dogs, I really lost count on how many times I got bit. With a couple exceptions, it was not a purposeful bite; my most recent bite was received after I'd gone to bed for a much needed night's sleep. Yes, that's right, sleeping in my own bed I got bit - and bit hard.We have 6 German Shepherds living with us in our pack and like any pack inside that pack there are little battles and games that take place. In what I call "Top Dog," for instance, there is a race to see which dog can make it to the top of the stairs first. Oh, no matter who makes it - they let the other dogs come up too but there is like this ring-kissing ceremony. The others absolutely hate having to acknowledge the top dog for that stair session. It's actually quite funny.
We are a pack/family with my husband as the alpha male and myself as the alpha female. Like a lot of families, though, we have a member who can be dysfunctional. In our case, it's my husbands East German female Jasmine. Jasmine is from one of my lines and absolutely one of the smartest dogs I have ever met. She plays with three toys at a time and uses a stick and a ball to play off a wall, actually anticipating the angles. Jasmine can keep a game of "stick ball" going for a half hour at a time.
Unfortunately Jasmine has decided that our other East German shepherd Whitney should just die. We don't know why unless it's that Whitney does not have one mean bone in her body. She never growls at the other dogs, shares gladly and when I still had a working kennel she was the nurse dog. If a puppy needed to by "hyped up" for play, it went in with Whitney; low self confidence, Whitney would fix that in a very short period. And if a pup was hurt, Whitney always took care of them as if they were her own.
When Jasmine came to live with us, I was just excited because she came from my lines and I could literally see all the hours of work we'd done with her mother and grandmother pay off because, you see, Whitney is Jasmine's grandmother. Jasmine's wolf instincts are so right on with her protection, loyalty and her ability to reason. All my dogs learn to full mouth bite as pups and Jasmine had obviously been taught this by her mum.
Over a period of time we discovered Jasmine just thinks the world would be a better place without Whitney in it. Our first clue was in June of 2008 when, in the middle of the night, she attacked Whitney IN HER SLEEP and we woke to breaking up a dog fight. You don't want a dog fight when you have 6 German Shepherds because that can easily turn into a pack. I'd like to do a related article on a dog pack as well as I have witnessed and been involved in breaking up four of them and that is a real nightmare. It's also a good lesson to any kennel owner to fully understand how much you must be able to rely on and depend on the people you hire to work in your kennel. Mistakes made by these people can turn deadly.
For now, however, I'll address my newest bite from which I am still recovering. It all started when Whitney lost her footing and fell about 10 feet in the air landing flat on her back. It was horrible and, of course scared her half to death and we had to watch her carefully. I called the veterinarian who told us what to watch for and it became obvious she had a lot of swelling and most likely bruising because as the day wore on, she would whimper. She seemed to have a great deal of trouble just laying down or finding a comfortable position.
That night my husband lifted her and put her on the bed as we were watching her for serious injuries (such as broken bones and internal bleeding). Jasmine, because of her feelings toward Whitney, is stationed all the time in the house now and that night was no exception. The only trouble is, we didn't realize that she could still get on the bed from where she was tied.
Some time in the middle of the night Jasmine woke my husband by sliding her water bowl around and complaining because he'd forgotten to fill the bowl before we went to bed. Keep in mind I was sound asleep, as was Whitney. My husband got up and proceeded to get Jasmine water and Jasmine proceeded to jump on the bed and grab Whitney by the neck, waking poor Whitney, already in full-body pain and she began to scream. That's how I woke up - my husband hitting the light and a full fledged dog attack right on top of me. Luckily my other four dogs were as startled and confused as we were.
My husband grabbed Jasmine and she would not let go of her grandmother. I think most people who deal with working dogs have seen such a dog in its most dog aggressive state and in that state, the personality of that dog is no longer the animal you know. It is much more like a wild animal - a wolf. He had a terrible time getting Jasmine to let go and I grabbed Whitney to hold on to her so that Jasmine's hold wouldn't tug her right off the bed and into a further fray.
The second my husband got Jasmine off Whitney's neck; Whitney was finally able to do something to protect herself. She did. She bit full-mouthed and hard three times. Unfortunately, Jasmine was no longer there; I was. In her shock and disorientation she still realized at the third bite that she had my hand and in full shame she stopped. I had kept quiet and not jerked my hand so I could prevent further damage and once freed I jumped from the bed and ran to the bathroom to turn the water onto the bloody hand.
My husband, in the mean time had taken Jasmine out to the garage and come back in and saw a blood trail on the ground which belonged to me. I have to tell you that I've received some painful bites before but the most painful are the ones in the hand. I knew this already from the little finger on my left hand and my left ring finger. All the nerves are close to the top; there are tons of little bones and when any part of your hand swells, it makes everything you do difficult. Fifty percent of every dog bite will get infected. I had 12 wounds - 6 on top, 6 on the bottom. That meant that each one of them had a 50 percent chance of getting infected; it does not mean that all of them together have a 50 percent chance so I began taking a strong antibiotic right away. I was lucky because with a fairly recent major surgery I'd had, the doctor had prescribed them "just in case" I got a lung infection.
That is the story of the night I got the bite. The cost of the bite has been severe but it could have been worse. I lost 2 (maybe 3) writing jobs because I could not write. Never mind the pain was so intense it was hard to think and the infection I got and the strong antibiotic made me very ill. Plus I had a sick dog to take care of - it just seemed as if this one incident was impacting everything in my life and there was nothing I could do about it.
Jasmine still is stationed in the house; she is stationed far away from the bed and the other dogs. Whitney is doing fantastic; she's actually healing faster than me.
Have I learned any lessons from this? Of course. Whitney is an old dog and will not be with us much longer. She gave us three beautiful litters and has actually saved my life. She is a trained search and rescue dog and we are dreading the day she leaves us. That will be a sad day.
Jasmine is only 2 ½ years old. She is smart as a whip and she is not de-sexed. We have no intact males living anywhere near us and we live in the mountains of Idaho in a fairly secluded area.
We have to be more aware of our pack dynamics. They are like families. It's like sibling rivalry where two brothers don't get along. The results can be more serious so it is up to us to protect Whitney. We also are now stepping up training with Jasmine. Since I'd been ill for so very long (which led to the surgery) we also think that was part of the problem. Jasmine may have gotten a mixed message from my weakness that there was actually an opening for alpha female and this was her audition for the part. So, we are protecting Whitney, increasing Jasmine's training regiment and me? I'm trying to heal before I lose any more writing assignments.
If you live in a pack or if you have a kennel or if you work with working dogs (protection, police dogs) as I did, you should always be mentally prepared for a bite to happen. I taught Kenpo Karate for many years and the number one thing I learned for women which can really apply in a dog bite situation is this: Just react, step in, and take care of the situation quickly, firmly, and completely. Leave no question in the dogs' minds who is boss. Lick your wounds when everything is over. If you are attacked by another human you cannot waste precious seconds thinking "Why me?" "What did I do to deserve this?" and so on. Those thoughts might go through your head quickly but no matter how fast they travel, those are precious seconds you are losing where your attacker can gain the upper hand. This is how you have to think if you ever have 2 or more dogs wilding out on each other. You cannot waste even one precious second.
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