Dog Attack

[Tracer]

Once a week, I take my 20 lb. dog to a day care at a local farm.

It's a great place for the dogs to play and have fun. They are in a large, fenced enclosure where they can run and play, there are 3 adults who are there all the time and who simply love all the dogs. There are also horses out in the pasture which gives some of the dogs a lot of entertainment.

Yesterday, right after dropping off my pup, out of the blue, a large 70 lb. dog quite viciously attacked mine. It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I realized that she was hurt, with a large bite to her neck. (See pic).

We took her to the vet and she was treated -- to the tune of $183.00.

This morning I went and spoke to the owner of the day care and asked her to have the owner of the other dog to contact me.

A little while later, the owner called. She was very unpleasant and gave me all kinds of excuses as to why she wasn't going to cough up one red cent.

I remained calm and said that paying for her dog's damage to mine was the right thing to do. I also emailed her the photo of my dog's injury and the vet's bill.

At the end of the conversation, she said that "she'd think about it".

Was I right to request payment? What would you have done?


http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h474/Tracer71/

(I hope the photo uploads, I'm not so good at that)

Trying again:
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<a href="" target="_blank"><img src="" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[PotatoChip]

2. You were absolutely right to request that the vet bill be paid!

I can't imagine why the owner of the dog who attacked yours doesn't think she is responsible? ... Well, perhaps unless the owner of the daycare is? Don't know how that would work legally speaking. If the owner of the aggressive dog wasn't present, it may be that the daycare owner who was entrusted with all of the dogs well-being is responsible instead, I don't know.

But one thing I do know is that you should NOT be the one to absorb the cost of this. Your dog was the victim here. It seems to me that the owner of the viscous dog should immediately pay up, and if she can make a case that it is the daycare owner's fault, well that would be between her and them. IOW not your problem. How callous of her to say that she "would think about"... Grr, I'd be mad!

Your poor dog! That injury looks painful. I hope s/he gets better soon.

On edit: for some reason I thought your dog's name was Tracer instead of it being your DU name. I've no idea why. Sorry for the mix-up.

[TorchTheWitch]

13. the other dog owner only has the word of someone else

that their dog bit someone else's dog. I wouldn't be so quick to accept that either. I would if there was some other unbiased witness to the incident though. Us folks with large breed dogs sometimes get the finger pointed at our dogs for no other reason than the fact that they're big.

I can see this dog owner not wanting to accept responsibility because they have no real reason to... they didn't see it, apparently no one else did, and it wasn't noticed there was any injury until after the bitten dog went home (how do they know that the dog didn't get the injury some other way not even from any dog in the first place?).

Look at this from that dog owner's point of view... they get a call out of the blue from someone claiming that their dog attacked theirs with no provocation, but they didn't notice their dog was injured until they got home later in the day so they never mentioned it to anyone until they ended up with a vet bill. I'm not at ALL saying the OP is making this story up - I do believe it's the absolute truth - but you can see how it could look to the owner of the biting dog.

I absolutely understand why the OP is upset - and again, I DO believe their story is absolutely truthful - but we also have to understand how the owner of the biting dog wouldn't necessarily accept this story at face value and accept responsibility. I wouldn't. Not without some other cooborating unbiased witness I wouldn't particularly because the OP didn't report the incident immediately after their dog was attacked to anyone at the daycare facility. That in itself would appear mighty fishy to me.

[99Forever]

14. You make several good and relevant points.

Further down the thread, the OP also says that she thought she signed a waiver of liability, which in most "dog parks" states that each owner assumes the liability for their own pet in cases like this anyway. Like you, we also have large dogs. We also have small ones. To automatically assume that the larger breed did the damage isn't always true. We had a Shih Tzu that put a hurt on our GSDs that were 5-7 times his weight. It's an owner's responsibility to to watch their dog closely in those places and look them over immediately after an altercation happens with another dog there, not hours later, because as you correctly pointed out, the actual injury have happened in a completely unrelated incident.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. What a beautiful dog, and what a wicked wound.

I agree that the owner of the aggressive dog should be held responsible, and if it were my dog, I would be so humiliated and upset that your dog was injured that I would have agreed to pay your bills.

