The Dog Bite That Changed Me Forever

From a young age I have always loved dogs. Big, small, cute, ugly you name it. I loved sitting on the ground outside and have my neighbors dogs run up to me and plop down in my lap so I could rub their belly. Until one day, when my outlook on dogs changed forever.

It was a normal summer day and I was playing outside as I did every day. I went into my neighbor's yard to pet their Rottweiler just as I did very often. I went to pet her and being the five year old I was, I didn't know she had arthritis in her hips and of course that's exactly where I pet her. She reached back and attached her teeth into my arm and wouldn't let go no matter how hard I tried to get away. I screamed in pain as her teeth got deeper and deeper into my arm and the pressure continued to build up from the strength of her jaws.

Blood was gushing out of my arm and I didn’t know if I was going to get away alive, when suddenly I see my mom come running up and grab the dog by the neck and throw it across the yard. I remember running into the house, blood gushing from my arm and into the bathroom where Mom rinsed it out with water.

When I got to the hospital, I remember them stitching my arm up as I was writhing in pain. (p.s. you're not supposed to stitch up a dog bite) I got all stitched up and they sent me on my way, only for me to come back a month later with a terrible infection. They took me back into my room and gave me Ketamine (a horse tranquilizer), got the infection out, and stitched me back up.

For a while things were going great. I had minimal pain and things were healing up nicely, until the night terrors began. By this time I was six which is still a very young age to be having night terrors. I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night because I was dreaming that feral wolves were surrounding my bed trying to eat me. I would be laying there with my eyes open, unable to move while I was having these terrible nightmares that seemed unbelievably real.

These night terrors continued for almost two years. I thought they were never going to subside but they eventually did. To this day, I can't be around big dogs without being frightened. I've grown to not be so afraid of big dogs, but the day I got bit by a dog scarred my heart forever.