So Sunday Paul and I were out front of our house raking and cleaning up leaves. Coda came out with us. She's our 40lb husky mix. She's quite tiny, most people think she's a puppy, she's actually 5 years old. Anyway, the neighbors a couple doors down came out of their house wuth their tan dog. Not sure if it was leased from the start or not. Coda had her eye on this dog, her ears were perked, but she was staying put. I decided it was time for me to take a break so I said to her "let's go", meaning come in the house with me, she took it as a green light, shot up and bolted to the house with the tan dog. Out of nowhere appears their black dog and came at her like a line backer. And the fight begins. This black dog was big, maybe 80lbs +/-, possibly a pitt bull/lab mix. This dog could kill Coda. It only lasted as long as it took for Paul to get over there to break them up. Coda comes back screaming, like she's hurt. I bend down to see if she's ok, when I touch her she screams. A girl from that house (she appears to be an older teen) comes over ans askes if Coda's ok, Paul tells her she will be fine. I take her in the house and check her out more. Seemed she only has bruising because I didn't see any blood. So I leave her be in the house and Paul and I finish the yard work.
So a couple hours later we are watching tv and I notice Coda is licking the top of her back leg. So I go over to check her out. She definitely has a wound and she's very defensive with me. So I ask Paul to look. He looks and says she's got a chunk out of her leg, but it's not bleeding. Since it's Sunday night and it's not bleeding, we'll wait until morning, check it out again and see if we need to take her to the vet.
I get up the next morning and let her out, she's not her normal spunky self, but she was moving around ok. So I leave for work. Paul calls me around 9:45 and tells me she's not doing so well, she's limping. So I call the vet. They schedule an appointment at 5pm. Paul puts the cone on her and goes to work, says he'll be off around 3:30 or 4 to take her to the vet. All day I am talking to people about how bad this could be if she needs the vet or if this is something that can heal on it's own. Paul sends me a pictire text and I forward it on to some of my dog knowledgable friends, they all say she needs the vet.
I talked to animal control. They find out all the dogs at that address are vaccinated. Since neither dog was leashed, we are both at fault, bt I do have the right to press charges. I tell them I didn't feel that was necessary. He said he recommends citizens handle these things on their own and that I should probably inform them that my dog got injured. If I wanted to seek money for the vet bill that was on me.
I talked to Bree, her sister in law works at an animal hospital in Glen Ellyn, which is kind of far, but I know they will treat her well, might be less expensive and will definitely not rip me off. So I send Paul there with Coda. Turns out it was a pretty deep bite, they had to sedate her and get 4 stiches. I was told that wounds in muscular areas don't bleed as much, which made me thik it wasn't bad. Boy, was I wrong.
So now the part where I approach the neighbors. I plan on going over there today after work and asking if their dog was injured at all and inform them that mine was. I would want to know if my dog injured another animal or human. I hope they are not super defensive, but I expect the worst. Maybe they will feel bad and offer to help with the bill. Who knows?
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