However, I do think that the day care owner should have been the one to deal with it. You should not have had to talk to this woman. I hope that, if this woman does not do the right thing, the day care owner will intervene.

[yellerpup]

4. Your little girl looks adorable!

But that bite is vicious! The owner of the dog or the day care owner should pay and apologize. I can't imagine why any animal would want to bite your sweet furkid. Good luck!

[avebury]

5. Yes you should ask for payment.

If she doesn't cough up the money to pay the vet bill, you might consider taking her to small claims court (including any additional expenses like lost time from work). I would consider calling your local animal control and filing a complaint. After all, you don't know what reputation that dog has outside of the doggie daycare. I would be worried about if that dog could go after a child. If she is already acting ugly about paying the vet bill for injury her dog caused another dog, she doesn't come across as a very responsible owner.

Does the doggie daycare require owners to sign a waiver of liability before they accept a dog? If not, then there might also be liability on their part. Afterall, it occured on their property while they were in charge. If they were smart, they would even step up to the plate and pay the bill if the offending owner did not, and promptly ban the offending dog.

I would also be extremely concerned about the doggie daycare and how they handle the aftermath of a dog attack on their premise. Have they "expelled" the attacking dog out of their facility? If not, I would not bring my dog back there and would have no problem with telling them why they have lost my business. If any of my friends used the doggie daycare I would also probably tell them what happened, particularly if the offending dog was still allowed back.

[Tracer]

6. I pretty sure that I signed a liability waiver with the day care center.

So, it's all on the other dog's owner to "woman up", so to speak.

I did receive an email reply from her, saying that she wasn't ignoring me -- so that could be a good sign that she may have changed her tune.

My pup (named Bunkie) is still not playful, happy self, but with the medications, I'm sure that she'll be better in a few days.

Thanks for the support.

[avebury]

7. I hope that your baby feels better soon.

Hopefully the doggie daycare will kick out the offending dog. I know someone here whose dog got expelled due to bad behavior. It just isn't good for business for a doggie daycare to allow owners with aggressive and/or bad behavior issues to keep coming.

[Irishonly]

8. I hope she does the right thing

These days it is hard to tell. You would think the owner would want to make things right. People will not want to take their dogs where they may not be safe.

I hope your dog recovers quickly. She is a beauty.

[uppityperson]

9. Sounds like she's thinking about it and yes, the owner of the dog that attacked yours should pay vet

bill.

Your pup is beautiful, very nice looking dog.

[TorchTheWitch]

11. It's the dog owner's responsibility

You should report the incident to your local governmental body that deals with dog control, since any incident that breaks the skin needs to be reported because of the rabies issue. Your vet it supposed to do that anyway, but check with them to make sure they did. Reporting it may get the ball rolling in your local governmental body investigating the situation and help to convince the dog owner they need to pony up.

Incidently, that's something you definitely want to look into is whether or not the biting dog had it's rabies vaccine up to date and check with your vet about your own dog's vaccine history as well if you haven't done that already. I wouldn't think a reputable doggie daycare would ever accept a dog that did not have its current vaccinations, but you never know. In my state, a biting dog that has broken the skin (whether human or animal) has to be immediately quarentined for 10 days whether it's rabies vaccination is proven to be up to date or not (I always thought that was rather stupid, but that's the way it is here).

Does the daycare know about the incident? Because I think they are also obligated to report it.

I'm so sorry your doggie was hurt. Give him lots of hugs and kisses from me.

[Texasgal]

12. OHHH MY!!

Poor baby!

It is the responsibility of the offending dog to take care of the medical bills! I hope it works out!

So sorry for your baby!

[livetohike]

15. Another vote for having the owner take care of all bills

and I hope your little sweetie heals quickly.

[Tracer]

16. A couple of things:

Further up the thread, it was suggested that no one saw the attack, therefore the other owner was right to be skeptical about paying for the injury.

-- Both myself and the day care owner were standing a few feet away when it happened and the day care owner called off the big dog by name --- which is obviously why both she and I knew which dog did it.

-- The veterinarian was insistant that he be contacted by the owner, both to report it to the dog control and to make sure that the dog's shots were up to date.

I still haven't heard from the dog's owner.

