Hey Everyone,

So today i received the worst dog bite i have ever had. I am dog sitting for a friend and have 6 huskies at the house right now. they have been over since Sunday night and i was taking them back home tonight. We have had 2 issues (fights) with the one picking on Finn where i have used water to break it up and the other time loud yelling worked.
So this morning, everyone had been walked and i was walking over to the crates to collect food dishes for breakfast and that's all it took, the boy got worked up and attacked Finn in the mix of the other 4 dogs so going low (legs) to break it up was not gonna happen, so as he jumped up i reached over and grabbed the top of his collar and as i did that Finn was jumping up to defend himself and latched onto my right arm just above the elbow.

if you want pictures i can attach but it was bad.

I cleaned them up the best i could, dial soap and spray saline solution and neosporin
Got myself into work and everyone here was telling me to go to a doctor as it was still oozing, well i went and now i have 6 stitches in 2 wounds.
everyone keeps asking me if im ok, and well yeah im ok other then 2 large bite marks on my arm with stitches in them, im more pissed off then anything.

so im glad i went to the docs as i think keeping them open would have been a PIA to heal with how active i am and how long they were, doc said they were not that deep but the skin was rough cut. i was also worried about going because i did not want a bite report taken and they did not do that, i think because it was my own dog in my home.
Just wanted to put this out there in case this happened to anyone else, if you think you may need stitches go and have it looked at, you mostly do need them.

Ouch!! That sounds about like the last time that Sasha got me - 4 stitches and then butterflies on a couple that were to ragged to stitch.

Texas has a strict notification law - but it doesn't apply to being bitten by your own dog ... I guess that they figure that if you keep a dog who's been known to bite then you deserve what you get - I just thank the gods that she hasn't gone after me again 'cause each bite was more severe than the previous one.

At least, in your case, you know that it wasn't Finn intentionally going for you - that sounds like it was more a matter of the wrong thing (arm) being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'll repeat your comment about stitches, while the scars on my arm look bad, if they hadn't been stitched they'd look a lot worse - if you need 'em, go get 'em. (But also, in light of state laws, take a look and find out what happens if your own dog - or dog in your care - bites you.)

Jenn, I hate to do this, but you know I have to - don't you know better than to try to grab a collar in a dog fight? << go ahead, slap me for being a smart a$$ >>

Oy, Jenn...So sorry to hear this. Please be watchful for infection. I was quite surprised with my tiny bite, really not more than 1/4" though full skin thickness. The bite itself looked fine but the hand started to throb and swell with mild over all redness within 24 hours. Was not a bite site infection but cellulits progressing to lymphangitis within 36 hours. When Wayne examined, he suddenly got really serious (like deadly so) and said we're gonna' nip this in the bud and started antibiotics (he's not a pill pusher, more of a wait and see kind of doc so I take him seriously on this)

So - short answer. any heat redness pain surrounding the bite that gets worse not better, ESPECIALLY if you have red streaking up your arm, no matter how faint, get thee to a doc PDQ. From what I learned about lymphangitis, you can have lasting disability.

Happy ending - except for the skin peeling over the hand, everything is fine now.

Oh - and Al. Mine was also reaching for a collar on a semi sleeping dog...

Good on you going to the doctor. I avoided going when I got bit because I wasn't sure about our dog bite laws and I didn't think it was that bad. Mistake on my part. Had one tooth puncture to the underside of my arm just above my elbow (Kye and kenzi were into it and I grabbed scruff but lost my grip on kye before he calmed down and he turned on me and bit into my bicep.) that was a little over a quarter inch deep. It oozed for 2 days. While I now have a hole that is somewhat heeled that looks like I got shot by a bb gun it's the muscle damage that happened that is really haunting me now. I'm going to have to go in. It's several months old at this point and there's a dent in my arm where muscle has either died or moved and some hard spots that are starting to form under the skin where things were torn. I still have shadow scratches on the upper part of my bicep where his top teeth went across my skin. It's surprising how much damage they can do pretty fast. Kenzi would cut the heck out of a person if she bit them but Kye is the first husky I've ever encountered that had the bite power to do muscle damage. Didn't think most had that kind of force.

Y'all might find this PDF interesting.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't find anything positive or negative, with one possible exception, of situations where it's your own dog that bites you. The exception is that once your dog has bitten you, your dog now has a known propensity to bite in certain situations which ups your potential liability if he bites someone else (I was told this by our local sheriff, btw, after Sasha bit me and I called EMS and went to the hospital for stitches.)

