I usually spend some time every evening walking my dog, Pogo, and yesterday was no exception. However, this trip to Pratt Park ended with an encounter with a pitbull that broke off of its leash and came flying at Pogo. It managed to viciously latch its jaws onto Pogo’s shoulder and would not let go. Once I realized this wasn’t a typical scuffle, I reached in to intervene - while I managed to separate the two animals, the pitbull did get one last bite in.

Dog Bite

It definitely left two decent sized puncture wounds, so I ended up spending yesterday night in the ER making sure I had all of my shots in order. It turns out that rabies is virtually non-existent in the Northwest, but I was told that animal bites like this still have a 40% chance of becoming infected even after medical treatment. Lovely.

The pitbull had one of those choke collars for controlling difficult dogs and had managed to break off its leash in spite of this extra precaution. So unfortunately, I couldn’t honestly say that the owner had been negligent. Still, she wasn’t particularly polite during the whole incident, and refused to give me her home address (apparently a cell number isn’t enough for the police to work with).

Chances are, my hospital bill will be just large enough to hurt my wallet, but not enough to justify going to the small claims court, leaving me with no recourse. Perhaps this would be a situation where Korean-style vigilante justice would be appropriate.