want someone to do the same for me.
Well, it took a little coaxing--he apparently likes strange dogs more than strange people.
Rule Number Two about strange dogs; turn your back to them, or turn to the side, to show that you're non-confrontational and friendly. Facing head-on acts like a challenge, and puts them on the defensive. Also, if you want a dog to come to you, the easiest way is to move backwards; this entices him to 'follow' you, as opposed to you stepping towards him and pushing him away. Think of how magnets react.
But eventually, I managed to get within a foot or so of him, and he allowed me to scratch his bum and under his chin.
Rule Number Three about strange dogs; always approach and act like they're the top dog in the hierarchical chain. It makes them calm and non-threatened.
At this point, we're at diagonals to each other, and I'm crouched down on the pavement. Everything was going just fine until I reached to see his dog tags, and he moved his head at the exact same time.
Ultimate Rule about ALL dogs: Never, EVER look them in the eye at all costs.
Which is exactly what happened.
And then it all went to pot.
Suddenly, my right hand was being treated like a pinata, only instead of being beaten with a baseball bat or a stick, it was being punctured by porcupines. He must have gotten me three or four times--but only one of them really broke the skin. Meanwhile, my arm--with my fingers still stuck in his collar-- now looks like it entered a match with a weed whacker and lost big time.
I think I cursed, and proceeded to smack him in the nose with my left elbow. This made him let go of my right hand, which allowed me to let go of his collar, but not before he bit the upper part of my left arm.
And then, out of nowhere, there was Keeva.
She'd jumped the fence to get to me. She jumped a five and a half foot fence, at a seconds notice. Prior to that, she'd been (relatively) calmly watching from the other side, two houses away. And all of a sudden, she was loose, and inbetween Strange Dog and me.
She bit his back leg, just hard enough to get his attention, and when he tried to turn on her, she pushed into his face, and snarled and snapped again. That was enough to convince him to leave me alone, and he turned tail and fled down the street.
The really amazing bit is this--Hovawarts run very quickly. They have enormously powerful legs, and bodies built for aerodynamics. They're heavy, so they're not nearly as fast as sight hounds, but they're still damned impressive. And with legs almost one and a half feet tall, they can cover a lot of ground pretty damned quick.
King Charles Spaniels', grow no taller than about 16 inches. There's NO way that Strange Dog could have outrun Keeva. But she chased him for a good twenty feet, snapping snarling and barking all the way, and then she let him go. She stood in the middle of the street, tail straight up and curled over her back, head held high, the perfect image of dominant, non-scared dog, and then she turned around and came back to me with absolutely NO recall on my part. I was still in semi-shock in the middle of the sidewalk. The only thought I could muster was, "oh, great, not only have I been bitten by a dog and I have no proof that he's got a rabies' tag, but now there's TWO dogs loose, and one of them going to be mince meat ANYWAY."
I once wrote a paper about how I should never attempt to do good deeds because they always end in absolute FAILURE for either myself or the person I'm trying to help. This? This is SO one of those times.
Keeva walked me inside, I woke up my parents, and then I made the very difficult call to the Health Department to file a dog bite claim. They were in the area within fifteen minutes, caught Strange Dog and hauled him away for a mandatory 10 day quarantine. I don't yet know if he's up to date on his rabies, but a part of me would rather be inflicted with hallucinations, mamby panby communications, wild delusions and mouth foaming over getting THAT round of shots.
My right hand is immensely swollen and bruised, and I've got four punctures and several other, "A tooth impacted my skin here!" marks. My arm LITERALLY looks like it lost out to a weed whacker from Strange Dog's nails. And there's a four-inch wide bruise on my left upper arm, complete with two more puncture marks.
I think the MOST annoying fact of this is that it is a BITCH to use my more dominant hand. In general, I'm fine with just my left hand, but there are a handful of things that require more delicate motor skills that my left never developed just because I did them with my right.
