So, i got bitten by a dog. How was your evening? (with pictures)

The BBQ Pit
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When i was in the triage room at the ER last night, the nurse was evaluating the pain level of the bite. She asked me to describe the pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 the worst. I said it was about a 1 or a 2, and told her i didn’t need any painkillers. There’s still basically no pain associated with it, except if i put my whole weight on it when sitting down or getting up.

But i did experience level 8-9 pain tonight.

If there’s something that hurts more than being bitten by a dog, it’s removing 2-inch-wide adhesive tape from your hairy upper thigh. I let out a scream, and my wife thought i must have knocked the injury or something, but it was just the agony of ripping off the tape, especially the part on the inside of the thigh. I don’t understand how you women wax your legs.

Here’s a “24 hours later” shot for those who are interested. I’m keeping a record of its progress, in case there are any (medical or legal) complications later on. But this will be the last one i inflict on the SDMB.

https://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/mhender4/public_html/gen_images/bite3.jpg

It seems to be healing fine, even though it’s still pretty ugly. There’s no warmth or extra swelling or discharge, which they told me to watch out for.

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[QUOTE=pool]
Cite?
[/QUOTE]

Last time I looked at the CDC report it said “pit bull type”. It did not refer to one specific breed it referred to at least a dozen different breeds, such as the American Pit Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier which are two different breeds that look somewhat similar. It also includes mixes that look like a “pit bull type”. It did not list “Rottweiler type” or “German Shepherd type”, each of those breeds was listed separately. This is why breed specific legislation doesn’t work, there is not a specific breed to target, there are several, not to mention the mixes and no one can accurately identify them all. It isn’t even about the breed, it’s about the owners that create dangerous dogs.

This argument has been done to death here but if you want to keep it up you should take it to another thread because it has absolutely nothing to do with what happened to mhendo since he was bitten by an “airedale type”.

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[QUOTE=Chotii]
So you think a breed cannot be significantly altered through selective (or careless backyard) breeding in…(1939-1944)…over 60 years? Seriously?
[/QUOTE]

No, what I think is that the vast majority of the public wouldn’t know a pit bull if it literally bit them on the ass, so they should shut the fuck up about them.

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[QUOTE=mhendo]

Here’s a “24 hours later” shot for those who are interested. I’m keeping a record of its progress, in case there are any (medical or legal) complications later on. But this will be the last one i inflict on the SDMB.

https://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/mhender4/public_html/gen_images/bite3.jpg

It seems to be healing fine, even though it’s still pretty ugly. There’s no warmth or extra swelling or discharge, which they told me to watch out for.
[/QUOTE]

Damn good thing you went to have it professionally cleaned and treated – that’s a really nasty puncture wound, just begging to brew an abscess if any bacteria get a flagellum-hold.

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[QUOTE=pool]

Cite?
[/QUOTE]
What, you didn’t look up your own cite to see what it said?

And what happened whenever these articles identified the breed as a Pit Bull when it was really something else? The CDC classified the attack as Pit Bull because that’s what the article said.

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Thats it man your on double secret probation cite?
I was mostly joking really, I didn’t really disbelieve you.

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Ok I looked at the pdf article and you’re quite right I jumped the gun even though I had a feeling you were probably right after I thought about it. Congratulations some ignorance was thought and now I’m a better person for it, I retract my statement.

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that should be ignorance was Fought*, sorry I’m drunk. :smiley:

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[QUOTE=mhendo]
I’m not reticent about profanity at the best of times, and my speech was liberally laden with expletives—something i felt was rather justified under the circumstances. But she also told me that i shouldn’t swear. I asked if she was fucking kidding. Then she said, “You’ll probably have a decent bruise.” I repeated my previous inquiry: “Are you fucking kidding me? Did you miss the gash and the blood and mangled flesh i just showed you?”

[/QUOTE]

Ouch, I’m really sorry about your bite. The woman was completely 100% wrong in not acknowledging (as the husband did) that they were at fault.

I can totally understand dropping F bombs like crazy upon being bitten, but as you said, these were elderly folks, and some people consider that sort of language to be very aggressive and highly disrespectful. Especially as you continued even after the initial bite and pain of that. And then you weren’t just saying “ouch Fuck” etc, you were swearing directly AT her. It sounds as if she may have gotten derailed due to the shock of hearing that sort of language (not that that excuses her not taking responsibility), but you did ask “are you fucking kidding” and so on.

I was raised in the same sort of swear word free upbringing, and in the instances where someone had started in on swearing, my shock at the vileness of the language quickly short-circuited whatever else might have been going on, or its importance.

It’s not nearly as bad as when I was much younger, but those raised in a more genteel time, are likely to see this as seriously aggressive, as in “is this person going to attack” aggressive.

