A dog with bite

Laureen and I have a chow-chow, approx. 7 years old, named Bo-Bo. His name was changed from Rambo in a deliberate move to de-aggress him (okay, it might not be a word, but I’m trying to capture the “je ne c’est what?” of the thing here).

Prior to Wednesday night, I’d been bitten twice by him. Laureen has also been bitten twice. My brother and her sister have each been bitten once. Our housekeeper had a mark from him as well. We’d been taking actions to not allow him around anyone but us at all times, but even that didn’t prevent what happened Wednesday night.

Our master bathroom is not functioning at the moment, so I got out of bed to use the half-bath on the same floor of our house. I came back, and the house was unlit. I waited until my eyes adjusted, then I tried to walk into the bedroom. I knew the dog was near the doorway, and I called out his name.

So, from his viewpoint, someone has stepped close to him, awakened him from a deep sleep, and it’s dark. What does the dog do? He reverts to instinctual behavior, which is to attack.

Before my wife could wake up and force him away from me, my pajama bottoms were ripped and my hands were covering the area right below my knee. After she dealt with him, we decided to first go to the fire station nearest us (where there’s a first aid clinic). At the station, they said they don’t have tetanus shots available, so we should go on to the emergency room.

So off we went. I was in pain, but this wasn’t life-threatening. It just hurt like nothing before it.

We get to the hospital formerly known as Baylor Richardson and proceed to the triage area. The bite marks had clotted up some by now, so I get sent to the area of emergency known as “minor trauma”. This apparently means that while you’re important, there are other crises that may get the doctor’s attention before they treat you. I found out I’d been bitten in four places: a full-mouth type of bite at the knee, a laceration-type byte at the left side of the right calf where I’d apparently pulled away from him, and two bite spots on the top of my foot.

We wait an hour and a half, then the nurse comes in to clean the wounds. I get a tetanus shot (good for at least 5 years!). The doctor explains that they don’t stitch up dog bites for fear of possible later infection. The wounds get wrapped, and at 2:00 a.m., we get home.

A few processes were set in motion by this. Garland animal control had to be notified of the situation. I got to take the next day off from work to rest and purchase the supplies to redress the wounds as needed. I’m already on a set of massive antibiotics, so that’s one thing going my way.

I get interviewed by Animal Control, and believe it or not, they were pretty friendly. There are four courses of action that they can take:

1. Take the animal to their facility to monitor it for ten days at a cost of $10.00 a day to you.
2. Take the animal to a veterinary facility with quarantine capacity at whatever the vet would charge you for ten days.
3. Home quarantine – whereby the dog stays at home, isolated from all but one person, in a room by him or herself except for leashed purgative visits outside. You pay animal control $50.00 for their time to come out and see if this is acceptable or not.
4. Take the animal and euthanize it.

The common misconception people have is that they will automatically euthanize an animal just because it bit a human. That is categorically not true. It is an option that they have, but they will quarantine and even return pets to their owners after the period.

We chose option 3. Laureen takes care of the dog for this time, and we start thinking about euthanizing him.

This is hard for me to do. It’s the first time as an adult that I’ve had to consider putting one of my own animals down, and I am really struggling to cope with this. There are tons of rational, logical reasons why we can’t keep him around, including that his presence would automatically negate any attempts at starting a family of our own, but right now, I’m having a hard time separating emotion from reality.

I’m back here in at work today, and while I can’t show off my marks, I’m here.

I know in the end that this is all small potatoes–I’m still healthy, my family and friends (including all of you who read this) are doing OK if not well, and this isn’t comparable to cancer, death, or sudden loss due to horrible circumstances, but within that realm of small potatoes, it’s the biggest thing on my mind.