Dante And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

If you are related to me, you must either stop reading this now, or you must put your hand over your heart and solemnly swear to never repeat what you’re about to read to my mother.

Okay, are we good now?

Flippy and I were at a convention on Wednesday and Thursday, and we attended a seminar each day.  The scheduling was unfortunate, as our Wednesday class ended late in the day, but our Thursday class started at 8am, and in-between we had to tackle Las Vegas traffic in both morning and evening rush hour.  We were home for fewer than 12 hours between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, which was pretty stressful on the pets.  Thursday I was torn about what to do with Eli and Dante, as Dante is crated when we’re not home, and I didn’t know if he’d want to be crated for six hours more after sleeping in his crate through the night.  I decided it was better to crate him than to leave him outside, though, and made sure he was up for an hour to “do his business” before we left in the morning.  He didn’t eat or drink anything that I noticed before we left at about 6:30 am.  Unfortunately, our day ended up being very long, and it was a full 8 hours before we dragged ourselves back home again.  I wasn’t too worried, as Dante will sometimes sleep in his crate for as long as 12 or 13 hours at a time (he loves his crate, and I just let him out when he asks), but when we got inside he was standing up and had peed all over his bed.  It was just a massive amount of urine, soaking his entire bed, and making me think that he hadn’t peed at all when he’d first gotten up in the morning.  I felt really badly as I could tell he was upset, too, but luckily we had a new dog bed in the garage and I was able to just throw his “pee bed” out in the trash.  Still, he spent the night very subdued and acted depressed.

I was obviously pretty tired, too (traffic is exhausting… how do you people do it?), and when I put him to bed on Thursday night I was feeling sort of groggy.  I put his new bed in his crate, then put him in and closed the door.  I then realized I’d forgotten to put his crate tray back in (I’d taken it outside to wash it off), so I went outside to get it, and opened Dante’s crate again so I could replace the tray.  He came out, I started to pull out his new bed, and he made a grab for the chewable Rimadyl which I’d left out for Eli.  Something in my head went on auto-pilot and I thought, “That medication isn’t his and it could be harmful to him”, even though I know it’s just Rimadyl, but I think I’d read the warning label so many times about Rimadyl being lethal to cats that my main thought was, “Don’t let any animal eat the Rimadyl except Eli”.  That was really dumb.  I grabbed at Dante’s collar to stop him from getting the Rimadyl, knowing he still wasn’t in the best mood about his day, and he whipped around and went totally ballistic with me, the way he does with Eli over food about once a year, but in a way he’s never done with me in the five+ years we’ve had him.  I’m totally blank on the next two or three seconds, but we ended up a few feet away from his crate, me standing, and him with his jaws around my left forearm.  At this point I remember everything, and I was very conscious of not wanting to back down to him because I didn’t want this to be the start of any dominance issues.  I didn’t feel in “danger”, and his mouth was around my arm but the situation wasn’t escalating, so I yelled “No!” at him about four times until he let go.  I then told him to “go outside!” and although he reluctantly went out the door, he did go.  I put the panel in the doggie door so he couldn’t come back inside, at which point Flippy came downstairs with a questioning, “Is everything okay?”