Again, NOT an excuse for her behaviour or lack of taking ownership of her fault in the matter, but an explanation (I saw others throughout the thread semi-asking why she would be so hung up on “fuck”) as to why she may have put more emphasis on that rather than the dog bite.

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[QUOTE=Stinkpalm]
You are all right. There are no cites. I made it all up.
[/QUOTE]
You said that there are differences. I asked you what they are. I’ll ask again. What are they? How do you know?

[QUOTE=Redfury]
I mean, I know that you are a dog lover like myself – or even more – but surely you can’t be saying all breeds have the same expected temperament (and again, there are obviously exceptions to any rule, added to the fact of the type of training the dog gets – or lack thereof).
[/QUOTE]
I’m not saying anything. I’m asking him what the differences in temperament are, and how he knows. He has responded with sarcasm, and by attributing words to me that I never said.

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[QUOTE=RedFury]
Well, I must admit to having sore arms/shoulders here and there for a while, but with time she’s realized that if I give her a quick, hard tug and call out “stay!” she’s pretty much in control.

Still and all, I’d be interested in this “hip-check the leash” technique you allude to. Never heard of it, although this is my third (and biggest) dog – albeit I’ve always trained them myself, what with what I’ve read, a vet I’ve been friends with for decades, patience and a large dose of common sense as well as mutual respect (though there’s never been any doubt as to whom the pack leader is; that’s one of the first things I establish).

Appreciate your response in advance.
[/QUOTE]
Too many people either don’t pay attention or see their dogs start to move but just let them run to the end of the leash, pulling the walker’s arm out and risking a dislocated shoulder. Instead of that, as soon as one of the dogs starts to bolt, I turn to the right, away from the dog, and let my hip take the impact of the hit on the end of the lead. My first dog trainer was a woman about 5’ and 100 pounds who bred Rotts and she was big on teaching people how not to dislocate a shoulder.

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[QUOTE=Stinkpalm]
I guess I haven’t read as many news stories on Pomeranians and Beagles mauling/killing people though as I have pitbulls. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]

EXACTLY.

The news suffers from selectivity just as your memory does. Pitbull guardians are MORE aware of it than others, but anyone could pay attention and see that the reporting goes like this “Pitbull bit…in other news, another dog [no breed mentioned] bit…”

The news often doesn’t BOTHER to report other breeds because that doesn’t excite people. You see pit bulls, possible :rolleyes: pit bulls, “pit-mixes” and the like in the news because the other ones don’t get mentioned.

I have personally seen reports in which a dog is known to be a non-pit-bull breed, such as a retriever, shown in photos to be a non-pit-bull, but reported as a pit bull…and when leters of complaint are written, the next version of the story changes to “a dog,” omitting the specific breed.

All dogs may bite, it’s true. Even pit bulls who can apparently travel backward and forward in time to suit the needs of your rhetoric.

Sailboat

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[QUOTE=RedFury]
Having written what I’ve written right before your post, I feel I should be able to back my claims as well. I mean, I know that you are a dog lover like myself – or even more – but surely you can’t be saying all breeds have the same expected temperament (and again, there are obviously exceptions to any rule, added to the fact of the type of training the dog gets – or lack thereof).

So beyond the link I posted above, here’s a few more:

About Canine Temperament
[/QUOTE]

Oooh, you linked to the American Temperament Testing Society site. :slight_smile:

They’ve been systematically evaluating individual dogs with a very detailed formal temperament test and keeping statistics by breed.

I do think they’re some element of self-selection – people apply to have their dogs tested, if I understand. So it’s not a wholesale scientific survey. But it is the most rigorous data set currently available on the temerament of dog breeds, especially dogs whose owners assure you they’re well behaved (the kind who would pay to have that dog tested), so they’re relevant, IMHO.

In their tests, pit bulls and pit bull mixes consistently outscore many, many other breeds of dogs. What follows is a somewhat selective list of the most heavily tested breeds (and a few notable breeds even though those sample sizes are smaller):

AMERICAN PIT BULL TERRIER 84.1%
AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER 83.9%
AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD 80.7%
AKITA 73.6%
BEAGLE 79.7% (admittedly a small sample size, included because of reputation)
BORDER COLLIE 80.0%
BLOODHOUND 71.9% (small sample size)
CHIHUAHUA 71.4% (small sample size)
COLLIE 79.2%
DACHSHUND 75.9% (compiled from several categories of dachsund)
DOBERMAN PINSCHER 76.8%
GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG 83.3%
GOLDEN RETRIEVER 83.8%
GREAT DANE 78.9%
LABRADOR RETRIEVER 91.5%
MIXED BREED 85.6%
ROTTWEILER 82.7%
SHETLAND SHEEPDOG 67.3%
STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIER 85.2% (small sample size)
STANDARD POODLE 85.7%
WEIMARANER 79.6%

AVERAGE FOR ALL BREEDS 81.5%

(Compiled by me from the statistics on the ATTS pages.)

