Animal Anecdote
My Dog Bit my Face
I was an arrogant know-it-all, and my dog called me out.
The year was 2014.
I had just resigned from a nearly ten-year career in the medical field because of the debilitating effects of an idiopathic condition I was born with.
Because I was suffering from severe depression, my husband Mike and oldest daughter decided that they would gift me with something I’ve wanted for my entire life: a dog of my very own. And not just any dog — a German Shepherd.
When they came home from their four hour round trip, they brought with them a precious, snow-white German Shepherd puppy. As it happened, the breeder didn’t have any black-and-tan GSDs, and I didn’t even realize that German Shepherds came in other colors.
But she was mine, and she was gorgeous, and I was exceedingly happy with my new little friend.
I named her Patriot.
Before ‘the incident’, Patriot was an angel and everything more. She was healthy, strong, and had a gentle-yet-majestic presence about her that made my chest swell with pride. She got along like a princess with my children — they were toddlers and pre-teens back then — and seemed to thrive well with our cats and our other dog, Ruby, who was a rescue and already several years old by the time we adopted Patriot at eight weeks.
She loved running, chasing things, playing with sticks and ‘patrolling’ our property several times a day; we live in a semi-rural home in Ohio with about half an acre.
Patriot trained well, followed my cues, and her ‘good behavior’ lessons seemed to go off without a hitch. At times, she surprised me with her intelligence: if I told her to ‘stay’, she’d freeze like stone. If I told her to ‘leave it!’, she’d immediately turn away from whatever delicious treat (or mischief) she had her eye on. She’d even relinquish a bone or piece of meat that she’d already snuck off with. And her obedience impressed me far beyond cloud nine: if she was in the yard barking at whatever-it-is dogs bark at, she would turn right around at my call and head back into the house.
She was not food possessive with me, Mike, or the children — that was the one thing I’d always feared, a big dog chomping on their delicate fingers.
A happy year passed, and then two.
By 2016, the relationship I enjoyed with Patriot would be irrevocably breached.
I know now that it was my fault.
I was rough-housing with her, which was something I didn’t usually do, and it seemed as though she was trying to get away from me. She was also growling, but she frequently did that when we were playing other games. So I leaned down and encircled her from above with both arms, resisting her will to escape while Patriot’s growling got louder and louder.
That’s when it happened: before I could blink, she whipped around, bit my face in a half-snarl, and immediately fled the room.
For a moment I just sat there open-mouthed, holding shaking hands against my cheeks while my brain tried to process exactly what had just happened.
Patriot, my dog, my girl who had imprinted onto me the way a gosling imprints on whomever’s there when the egg cracks, had bitten me.
Me, her friend and owner! What could I have possibly done to deserve that?
In my mind, though, I knew. I had not respected her boundaries, assuming that because I was her pack leader and Alpha, she would endure anything because the dog is man’s best friend.
In those first few devastating moments, I sat, and long-ago passages from every dog-training book I’d ever read flitted through my wounded, confused consciousness.
The dog must never bite.
It is not acceptable for your dog to disobey.
You are its master; it is unacceptable for your dog to test your boundaries.
Your dog must never bite.
Eventually I worked up the courage to get up and take a peek at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Patriot’s teeth had not broken the skin, but I could see the red marks on my cheeks and they burned badly.
Still rubbing my face, I made my way slowly to the living room and found Patriot cowering under a coffee-table. She was lying there with her ears flattened and her head lowered to the ground, almost as if she knew what she’d done had somehow imploded our interlocked etiquette.
Her teeth were not showing, and her eyes looked sad, not angry.
She didn’t mean to do this.
My pride was hurt, and while I knew I was the one who’d provoked my friend, the realization stung me worse than any dog’s fangs ever could.
I was using my dog.
Yes, I loved her, but I was never enjoying her company so much as I was using it: ordering her around to marvel at her efficient obedience, teasing her with tiny treats and the last few sips of my coffee, which she’d always gotten into since puppyhood. I wanted a strong, tall, majestic-looking dog like the photos of German Shepherds in magazines. And I had one, but my arrogance had caused me to misunderstand my own best friend for years.
We hadn’t even thought enough to research her breed before her purchase.
I’d assumed that she would behave like any ‘stereotypical’ dog was ‘supposed to’, with a happy, lolling tongue, eager to socialize, snuggling up close for hugs and rolling around on her back when the first snows come down in Ohio. That was the way Matthew, our black labrador, used to behave. Prior to Matthew, we hadn’t owned any other dogs.
Patriot does do some of those things…but not all of them.
I looked into her eyes. They were onyx marbles, shining orbs that bore a hole right through me and in that moment — a millisecond, really — I understood my feelings.
A primitive part of me was unsure whether I was looking into the eyes of a friend or the eyes of a wolf, one whose teeth could have shredded my face had she decided to do so.
I didn’t know if I trusted my dog anymore.
I also realized something new: I was afraid of her.
By the time 2017 rolled around, I’d honed a new craft: watching my dog.
Nothing serious: just hanging out, checking her position through the backyard window, and looking on as she interacted with children and other people.
I should mention that by that time, Patriot and I developed somewhat of a distancing toward each other. I treaded lightly, gave her the space she needed, and barked at the kids to leave her alone if she didn’t want to be hugged or wrestled with.
Patriot seemed to acknowledge that distance, and in her own unique, canine way, she accepted it.
