when_the_dog_bites
epitome of incomprehensibility I just beat a frustrating retreat from the piano: my left hand is okay for typing now, but the songs I want to play give it pain, or at least strain.

It started on Tuesday. I patted Shiloh's head, but I didn't know he had the bone chew toy that Lia had given him the day before. He still has problems with "resource-guarding" behaviour. Plus, he was probably grumpy with the heat. So, with scarcely a warning growl, he bit me squarely in the middle of my hand.

I shrieked and ran from the entry way to the kitchen, telling my startled parents what had happened. As I ran my hand under the water, they both yelled "No!" at Shiloh. Dad put the barrier fence around him as punishment; Mom called to me, "Sorry, I should have told you he had his treat."

One of his teeth had punctured deep. Two more had left scratches. After the first few seconds, I realized my wound wasn't bleeding much. The tooth had missed the veins on either side. But my hand really hurt.

I washed and bandaged it. Took down the clothes I'd hung out, went to the store with Mom. And there I noticed the swelling. It hadn't started right away, rather an hour or so after the bite. My hand looked humpbacked. I walked through the aisles of Costco, thinking about what I would get and wondering if there were any good food samples, but at the same time worrying, "What's if I wake up tomorrow morning and my hand is red or purple? And it has to be amputated? How will I do things with just one hand?? I'm already slow at stuff due to psychology - let's not add a physical handicap to the mix!!"

Oh, and the pierogi sample was decent.

Back at home, I wondered to Dad, "What can I do that doesn't use my left hand much?"

"You can do another laundry load while it's still hot and sunny," he suggested.

I did. Hanging up the clothes, my hand ached. I decided I would write about this on blather as unclear_on_the_concept. How did he expect me to hang clothes out without using my left hand??

Mom had said earlier I was very forgiving not to be mad at Shiloh. When Dad had said it was his fault, he should have trained the dog better by now, I told him not to worry about it. But now anger flared up with my muscle pain.

At Costco I'd bought a bag filled with small, round, dark chocolates. My thought: I would say, "Here, Shiloh, here," and feed them to him.

But the thought of poisoning him, of actually making him suffer, appalled me. I questioned myself: "I wouldn't really do that, would I?"

And the answer came back, "No, I wouldn't. But what I would do: I'd pretend I was giving the chocolates to him in front of Mom and Dad. And see how they'd react." I pictured Mom's horrified face.

Then I told myself sternly, looking at the oregano growing near my feet, "You *would* but you *should* not. I don't know why you think cruelty to people is more justifiable than cruelty to animals."

So. At supper, severely out of sorts yet not having threatened to poison any dogs, I listened to Dad say again that he should train Shiloh to give up coveted objects and to stay calm if people got near them. "I should have done that much earlier. Instead of just thinking he'd grow out of it."

My evil side came out in an unexpected way. "Well, it's not new."

"What?"

"I mean, you did that with me. You just thought I'd grow out of hitting people."

Dad looked at me. "Oof," he went, as if I'd said something insightful instead of merely random, petty, and victim-blaming.

Somehow that scared me. I changed my tune and apologized about four times.

But my hand still pained me. As Dad talked about the possibility of buying a $10,000 heat pump (saves electricity; cools as well as heats), my resentment returned.

The conversation turned back to the dog. I went, "Yes, you could have done a similar thing for me. Put me in some weekly training program when I was a teenager, like cognitive behavioural therapy or whatever, that teaches people how to deal with their emotions better. Practical stuff, not just talking." They were silent. "Okay, maybe they didn't have those. Or you didn't know where to find them. Or maybe they were too expensive." An idea. I turned to Dad, armed with sarcasm. "You've always been so frugal...except about heat pumps, apparently."

"That's enough!" they both went.

And it was; I was ashamed of myself. Not just for being mean, but for sounding like the sassy asshole in some melodramatic B movie.

