What Do You Do if You’re Bitten by a Dog?
July 23, 2009 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Being bitten by a dog can be very traumatic – and not just for the person who was bitten. When I was about 9 years old, my older brother and I were visiting family 
friends for the summer. I remember one day talking to the father as we were walking outside. As we came around the corner of the house, I saw my brother lying on the ground, face down, screaming and kicking. Although it was almost 40 years ago, I remember my thoughts were “what the heck is he doing now?”
Mr. G and I ran over to him and when he looked up, we saw that it looked like he’d lost half his face. He’d been bitten by a German Shephard that Mr. G’s sons had found in the forest earlier that day.
To this day, I still see my brother lying on the ground, screaming. I remember the mother and father putting him on the kitchen table and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the ambulance coming and I remember the shock I was in after.
I’m not afraid of dogs. I adore them. In my adult life, I’ve lived with and loved a golden retriever and two greyhounds over the years. I also know that it wasn’t the dog’s fault that my brother was bitten. He was doing what he was trained to do – it turns out that he was guard dog for a local golf course at the time. We’d always had dogs at our house so when my brother saw him, he went up to pet him, not knowing how dangerous the dog was. And there lies the problem and that’s why thousands of children are bitten every year.
Dog bites are most often preventable. Did you know that there are 4.7 million (reported) dog bites in the United States every year, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association ? And that children are the most common victims, followed by senior citizens?
Not only are children the most common group that are bitten, but they also sustain the most severe injuries and most of the situations aren’t like that of my brother. Most bites occur during normal, every day life interaction with the dogs.
What you should do
If you or someone you know gets bitten by a dog, there are some steps you should follow to reduce the severity of the injury, if possible, and to reduce the risk of infections:
If you are bitten by a dog, here is a checklist of things you should do (from the AVMA website:
- If the dog’s owner is present, request proof of rabies vaccination, and get the owner’s name and contact information.
- Clean bite wound with soap and water as soon as possible.
- Consult your doctor immediately or go to the emergency room if it’s after office hours.
- Contact the dog’s veterinarian to check vaccination records.
Prevention
Preventing dog bites is paramount. It’s rarely the dog’s fault if he or she bites. Either that’s what they’ve been trained to do, as with the guard dog, or it’s because they are scared, hurt or startled. Even the precious family dog could bite if the situation is frightening enough for him.
- Be cautious around strange dogs, and treat your own pet with respect. Because children are the most common victims of dog bites, parents and caregivers should:
- NEVER leave a baby or small child alone with a dog.
- Be alert for potentially dangerous situations.
- Teach their children – including toddlers – to be careful around pets. Children must learn not to approach strange dogs or try to pet dogs through fences. Teach children to ask permission from the dog’s owner before petting the dog.
Do you have any tips or stories to share?
~~~~
Photo courtesy PhotoXpress.com
I too am not afraid of dogs and neither are my children. However when my son was about 8 or 9, he was playing at a friends house and they had two dogs. I remember getting a phone call from the mom asking for my sons health card. I asked why? She said that one of the dogs had bitten my son and they wanted to take him to the hospital. That’s when panic set in! I immediately grabbed my purse and drove down to his friends house. Apparently the dogs were tied up in the driveway and the kids had run by the dogs to get into the backyard. We’re not sure if the one dog (an American Bulldog) got anxious about the kids running by or what, but next thing you know my son was on the ground crying. The dog had just literally missed my sons right eye; he had a long bite from just at the corner of his eye and down his cheek, another on his nose, and one on his arm near the shoulder. I wrote down their names, address, and phone # (I knew them, and I knew their address, but sometimes in panic or fear you temporarily forget these things when you need to recall them). The cut on his nose stopped bleeding but the ones near his eye and on his arm wouldn’t. I also had to fill out a report of the incident. Turns out the dog did have his rabies shots, but what I didn’t know was that the dog had bitten someone else before! The family ended having to put the dog down because of that). To this day my son has the scar near his eye and on his nose, the ones on his arm aren’t as noticable.
Though I did teach my son to be cautious around unfamiliar dogs, I had failed to remind him that even familiar and friendly dogs can be starled and react. I will always regret that, but thankfully his injuries were somewhat minor. That dog was about 80 lbs, and had it not been tied up the situation could have been much, much worse.
What a scary story Karen. My brother was so very lucky too in terms of how the bite healed. The surgeons stopped counting how many stitches he had, but if you met him, you’d likely not even notice the tiny scars on this face.