She continued to obey me, followed my cues, came to me for a rubbing or to be petted, and whimsically chased after the stick we keep in the yard.
Still, I harbored a strong shame. To compensate for my previous ignorant behaviour, I became very lenient and fed her even the food from my mouth (I know what the literature says, but I don’t mind her begging.) If there was just a bit of coffee left in my mug, I let her have it. She’d been getting into my coffee cup since she was three months old, and I wasn’t about to dismiss the things that made Patriot happy.
Within the fullness of the space I was finally giving her, the space I should have given her from day one, Patriot began to newly evolve… and I noticed things.
Like how, when an acquaintance of ours she didn’t know well would come to visit, she’d literally stand off to one side and bark at them with something like: “You don’t belong here.”
Even after she realized the person was no threat, she would sulk and linger nearby, head-down with erect ears, until he went his own way.
She didn’t approach people who visited with a floppy tongue and pleas for a belly-rub, like our other dog does (a female, Dalmatian-Pit Bull mix). That bothered me; didn’t German Shepherds like new people? Weren’t they supposed to be an affable breed?
Patriot drove this point home about a year ago, when an old Army buddy my husband served with was jobless and had no place to live. He was from the Dominican Republic.
When he first came to our home, Patriot was furious.
She was furious with him for ‘intruding’ and furious with us for not kicking him out. It took about three days of her sullenly flouncing around the house and yipping resentfully before she finally softened and ‘allowed’ the man to become a full member of the family.
As unfamiliar people came and went, I’d shamefully have to explain that, no, Patriot wasn’t always friendly, and that she didn’t adapt to new visitors ‘immediately’, like Ruby did.
To my consternation, Patriot’s behavior was the same toward children in the 8–11 age range. If a new child approached her, Patriot was careful, but did not fully appreciate being petted. When kids ran out of our yard, Patriot would follow a short ways and even nip at their clothing as they were leaving. Mike had to work magic with the parents of the kids who weren’t well-received by Patriot. Fortunately, so far no-one has expressed indignation, and Patriot has never bitten anyone (except yours truly).
In the springtime, Patriot taught me a wonderful thing: she was maternal.
A cat in our home had recently birthed kittens that year. By the time the kittens were eight weeks old, Patriot would sniff them very carefully and seemed to acknowledge that they were tiny creatures to ‘be careful’ with. But she didn’t seem to like being ‘next’ to them; if we placed them beside her for a cute picture, she would very carefully distance herself.
When Mike decided to bring home a parakeet (by now I assume you’ve realized we have an unusual family), that same cat developed a habit of approaching the bird-cage. Internally I know that, yes, cats are predators, and had my husband asked me first I would have said no to bringing a bird into the house.
I moved the bird-cage and would make a ‘shooshing’ sound to distract the cat from the bird-cage. Most of the time it worked. The cat would slink away, and I noticed Patriot carefully watching these exchanges.
One day, I made the ‘shoosh’, and to my utter surprise, when the cat didn’t move immediately, Patriot shot up and charged, ‘flushing’ the cat away from the cage. I’d never taught her to do this!
There was more to come. When the children rough-housed or my husband challenged me playfully, she didn’t seem to recognize it as play the way Ruby did. Patriot would dash in, insert herself into the ‘disturbance’ and quickly shoot a barrage of angry barking at the one whom she determined to be the ‘aggressor’. I didn’t understand this, either. Didn’t German Shepherds like to play?
When the family went outside for entertainment, Ruby would go mad with pleasure: chasing, being chased, jumping, yipping, rolling on the ground.
Patriot did none of that. She appeared happy, and would chase and bring back a ball, but she did not appreciate physical play from anyone, whether from a dog or from one of us. Instead, she would tolerate it to the best of her ability. When Ruby tried to engage her, Patriot would respond by trying to place her head and neck over Ruby’s. If that was meant to be a detraction, Ruby simply found someone else to play with.
At home, Patriot made it known that she didn’t appreciate being hugged. (I’d learned that lesson already.) While she would tolerate it to some degree with Mike or myself, she would always utter a low growl as a warning when one of the children hugged her head or her body.
Never was it more than just a growl; the children have never been bitten, but she makes it known just the same:
Please don’t hug me like that.
Playtime was also different for the kids depending on which dog it was. Ruby would actively engage them. Patriot, on the other hand, only got excited when they ran — especially as a group — and stayed at their heels, nipping and growling as if trying to ‘round them up’.
I knew the word ‘shepherd’ was in her name for a reason, but did GSDs really try and shepherd children? Was there no difference to Patriot between children and lambs?
Just by being herself, Patriot taught me all of the things about dogs and about her breed that I never researched in the first place, because I couldn’t be bothered and made assumptions about this wonderful creature without realizing that she, too, had a personality.
Patriot is her own being.
And Patriot educated me with more eloquence than any professor. For the arrogant way I acted, as if I knew more about canines than Patriot herself, I owe her a thousand apologies every day, for the rest of her life. I didn’t return her love to the same degree that she was sharing her own.
That’s why I was shocked one comfortable evening last month, when Patriot hopped into the bed, curled up next to me, and collapsed into sleep… with her head and upper body in my lap.
I took that as a sure sign that she’s forgiven me.
Once again, we’re peas in a weird-looking pod, even though our relationship won’t ever be quite the same.
That’s my fault. I own it.