So I devised a practical plan for my hand. My life wasn't in danger; it wouldn't make sense to go to emergency. But if it was still swollen tomorrow, I would see about an appointment with the doctor's office, the clinic, or the CLSC.

The next morning, I woke up from a refreshing if confusing dream about finding linguistic facts in a mall. My hand wasn't purple or swollen into a baseball mitt, but it wasn't visibly better either. I worried one of the small hand bones might have been broken. Mom told me that the doctor's office had a nurse practitioner on staff, so that seemed like an option. I dialed the office and listened to fuzzy speaker music with my cereal. ("Please stay on the line to preserve your call priority" interrupted periodically.)

From there I did things reasonably, and others did too. The receptionist got me an appointment at 2 that same day. The nurse, his name was Vincent, was friendly and thorough.

Probably nothing's broken, but I'll give you a referral for an X-ray just in case. Yes, it's quick. No line-up. For infection... Maybe there isn't any, but hands are complicated and we want to be on the safe side - you need your fingers, right? So I'll prescribe you an antibiotic to take for a week. And an anti-inflammatory - you don't have to take all the pills, just until the swelling goes down, which it should do in 48-72 hours.

(Psst, medical professionals: there's a time measurement known as the "day." If you're talking about groups of hours that are multiples of 24, you CAN use it! I believe in you!!)

But anyway! After that, Dad (who had been nice enough to drive me) got delayed by a rogue GPS and then a flat tire, but eventually I got to both the radiology lab and the pharmacy.

It cost $40 for the meds. About as much for the probiotic I decided to get - a pro to balance out the anti. I convinced myself the pricey Made in Quebec one would be a more virtuous purchase. Fresher bacteria too! (Does that matter? I have no idea.)

Today the swelling has gone down. The back of that hand is chubby but no longer humpbacked. Honestly, I find it looks better than my right. Besides the red-black mark shaped like Batman's sigil, the skin of my newly smooth left hand outshines the bony, veiny ridges of its counterpart. But when I mentioned to my mother that I envied hands of a thicker type, hands like hers, she looked at me like I was insane.

But I say: whoever thinks thinness is inherently more attractive, take a look at a thin person's hands and feet. Are they really prettier? Kind of awkward and lumpy, wouldn't you say?

Of course, that's not the point. The point is that, given the title I chose, I have to think of my favourite things. Penguins? Not things. Glass beads? Perhaps. What about sleep? Ah yes. Gute nacht! Auf wiedersehen! 		230706
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epitome of incomprehensibility Now that the swelling in my left hand has gone down, I can see that the tooth pierced right between two large veins. A few millimetres to the left or right, and I would have bled a lot, probably causing me to panic. So I'm thankful that didn't happen.

The scar looks like black-red lips closed in a kiss.

Shiloh avoids the bone that he was gnawing on that day, as if that was the problem.

I don't feel vengeful anymore - I only did briefly the first day, and mostly against my dad - but I'm a bit more hesitant around Shiloh. I wish I wasn't.

TV Tropes has "Laser-Guided Karma" - I suppose this hesitance is an echo of how my parents felt around me when I was younger. Not that I necessarily ascribe any supernatural arc to this - just that if you live long enough, you might experience what you've done to others. 		230709
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raze i'm relieved to know you weren't more seriously hurt. as someone who's only suffered dog bites in dreams (e.g. "canine"), i can only imagine how jarring that experience must have been. 230709
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e_o_i Ah, thanks! It was startling and annoying, but not a completely new thing: he'd bit my finger months ago when I stopped him from picking up a coil of bead wire on the floor. Those were the puppy days when he'd eat anything, including rocks, so I wanted to be safe. But at that time his teeth were smaller and the bite wasn't deep enough or in the right place to cause muscle swelling.

I got off the antibiotics on Wednesday and I'm no longer jumpy around Shiloh, although I do wish one of Dad's dog friends were around to give us advice. (I mean, friends who are experienced with dogs, not friends who are dogs.) 		230715
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e_o_i It's been exactly four weeks since Shiloh bit Dad, twice in the hand and twice on the arm. He went to the hospital and was eventually treated - not with stitches, but with bandaging, including what looked like tape. Some antibiotics, too.

