Staffordshire Terriers, a week later

It has now been a week since the incident involving the two Staffordshire Terriers I was watching and the small white Shih Tzu (I think). I have had many phone calls from different health departments and have also had to deal with animal control officers. I have learned a lot.
The first thing I should have done before accepting the job was research the kind of dogs I was watching over. If I had done that I would have realized that it is a law in Ontario that this breed be muzzled when outside of the home. I do feel that the owners also had a responsibility to inform me of this but certainly it would have taken mere minutes to find out that information for myself. The owners were in possession of muzzles but neglected to tell me that.
The owners also ended up having to pay the vet bill for the Shih Tzu which had an operation and now has three inches of stitches on its belly. I feel that was harsh punishment and paying half the bill would have been more fair because after all, their dogs were not running around off leash. I am very  happy that the little dog is doing well and it seems will live a long dog life. All three dogs are still in quarantine for another three days.
There have been many calls from various health departments (some bureaucratic ping pong) but rabies from dogs is now extremely rare. According to the doctor in emerg there has not been a case of dog related rabies in Ontario for thirty years. My thumb is healing well and the stitches were removed yesterday. I have almost full movement and holding a ski pole in Vail next week will be no problem.
I hope to dog sit again and the lessons I have learned from this episode will only serve to help me.

Staffordshire Terriers

For the past week I have been dog sitting 2 Staffordshire Terriers. Twice a day at 8 AM and 5 PM I have gone over to the house and fed them, walked them and just made sure everything was alright. They are wonderful friendly dogs who are thrilled to see me, mostly because of the walk that I take them on. The one issue with them is they go crazy if other dogs come near and have to be restrained. When approaching other folks walking their dogs I warned them of the anti social behaviour of the 2 dogs and did my best to stay as far away as I could. I started to warn the dogs as well by a good yank on the leash the second their attention veered towards any other dogs. This seemed to work well and they paid less and less attention to other dogs.

Before stitches

On my last day I even wrote a report for the owners on how good the dogs had been. Sadly I jumped the gun, tempted the fates you might say. I was 300 yards from finishing the last walk when a small (10 lbs) dog came running out from its backyard, saw the 2 terriers and made a full speed dash towards them. I held them firm but the little guy was acting aggresively and the male got a hold of it and the insanity began. Because I had two dogs it was impossible for me to grab the one and help the small dog without the female going for the poor little thing. Before I knew it I was on my knees fighting to free the struggling dog. I punched and kicked the male to get it to release the little guy only to have the female take over and attack it. At some point while on my knees I looked down to see the little guy fighting for her life by biting down on the meaty part of the base of my thumb, not knowing that I was trying to help. Funny though, I could see its teeth bared and digging into my hand but at no time did I notice any pain. It must be that so much adrenaline was pumping into my system that I simply felt nothing. I finally freed the little guy and the owner of her scooped her up, actually thanked me and ran back to the house. There was a child crying. I got up, bloodied, muddied and stuck with burrs, and walked the terriers home. They were completely calm as if nothing at all had happened.

After

There is no doubt about one thing, I was in a state of shock after it all. It was the most insane 30-45-60? seconds of my life. Both my hands hurt and were bleeding and filthy so I covered them in plastic gloves so as not to mess up the car and headed to the hospital. In the end I only had a few puncture holes and a scar on my thumb that I have had for 50 years was ripped open and took 4 stitches to close. A puncture hole took another stitch. I have to get some antibiotics as well today due to the risk of infection from dog bites.
The little guy is at the vet now having surgery and I hope it will be OK. I guess it had no idea that challenging a pair of Staffordshire Terriers wasn't a good idea but it may now.

Singer and Bella

OOPS

I have just noticed that I wrote an "I lied, there's another post in me" post but sadly I have little memory of doing it. I guess there was a slight bit more alcohol involved than I let on because although there is a vague memory forming now of that post I don't think I intended to put it out for human comsumption until there was more meat to it like............more words. It was supposed to remain as a draft but in my stupor I suppose it somehow made it to an actual post. OOPS.
As it stands I am back from Aspen now. I had a great time skiing on real snow although I must admit my nightlife was limited because I was tired for a lot of the vacation. It may have been altitude induced or it may have been caused by this bug that I am fighting for a second week now. There is no doubt about one thing though, there is a lot of money floating around in Aspen. I have never seen so many private jets in my life. There must have been close to 80-90 parked at the airport and apparently there were more parked at another airport not far away.
I skied for five days and on the sixth we went to a sulphur spring which was nice but not something that I would do a second time.

Trixie, Hansi,Steve and Willy.

Thanks to Hansi for inviting me and showing all of us a great time. The accomodations were excellent. Everyone loved the skiing and the apres afterwards. I now have to wait four weeks and then it's off to Vail for another week of fun. I could learn to like this retirement thing.