The bolded breeds are the three traditionally considered “true pit bulls,” although “mixed” (which also scored well) includes a fair number of pits (pit bull owners often list their dogs as “mixed” on official forms, much like Jews hiding their ancestry in Nazi Germany. This is not a specious comaprison, as the fear in both cases is (was) being rounded up by the government because of one’s “race.”)

Note that, aside from the impressive score racked up by Labradors, pit breeds score as well as or better than almost everything out there and consitently better than some breeds. The pits are also all above the average for all dogs.

Sailboat

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You beat me to it, Sailboat. I was just about to post those same statistics.

The breed that bit me, an Airedale Terrier, scores 76.5%, which is well below average, especially for breeds where a decent sample size has been tested (for example, some breeds score 50% based on testing 2 dogs, which is way too small a sample size to give decent results).

Also, for those who think that “pit bulls” are easily identifiable, and that the news always reports breeds correctly, see how many tries it takes you to identify the pit bull in this test.

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[QUOTE=Sailboat]
EXACTLY.

The news suffers from selectivity just as your memory does. Pitbull guardians are MORE aware of it than others, but anyone could pay attention and see that the reporting goes like this “Pitbull bit…in other news, another dog [no breed mentioned] bit…”

The news often doesn’t BOTHER to report other breeds because that doesn’t excite people. You see pit bulls, possible :rolleyes: pit bulls, “pit-mixes” and the like in the news because the other ones don’t get mentioned.

I have personally seen reports in which a dog is known to be a non-pit-bull breed, such as a retriever, shown in photos to be a non-pit-bull, but reported as a pit bull…and when leters of complaint are written, the next version of the story changes to “a dog,” omitting the specific breed.

All dogs may bite, it’s true. Even pit bulls who can apparently travel backward and forward in time to suit the needs of your rhetoric.

Sailboat
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes:

It’s all a big media conspiracy…

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[QUOTE=Stinkpalm]
:rolleyes:

It’s all a big media conspiracy…
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think it’s a matter of conspiracy; it’s a combination of poor research, selective emphasis, and fairly standard levels of media sensationalism.

Despite the fact that we often like to think that the job of the media is reporting news, the fact is that the job of the media is making money. They make money by selling readers to advertisers. In order to get as many readers as possible to sell to advertisers, they often choose news stories based on criteria likely to attract as many people as possible, which often involves selectivity and sensationalism of one sort or another.

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[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Oooh, you linked to the American Temperament Testing Society site. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]
So how do I interpret those statistics? Is 90% more aggressive than 80%, or the other way around?

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[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
So how do I interpret those statistics? Is 90% more aggressive than 80%, or the other way around?
[/QUOTE]
The other way around. The higher the number, the better.

The number represents the percentage of dogs from that breed that passed the ATTS’s Temperament Test.

Here is a description of the test, and what the testers are looking for.

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[QUOTE=stretch]
Too many people either don’t pay attention or see their dogs start to move but just let them run to the end of the leash, pulling the walker’s arm out and risking a dislocated shoulder. Instead of that, as soon as one of the dogs starts to bolt, I turn to the right, away[ from the dog, and let my hip take the impact of the hit on the end of the lead. My first dog trainer was a woman about 5’ and 100 pounds who bred Rotts and she was big on teaching people how not to dislocate a shoulder.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you. Quite straight forward, well, with a turn. :wink: But I got it. Sounds effective, I’ll certainly use it when I get my next dog: a Great Dane :wink:

I kid I kid…I am a Dobie fanatic for life.

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
I’m not saying anything. I’m asking him what the differences in temperament are, and how he knows. He has responded with sarcasm, and by attributing words to me that I never said.
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough, Contra, wasn’t arguing with you as much as pointing out the obvious for people that didn’t know. I think dog/owner matches are extremely important. And yes, I was fully aware of the temperament reliability of the Pit class in that study – note that I never said a word against them.. Higher than my own Dobe, thought they do top the intelligence scale (Dobes do)..along with GDSs and…drumroll…poodles!

I’d still rather have a chihuahua attack me though :wink:

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[QUOTE=RedFury]
they do top the intelligence scale (Dobes do)..along with GDSs and…drumroll…poodles!
[/QUOTE]
From what I’ve read, poodles are actually excellent dogs, and quite handsome, too, if you’ll just give them a nice neat all-over clip instead of that frou-frou puffy silliness.