So there I was, out riding my bike, minding my own business, enjoying week three of my retirement, and I got attacked and bit by a dog. Blood, police, everything. Here’s what happened:
If you ride your bike a lot, like I do, you learn to keep an eye on dogs and sometimes their owners as you pass on the . I’d say at least 90% of dogs don’t seem to pay much attention to me on my bike. But there is a small percentage of dogs that lock on me as I approach. Maybe they think I am a threat, or that I am prey, or they just hate cyclists. I don’t know.
A handful of those dogs that track me as I roll on by will then actually lunge at me and it is only the owner’s firm grasp of their leash that keeps them from pursuing me.
Attack! Well, one of those leash-holders didn’t have a firm enough grasp of their girlfriend’s pitbull-lab mix. I was riding on a paved multi-use trail, approaching Ashburn Metro station. He was standing just off the trail, gazing at his . In a few minutes, I’d hop on the Metro with my bike and then ride to my last day of mediation training.
As I rolled closer, the dog walking boyfriend didn’t notice me but his dog, not distracted by a phone, sure did. I saw the dog focus in on me – uh-oh. As I passed, focused dog lunged against the leash, escaped it, and then maybe for the first time in his simple dog life, was free to pursue and bring down his target.
He didn’t waste the chance.
In a second he was alongside my bike, boyfriend now running after him. I’ve actually had a dog come after me before a time or two as I’m pedaling and they have always peeled off after a few seconds. Not this dog. He bit into my lower leg and almost brought me down.
I managed to squeal to a stop and the boyfriend caught up and pulled the dog back. I think I yelled “what the hell?” and then pulled up my pants leg [tooltip: Usually if I’m on my bike, I’m wearing shorts, but since I was headed to training, I happened to be wearing some pretty good polyester pants and I think they prevented worse damage] hoping to see some marks, but nothing too serious. Nope. Blood was already streaming from several puncture wounds.
Feel free to scroll past this next photo . . .
Still a bit dazed, my first thoughts – and isn’t it sometimes silly the first things we think about when trauma or an unexpected, stressful situation strikes? – were “I can save some expenses if I ride to an urgent care facility instead of going to the ER.”
I then actually sat down on the trail next to my bike and started searching for nearby urgent care facilities! Meanwhile, boyfriend was standing about 15 feet away trying to hold the dog back while on the phone with, I assume, his girlfriend.
Seeing no nearby urgent care facilities on my phone, I looked down at my wounds. Blood was now oozing into and soaking my socks. It was becoming clear that I wasn’t going to ride my bike anywhere at that point and would need transportation. Time to go big. I dialed “911.”
The ER. That was absolutely the right thing to do as Loudoun County’s finest soon swung into action. I can now tell you that 7:30am on a Friday morning is an excellent time to request emergency assistance. Within a few minutes, an ambulance pulled into the adjacent parking lot, multiple police cruisers showed up, and then a separate team of animal control officers rolled in.
For the second time in less than a year, and after avoiding this scenario for the first 53 years of my life, I was helped into the back of an ambulance to get treated for injuries. This time my injuries were rather less severe than the great bike accident of November 2024.
The paramedic wrapped my leg and then offered me a ride to the closest emergency room. I hesitated, thinking again about costs and also what to do with my bike, but then the head paramedic offered to squeeze my bike into the ambulance and drop it off at the ER with me and that sealed the deal.
Thanks to my unwanted ambulance experiences, I’ve also learned that if you want to get to the head of the ER line, arrive in an ambulance. However, this morning the ER was pretty much empty anyway. I did not see any other suffering patients as I walked into treatment room 12.
“Where is everybody?”, I asked the attending nurse. She looked at her watch, “Give it another half hour. People are just starting to wake up.”
Concluding that my puncture wounds would heal fine without stitches, they cleaned and then bandaged my lower leg. As I took a few pain pills from the nurse, I got a call from one of the animal control officers telling me that the dog, now identified as “Zack”, was up to date on his rabies vaccine but would still go into a seven day quarantine.
He asked if I had any photos they could use to pursue a “dangerous dog” designation against Zack. You want photos? Oh yeah, I have photos. I happily texted him the bloody leg photo and another one of the nurses treating my wounds.
Dogs – Why? Don’t hate me, but I have some negative thoughts about dogs, influenced by this latest incident of course. (And just to add insult to injury, I stepped in uncollected dog poop twice – twice! — in the next week after my dog bite.)
I’ll just say up front that I am a cat guy. I grew up with a series of cats in my childhood home, so that’s part of it, but also because cats are superior pets in so many ways. Cleaner, cheaper, much quieter, require less care and attention, less annoying, and so forth. I so enjoy having a warm cat snooze next to me or on on my lap. Cats also have fascinating and amusing personalities. (Yes, I know dogs do also. I just like the fascinating and amusing aspects of cat personalities more than dogs’.)
From an ecological view, cats have evolved into the perfect hunting machine and routinely perform amazing physical feats. Unfortunately, not so good for local wildlife –don’t let your cat roam outside! — but impressive nonetheless.
All that said, I see you, dog lovers. I understand the appeal of the unconditional love and loyalty from a dog. You’re unlikely to get that from a cat. Or almost any other pet. I also understand people, especially women, who want dogs for a sense of protection. I get angry at people who mistreat dogs. Or any animal, really. I could even see myself owing and loving a dog someday in the right circumstances.
“We don’t deserve dogs” I’ve heard it said– and that is probably true. For many dogs.
But. Many dogs, while not intending to attack you, still like to jump on you and try to lick you or smell parts of your body and otherwise love you in a dog way. Or they will bark furiously at you and you’re not sure if they want to play with you or kill you.
Dog lovers and owners often excuse the above behavior and frequently think it is sweet. I can assure them that non-dog people find it unpleasant and sometimes traumatic. For some dog owners, especially in rural areas, I think causing discomfort in other humans is the point.
Either way, I’ve never had a cat try to jump on me. Or threaten me.
Back to my story:
Doggy Court. Commonwealth of Virginia v. S.V. will not be appearing in any law school case studies. But I’ll probably remember it.
This case was the county’s action against Zack’s owner, Ms. V. As mentioned earlier, the county wanted to designate Zack a “dangerous dog” which I supported. They asked me to appear as a witness in Virginia’s General District Court three weeks later. It was pretty quick. The judge did not need much convincing and my only testimony was telling the judge about my $450 in medical expenses which he ruled that Ms. V. would have to pay me via the court within 90 days.1
The judge further ordered that Zack Attack be on a two year “dangerous dog” probation and, among other things, have to wear a muzzle when he is outside.
The nicest part was that Ms. V. apologized to me as we walked out to the court room. I told her I appreciated that. Her boyfriend was also there and nodded with kind of an embarrassed smile.
Later, I wondered if the bite incident sparked a fight between them. “Ms. V.: “This never would have happened if you had held the leash tighter!” And she’d be kind of right.
OTOH, I’m glad that Zack has been identified as a dangerous dog and maybe it is now less likely he will harm someone else, especially a child. That gives my bite experience a little meaning. Maybe my wounds will make the world just a slightly better, or at least a safer, place?
I’ve still got some tiny marks where the teeth got me and some swelling. I assume it will gradually fade and a year from now almost nothing will be visible. I’m lucky that way.
- $350 for the emergency room co-pay and $100 for the ambulance ride. I should have also included another $50 for the follow up care appointment. Drat. ↩︎
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