Dear Abby: Dog attack leaves fear

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: For health reasons, I had been walking during my lunch break at work. That ended last summer when someone unleashed his dog between his house and his car. The dog saw me on the sidewalk, charged, jumped on me and bit me. Thankfully, I put my arm up, so it only got my arm, but now I'm terrified to walk outside for fear of being attacked again.

The bite was nothing compared to the trauma. I'm afraid the fear will be with me for the rest of my life. No one thinks their dog would hurt someone, but I learned the hard way it's not always true. I wish dog owners would be more responsible, not only for their sake, but also for their dog's and other people's. Do you have any thoughts? -- SHELL-SHOCKED IN MICHIGAN

DEAR SHELL-SHOCKED: When the attack happened, you should have reported it to animal control and given them the address of the homeowner. If the dog's owner didn't volunteer to see you got help for your injury -- and that includes your emotional trauma -- you should discuss it with a lawyer. If that dog had been a large one, you could have been seriously injured.

Go online to the Humane Society's helpful section on this topic, www.nodogbites.org. As for my thoughts, I think you should resume your exercise routine whenever the weather permits.

Comments

[cereta]

So, here is my annoyance: Abby recommends therapy for everything but the common cold. Here, when a LW basically says she has PTSD, the only mention of therapy is in the context of suing the owners. Beyond that, what she's basically saying is, "Get over it and start walking again."

I am willing to admit that I have a set of glasses on here, because I've seen over and over and over again that Abby will go so far as to completely ignore the actual question in order to plug her, "Exercise! Never eat anything but raw carrots!* Being overweight is worse than anything!" agenda. So I may be overreacting here. Feel free to tell me I am ;).

*Hyperbole, but not by much.

[rymenhild]

This is a really, really weak answer. Abby is phoning it in, as she is wont to do.

[kaberett]

Nah, it's a really weak answer.

[likeaduck]

I don't think you're overreacting. Also hi, "just start again once it's nice out" doesn't deal with the problem (fear, trauma)? At all?

[vass]

To the extent that there was a question, Abby ignored it, yeah. (Also, "a big dog could have seriously injured you" in response to a LW who was so badly psychologically injured that they think they'll never recover? That's really shitty.)

The way I read this letter, it was less "what should I do about my PTSD that's preventing me from walking outside?" and more "please allow me to make a PSA on responsible dog ownership in your column, then make that same PSA yourself in your response." And Abby brushed that off in favour of telling LW they did "being a dog bite victim" wrong and should start walking again.

I notice that LW mentioned the dog as a potential victim here: "not only for their sake, but also for their dog's and other people's." I think Abby missed that in her advice to always report and maybe sue too. LW may have decided not to report because of not wanting the dog to be euthanised for biting them. A non-zero number of dog bite victims would probably feel that way about it, and that's something Abby should have taken into account, I think.

[kaberett]

ye-ah. this too, re concern-for-dog.

[thedivinegoat]

I have stitches in my nose from a dog bite as a child. My main memory is crying in the car on the way to the hospital, because I didn't want it put down.

[greenygal]

Aside from the lack of therapeutic advice, I'm really irritated that the response to "something scary and unexpected happened to me" is to brusquely tell the LW how they should have handled it. The published letter doesn't even say whether the LW did talk to the owner or animal services. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't; it's a year later and that's not actually the important thing to deal with now.

[deird1]

What an appallingly stupid answer.