posted
Little bugger left a small puncture on either side of my nostrils which I'm sure will be swollen by tomorrow. And I have to take my driver's license picture, too.
So, any animal bite stories?
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I can give you several, and one includes three days at the hand center in Indianapolis after sticking her hand between her two jack russells. It wasn't that bad of an injury, just got really infected in 20 hours.
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posted
breyerchic is right. Go to the doctor because animal bites become infected very easily (although dog bites generally aren't as bad as cat bites). If their puncture wounds, you might also need a tetanus shot if you haven't had one recently.
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posted
You're lucky you weren't bitten by a cat. Dog bites only have a ten-percent chance of getting infected; cat bites have a 90-percent chance, and if the infection is left untreated for long enough (more than two days) it can be fatal. (I'm talking here about bites that break the skin, of course.)
My mother-in-law was bitten by a cat. This cat was a well-cared-for domestic cat, up-to-date on her shots. My mother-in-law washed out the wound and bandaged it, and then pretended nothing was wrong over the next 24 hours as the bitten finger swelled up. When we saw that the finger was getting strange bumps on it, we took her to the emergency room. The docs kept her three nights on IV antibiotics, a hand surgeon had to cut her finger open in three places to make the swelling go down, she had to stay home from work for a month, and she'll never be able to bend that finger as far as she used to.
So yeah. Dog bite, probably okay (but go to the ER at any sign of swelling); cat bite, go straight to the ER do not pass go do not collect two hundred bacteria.
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quote:Originally posted by Gecko: Little bugger left a small puncture on either side of my nostrils which I'm sure will be swollen by tomorrow. And I have to take my driver's license picture, too.
So, any animal bite stories?
Ajua!
I've been bitten by cats a lot and I never went to the doctor. I was very careful about my wounds though, keep it clean. I wiped it with alcohol and peroxide often. Never had any problems.
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posted
I work at a vet clinic. I could write a book about getting bitten by animals. And you know which dog breed would be top of the list for biting? Chihuahuas.
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posted
haha, tell me about it. He's usually very gentle, even licks complete strangers. I just wasn't paying attention and crouched to take away a food bowl he was apparently still using.
Don't get between a dog and it's food. Sheesh.
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posted
Bernie sometimes thinks my finger is a banana and tries to eat it when I hand him a banana slice.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Bernie sometimes thinks my finger is a banana and tries to eat it when I hand him a banana slice.
I think that means he'd rather eat your finger than a banana, and I don't blame him either. I hate bananas too.
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posted
How odd. I too have been bitten by a cat quite a lot, although in retrospect it was usually the claws that broke the skin more than the bites. Our cats were pretty well-trained and never bit hard enough to break skin.
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posted
By the statistics given above, I should have been to the doctor many times over. Plus the fact that I am allergic to cats. I've been bitten, and scratched by cats. Had my arm even used as a chew toy by my grandfather's Lab. Broke skin, but I was too drunk to care at the time. Wouldn't ya know? Dang thing just curled up next to me after I kept shoving him away. I was a warm drunk that night.
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quote: Don't get between a dog and it's food. Sheesh.
Actually, I hate to hear you say that. You are your dog's master, and you should be able to take his food, toys, personal space, etc, at absolutely any time whenever you please. And he should offer no resistance. My dog growled at me once when I got close to his food dish while he was eating, and you better believe he got a hefty smack on the nose. And I make it a regular habit now to put my hand in his dish while he's eating, and even take the food away, just so he never forgets who is boss. There is absolutely no excuse for a biting dog. None.
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posted
Yeah . . . I have to say that sounds like your wee doggie thinks it's alpha. Lots of dogs in the US do though, we don't have a culture that treats dogs like dogs. You should be able to do anything you want - one of the tests animal shelters put dogs through is doing exactly what you did - taking the food away. A dog that bit would be labeled as potentially unadoptable. Get thee to an animal trainer!
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Bernie's insane about bananas. It's me that only likes them when they are firm and yellow.
My rabbit, Marnie, was crazy for bananas. She make yummy noises and twitch all over when she was eating it, then close her eyes part way and flop contentedly on her side when she was done. I used to feed her a banana when we had guests over just so they could witness the performance.
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quote: Don't get between a dog and it's food. Sheesh.
