I walked into the house to a crying, scared, hurting Joseph. Apparently, he’d been bitten by a dog … literally minutes before I walked in the door. Of course, Joseph is my priority, so I called Duke and had to not go. 🙁 I felt horrible, but obviously, Joseph comes WAY first.
One look at the bites (yes, biteS) and I knew it was time to go to the Doc. Of course, at 12pm, there are no Pediatrician’s available, so off to Urgent Care we went. He was hurting and his leg was nasty looking (I do have pictures and will post them, once I get them off my computer).
In any case, Joseph explained the situation like this.
“Josh got a new dog and he was sitting by the car and I went down to pet him and he just started biting me!”
The dog got Joseph’s arm (slightly) and his leg 3 times and then his pant-leg (but not his skin) a fourth time.
Come to find out, this dog has bitten two other kids, comes from a home with an old Grandma kind of lady who apparently had a very quiet calm environment (so says the current owner) and the new environment with all the kids is apparently overwhelming.
So then, why in the heck is this dog outside unsupervised? Yes, that’s right, no adults outside. The dog was sleeping by the car, on a leash. That means outside without supervision. Joseph was apparently told not to mess with the dog, but what 9 year old remembers that when the dog LOOKS so sweet and calm?
I immediately made a phone call to the owners and their response was “I’ve told those kids to stay away from that dog!”. Oh My GOODNESS! That ticked me off beyond belief. No apology. No nothing but essentially placing blame on Joseph for wanting to pet what LOOKED like a nice dog.
Joseph informed us that the dog TRIED to bite him before too (didn’t know that until at the doc’s office). The owners take absolutely NO responsibility for this. They blame Joseph (and I guess the other two kids too?).
At the Doc’s office, the doc looked at it and said one bite might need stitches, but with animal bites, they prefer to let them heal on their own. So, another 5 days of antibiotics (on top of his current 10 days from the Pneumonia) and they washed out the bites REALLY well with water.
Joseph apologized profusely for taking me away from my conference … remember, I was supposed to be at Duke and then back to my conference. When we got back from the Docs, I had to call the cops because, by law in NC, when a dog/cat/animal bites someone it HAS to be reported.
So, we waited for the Apex police (2nd time we’ve seen them in a week!) and reported the entire situation. They looked at the bites, asked questions and basically agreed that something *has* to be done. But, they are on today and then off until Wednesday so the report won’t get filed until then. Then, I guess, someone at Animal Control will review the findings/case.
We are NOT planning to press charges or anything, but I am so ticked that the owners would let this happen, KNOWING the temperment of this dog!!
By, what a day!
I did get back to the conference for about 2 hours and it was a GREAT 2 hours. I learned how to pose BIG groups and with all the weddings I have coming up (6 on the books so far) I think that is exactly what I needed! 🙂