Rescue Journal

i don't have to work tomorrow!

Carol  ·  Dec. 15, 2010

my team mates decided that i was still sick and should stay at home and rest some more so they rearranged the assignment for tomorrow and have kindly given me another bed day! you just gotta love working with nurses.

anyway..since i am under no bedtime time constraints...now i want to talk again about biting dogs.... (it is my favorite topic of conversation next to incontinent or painful dogs.)

i was the recipient of my first dog bite when i was 8 or 9 yrs old. i was sitting on the couch at my friends house when all of a sudden her tiny chihauhua was attached to my hand..(i still have the scar.)
now i did not know she even had a dog til his teeth were in me and i was pretty darn surprised so i flung my hand up in panic and the little guy went flying and when he landed his freaking eye popped right out of his head.
so here i was a mere child with blood dripping from my hand and there was the little bugger with his eye dangling from a sinewy string right in front of me....i was totally traumatized and so was he.

i truly disliked all small dogs from then on in...i was a BIG dog person...at least you could see a big dog coming your way (and their eyes actually stay in their heads). i have over the years developed a deep fondness for biting little dogs but that is only because the next dog who bit me badly was over 90 pounds.... i was so sure i was going to die.

since those two dramatic dog bite incidents...i have been bitten more times then even i care to recall....and i have been bitten by the most incredibly lovely dogs...jazz, copper..my own beloved tyra (she was only 6 months old and DID NOT want to go into a down position in our obedience class..i am ashamed to say now cuz i did not know any better then..that i made her cuz our trainer told me i had to)...hmmm.. who else has bitten me...oh that truly fascinating dog at the pound who got nuked cuz besides biting me..she also bit the staff...caspar, suzie, little mister, jerry, and of course phoebe..did clyde ever bite me? i don't think that he did....oh gee..i just can't think of them all..i know there were others that are not here any more...haha...like norton and radar!

anyway..i am going to tell you something...dog bites don't mean much of anything unless you truly cannot figure out where they came from. i have no idea why that chi bit me cuz i did not even know he existed but i was too young to process the possible reasons back then anyway.
and i have no idea why duke the rotti bit me..and to this day...duke's attack upsets me more than anything because i still after all of these years cannot figure it out for sure in my head.

and i am sorry because folks will not agree with this...but biting is a totally natural thing to a dog. i am not saying it is totally acceptable to human beings and that most dogs don't learn this odd thing about us pretty darn quick. but a dog left to his own devices will use his mouth and teeth for what god gave them to him for...to eat and to bite when he needs.

and this is why i don't get all twisted in knots if a dog has a history of biting. i just want to know why he or she bites and to what extent so i don't get bitten any more often then i already do....and so i or someone else won't get seriously harmed.

i rate bite wounds two ways...oh that hurt you little (or big) freaking bastard! or...hey man, you were seriously AND determinedly trying to disable someone permanently here...this is NOT a good thing.

there is not too much in between for me...piss off bites i can handle..you might be dead bites (towards humans or animals) i deal with pretty darn quick.

i love dogs...mouths full of teeth and all. i think it is hard for them to live in a human world...especially cuz our world is so full of really messed up and totally clueless humans...it is no wonder there are a few totally fed up and biting dogs.

now this post has nothing to do with phoebe, she bites for no real reason except she is a true hag...most dogs are not like that...when they bite they usually have a pretty good dog-given reason even if we don't happen to agree with them.

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