Advice On Dog Injury

[FrodofromAus]

Thanks for that. I would have thought the same.

[WreckitWhippet]

I think your Aunt is very lucky not to have the ranger on her doorstep and be dealing with a dangerous dog declaration. If she feels she's in the right , she has every right to refuse to pay for the injuries to the ACD.

Your Aunt had want to be very sure that her dog did not injure the ACD and be prepared to lawyer up to defend her dog. It's going to cost her a whole lot more to prove it, than $850.

ETA: if your Aunt lives in NSW and her dog was offlead, then she's going to be up poo creek without a paddle

Edited June 22, 2010 by SBT123

[Greytmate]

I think your Aunt is very lucky not to have the ranger on her doorstep and be dealing with a dangerous dog declaration. If she feels she's in the right , she has every right to refuse to pay for the injuries to the ACD.

Your Aunt had want to be very sure that her dog did not injure the ACD and be prepared to lawyer up to defend her dog. It's going to cost her a whole lot more to prove it, than $850.

ETA: if your Aunt lives in NSW and her dog was offlead, then she's going to be up poo creek without a paddle

Same in QLD.

I think what people don't realise about council investigations and dangerous dog declarations is that there is no opportunity to appeal for mitigation or a second chance. There is no chance to put your side forward and give an argument explaining how your dog was provoked. No opportunity for the full story to come out, and nobody wants to know anyway. It isn't like a human court in any way at all. Vets evidence is accepted without any question. There is no innocent until proven guilty for dogs.

No, what happens is that if there is a council complaint from somebody that an unrestrained dog bit theirs, and it can be verified by more than one person that it was your dog, the dog will be declared dangerous. End of story.

It goes to show how important it is to prevent your dog having access to strange dogs that it may fight with.

[WreckitWhippet]

Never mind actually "biting", in NSW a dog can be declared dangerous for "rushing".

[silverdog]

Silverdog she had the bill for four days before she brought it around and wanted immediate payment. Prior to that we had no idea it even went to the vet. There was no injury when the dog parted. The witness said the dog didnt even grab in the area of the picture. My auntys dog was a staffy which was smaller in size than the cattle dog.

Would it be wet or slobbery in the area a dog grabs on? Is that how you would know to check that particular spot along with other places?

It doesn't matter if they had the bill for one day or four days. It doesn't matter if there seemed to be no injury at the time of the incident. It doesn't matter if they didn't tell you that they had taken the dog to the vet. None of that makes one bit of difference. These people may or may not be taking advantage of the situation. You don't know for sure. Even if you did know, you have no way of proving it. And even if you could prove it, it does nothing to change the undisputed fact that your auntie's off leash dog bit theirs.

I know it doesn't seem fair, but as soon as that bite occurred your auntie opened herself up to all sorts of unpleasantness.

The more you dispute it, the more likely it is that your auntie's dog will pay the ultimate price. Hard as it is to swallow, you and your auntie need to accept that fact, pay the bill, take steps to prevent a recurrence and move on.

As for finding evidence of a bite immediately after a fight, I will share my experience. I have weimaraners. They have a VERY short coat. On the odd occasion that we have had scraps involving bites, it has been damn difficult sometimes to determine immediately after the scrap whether or not any real damage has occurred. Often it is not until later, when visible welts appear that you know where to look for damage. And sometimes you don't even have that to help you out.

And no, in the really nasty scraps, where there is clear intent to inflict damage (thankfully a rare occurrence) there is very little slobber. The bites tend to be fast, deep and slobber free. So fast, in fact, that you find yourself wondering just how a bite landed in a certain spot, as you certainly didn't see it, even though the scrap happened right in front of you. Dogs ARE that fast when they mean business.

[tdierikx]

Well - my girls that had a barney last night have spent last night at the vets and were in surgery for their wounds today - both seem to have come off relatively well for the scale of nastiness that was going on. Each dog is going to cost me between $600 and $700 - so total bill will be between $1200 and $1400 - when they get to come home tomorrow. Only one dog needed a drain in one of her wounds - but there are stitches and quite a few punctures that have been cleaned up on both of them. I think my vet bill is pretty reasonable... even though I'd rather they hadn't had the fight in the first place... grrr!

