Last Thursday marks the one year milestone of Mav's encounter with our old family dog.
It was a day that honestly changed my life forever, I will never be able to look at a dog the way I used to, trust a dog the way that I used to. And maybe that is a good thing.
I find it hard to believe it has been a year already, in some ways it feels like the time has flown by and in others it seems like it has been so much longer. Our year has been an emotional one, dealing with the grief of the loss of our dog and the demons in our heads of what happened. For myself it has included panic attacks, nightmares and flashbacks of the horrible event I witnessed. For hubby it has involved a lot of "what if's" grief about how we as parents were careless which allowed it to happen. I wrote about the incident briefly right after it happened, you can find that post here, I did not include any pictures at first. It was all too hard to deal with back then, but today I will be sharing with you (hence my warning at the beginning of this post). This is a full disclosure post, I needed to share it fully. I need to get past this.
To start, here is what Mav looks like today.
A year later his scars are barely noticeable and we are one follow up away from being discharged from plastics. If he gets really cold, for instance after swim lessons they do turn a light purple and become more obvious. Thankfully there will be no need for corrective surgery as he has healed quite nicely.
In addition to barely having any physical scars emotionally he is doing quite well also. There is a dog at his daycare that he interacts with on a regular basis, he shows no fear or hesitation which is good. He was "lucky" that he was so young in the sense of not developing any debilitating fears. He still loves dogs, his little face lights up whenever he sees one walking down the street. He calls out to the neighbors dogs and tries to pet them through the fence. We are reinforcing the point of no kissing dogs still, my little lover child will try to get face to face with a dog to kiss it (which makes my heart speed to what I assume is unhealthy rates). There has been a couple occasions where for some reason he has shown hesitation towards to strange dog, this is good. I want him to love dogs but to learn to be careful.
I don't recall if I ever shared this but it happened twice...
On December 5th, 2012 I drove hubby to work bright and early in the morning. When Mav and I returned home I found that our dog had eaten a large amount (2-3 dozen) of the chocolate brownies I had baked for the Christmas cookie exchange I was going to that day. Daisy was a beagle, a medium size dog at most 25lbs. I knew it was a matter of time before that much cocoa killed her so we jumped back into the car and rushed to the vets. Once there they gave her an injection of something that caused her to vomit multiple times and empty her stomach, in addition to that it she was also in a drugged state barely able to lift her own head. She spent the rest of her day locked in our kitchen for easy clean up as well as to keep her separate from human interaction at the vets suggestion. The vet made it clear that she may be in an altered state of mind because of the injection. Mav and I went to the cookie exchange and by evening Daisy appeared to slowly be coming around. This is where the first slip up happened. Following dinner hubby let Daisy out of the kitchen out of habit so that she could lick up any crumbs, then the next slip up occurred. I put Mav on the floor to play. Both are things that we did on a daily basis, no second thought about it. As I sat at the dinning table I had Daisy at my feet and Mav crawling around to my left. Both of them were literally in an arms reach from me as I read through the newspaper. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mav climb to his knees and start to reach for the dog who had her back end towards him. Daisy had bad hips, they occasionally caused her visible pain, most likely they were painful on a daily basis and so we were always cautious with respect to them. It was not unlike Mav to reach out and touch the dog, she normally would lick him as he did so but on that night in her drugged state that is not what happened. I can still picture it, it goes in slow motion just as it did while it was happening. Mav climbed to his knees and reached his hand out to the dog, my hand started to extend in a cautionary gesture to tell him to be gentle but before I could do that Daisy turned around and locked her teeth onto his little cherub cheek knocking him to the ground. It was a matter of seconds. Slow motion but so fast that a blink could almost have caused me to miss seeing it. I screamed (so I am told) described as a blood curling witness to a murder scream. My screaming alerted hubby who was downstairs, and our neighbors who immediately started calling and texting also. My hand already in the process of extending immediately changed paths and went straight for the dog's scruff as I dropped to the floor on my knees. She was