The nurse or doctor who saw him said it didn't surprise him that Shiloh was part golden retriever. Golden retrievers are responsible for the most bite injuries I've seen, he said. Not everyone knows this, but they can be biters.

All right, but it was pretty distressing to us all: first, the why? then what to do? I dreamed that I was telling my parents about another dream where I had to protect my neck because the dog was going for it, trying to kill me. And simultaneously I was scared they were going to hand him a death sentence. For a day at least, Mom wouldn't pet him.

Dad eventually got in touch with a trainer who solved some of the mystery: Shiloh had attacked him in the backyard not just after he tried to put the leash on, but also after a vigorous game of tug-of-war: so he was keyed up, ready to be aggressive.

But the in-person session with the trainer won't be for another two weeks, I think.

Since then, Shiloh has been his usual affectionate self, only growling in a potentially threatening way once, and that's because I patted him when he wanted to sleep.

Still. Before Dad reported the talk with the trainer, I built up superstitions around Shiloh, thinking that my past aggression had somehow funneled into him. Karma with a dogma looking out the window, to borrow an old dad joke. 		230831
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e_o_i (But then, why would it be Dad that got bit? Even for a superstition, it was pretty illogical.) 230831
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e_o_i Last Tuesday. The house and our schedules were topsy-turvy because of the renovations. The day before, a strap on Shiloh's harness snapped. I put it back on that night with no major objections from Shiloh, but the thing was still loose; when I was out in the front yard with him and my brother, ready to go for a walk, it slipped off his head.

Shiloh looked at me holding the shabby collar-y piece and retreated to the shade of the evergreen tree where it was cool. This should have been a signal for me to wait a while, but I was impatient. I pursued him and held it out. He jumped up, snarling, and his teeth closed on my right wrist.

I shrieked from pain. And then again from anger and a general sense of injustice. Then I checked my actual injury and was a bit embarrassed for yelling: no deep wounds, only a bit of bleeding. Scratches on the sides of my wrist. The side closest to me, under my thumb, had three tiny puncture wounds; the other side had slightly bigger ones plus drag marks like cat scratches.

Anyway, I wanted to show my brother I was all right, to reassure him, so it pissed me off to hear "I told you so" or something like it. He HAD told me so, but still. I went inside, fuming.

Sometimes Y. is overly worried about the dog's potential for aggression and it's his very whining about this that makes Shiloh ill-disposed or anxious. (I wrote "paranoid" instead of "overly worried" at first, but my formal side says it's the wrong word. A Gen Z colleague also used "paranoid" to mean "overly worried" instead of "afraid someone's out to get you," so maybe this semantic_broadening is sticking around?)

Aaaanyway, this time Y. was right and I shouldn't have gone near the dog. It wasn't like I'm afraid for my life, but it feels like a certain amount of trust was broken.

I put an antiseptic on my cuts, went to the library to do some editing, and had a rather calm day until I got home.

Then Shiloh, in a sudden rage of snarling and growling, bit Dad's foot when *he* tried to put on a new, different collar.

I was in the next room. I stood on the chair and yelled things like "Stop it! Bad dog!" He listened after a few seconds and slunk away. Dad wasn't much hurt - his sandals protected him - but everybody was on edge.

The next day Shawn, the contractor, brought a harness that fitted Shiloh and apparently put it on with no fuss. I was still in my room, exhausted from not sleeping much the night before (not like I tried much at first - I stayed up late reading).

The dog is an uncomfortable reminder of my earlier self - specifically that my childhood and young-adult violence was mostly domestic. Against my parents and brother, occasionally teacher or classmate or colleague, but never a stranger. So, about Shiloh biting me, I couldn't help thinking it was like Aslan scratching the girl from The Horse and His Boy as punishment (Narnia Chronicles - the lion is Furry Jesus). I voiced this theory to Dad later, prefacing it with, "You WILL think I'm paranoid..."