Actually, I hate to hear you say that. You are your dog's master, and you should be able to take his food, toys, personal space, etc, at absolutely any time whenever you please. And he should offer no resistance. My dog growled at me once when I got close to his food dish while he was eating, and you better believe he got a hefty smack on the nose. And I make it a regular habit now to put my hand in his dish while he's eating, and even take the food away, just so he never forgets who is boss. There is absolutely no excuse for a biting dog. None.
I find that attitude discomfiting and I'm not sure why.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote: Don't get between a dog and it's food. Sheesh.
Actually, I hate to hear you say that. You are your dog's master, and you should be able to take his food, toys, personal space, etc, at absolutely any time whenever you please. And he should offer no resistance. My dog growled at me once when I got close to his food dish while he was eating, and you better believe he got a hefty smack on the nose. And I make it a regular habit now to put my hand in his dish while he's eating, and even take the food away, just so he never forgets who is boss. There is absolutely no excuse for a biting dog. None.
I find that attitude discomfiting and I'm not sure why.
I'll venture a guess (I had a similar reaction)... While Avadaru's post in absolutely no way advocates beating a dog, there are many pet owners in this country who look for any validation to do just that. I've known a few who upon hearing any knowledgable person suggest that any form of physical correction is allowable, would sadly wind up a good kick the next time their dog did something wrong.
I've bopped a few of my and my families dogs on the nose when a verbal correction didn't get the desired (or more to the point, any) response. Some dogs are "hard" enough to require just that. There's only one dog I've lived with that I would not have felt comfortable taking their food away, and incidentally is the dog that wound up mauling one of my hands.
I'll add my novice vote that your dog either is alpha, or is getting what passes as canine aspirations to be. Time to work out some training to keep the little snapper in line.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Bernie's insane about bananas. It's me that only likes them when they are firm and yellow.
My rabbit, Marnie, was crazy for bananas. She make yummy noises and twitch all over when she was eating it, then close her eyes part way and flop contentedly on her side when she was done. I used to feed her a banana when we had guests over just so they could witness the performance.
That's soooooooo cute!!!! Bernie gets on his back legs and bounces and just goes nuts. It's adorable.
Also, I found doing that to a dog to be a bit.... irratating to me if i were a dog. I DESPISE authority.
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quote: I find that attitude discomfiting and I'm not sure why.
You shouldn't. What excuse could you possibly give a dog for biting in a situation like that? I can understand a dog biting out of extreme fear or pain. But never, ever, is it excusable for a dog to bite any human, especially its owner, in a situation involving dominance, and food aggression is one of those situations. Too many people let their dogs push them around, and it's not fair to the animals. Like it or not, humans domesticated dogs in order to control them and use them to our benefit, and we should never forget our respective roles, be they service dogs or just best friends. We are masters, and they are dogs. A good friend of mine loves his dog more than anyone I have ever met. He has the dog's name tattooed on his stomach, and that dog is his baby. But he won't hesitate for a second to discipline him sternly if he crosses the line - and there has to be a line.
If my attitude bothers you, put yourself in this situation: You have a food-aggressive dog. You figure, "Well, he's just trying to protect his food and who can blame him for that?" and you learn to stay out of his way while he's eating. What happens if your child, or any child, doesn't have the same understanding of your dog and gets too close? The consequences could be devastating. So, the way I see it, nip bad behavior in the bud and prevent any sort of potential problem.
I do not advocate beating dogs and I absolutely loathe anyone who does it.
I firmly believe in disciplining a dog when he does something inappropriate, and physical reprimands do work, but you have to know the correct variables in which to apply any sort of physical reinforcement (when, how much, how hard, etc.) There's such a huge difference between beating your dog (thus teaching him to be afraid of you), and correcting your dog when he is bad (thus teaching him to respect you as the alpha).
Does that make sense?
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posted
Avadaru, that's why our cats get smacks on the nose or, if that doesn't work, thrown out of the room not-too-gently if they show ANY type of aggression toward a human, other than hissing. They may fight with each other all they want. But they know that if they get into it with the kids, we're going to take the kids' side, even if the kids started it (of course we correct the kids too, but the immediate consequence is to remove the cat), because we don't want scratched corneas or bite wounds with staph infections (okay, so dogs are a lot scarier than cats. Same principle, though.)
quote:Rabbits make yummy noises? Why am I just hearing about this now?
posted
Marnie the Rabbit did, especially when she had a banana.
She was a Giant Rabbit (about the size of a schnauzer, or maybe a cocker spaniel) with very cool markings. Likethis.
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