I wasn’t sure if everything was okay or not.  My arm hurt.  I thought it hurt in a bruised kind of way, but then I looked at it and it was bleeding quite a bit—I later found some of my blood outside on the patio, I guess from where I closed the door after sending Dante out.  I tried to be very calm as I ran my arm under water for a few minutes to flush it out, and then we got a towel and an ice pack to wrap around it (nothing will make you want to go on a diet more than seeing little globs of yellow fat protruding from your arm, blech).  After a few minutes I put the ice pack down, let Dante inside, and put him in his crate again.  He was fine, and seemed to me to be submissive and “sad”.  Flippy and I finished up things like loading the dishwasher and making tea, all while I had the ice pack on my arm, and with her insisting I go sit down or something.  I think I was totally encompassed by adrenaline and endorphins, though… I was crying, not out of fear, but out of anger at myself for being complacent around Dante (who’s always been headstrong, but never aggressive towards us), and for not being sensitive towards Dante’s edginess after his bad day.  I was also very worried that my bite was bad enough to require a trip to the emergency room, where I wondered how much information I’d have to give about the bite, and whether or not Dante could be punished in some way for it by animal control.  I don’t know what the laws are, here—I envisioned being forced to tell animal control what dog bit me, of having him taken in for “assessment”, etc.  I was very, very scared that my own carelessness would result in Dante being harmed.  Luckily our quick action with the flushing/ice combo made a big difference, because while I have an amazing bruise (about two inches wide, around the circumference of my upper forearm) and a fairly deep laceration (like a tear), my arm feels good today and there’s minimal swelling.  I have a bit of seepage from the laceration but it’s sealing up on its own—last night it looked like it would need stitches.  I’ve been putting antibiotic cream on it, and with no hot spots or any signs of infection, I think I got lucky and it will heal up on its own.  Oh, but it’s not pretty.  It will be 70 degrees here for the next few days but if I go out I’ll need to wear long sleeves.

Dante has been a very good boy today in the aftermath.  He seems contrite, he’s been very “cuddly”, and he’s voluntarily been sitting and waiting for commands.  I’ve made sure to run him through some “sits” today before doing things like having treats or even going in his crate, and he’s been great about it.  He’s always been a tough dog to work with—he’s an unusual breed which still has a lot of “wild dog” running through it, and we’ve noticed that he runs more on instinct than our other dogs do.  If it’s cold outside, he’ll dig himself a den in the yard rather than come in—that’s how strong his instincts still are.  We’ve always known that he’s more like a wild animal than a regular dog, but we try to respect that, and he’s been giving training and good daily routines to try to keep order.  As he weighs about 100 lbs., I’ve always been very conscious of maintaining a leadership role with him, and he’s never been fed from the kitchen table, allowed up on the sofa, etc.  Last night I just didn’t keep my awareness up around him, and given his tendency to be possessive of things, I should have known better than to try to take a treat away from him suddenly.  He’ll surrender food in a controlled environment, but me grabbing at his collar suddenly didn’t do anything but set off his instinct to guard his food.  I take full responsibility for what happened, and I’m lucky that the lesson I learned wasn’t more damaging.

So, I’ve got my first official dog bite, and I hope it never happens again.  It will make me a better and more alert owner, I hope.  I notice it seems to have triggered my fibromyalgia, as I’m sure the sudden shock wasn’t good for my already stressed system.  I can barely move my neck and shoulders tonight, and my entire body aches—everywhere, it seems, but where I was bitten.  I’ll be spending most of the weekend sleeping, if you need me.

Just for the record, he’s current on his rabies and I’m current on tetanus, so I think we’ve got all that covered.  And seriously, I wrote this out because I think it’s a good cautionary tale for other pet owners, but I thought about keeping the incident to myself.  Do not tell my mother or she’ll worry for an eternity.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 03/03 at 10:30 PM

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  1. Wow.  I hope you don’t turn into a were-Dante and that the swelling goes down.  I’ve only been bitten by a dog once - it was Lassie and we were playing with a ball and her teeth accidentally caught one of my fingers when she was trying to reach for the ball.  So technically it wasn’t a bite.  I’ve never seen anyone bitten by a dog, but one of Rosella’s relatives was bitten by a rabid dog last week and she’s dead now.

    Posted by celine  on  03/04  at  11:49 PM

  2. Celine, that is truly a heartwarming story about Rosella’s relative.

    Posted by FlippyO  on  03/05  at  12:43 AM

  3. Oh Leigh-Ann, I am so sorry for both you and Dante.  I understand how very upsetting and scary this experience must have been for you and how bad you feel now.

    Posted by Simply Coll  on  03/06  at  06:41 AM
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