[TorchTheWitch]

22. They don't have a choice

The government doesn't just ask nicely for documentation. An agent from the dog control office shows up at your door along with a local police officer. Depending on the circumstances, you either provide the documentation or they confiscate the dog. Or both. Here in PA documentation doesn't matter - the dog goes into 10 day quarentine regardless. Again, depending on the circumstances, the quarentine can be at your own home. Mine was.

Boo bit me accidently once when we were playing - he went to grab the toy we were playing with, miscalculated, and accidently took off a chunk of skin from one of my knuckles. Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor saw it happen and called the police. They were very nice, understood what happened when I told them (they were very familiar with Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor) but because it was reported they had to go through the protocol. Boo had to go to the vet that very day for some kind of tests (at my expense) and he had to be quarentined at my house for ten days. I'm assuming they allowed the quarentine at my house because the bite wasn't a result of aggression... and maybe because of both Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor's reputation and possibly Boo's since some of the local cops knew him (the one that came to the door did... he's one of the cops that always has a box of doggie biscuits in his patrol car for the neighborhood beasties, and Boo knew him VERY well! LOL!).

PA's protocol is to go through the 10 day quarentine regardless of whether or not the owner has documentation of current rabies vaccination (it's rabies that the law was written for). I assume that this is because they may have had problems in the past of some vets fudging on documentation for the dogs of their friends or something along those lines. But according to my vet it's just because some bunch of government suits wrote the law that way. The vet that did whatever the tests were on Boo was rather pissed because it was the same woman that had actually given him his recent rabies vaccine so she KNEW positively that he was covered. She got permission to only charge me for the office visit and not the tests, which is typical niceness of my vet.

From what I understand most states are the same way in not only their laws in these matters but how seriously they apply them. Though I think PA is unique in that they don't care if you have current documentation of rabies vaccine or not. I remember the vet also griping to me that the 10 day quarentine is stupid because if the dog did have rabies in the first place it would be dead long before the 10 days were up. She was convinced that the 10 days was an arbitrary number pulled from the butts of government suits that wrote the law and had no idea about anything about rabies.

Anywho... both the officer and the agent that came to my door about the incident were very thorough explaining everything, the reason for it, and were very apolgetic that they had to make me go through the protocol. They also assured me several times that Boo wouldn't have any kind of biting record because they believed me about the incident having been an accident in the course of play and not because of any aggression. So though the incident would be reported and filed it wouldn't count as what they called a "first strike". Again, I think I may have been lucky in this regard because of the local police being very familiar with Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor and her barrage of frivolous dog complaints. I found out later from one of my neighbors that he had to go through the same nonsense years before because Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor called and reported a dog attack on his dog that was PLAYING in his yard with another neighbor's dog. Both neighbors were royally pissed off, and many people saw the whole thing because it was during a holiday picnic where a lot of the neighbors were in the yard with their dogs.

As for the daycare... I would hope that any reputable doggie daycare would demand vaccination records before signing up any dog for their facility. It seems crazy not to, and there's no way on earth that I would ever sign my dog up to mingle freely with dogs that I couldn't be certain were properly vaccinated. No way, never.

[TorchTheWitch]

26. I think maybe she wasn't "all there" in the head

She was an old lady, but was very disagreeable especially when it came to the neighbors' dogs. Cats and other various animals as pets she had no problem with. She hasn't lived in that house for a couple of years and her kids do now. She either died or was put into a nursing home. Come to think of it, I think that old orange cat that was a stray and hung out on our street for a year or two that everyone fed used to be hers and she decided she didn't want it anymore so never let it back in the house. That's what the neighbors say anyway.

I was more pissed off that the law is written so stupidly that even when you have documentation they STILL make you go through the protocol as if you didn't. The damn rabies tag is issued by the STATE for heaven's sake, so how can they ignore it? I also showed them the bill receipt from the vet that showed I had paid for his rabies shot and on what day. I had just had all his vaccines updated and his regular yearly check-up done just a couple of months before so the bill receipt was right at the front of Boo's file in my cabinet. I think if you can prove that the dog had a current rabies vaccine then you shouldn't have to go through the whole protocol as if you didn't. That seems really stupid to me, but that's the law here. I was supposed to be going to work that night but couldn't go because I had to take Boo in right away for the manditory tests. The vets aren't happy about this either since they have to rearrange their schedule for this non-emergency when they have REAL emergencies to deal with, but the law forces them to comply. Luckily it happened during the day and not on a Sunday because otherwise I would have had to taken him to a totally different vet that was open 24 hours every day. I don't know, maybe because I had documentation of his rabies vaccination had a lot to do with his quarentine being at home. If he had to go somewhere and be caged up for ten days I would have FREAKED!

