One of my daughters is getting married in August so we need someone to look after Charlie (our dog) for the day. My wife 'Knows somebody' from our local park that does dog sitting and so we went round to check it out at around four o'clock yesterday. We knocked on the door and as you would expect was greeted by a cacophony of dogs barking. After a few minutes, we were greeted by a pleasant enough woman and a swirl of dogs about the same size as Charlie. The wife entered before me and I was, kind of in the narrow hallway watching how Charlie interacted with the other dogs which, I hasten to add, a couple of whom he knew from the park.
After a couple of minutes, the woman came past me down the hallway and I saw the wife talking to another dog behind yet another kiddie-gate underneath the stairs. Like a fool I approached the dag that was sitting, as I thought, looking up at me, I started the obligatory, "Hello boy, what are you doing then?...." while simultaneously reaching out with my hand. With a snarl and a bark that came out of nowhere, the think promptly bit into the fleshy part of my hand. Shocked I immediately, instinctively grasped the wound only to see bright red rivers of blood ooze between my fingers.
"WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?" my wife exclaimed, "He's a Romanian rescue dog. He's deaf and partially blind. She told you not to touch him because he bites!" News to me I thought. I explained that I hadn't heard the warning regarding what appeared to now be a Velociraptor caged under the stairs all the while gripping my blood-soaked hand. "I saw you talking to him and thought he was OK." I cleaned to wound up a bit and put a plaster on and after a while we went back home. Around seven, o'clock I noticed that blood was now seeping through three sets of plasters I'd applied in an attempt to stem the tide. You know what men are like: "Meh, it'll be alright, it'll stop soon." it didn't stop, and so I found myself waiting in A&E with a fetching blue rubber glove on my right hand to stop the steering wheel of my car becoming smeared with blood.
Fully expecting a couple of stitches and a tetanus jab in the bum I was both surprised and slightly disappointed that they said they don't close of dog bites due to possible infection and that I didn't need an injection. What did shock me was that they had no antibiotics and that I would have to wait for a phone call today to go back to the hospital to fetch some. My hand is still bleeding some eighteen hours later.
