Please Don’t Throw My Dog a Bone

Particularly if it’s attached to your elbow.

As some of you may know, I hate my dog.

Yes, last time I wrote about the subject, I merely disliked my dog. Well, now, I despise him.

My feelings intensified a few nights ago, when hubs and I took the little kids for a walk around the neighborhood. We returned to find a small gaggle of neighbors huddled outside our house on the street, looking stricken.

“Your dog bit me,” one woman said, emerging from the group and walking toward us.

The record in my head that continually plays the soundtrack of my life (currently “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Sia, thanks for asking!) scrrrrrrratched.

“He … what?!” I said disbelievingly. Our Dipper was a classic Bark-and-Runner, not a Biter.

Still, the evidence was convincing. The woman held out her forearm, which tellingly contained puncture wounds and a bruise. I gasped.

“I am so sorry.” I said. Hubs and I finished staring at the woman’s arm and looked over at Dipper, who was cowering in our neighbor’s front yard.

“How did it happen?” Hubs asked, still trying to wrap his brain around the idea that Dipper could bite someone, when he didn’t even have the guts to nose at a baby bird that had fallen out of a tree.

“I think he crawled out from under your gate when you guys went for your walk,” the woman explained, “and he started tracking you, right down the road. I had a beagle once who got hit by a car, so I couldn’t just watch him go. I followed him. I tried to grab him and pull him back toward your house and I think I frightened him, and he bit me.”

She was being really nice about it. I mean, if a dog had just bitten me, I probably would have been cussing and crying and constantly checking the mirror to see if I had started foaming at the mouth. “I’m a dog lover,” she explained. We chatted a bit. I was shocked and horrified, and I told her as much. I felt awful.

“I just wanted to let you guys know, because I’m going to have my doctor look at it tomorrow and they’re required to report it to animal control,” she said. “So I wanted you to have a chance to make sure you have his papers together when Metro checks it out.”