I ended up actually feeling rather sorry for both the officer and the agent because they were so nice and apologetic about having to make me and Boo go through the protocol. I understand that sometimes they have to do things they'd rather not.

It isn't easy but I can be a little bit forgiving of Nosy Dog Hating Neighbor because I really think she had few marbles left (she did walk around in her garden stark naked a few times after all - thankfully I never had to see that personally).

[TorchTheWitch]

21. Ah, that's good that someone else saw what happened

Then absolutely the owner of the biting dog should pay up. Like I said, if there was no unbiased witness to the incident I could see that the owner of the biting dog would be sceptical. But if they knew that there was an unbiased witness that cooraborated what happened and which dog was responsible that dog owner should err on the side of believing the story and pay up.

Good for your vet that they got right on this and reported the incident to the proper authorities. Most states are REALLY strict about dog bites that break the skin because of disease, particularly rabies.

I see downthread that the owner and you have come to an agreement (though I didn't actually read that post yet - just the title), and I suspect they may be being more accomodating because they've already been contacted by government officials. All good. Hopefully that dog's shots are all up to date, and I also hope that this dog will be barred from the doggie daycare in the future so you and the other dog owners don't have to worry about this one at least anymore.

How is your doggie doing? Not just physically, but is he ok emotionally? Some dogs get really freaked out by such an incident and it makes them scared of other dogs.

Hoping both you and your doggie are doing better. These things can really be incredibly upsetting for both the dog and their owner.

[wildeyed]

18. My dog snapped at another dog and broke the skin.

My fault, I didn't have the dog under proper control, although he was on leash. I offered immediately to pay any vet bills. The other owner declined, it wasn't serious, but I felt awful.

Should the daycare pay for the injury? Isn't it their responsibility to make sure your dog is safe if the other dog's owner is not there? Did they do a temperament evaluation before allowing the dogs to roam together? Has this dog exhibited aggression before? Have the two dogs been off leash together before? My dog goes to a training club where they also offer doggie daycare. I only ever see dogs of similar size loose together. Why was a big dog loose with your little?

This seems to be a minority opinion, but I also think that if you choose to allow your dog to run loose with strange dogs, there is always a small chance that there will be a dog fight. If the other dog does not have a history of aggression and the day care owner was able to break it up immediately (it sounds like she did), maybe it is your responsibility to pay for the injury. Just my .02

[Tracer]

19. It has been resolved.

The owner of the other dog has offered to pay half of the vet bills.

In order to prevent any escalation of hard feelings, I've agreed to this solution.

I do want to say that the event occurred when the dogs were being shepherded out of the barn in a large group, prior to going out to the field area.

I think that the combination of the scrum of dogs, and that the fact that the horses were very close outside of the fenced area, caused a lot of excitement with the dogs and probably contributed to the problem.

I'm going to ask the day care owners to take the dogs in small groups (4 or 5) to the play area, rather than having 12 or 15 going there at once.

In the attached photo, the horses were in the paddock to the right of the path near the leashes and that's where it all occurred.

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Oh, by the way, that's my pup Bunkie racing up the path!

[Stinky The Clown]

20. I'm really glad you were abole to reach an agreeable settlement.

You'll always be the bigger person for having accepted half.

[PotatoChip]

24. This is good to hear.

It sounds as if you took a very reasonable approach. And I can see from the pic why Bunkie likes the place!

I hope Bunkie's injury is healing well.

[Coyote_Bandit]

25. I'd be looking for

another doggie day care. I think a responsible doggoie daycare would have somehow seggregated the dogs by size. Had that been done that 70 lb dog would not have had an opportunity to attack your 20 lb dog. I'd also be asking the owner of the doggie daycare to pick up part of that vet bill.

Hope your furkid is better soon.