One of My Employees Gets Bitten on the Nose from Planck's Constant

One of my employees in Bayonne missed work for a few days. Seems her pet bull, which she's had since it was a puppy, nearly ripped off her nose. It required over 20 stitches to put it back.

Her dog which was a family pet for more than 5 years had been well socialized, even sleeping in bed with her every night. She got up to go to the bathroom when for no reason the dog went for her face and mauled her nose.

The dog was put down yesterday.

I feel somewhat responsible since I do not require my employees to read my blog. If I had required it, she might have read that in almost all dog attacks, there is no overt aggressive behavior on the part of the victim. As I wrote:

23 May 2006,
National Disgrace - Dog Attacks
The natural inclination for dogs is to attack. That is why nature made them. After millennia of domestication and training they have learned to subdue the urge to bite.

But the subduction is tenuous at best. The slightest movement or flash of light can trigger an attack.

I taught my children and my grandchildren the following about dogs:

Dogs are wild animals - not humans.

As much as they seem loving and gentle, do not put your face near any dog.

Never pet any strange dog - ever - even if the owner says his dog does not bite. The owner does not know what he is talking about.

Do not make quick movements near any dog.

Never be near any dog bigger than you are.

Too paranoid for you? Thousands of children are facially scarred for life or worse. Most people do not know that a dog bites someone every 6 seconds in this country. 10 bites per minute. 600 bites per hour. 14000 bites per day. The reason most people don't know this is that it is impossible for newspapers to report every attack except those that result in death. The amount of ink needed to report every attack would bankrupt any paper and the resulting newspaper would be too heavy to pick up by anyone except Bulgarian weightlifters.

Ibid.
In the typical 14 years that 60 million American families will have a pet dog there will be over 70 million reported cases of dog bites; 14,000 a day with the majority of them children and almost all of them by a loving family pet. A pet that the owners will swear was a good-natured pet that never exhibited aggressive behaviour and never bit anyone before.

This is not a matter of training or socialization or breeding - this is a matter of nature. Dogs are just not human. The truth is: I barely trust humans, why should I trust dogs?

Here is what happens when you assume dogs are safe to have around children, even well-trained police dogs:

Otago Daily Times Online, 8 May 2010, Police dog being reassessed after attack

A Police dog attack left Tyler Hatton with
two minor puncture wounds on his lip
and a "minor gash" on the bridge of his
nose. Photo by Hawkes Bay Today.
Eastern District police are reassessing a police dog after it bit Tyler Hatton (3) during a kindergarten visit, in Napier, on Thursday.

The dog and its handler were at Riversdale Kindergarten for an educational visit and when Tyler was waiting to pat the unrestrained dog, it bit him on the face.

...

"The handler is devastated that his dog could have done this to a small child and is very upset by the incident," he said.

Tyler's father, Matthew Hatton, said that his son was upset by the incident and did not want to be around dogs.

However, Mr Hatton did not want the dog to be put down as he knew how much went in to training a police dog.

The Napier Kindergarten Association will also investigate the incident and review if dog visits will continue.

No, no, no. No organization should allow strange dogs to come around children. This would not have happened if they had simply read my blog articles on dogs.