On Saturday, MK, Laura, and I took Dodger to the Woodland Dog Park over in Greenlake. It’s a relatively small off-leash area on top of a small hill. For a while, Dodger was the only dog, or one of two, there. Then, about 3:30, a ton of dogs showed up, including one young and energetic pit bull. The pit was fine initially, just focused on fetching a tennis ball his owner through.
About 4ish, we decided to go, so I leashed up Dodger and tried to head out. Then the pit bull came over, and before I knew what was happening the pit was attacking Dodger!
We (the pit’s owner and I) managed to get them separated. I grabbed the pit’s collar and yanked back, and we got Dodger out of the way. The other owner stuck her hand in the way and took several nasty bites from the pit. We took Dodger down to the car, and he was bleeding pretty badly from a 1/4″ diameter wound on his left side. We went home, managed to stop (or at least slow to a small ooze) the bleeding, bandaged it up, and watched him. He was still his normal beagley self, so we thought he might have come through it OK. We exchanged information with the owner, and she said she’d be happy to cover any costs. At least she was forthright about it.
The next morning, he was not feeling well. He was also swollen on his left side, and couldn’t hop off the bed. So, off to Emerald Emergency we went. The kept him until 4 PM (although it took us 3 hours — noon — to get to see the doctor). They found another wound, shaved the area off, and cleaned it. They gave me some antibiotics (amoxicillian, same stuff you and I would get, but in a “for dogs only” bottle, and riyadl, a pain killer for pooches) for the next 2 weeks, and instructions to keep the wound open and clean. Apparently, if you patch the wound with gauze or a band-aid, the skin will heal before the underlying tissue, which isn’t good.
He’s doing OK now… he’s been his beagley self more or less today, and seems to be through things. Yay! We’re still giving him lots of love and attention, so with any luck he’ll be through this and it’ll just be a bad memory.
Oh, and the pit’s owner has agreed to take care of all the vet bills. We’re at $350 and counting… probably going to be around $500 when all is said and done.