not letting go. She had his little cheek locked in her jaw and there was an aggressive growl coming from her. I can not even describe in full accuracy the behaviour she was showing, I remember grabbing her with one hand and hitting her with another trying to lift her from my baby. Once separated I had her in one hand and scooped up Mav with another. I tossed her aside and immediately jumped to my feet scared to look closer, at first glace it looked like a huge part of his cheek was missing, there was blood everywhere. I was starting to go into shock but something in the back of my head switched from frantic mother into what I call "nurse mode". At this point hubby was beside me screaming also, he was in full blown panic mode and one of us needed to pull it together, it was obvious at that moment it needed to be me. I ordered hubby into the car cradling Mav in my arms and trying to shield his face from hubby. At this point I still thought there was a piece of his face on our dinning room floor and thought that if Hubby saw him it would push him over the edge. I needed him to regain some composure. We ran every red light and stop sign on our way to the hospital and made it there in record time. abiding by traffic rules we live approx 10-20 min drive from the hospital depending on time of day and traffic. As we ran into the triage area we were quickly whisked into the back where Mav was cleaned up and stitched up. He had a small insertion wound above his left eye brow that was glued shut, another small insertion wound and a larger gaping tear on his left cheek. Nothing was missing, the larger wound had been split open by the dog's tooth. It was unclear what caused that to happen, My memory even at the hospital was too foggy to identify if the skin tore when I grabbed the dog or if the dog bite itself did it. Mav ended up with 5 or 6 stiches and we were sent home.
City bi law states that after a dog bite the affected dog must be kept in quarantine for 10 days before action can be taken. Even if it is your dog who you know is fully vaccinated. The penalty is over $1500 if the dog is terminated or "goes missing" before being cleared by the health inspector. And so for the next 10 days Daisy stayed with us locked in a separate area so she had minimal contact with myself and hubby, and no new visitors were allowed in the home. Being so close to Christmas, and being given the time to allow our emotions to calm the decision was made that Daisy would continue to live with us but would be treated more like a dog and not allowed to interact with Mav or any young children. Our house is set up in a way that did allow this to happen, it meant closing gates so that Daisy was in one area while Mav was in another. I was terrified of my dog, I hated her. Hubby was convinced it was the injection and her drugged state. He blamed us for it the attack happening, I blamed the dog. This caused extra stress but we lived like this for the next 2-3 months. Shortly after the bite Mav got an infection and was admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics, once the infection was out his incision was able to heal properly. Just as things were getting back to normal and every one was feeling like our new life had settled she bit him again.
The second bite happened on Mav's birthday, almost 3 months after the first. I suppose the change in how the dog was treated and how she was now living caused some jealousy. The second bite was completely unprovoked, it was not an aggressive attack like before but more of a warning. A friend was visiting and holding Mav in his arms. The dog was in the kitchen separate from Mav, that is until our friend entered the kitchen with Mav in his arms. Hubby was there too seeing that said friend had entered the kitchen with Mav hubby warned that he was to be separate from the dog and out of the kitchen. Said friend assured hubby nothing would happen he had it under control, then for some reason he put Mav down. Mav stood there at said friends feet for only a few short moments before the dog came over and bit him once again on the left cheek. This time the bite was a direct in and out, like a warning nip. It broke the skin and once again Mav was rushed to the hospital. This time no stitches were needed just closed shut with some surgical glue. Once we returned from the hospital we put Daisy in the car and we took her directly to the vet's office. They were just getting ready to close and were waiting for us to arrive. We said our goodbye's and left her there. She was euthanized the following morning. The combination of her age, health and now inability to interact with other dogs or children meant she was not a candidate for adoption.
At some point when our children are older we will get another dog, but it will be a few more years before we are ready to even start planning that. And there will be a lot of planning involved to find us the right dog for our family.
This past week has been an emotionally tough one for me but we are all still healing and in a much better place.