T.

[tdierikx]

OK - my final bill is in... and it's not bad considering...

Trouble - Labrador - numerous facial punctures cleaned up and one drain inserted to a wound in the neck, one foot wound stitched and bandaged, 2 nights hospital, pain meds/antibiotics administered, and pain/AB's to take home - $667.05

Zeddy - Rotti cross - numerous leg wounds cleaned and stitched, one broken canine tooth removed, 3 legs bandaged, 2 nights hospital, one bag of fluids on the first night, pain meds/antibiotics administered, and pain/AB's to take home - $693.30 - oh, and they cut her nails for me as a freebie... *grin*

Total bill for both = $1360.35

I am now seriously looking into pet insurance - accident cover... these scraps don't happen often, but they sure tend to happen when you don't have the money to spare at the time... grrr! Our last vet visit was 16 months ago - and that was only Zeddy after one of their scraps - and that was $650...

T.

[Greytmate]

T.

I guess you are lucky in a way that you still have two dogs alive to love.

[Zombie Bait]

As for finding evidence of a bite immediately after a fight, I will share my experience. I have weimaraners. They have a VERY short coat. On the odd occasion that we have had scraps involving bites, it has been damn difficult sometimes to determine immediately after the scrap whether or not any real damage has occurred. Often it is not until later, when visible welts appear that you know where to look for damage. And sometimes you don't even have that to help you out.

I agree with this here. I own a Rhodesian Ridgeback who at times seems almost hairless due to how short her coat is. 3 nights ago my male Brembo snapped at her for getting to close to him whilst eating his bone (yes she's a wench that likes to eat hers quickly then steal his). We heard a yelp, went and had a look at her, no visible punctures, scrapes etc. Went out later on that evening for about 3 hours, when we returned we noticed a small lump on her neck - sure enough a puncture wound from Brembo's canine. So out the first aid kit came at 9pm at night.

Morale to the story is - we thoroughly checked her and know what we are looking for and still missed this wound so I find it quite credible that this womens dog was injured and it was not picked up straight away due to hair, lack of swelling etc.

Pay the vet bill and make sure your aunts dog is properly restrained - either on a leash or behind a fence.

[tdierikx]

T.

I guess you are lucky in a way that you still have two dogs alive to love.

Definitely lucky - I'll agree 100% with that Greytmate... and the girls are lucky that they have such tough hides - most of the wounds are fairly superficial considering how nasty the fight was. Zeddy has some more leg scars to add to her collection, and Trouble will add a few more to her facial scar collection. Once the hair has grown back, we shouldn't really see much evidence though...

The drain in Trouble's neck is a result of a wound that wasn't found during triage that night - once the vet had Trouble knocked out and they did a through search all over her, that's when they found that one... so 2 trained vets and myself missed it first time around. Easy enough to do when the dog is all hyped up after a fight... all Trouble wanted to do was jump all over everyone and get cuddles...

T.

[piper]

The picture looks reasonable to me.

Many years ago my old boy (who has been gone several years)was grabbed over the back by an Akita. There was no blood and I don't remember now if there was slobber or not. We found 2 small punture marks, it happened late in the evening so we took him home cleaned him up and went to the vets the next morning, no one expecting much more than the vet to clip the area to have a look, giv it a clean and some antibiotics.

Ricky ended up with a massive area shaved, multiple drains and once shaved you could see the bruising under the skin and in the space of 12 hours could see and feel the built up fluid pooling. There was a lot of hidden damage due to how he was grabbed and shaken. Even with the surgery, drains and antibitotics he still ended up with a problem wih necrotic tissue and needing several lots of surgery.

The owners of the Akita were very surprised like you, as at the time no one had thought it was that serious. His vet bills were around $2000 and I know there are some things we were not charged for, and this was back in 1995 so what you have explained does not surprise me at all.