That's a great PDF find. And YES i know better then to grab the collar, but it was the only option I had. The issue was with six dogs in a small space and two of them fighting I didn't really have a clear shot to get anywhere else of his body. I thought by nabbing him while he was jumping up in the air gave me a better shot of not being bit down near the ground.
Whiskey helped with the pain last night as well as I think helping me fall asleep!
Amy, I am keeping a very close eye on the sites the one on the underside of my arm is a little tricky to see up close so I got to get in the mirror or have can look at it
Jenn, sounds like we got bit and almost the same spot. Thankfully it seems to be just below into the inside of my bicep and the one on the outside is just below my tricep

Medscape just did a slideshow on animal bites...here is excerpt on dogs.  Note the crushing force...

Dog Bites
Dog bites are the most common type of mammalian bite in the United States
(60%-90% of all mammalian bites)
[3,4,20] and account for an annual 1%-2% of all ED
visits for injuries.
[2,4,11] Children are the most common victims—frequently boys and
those aged 5-9 years—and typically suffer bite wounds to the head and neck.
[1-
4,7,10,11,20] Pet dogs are the predominant culprits.
Dog bites frequently cause a crushing and tearing type of wound, given the size and
rounded shape of their teeth as well as the strength of canine jaw muscles, which can
exert a tremendous amount of pressure per square inch (psi) (200-400 psi).
[3,7] Thus,
deep structure trauma (eg, tendons, joints, muscles, bones, nerves, vessels) and even
fractures may result.
[3,7]
In general, dog bites are thought to be at a lower risk of infection (except wounds to the
hands),
[7,10,13,20] as they are more typically open with exposed tissue beds, usually
allowing adequate drainage. Still, if feasible, dog bite wounds should be left open, with
consideration for delayed primary closure. Antibiotic prophylaxis should considered,
particularly for wounds to the hand.
[4,7] Common bacteria associated with dog bites
include Staphylococcus and Streptococcus species (spp) and Capnocytophaga
canimorsus, as well as Bacteroides, Fusobacterium, Pasturella, and Prevotella
organisms.

Sorry to hear about this.
Hope you are on the road to wellness now.

Happened to me too with husky #1.
He was in a dog fight with a wolf-hybrid.
They were thrashing so much I couldn't get the feet.
So I grabbed for the collar with my left hand.
When I was bitten, my watch took most of the chomp.
The only puncture was where the teeth went past the watch band.
The band was metal and had a dent from a tooth in it for the rest of its life.

Glad you're okay Jenn, sounds like a nasty tear.

Speaking to the notification laws, I believe it is different where children are concerned. You may not have to report your own dog in an adult incident but you would if it happened to a child. Not that anyone would hesitate to take their child to the hospital for such a thing (I hope anyway) but it would go on record. My child cousin had to get stitches on her face when her Akita tried to take food from her. It was not an act of aggression at all but a report had to be made since she was a child. It happened a second time a year or 2 later and the poor dog had to be put down. For this reason I try to never allow Dakota to be near the children when food is around. Just adding to the tales of caution here.

Hope you are feeling better Jennifer! That sux

I don't have any experience with hospitals and dog bites, fortunately, but I was VERY surprised last year when my mom was knocked down by my friends Great Dane and had broken her wrist. The hospital wanted all the info on the dog/owner so we ended up lying and saying a dog was loose and came out of nowhere and left just as quickly so we didn't have any information for them.

In New York state hospitals must report dog bites, not sure about doctors offices.

Oh man, Jenn! That sucks! Hope you're feeling better now. I had a very similar thing happen when we were still in Maryland, when I pulled the red boy from the shelter in Baltimore and couldn't get him to his full time foster for a few days. Denali picked a fight in a really tight space and my hand wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the foster who got me, and I was terrified about having to report it. Thankfully both the rescue AND the ER doc understood that it was mostly my fault and we were able to protect the dog. I wound up with a nasty case of cellulitis too, and it was my right hand which made grading exams that week a lot of fun. Hopefully yours heals quickly and you don't have any lasting issues.

Oh man Jenn glad you got it looked at. Scary though I am sure. I have had to break up that kind of fight and when you are done you always seem to access what you did and what you did wrong being hard on yourself. Well life happens and no situation is perfect glad everything was not even worse. Heal up girl and hang in there.

thanks everyone. so my arm is all kinds of fun colors today and area is feeling better ( i do think i pulled something on that arm rock climbing yesterday though...). not seeing any infection, been keeping it clean and with neosporin on it so that is good. Just waiting on when the itchy faze will hit..... and i need to look into getting those scissors to take the stitches out when it is time.


inside of arm


back of arm

sorry to hear, I'm glade you got it looked at and your feeling better.