Dog Bite

So I was walking along downtown this afternoon and got bitten by a dog. The dog seemed friendly, wagged, and I patted it and all of a sudden it was snarling and on me and my elbow was burning and painful. Ouch. It somehow broke the skin with two tidy teeth marks just below my elbow. My gracious date ushered me to a bar where I had a gin and tonic and iced it, and tried hard not to cry like a little girl. The bruise is beginning to appear, and the pain is starting to subside, but the feeling of distrust for strange dogs who wag their tails will persist for a while, I think.

Comments

[Neal]

Sherry,

You ought to go to the doctor and get a rabies shot, etc.

[A. Rickey]

Neal beat me to it. To the doctor.

[ML]

Call me if you need the name of our great doctor. I'm sure he'll see you right away.

[Scheherazade]

Thanks y'all. Living with a nurse practitioner has its benefits. She's inspected the small spot of broken skin and thinks tetanus is not a concern -- it's an abrasion rather than a deep puncture. We'll monitor the situation and I'll let you know if it gets worse....

[Slice]

Hmm, all this talk about seeing a doctor and getting a rabies shot makes me think my initial thought of sue the owner and subpoena his dog's vet records to see if the dog has done this before are way, way off the mark.

[l]

umm. . .Housemate's spectacularness aside, tetanus is not the concern here. rabies is. (and i'm sure she knows that). tetanus lives on rusty nails, and you should absolutely make sure your tetanus vaccination is up to date just in case you step on one (or anything else sharp, long, and dirty). Rabies lives in dogs, raccoones, and squirrels. If the dog who bit you has had a rabies shot (and can prove it), you're fine. Otherwise, you really really ought to get a rabies shot (even though they hurt like hell), or go back and get blood from the dog and test it for rabies. Rabies can kill you, and there isn't a great treatment for it once the infection gets good and going.

[ms]

I had an acquaintance's dog bite me once [I stupidly tried to take a chicken bone away from it] and I was surprised to find that my reaction was one of...hurt feelings! Friendly dogs usually give such unqualified affection that when a friendly-seeming dog bites you, somehow it feels personal (even if you know intellectually what the dog's reasons were). Too bad dogs don't have a wider variety of ways to express themselves.

(Do seriously consider getting the rabies shot, though--why take a chance?)

We had a german shepard down the street bite my dog last week, I wish it would of tried to attack me, I can defend myself and animal control w*ould take a complaint from an animal to human better more serious than 1 animal to another. On the other hand I am glad I was not bit lol.

Take care of the site of bite they can get yucky