Attack of the Dogs

The following is the account of the second Monday mentioned in yesterday's posting. On July 7th, after arriving at my mom’s house for a two day visit, I decided to take a 40 minute walk before going to a visitation at the local funeral home for an old high school classmate, Ross Bennett. But my plans were suddenly derailed after getting about ¼ mile down the road from mom’s home when three dogs attacked me from a neighbor’s yard. Before I knew what had happened I had received two dog bites on each leg, all bleeding, and one pretty significantly. The worst bite took two hunks of flesh out of my leg and are now open wounds having to heal from the inside out.

After limping back to mom’s house, she and Pam got me in the van for a trip to Urgent Care. After two hours at Urgent Care and one hour in Wal-Mart waiting for a prescription to be filled we returned home to see the Animal Control officers waiting for me to go with them so that I could identify the dogs. They indicated that they would have to impound the dogs for 10 days and that it would cost the owner $150 per dog for him to get them back. The officers had already been to the owner’s house and he said they weren’t taking his dogs so they had called for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany us.

The owner did become very irritate and it took several minutes for the officers to secure the dogs. The owner never spoke to me but I tried to tell his sister that I didn’t call animal control but that the Urgent Care office was required to report the incident once I asked for medical attention. When the officers (animal control and deputy) and I were back at my mom’s house the deputy informed the animal control officers that we were too slow leaving the owner’s property. They were concerned that once the owner went back inside his home that he could come back out with a gun.

Lessons Learned:

1) Like the Boy Scouts, you ought to be prepared. I have walked on this road before and these same dogs have barked at me before but never attacked. I should have, at least, carried a stick with me.
2) It is good to keep a positive attitude in a negative situation. I made up my mind to be light hearted and as cheerful as possible in spite of my pain. I think this attitude impacted those who were providing for my medical attention.
3) We live in a small world. During conversation with one of the nurses I learned that years ago she attended the Rose Hill Wesleyan Church and spoke kindly of her pastor and my friend, Bill Tietje.
4) It is good to have people who love you near when you are hurting. Both my wife and mom displayed such care and concern for my welfare in the moments, hours, and now days following my injuries. I owe more to these two women than anyone else alive today. Also, I have received many, many calls and emails from several people in Bessemer City after the congregation there heard of the dog attack. These expressions of concern have meant so much during these days of recovery.