Memoir

Our story begins in April, 2011. It was the middle of the afternoon on a crisp, sunny day. My husband and I had decided to bring our only "child", Snickers, to the dog park in West Jordan to play fetch. On this day my husband and I brought with us our blue chuck-it, but no ball. There are always tennis balls laying about in the first large area, ready to be picked up and thrown. Snickers would find us a good one within ten seconds of entering the park. And, no surprise, that is exactly what she did.

If there is one thing anyone should know about Snickers, it's that she LOVES tennis balls. When she has her sights set on a ball, nothing else matters. She will ignore demands for recall, whistling, crazy noises, (probably even a tornado) when she has her sights set on her ball. I affectionately reefer to her as a ball whore; she'll do anything for a ball.

None of the other dogs at the park mattered to Snickers; she had a ball to chase. There was one dog in particular that got my attention. Mainly because she was being so noisy. She was a small Beagle. Anytime a dog would run past her, she would bray and charge forward a few steps. Then she would go back to her owner, an Asian man who was taller than me, wearing a light green shirt and khakis.

At this point in my life, I didn't really see the Beagle's behavior as anything too disconcerting. That's because I was not terribly informed in the ways of dog body language. Dogs don't talk, at least, not the way people do. They use body language. That is how dogs communicate with the world: through subtle, silent cues using their body and the occasional vocalization.

I noticed that every time the female brayed, her owner would try to shush her. As Snickers kept running back and forth, chasing after the ball and then returning with it, she became more agitated. None of us noticed. We just kept playing with Snickers and enjoying ourselves.

Snickers had just brought the ball back to Jesse and was waiting for him to throw it. By this time she was panting heavily. Jesse bent down to snap the slimy, dirty, wet, grass-covered ball into the chuck-it and straightened, his arm came back and flew forward, the ball catapulted to the other end of the park. Snickers took off as fast at she could go, moving at a dead sprint.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Beagle come charging over from her spot by her owner and she snapped at Snickers, nipping at her hind legs. Snickers turned around and snapped back at her, to tell her to back off, and then continued on after the ball. She couldn't be distracted by this tiny, annoying little dog. She had a ball to catch!

Dirty mouth? Clean it up with Orbit!

I hardly had time to shout before the encounter was over, but by that time the owner of the female Beagle had decided that enough was enough and he grabbed a hold of her collar and leashed her as soon as she returned to him. By this time Snickers had returned with her prize and she laid down in the grass, panting. She hadn't been limping upon her return to us so we figured she was fine.

I didn't say anything to the owner of the Beagle, because at that point I thought Snickers was fine. We even checked her back leg. After she took a break, we continued to play with her and the Asian man decided to leave, taking his two Beagles with him.

Jesse had crouched down and was hugging Snickers to his chest so that she was sitting up like a prairie dog. When he let her go, he noticed something was wrong and called me over. There was blood on the ground where Snickers had been sitting. I decided to go over her leg again and I found it  — covered by fur — a gash about an inch and a half long and it was oozing blood.

"Well, time to go home Snickers!" I said as I stood up.

We hooked the leash to her collar, went back to the car and drove home. I wasn't too worried about her because she didn't seem to be in any pain. I knew that when we got home we were going to need to clean out the wound and try to bandage it.

Comfy Cone

When we got home I asked her to get in the tub and she hopped right in, thinking she was going to get to play with water. I decided the best thing I had on hand to clean the wound was hydrogen peroxide. Not the full-strength stuff, but the 3% solution you can get over the counter at Target. I use it all the time when I get cat scratches and it works wonders for small infections. I love the stuff. Unfortunately, once it's left in place for about 30 seconds, it starts to sting. But it's not unbearable.

I rinsed the hydrogen peroxide off with some water and then tried to bandage her leg. Damn her muscled, tapered thighs! I couldn't get the bandage to stay on. So I opted for making her wear her comfy cone.

We decided to wait until the next morning to see if it would start to heal on its own. Unfortunately, when I got up the next morning and checked it and this is what I found:

It was no longer bleeding, but the gash was much deeper than I had initially thought. I consulted with my mother, who used to work at a veterinary hospital and she said it needed stitches. It hadn't made any progress of healing on its own and I couldn't leave it open like that. I called our vet and they had me come in as soon as I got off the phone with them.

In hind sight, I really should have asked the owner of the Beagle if his dog was vaccinated against Rabies, but I didn't think of it at the time. If there is one thing you take away from this, make sure it is that if your dog is bitten by another dog, get the vaccination and contact information from the other owner, if one is available. It's important and animal control and the veterinary staff are going to ask you about the other dog.

Snickers was drugged and loopy for the rest of the day after we took her to the vets. She hardly left the bed or the couch and spent the day sleeping. We left her on our bed for most of the afternoon and evening wrapped in a blanket while we went about our day. She had her comfy cone on, so I figured she was fine. But just in case, I decided to check on her every 20 minutes or so.

Later in the evening I was in the next room and Jesse was in the living room watching TV when I heard this whimpering, yelping noise coming from the bedroom. I rushed in and found Snickers on the bed with her comfy cone folded over, licking her wound. She had ripped all of her stitches out!

OMG dog....I went and told Jesse what our "child" had done and we decided that there was nothing to be done that evening. We would just have to call the vet back in the morning to see what they recommended. Stinky dog.

We ended up having to go back to the vet's the next morning so Snickers could be re-sedated and re-stitched. This time she was sent back with a sturdy plastic cone over her head. One she couldn't bend. She also couldn't see out of it. It made for some humorous moments in our house over the next 10 days.

So never mind that she had an enormous cone on her head, she still wanted under the covers at night. Tell her as we might to get down and "No honey, you won't fit," and "You can't come under with that thing on your head," she didn't believe us. She insisted. By getting up on our pillows and putting her head down by the edge of the covers and staring. We tried ignoring her. We tried going to sleep. But she is incredibly persistent...and spoiled, and we eventually gave in. Every night, for ten days. She was right, she fit. Barely.

By the end of the requisite 10 days I was just about at my wits-end with that damn cone. It was loud and bulky and noisy. I think I was happier than she was to get the sutures removed and the cone taken off her head.

A few minutes after arriving at the animal hospital a vet tech came out to greet us, and to bring her back. Snickers pulled her leash out of my grasp when she saw her "new friend" and ran right over to the young woman in teal scrubs who was holding a clip board.

"Hey Snickers, do you remember me?" she said in a happy, high-pitched voice.

Once Snickers got within five feet of the woman she slowed and suddenly her demeanor changed. Her tail went between her legs, her head went down and she submissively sidled up to the woman. She tilted her head upwards to kiss the woman's hands, twitched her hind legs and vibrated the tip of her tail while it was still tucked under her.

"Oh, you DO remember me, don't you!" She said, laughing. This was the same woman who had sedated and taken care of Snickers the last time she was here. It appeared that Snickers definitely remembered the woman, and had no desire to repeat the last experience.

Within a few minutes, Snickers' sutures were out and she was given a clean bill of health. Looking back on it now, I really wished I had recognized the warning signs that the female Beagle was giving and had asked her owner to leash her before something happened. I was naive at the time and I have learned since then to be more vigilant and watchful when I am at the dog park with Snickers.

Lesson learned.

Source:

Reed, Jesse. Personal Interview. 20 06 2012.