And THEN there's the fact that ALL of my homework over spring break either requires the use of either both hands--like my anthropology homework, which is knitting--or handwriting--and I only write right handed. Typing is slow and uncomfortable, because my thumb, pointer and middle are twice the size they usually are, and contact pressure hurts on the keys. I'm seriously debating requesting an extension on my projects and papers.
But that's not the most aggravating thing. The most aggravating thing is that that animal, who in its own comfort zone, is probably a VERY well socialized, loved and cherished family member, is now sitting in quarantine just because it felt it had to protect itself. I'm not familiar with the current dog bite laws in the area, and I don't know if the dog was from N. County or Hazelwood or Florissant, and if he's from a different area, is it my laws that apply or his, and I don't know if they can even FIND his owner, or if he's unregistered or there was no number or address on the tag, but if my area or his area has a one-strike policy, or if they can't contact the owners, then the county reserves the right to destroy him.
And if he dies, it's my fault.
It's MY fault because I wasn't careful enough to not look in his eyes.
I am so angry at myself right now.
...
But I can't help but be proud of Monster, and that somehow makes me even angrier.
This would be one of those times.
I got "attacked" by a stranger's dog, today.
No, really.
I, a person who has educated herself about canine behavior since she could read, got attacked by a dog for the very first time, today. This morning.
The only good thing this story is for is that it is perfect proof that ANY dog possessing teeth can and will bite someone. See, it wasn't a Doberman, "pit bull," rottweiler or even a German shep--it was a King Charles spaniel. Possibly a Cavalier KCS, but a KCS nonetheless. Purebred, male, black and tan lap dog. Here, let me repeat that - I almost got taken out by a fluffy walking carpet.
I'm on spring break, by the way.
And really, this is all Keeva's fault. But that's alright, because she's also the hero of this story.
She had a lot of misplaced, pent up energy this morning, and given the beautiful weather this morning, I decided to humor her and give her an early morning walk. But we hadn't gotten very far in our neighborhood before we came face-to-face with a small, strange dog.
Keeva doesn't have a great track record with loose dogs. She's fine and friendly with dogs on leads, she hates dogs behind fences that bark at her, but she gets very stiff and uncomfortable around dogs off leads and without owners. And rather than face a potential dog fight that would undoubtedly end in a greviously injured if not dead Strange Dog, I immediately made a 180 and headed back to the house.
The stupid thing followed us.
Ok, whatever. Apparently, he's friendly, or at least curious.
Rule Number One about strange dogs; always get them to come to you, and never go to them. If he was following us, that meant he was used to human contact, he was socialized and he was healthy. Also, I could hear its tags chiming when he moved.
So he belonged to someone, obviously. Acting as a good Samaritan, I put Keeva in the back yard, closed the gate behind her, and enticed Strange Dog to come and greet me. He had tags, which meant he had a number, which meant I could call and tell the owner to come fetch him. I mean, if Keeva or Cricket got loose, I'd want someone to do the same for me.
Well, it took a little coaxing--he apparently likes strange dogs more than strange people.
Rule Number Two about strange dogs; turn your back to them, or turn to the side, to show that you're non-confrontational and friendly. Facing head-on acts like a challenge, and puts them on the defensive. Also, if you want a dog to come to you, the easiest way is to move backwards; this entices him to 'follow' you, as opposed to you stepping towards him and pushing him away. Think of how magnets react.
But eventually, I managed to get within a foot or so of him, and he allowed me to scratch his bum and under his chin.
Rule Number Three about strange dogs; always approach and act like they're the top dog in the hierarchical chain. It makes them calm and non-threatened.
At this point, we're at diagonals to each other, and I'm crouched down on the pavement. Everything was going just fine until I reached to see his dog tags, and he moved his head at the exact same time.
Ultimate Rule about ALL dogs: Never, EVER look them in the eye at all costs.
Which is exactly what happened.
And then it all went to pot.
