Our rescue dog, Luka, is a very traumatised soul. He spent eight years living in a shelter, with no home comforts, in the harsh Bosnian climate. He is a constantly anxious boy. Over the course of three years, we have managed to calm him down, to make him into a happy dog, who has a home and is bonded with my wife, Helen (and, to some much lesser extent, me). People have remarked on what a different dog he is, now. He is sociable. He is bouncy and happy. He goes to training classes and does well there, as well as having a whale of a time.
But he still gets extremely frightened in certain situations. One of these, for example, is when there are fireworks. These send him cowering and hiding in fear. He hates them. The other example, and the one around which this post will centre, is when the doorbell goes. This can actually be a knock at the door, the doorbell ringing, or somebody just walking up to the house from outside. Our other dog, Robyn, makes this worse by encouraging Luka. But when this happens, he goes into a total, overexcited, barking frenzy that is a combination of fear, anxiety, and excitement all rolled into one. Normally, when this happens, I can calm him down by throwing some treats so he can play the “find-it” game, or getting him to sit and thereby redirecting his attention into a positive training model.
Last Tuesday, I did not do these things, and I was stupid. Instead of trying to calm Luka down first, I instead walked past him when he was in this state, as I was going to the front door to answer it. In his hyper-excited state, he bit me. The bite was bad. I am extremely lean, and so the bite exposed the bone in my leg. As I am immunocompromised, there was a severe infection risk, so it had to be treated carefully. I was taken to hospital. In hospital they did a surgical wash and debridement. Then, because my haemoglobin was already extremely low due to kidney failure, they gave me 3 units of blood transfusion. As I write this, I am planning to go to hospital next week to discuss the potential need for a skin graft surgery on the leg.
If I could have those two seconds again, I would have played this scenario very differently. I am a relatively experienced dog owner and I just forgot for two seconds what I should have been doing, which was to calm Luka before doing anything that involves walking past him when he’s in that state.
And now, our lives will be altered, and Luka’s life will be altered too, just because of two seconds of stupidity. The first thing we had to contend with was (well-meaning) people telling us that Luka should either be put down or rehomed (the other thing people say, with good intent, is that “Martin’s safety must come first” – of course, we know that). As the shelter told us though, they would not be able to rehome Luka in the UK after he has been responsible for such a bite. The only rehoming option would be to go back to Bosnia, back to the shelter where he had faced such previous trauma. As for putting Luka to sleep, this is simply not an option. I love this dog. It’s a cliché, but he is a member of our family. I have spent years gaining his trust and making him feel secure in my presence, even though I am not his favourite human. Furthermore, it is not an option because we must, by contract, consult with the shelter from whom we rehomed him before making such a decision, and, clearly, they would rather take him back than have this outcome.
I think quite a few people do not understand why I am happy to continue living with Luka. For many people, all they can see now is a dangerous animal that in their view would be better put to sleep. First, though, I know that in 99% of circumstances, Luka is not dangerous. I also know, in the 1% of times where he could be, how I should behave to handle this; and I messed this up last week. Second, we now have a set of safety practices in our house that mean that Luka cannot get to me when he is in any kind of frenzy or defensive mode. Yes, it’s now a total pain, but it is far better to put safety first, over convenience.
But in terms of forgiveness, I do not blame Luka for this accident. It was an unfortunate congregation of circumstances that led to this. I was the one who made a mistake, around a traumatised animal. Also, I should note that I have always taken a calculated risk. Inviting an animal to live in one’s home comes with inherent risks. One of those is that a dog might bite you. This is just part of the decision calculus that you need to make. You can never guarantee that an animal will definitely, under no circumstances, bite.
However, we now have a series of safety procedures that we will put in place that will mean that hopefully we will never encounter something like this again. Luka will always have a house line/lead/leash on him so that Mrs. Eve can grab him if needed and keep him under control. The dogs will be shut outside if I am around downstairs or even tethered inside if we are all in the same room, just so that if the doorbell goes, Luka cannot, physically, reach me. We are also beginning muzzle training with Luka, and are speaking to the vet next week about some anti-anxiety medications for him. I will never go to the door/walk past Luka when he is in this state, ever again. I will remain seated and look away in a non-threatening manner. We are working on solutions to the doorbell/knock situation. We have a behaviourist in regular contact as this plan evolves.
There is now a great deal of healing to be done. On the one hand, my leg needs to heal and it’s going to take a very, very long time (especially with norovirus and a chest infection on top). On the other hand though, Luka has been deeply traumatised by this event and will require much psychological care and love. He knows that something went wrong at that moment and the atmosphere in the house has not been the same since. The other day he was shaking. Then he has gone into other rooms and hidden. All this despite the fact, I must stress, I did not even tell him off for biting me, let alone raise my voice at him or anything. I simply yelped in pain and then Mrs. Eve pulled him off me, told him “no” firmly, and shut him in the sitting room. You would think, from his terror, that I had attacked him or something! (I assure you, I categorically have not.) But the situation, now, is that we need to give him time to rebuild his trust and confidence. He is going to need days to decompress and then several weeks to settle back into a new pattern of life. From there, I will be able to work once more on training him to trust me and for him to feel comfortable in my presence.
And this brings me really to the crux of my thinking about dogs. I suppose really, logically, it is very sensible to say that if a dog bites you, it cannot live with you. But with the things I know about Luka, I have come to a different perspective on why we have dogs. We adopt older, slightly difficult dogs who need a home. We could make our lives much easier by adopting younger dogs with a home-life experience. Instead, we have one psychologically traumatised older boy and one older bitch with only three legs, my dear Robyn. We didn’t really pick these dogs because we thought that they would make our lives easier. We instead chose them because we thought that we could give them a better life and they seemed deserving (although there are thousands of deserving dogs and we can only help a select, tiny few). The reward I get from having Luka has been in seeing him grow from a frightened shell of a dog into a confident, loving boy, who was having a great time in life. This is what he gives me. We now, sadly, though, have a serious setback in this personal growth. But I will work with him again to bring him back from this brink and I will not abandon him to a life of frightened misery, torn away from his bonded human, in a harsh climate far away.