That was not the case at about 4:30 in the afternoon when Irv was feeding the crew. Normally when he feeds the dogs...Sparky dances all over the place but stays over near her "corner". Wrigley stays near her "corner", but barks at Maggie if she gets too close to Irv when he's fixing their dinner. Maggie has to be as close as she can get without getting stepped on.
Irv is fixing their food and I am standing there and we are talking. All of a sudden all hell breaks loose. Apparently Sparky came over and picked something up off the floor....the other two figuring it might be food started growling at each other and then the fur flew.
The dogs don't get into it very often, and when they do we can usually yell a little and stick a foot between them and they are done. Not this time. I honestly thought Wrigley was going to be missing parts...and even though she is much smaller than Maggie...she fears no one and holds her own quite well.
The mistake we made was that we yelled....a lot....and that just fuels the fire. We lost our cool and we know better. I stuck my foot in between them a couple of times, but really thought I was going to lose my foot. Irv finally stuck his hand in and grabbed Maggie....and managed to get his hand in the way of a snapping mouth and got bit....really good.
We did get the dogs apart and I put one in the bedroom. Irv had blood running down his hand all over the floor. Visions of a visit to the ER .....
It took a long time to get it to stop bleeding. Then we did some temporary cleaning, gauzing and taping. I went and got more supplies and a splint and we fixed him up a little better. He decided NOT to go to the ER. Instead he went out to the garage to work on something he's doing for Michael's house. I thought he needed some stitches....he thought he didn't have time.
I checked Wrigley out to be sure she was in one piece. I was amazed that she was fine...not a scratch on her! How they can bite and tear at each other and not hurt each other is beyond me. I told Irv that we really need to do a bit more training so all three of them sit in their corners when he's fixing their food and then we also need a "dog fight" plan. We can't yell and we need to just grab a broom or someone mentioned a glass of water.....we'll have to work on that because I'm sure it won't be the last time.
When I let Wrigley out of the bedroom, the two dogs sniffed each other...I let them outside where they ran into the yard to play. Now they are sound asleep right next to each other...best friends.
Oh if only it worked that way with humans!
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11 comments:
Hi Kathy, Poor Irv is his hand o.k, not being a dog person that would have scared me to death, it seems this is normal dog behaviour when food is about, you sound very comfortable snuggled up in bed blogging, Take care.
Love Jillxx
can i just say infection once again? he should at least call his doctor today and maybe get a shot if his tetanus isn't up to date.
http://firstaid.about.com/od/bitesstings/ht/07_Dog_Bites.htm
Our 3 rarely, but occasionally do, get into it. And they go full force! It's amazing because once it's all over, they are the best of friends. I hope Irv's hand it ok this morning.
My goodness. Irv, make sure you use plenty of neosporen on that bite. They can be nasty. I hate it when our dogs tie up. And mine are the same when, next minute they are friends. When it comes to food, they can sure get stingy. I have to stand by my three while they eat so one of them doesn't steel the female's food.
yipes! I hope Irv is okay.... I agree about going to the doctor... hopefully this won't happen again =o
Since the wound bled a lot, the germs must have been washed away.
With good care it should heal fine.
The tetanus shot sounds like good advice. Of course, that is just my take on the subject--I don't know more than anyone else.
This is why my instinct is always to turn a hose on fighting dogs. Not that I've ever been in that position to do so...
Yes, if only we could be more like dogs!! The world would be a very friendly place!
Yikes Kathy, that sounds really scary. I hope Irv is okay. Are you sure you don't want the doc to have a look?
Hang in there,
xo
Just a little sibling spat. lol Whoa. And I think all men are sure they don't need stitches, right? What a story. Hope this hasn't happened since.
What great timing for this story. We just experienced something similar with out two "boys". Over a dead bird no less. We were yelling NO at the top of our lungs and it didn't work. We tried the water and that didn't work. My husband has a bitten hand, and bruise and a black eye. We have had the injured dog in the house for two days (he has learned to use a dirt filled "dog box") and we were unsure how to deal with this. Now I know that our yelling didn't help, and that it might be okay for them to get together again. thank you.
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