Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 10:20 pm Post subject: My dog bit another dog tonight
Took Chester for a walk tonight and met up with a lady with two dogs (one is her daughters). Ladies dog is a westie and the daughters I think is a shitzu, we have met up once before, and the 3 dogs were fine on introduction. Tonight we met up and the dogs sniffed each other and were fine but then the little shitzu jumped up at Chesters face and Chester turned and snapped at the dog and bit its ear quite badly.
I feel so bad, the dog had to go to the vet and it has been given 2 injections and painkillers but no stitches and thankfully it was bouncing about. I've apologised profusely because of the injury to the dog and the horrible experience, but the lady was really nice and said don't take it to heart because the dogs were fine when they met, so I've paid the vets bill, and we've agreed not to ignore each other on walks although now I will be extra vigilant with Chester. What a horrible experience.
Not to make excuses but Chester has bad ears and it takes me a long time to soothe him so I can clean his left ear, the right ear is the same but he doesn't mind me cleaning that one do you think that could be the reason he snapped so quick, as he came to me from foster where he was ok with dogs, alison said he he is the most laid back dog which he certainly is but as he is still intact if a dog was aggressive with him you can't rule out him defending himself. (The dog wasn't being aggressive, just a bit in your face playfully)
Oh dear just an awful experience and going to have to be very vigilant now.
Firstly not a nice thing to happen for you or the dogs,glad the little one is ok...................do personally think it could be his ears . Know when my old boy had bad ears he was so not himself . Maybe a trip to the vets to get them checked out
Hey don't worry too much. i think you did the right thing by accepting responsibility and paying the vets bills. Chester has bad ears as you say and if another dog jumps in his face he is going to tell the other one off. Ok on this occasion it caused an injury. It wasn't as if he had a prolonged attack tearing the other dog apart. I would get Chester checked out too just to ensure he's ok.
Good luck
I agree with the others. A trip to the vet might confirm your ear suspicion and means you can be vigilant when other dogs are playing with him in the future. Sorry to hear this happened to you, you must have been so worried. Glad the wee dog is ok though and you totally did the right thing. She sounds like a really sensible owner. Hope you are ok.
Thank you for your kind thoughts I totally had to accept responsibility as it was a nasty incident in all honesty and yes I was very lucky the lady was so understanding but she has seen me a lot with Chester in the village and with other dogs so I think she knew it was out of character but as dog owners you'll understand that this is a very worrying thing to happen and I'm going to have to be brave tomorrow when I take Chester out and we meet dogs to be confident but oh boy I am going to have to watch for signals and not let anyone near Chesters head.
When we got Chester we took him to our vets to register him and I asked the vet to check his ears as I had noticed him shaking his head and the vet said he couldn't see anything in both ears although one looked slightly pink so he gave us CleanAural but even though we have been using it he gets copious amounts of brown wax and as I said before he doesn't mind me cleaning his right ear but he really dislikes me doing the left I have to line up choccy buttons so I can do it, so I don't think the CleanAural is working maybe I should get the Thornit powder a lot of people have been talking about and see if that will work if not definately a visit to the vets as I know he is uncomfortable with that left ear but it must be very uncomfortable for him to have snapped like that, and in all honesty it was more than a snap and since we have had him he has not shown any aggression to dogs.
Hey don't worry too much. i think you did the right thing by accepting responsibility and paying the vets bills. Chester has bad ears as you say and if another dog jumps in his face he is going to tell the other one off. Ok on this occasion it caused an injury. It wasn't as if he had a prolonged attack tearing the other dog apart. I would get Chester checked out too just to ensure he's ok.
Good luck
I totally agree with Gregg but have one further observation to make to emphasise the point that you should get to the bottom of what caused Chester to react as he did. You said in your original post that his reaction 'was out of character', if it happens again it won't therefore be a 'one off' and the outcome could be far more serious. If, as you suspect, his ears are the cause of the problem it's quite feasible that a human - especially a child could be the next victim, everyone knows that dogs love to have their ears rubbed.
I can see you acted responsibly over this episode so please don't think I'm lecturing you, just trying to show you how it could develop if it happened again.
Absolutely, another trip to the vets, tell them what happened, and he might need ABs for the ear infection (if that's what it is). If your current vets say his vets are fine and don't really do any other investigation, then go see another vet - don't let the vets blow you off about it you need to find out why it happened - and sore ears could very well be why.
Must say, you're being very responsible about it all, and that is wonderful to see!!!
sorry you may not like this answer - but i would consider muzzling him - at least if for any reason he were to snap at another dog, he wouldn't put you in this situation again.........
that way you will feel confident with him if other dogs approach him
Although it could be to do with Chesters ears there is also the "space" thing to consider, Nat posted about it a short while back, the little guy jumps in Chesters face with no warning, now, if someone did that to us we`d say "get back" or something similar, dogs of course can`t talk so he had a lunge and a nip which sadly went a bit further than it should.
Hope that makes sense, will see if i can find Nat`s post, of course this doesn`t excuse what Chester did but it does go some way to explaining it.
Good to hear the little dog was ok and the lady was so understanding about the incident.
I know you`ll be on your guard when you go out but try hard not to let Chester "feel" your tension when you come on other dogs or he`ll feel he really has something to worry about.
Very helpful comments. As I said when we got Chester we took him to our vets to be registered and checked over and I'd asked the vet to check his ears because of the head shaking and scratching, and at at that time I could not see anything and neither could the vet just a bit ofpinkness and he gave us CleanAural, and actually since we've been using that his ears are producing large amounts of browny, black wax but it doesn't smell, he doesn't mind his right ear being cleaned but really doesn't like the left ear being done and I have to really soothe him before I do it so obviously something going on in that ear. So yes definately back to the vets but I'll get him to investigate it first before he gives us a prescription for anything because it could be one of 3 things, mites, yeast or infection, the reason I am saying that is I went to my Dr's for an infection and got AB and 2 days later they rang me up and said you need different AB's and I asked why and they said they had sent my sample to be checked and the AB's they had given me were not suitable I asked why they didn't wait for the results first before prescribing and they said some people don't like to leave without a precription...grrrrrr.......wasted £6.75 and you know vets bills so don't want that to happen.
I think the incident was part my space as he was jumping up at Chester and it was when he jumped at Chesters head that it happened and of course Chesters re-action was totally unacceptable, but I swear he has never shown any aggression to greeting a dog, and he ignores any dog that shows aggression to him, but of course I would get a muzzle if I think there is going to be a future problem but I don't want to label him yet as an "aggressive" dog especially if it is a medical problem that could have caused a re-action but as you can imagine I am horrified with what happened so I will be very vigilant.
Ian, I didn't mid your comment, I am one of those people who never leave a dog unattended with children, my boys grew up with my lab and there were rules when they were little, and same again once my boys were grown up and I had nephews and neices visiting there were rules with handling the dog and I did not leave them unattended with Brinn, and the rules have applied again with Chester especially since he is a rescue, and there is no history with him. Chester is such a lovely lovely boy, he is not loopy at all and infact is like an old man most of the time and it is such a joy to see his face when he plays ball all lit up and alert as most of the time he just looks very sad so I am not going to give up on him because of this, but as I said will be taking precautions because of what happened regardless of it maybe being a medical thing.
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