Dog bites man
I began to give them a wide berth. Not quite wide enough, as it turns out. "You're ok," one of the ladies informed me as one of the dogs- a brown one (the other was light in color) came over and gave my hand a sniff. I expected a lick to follow.
He bit instead. My jacket absorbed most of it- all of it, I thought at the time. "Well, I've never seen THAT before," the lady who had spoken to me exclaimed. "Don't worry about it," I said, not realizing that the dog had indeed caught my left hand with one of his teeth. They went their way, and I went mine.
I'd gone a couple of blocks when I happened to look down, and saw that my hand was bleeding. I have no idea why I didn't chase the ladies and their dogs. Instead, I went home, washed the wound with antibacterial soap, put some antibiotic gel on it- and resolved to meet them when they walked their dogs the next night.
I waited there for an hour last night. They didn't show. This afternoon I went to the hospital and- on medical advice- received a tetanus shot and my first six rabies shots- two in the back of my left hand (leaving a large bubble), one in the arm, and three somewhere north of my gluteus maxiumus.
I'm waiting for the animal control officer now at the church. I'll look for the dogs and their people again tonight, but I'm not optimistic about meeting them.
Hopefully I'll manage to verify that the dog has had his shots, and I won't have to have the other four shots in the series. Not that it's really that awful. I remember the horror stories from when I was small (I was bitten by a dog I was encouraging to follow me home when I was seven, but who turned out to be OK) and wasn't sure what to expect. But frankly, the modern rabies protocol is a piece of cake- except for being treated like a pin cushion and having a bubble on the back of your hand for several hours.
Hopefully the dog is OK. More at this point for his sake than for mine. Dogs are among my favorite people, and I hold no ill will toward this one.
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