Is "paranoid" the precise definition if you think some God-figure is repaying you with what you deserve and no more? But then I didn't COMPLETELY think that. It just seemed narratively interesting. It seemed like poetic justice, if poetry is scratched with teeth marks on skin. 		260525
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e_o_i Friday before last, Aug. 14, Dad got bitten by Shiloh again when I was with him on a dog walk in the Valois neighbourhood. He got out of his harness and when Dad tried to put it back on, he jumped up and bit at both his arms, all growling and aggressive.

I should have asked him not to try. I should have asked him to call Mom and have her take the dog home. That's what happened eventually, but in the meantime, I went to see what had happened. I thought, phew, at least it was over quickly. Shiloh had sat down some paces away. But had the bites broken the skin?

Yes, and one was bleeding a lot, dripping onto the pavement. It was on Dad's wrist. The other smaller bite was on his other hand. At that point, my Stay Outwardly Calm in An Emergency settings were working. I made sure he could hold the wrist with the other hand and press it firmly (which he was already doing). I called 911 because I was afraid the bleeding was bad and that he had broken a bone - not bad enough for it to be life-threatening, and it turned out no bones were broken, but neither of us could tell at the time.

A neighbour couple came and helped with a first-aid kit, bandaging Dad's wrist. I had lots of thanks for them and also an apology when one of their small children ran out and got scared by the blood (the mother took her back in and then came out to see if she could help again). Good people.

A Pointe Claire security employee also came because her centre had seen a 911 call in their territory. She was also helpful and friendly.

The second time I ran to the corner to see if the ambulance was coming, I started feeling dizzy. I felt a little stupid about that because I wasn't the injured person. I asked the couple with the first aid kit if they had any drink with sugar, like juice. The security staffer asked if I wanted a glucose pack and I had to say, a little shamefaced, that it was anxiety and not anything like diabetes, but I knew from experience I'd feel better if I got my blood sugar up a little. The man came back with two juice boxes, which was good since I could give a little to Dad, but not too much at a time, as the emergency services person had cautioned over the phone.

And his partner, the woman who'd brought her kid inside, called my mother while I was doing something else, maybe getting Dad's backpack off. I gave her the number. Mom showed up in a few minutes.

A brief comical interlude when Shiloh, who had been sitting quietly on the next lawn, decided to run across the street to the car. There were other cars passing by.

"Fuck!" I went, but he didn't get hit by anything or get spooked and run away. When he got in the car, we locked the doors but made sure the windows were open. Mom and I went back to Dad, waited. I apologized to Dad for swearing, which made him smile. He seemed surprisingly calm throughout. I would have been fainting just from fear, I think. Or alternately fainting and raging.

I think it took 20-25 minutes for the ambulance to get there. I'd kind of got that we were classified as Needing Help But Not Immediately, but I expected "a few minutes" to be a few fewer. The EMTs were kind, anyway.

But before that, a police car stopped by just to check what was going on. The cop, a short South Asian woman, looked at me as if I was guilty of something when she took my information, but maybe it was just that was trained to project an aura of toughness. And did she also feel that she had to make up for others' false perceptions of women or short people or Asian people as un-tough? But that's all speculation.

(Lia, later: Maybe she's like Judy Hopper, the rabbit cop from Zootopia.)

She *did* say - I thought the decisiveness was sort of cruel - "You're going to have the dog put down, I suppose?"

Me, helplessly: "I don't know. I can't say. It's my parents' dog."

(Now, I did tell them later that maybe they should give Shiloh to S. the contractor, who'd expressed an offer earlier to take him if he was too difficult for us.)

The thing is, he's not dangerous to everyone. Just to family members in certain circumstances, like when we try to put things on around his face or neck. Domestic dog violence.

...Writing about this is exhausting, somehow. I wanted to bring the narrative up do date, but at this rate, I'd be very, very slow. 		260825
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