Suddenly, my right hand was being treated like a pinata, only instead of being beaten with a baseball bat or a stick, it was being punctured by porcupines. He must have gotten me three or four times--but only one of them really broke the skin. Meanwhile, my arm--with my fingers still stuck in his collar-- now looks like it entered a match with a weed whacker and lost big time.
I think I cursed, and proceeded to smack him in the nose with my left elbow. This made him let go of my right hand, which allowed me to let go of his collar, but not before he bit the upper part of my left arm.
And then, out of nowhere, there was Keeva.
She'd jumped the fence to get to me. She jumped a five and a half foot fence, at a seconds notice. Prior to that, she'd been (relatively) calmly watching from the other side, two houses away. And all of a sudden, she was loose, and inbetween Strange Dog and me.
She bit his back leg, just hard enough to get his attention, and when he tried to turn on her, she pushed into his face, and snarled and snapped again. That was enough to convince him to leave me alone, and he turned tail and fled down the street.
The really amazing bit is this--Hovawarts run very quickly. They have enormously powerful legs, and bodies built for aerodynamics. They're heavy, so they're not nearly as fast as sight hounds, but they're still damned impressive. And with legs almost one and a half feet tall, they can cover a lot of ground pretty damned quick.
King Charles Spaniels', grow no taller than about 16 inches. There's NO way that Strange Dog could have outrun Keeva. But she chased him for a good twenty feet, snapping snarling and barking all the way, and then she let him go. She stood in the middle of the street, tail straight up and curled over her back, head held high, the perfect image of dominant, non-scared dog, and then she turned around and came back to me with absolutely NO recall on my part. I was still in semi-shock in the middle of the sidewalk. The only thought I could muster was, "oh, great, not only have I been bitten by a dog and I have no proof that he's got a rabies' tag, but now there's TWO dogs loose, and one of them going to be mince meat ANYWAY."
I once wrote a paper about how I should never attempt to do good deeds because they always end in absolute FAILURE for either myself or the person I'm trying to help. This? This is SO one of those times.
Keeva walked me inside, I woke up my parents, and then I made the very difficult call to the Health Department to file a dog bite claim. They were in the area within fifteen minutes, caught Strange Dog and hauled him away for a mandatory 10 day quarantine. I don't yet know if he's up to date on his rabies, but a part of me would rather be inflicted with hallucinations, mamby panby communications, wild delusions and mouth foaming over getting THAT round of shots.
My right hand is immensely swollen and bruised, and I've got four punctures and several other, "A tooth impacted my skin here!" marks. My arm LITERALLY looks like it lost out to a weed whacker from Strange Dog's nails. And there's a four-inch wide bruise on my left upper arm, complete with two more puncture marks.
I think the MOST annoying fact of this is that it is a BITCH to use my more dominant hand. In general, I'm fine with just my left hand, but there are a handful of things that require more delicate motor skills that my left never developed just because I did them with my right.
And THEN there's the fact that ALL of my homework over spring break either requires the use of either both hands--like my anthropology homework, which is knitting--or handwriting--and I only write right handed. Typing is slow and uncomfortable, because my thumb, pointer and middle are twice the size they usually are, and contact pressure hurts on the keys. I'm seriously debating requesting an extension on my projects and papers.
But that's not the most aggravating thing. The most aggravating thing is that that animal, who in its own comfort zone, is probably a VERY well socialized, loved and cherished family member, is now sitting in quarantine just because it felt it had to protect itself. I'm not familiar with the current dog bite laws in the area, and I don't know if the dog was from N. County or Hazelwood or Florissant, and if he's from a different area, is it my laws that apply or his, and I don't know if they can even FIND his owner, or if he's unregistered or there was no number or address on the tag, but if my area or his area has a one-strike policy, or if they can't contact the owners, then the county reserves the right to destroy him.
And if he dies, it's my fault.
It's MY fault because I wasn't careful enough to not look in his eyes.
I am so angry at myself right now.
...
But I can't help but be proud of Monster, and that somehow makes me even angrier.