I look like a raccoon attacked a hobo

Today did not go according to plan. Things were going great. Corn bed was put together, newspaper down, compost filled. It was windy, so no bees, but we made it to the tasting on time and had time to come home and start potting some of these leftover plants. There are tomatoes hanging in my carport, herbs planted in the garden, and the backyard is mowed (courtesy of Mike). We even went back and got a second load (2 tons) of compost. I even took pictures of everything to document it, which is something I always want to do but never do.

Then one of our neighbors stopped by to say hello. It was about 7pm. Way past the time the dogs should eat. We were talking to our neighbor when I noticed the fur on Huck’s back going up, a growl start in his chest and then–

Him and Dixie were at it again. They used to fight all the time. Huck has bitten my arm when I’ve broken them up (in an attempt to attack Dixie) and Dixie has sunken her teeth into my leg when I lunged between her and Huck once. You know–when you stick yourself in the middle of a dog fight, you’re going to get bit. But things had been quiet for a few months. A few squabbles, but nothing BIG. Huck turned 2 back in November and so we thought–this is it. They’ve sorted themselves out.

The last few weeks, things have been getting worse again. It’s very bad when Dixie hasn’t eaten. You can’t reason with the dog when she’s hungry. But she’s ALWAYS good with people, with kids. If she’s eating, a kid can walk up and dip his hand in her food dish and walk away without a scratch.

Apparently, I can’t. Don’t worry, there are no pictures behind the cut.

Huck had her good and wouldn’t let go. I tried to pry his mouth open and now have a purple finger to show for it. (I’m an idiot.) As I went to run inside and grab a blanket to throw over them, Huck readjusted his grip and Mike had Huck.

So I had Dixie.

Usually, Dixie’s the easy one. She’s still snarling (she wears the pants in this relationship), but harmless.

I should have dragged her by her collar like I usually do. Instead, I  made a very bad decision and underestimated how upset she was, and I grabbed her and held her–right up by my face.

Trying to tear away from me and get back and Huck, she squirmed and finally reached up and bit my face. Hard. She tried again and I dropped her–hard–but then realizing what I had done, I pinned her to the ground in submission. She submitted though she still wanted to go tearing off after Huck. But I had to get her out of the backyard, so I grabbed her under one arm (she’s forty pounds easy) and tore up with her to the house. Threw her inside and told her to get into her crate and she obeyed.

It was about then that I noticed my mouth was full of blood and it was streaming down my face. I touched the side of my face only to feel blood. After dabbing my face with a cold paper towel a few times, I finally got up the courage to look in the mirror and found that Dixie not only left a puncture wound in my jawbone, but she tore my lip wide open.

So I spent the last 3 hours in a hospital. We haven’t eaten all day, and I’m hypoglycemic, and they gave me 3-4 stitches in the lip and a nurse who wasn’t even helping me took pity on me and talked me through it while Mike held both of my hands and I had a panic attack about the numbing medicine. Dixie’s on “quarantine” for 10 days per Animal Control, but she’s up-to-date on her rabies shot.

A visual: Me in my oversized jeans (by about 4 sizes) with dirt stains sticking out of my mud boots, in a hoodie sweater with dirt in my hair and visible on my scalp. Then an oversized Carhartt jacket with the hood pulled up over my face, walking down the grocery aisle with my hands in my pockets looking for Vienna Fingers and Tylenol.

I convinced myself to take the Tylenol as directed, since I’m starting to feel my face again and it hurts, and it feels like my finger got run over by a truck. But I’m hungry, and I don’t have the energy to explain to you all why my dog biting me, even when it was prompted from a dog fight then I incorrectly tore her away from, distresses me so much. But that story will come, and it will be Diesel–Mike and my’s first dog together.

I’ll leave this post with just saying that I love Mike (only someone who loves you will tell you you’re beautiful and that “he did a good job, your lip looks even” when your face looks like you got attacked by a raccoon) and that as we drove to the hospital earlier, all I could say was, “I just wanted to build a chicken coop.”