ALL ABOUT DOG BITES
In the years I was on the street in Portland as an animal control officer, one of my jobs was visiting every dog bite victim or owner of a biting dog. The concern was not so much the actual damage from the mouth of the dog as it was rabies, the disease suspended but always potentially there and nearly always fatal. The idea of dog bite reports taken in person, like dog licensing, was to prevent rabies from returning.
Two women in a small room maintained the files of rabies immunization proof necessary to get a dog license. With proof, a bitten person did not have to take a series of preventative vaccines and the animal did not have to be killed so as to permit a microscopic study of its brain for the same reason. Rabies affects the brain only.
The bites themselves ranged from nips that barely broke the skin to the entire scalp torn off the head of a toddler or a two-foot ripped-open gash in the thigh of an elderly person. The motivations on the part of the dog extended from intending to play or being mildly annoyed to attempted — and sometimes successful — homicide. The target damaged person might be an innocent child, a mistaken dog “owner,” or an animal torturer. A certain kind of person believes his powerful vicious dog shows how potent he is — until the dog tears into the owner.
So we know nothing about Major Biden, as the conceit calls him to continue the “cute” practice of using patronymics on pets. Did he bite? Had he bitten before? Since he was a dog that had been surrendered to a shelter, what was his reason for surrender and what happened to him before the shelter? There is always a story.
Thank goodness he didn’t bite a head of state or a diplomat. In a public place with many different people, a muzzle is not a bad idea. Hopefully, Major didn’t bite a black person or a woman, but dogs think in categories and are more likely to bite, for instance, a letter carrier. One in my SE PDX “beat” bit only nuns, evidently because they used a letter box near their home and smelled distinctive enough for a dog to know who they were. They didn’t dress differently.
One judge in Portland refused to convict any dog for biting. He was black, grew up in a poor part of town, and saw dogs as natural biters meant for guard duty. This aspect, in light of the recent riots and threats, means that the guard dog bit a guard person. At heart it’s the need for violent recourse in the name of protection. When people express wishes to kill, one can understand wanting a security dog, especially since it appears that some of the “insiders” were part of the scheme.
The political accusation that Biden is displacing his own hostility through his dog — since dog owners are well-known to express their emotions through their dogs and to let their dogs (and children) aggravate and hurt others through they themselves would never dare — is met by a counter-story that the dogs were simply returned to Delaware as was usual when Dr. Biden was gone for a few days. Dogs, like people, respond to their environments and both places and people influence them to be different creatures. The White House is still new to the dogs and recently scrubbed with chemicals. Some dogs can smell and react to guns, which are presumably carried by security people.
When (1984) Mike Burgwin convened a panel of citizens to rewrite the Portland animal-related laws. Boldly, he included in the group the entire spectrum of thought about animals in cities. One end believed dogs were furry angels and the end saw them as wolves.
Not only were there a lot of possibilities in between, but also the the factors interacted in dynamic ways, so each incident was in a different place on the continuum. The toddler whose scalp was torn off was simply in a sandbox quarrel with another child the dog was “protecting.” Big dogs are not necessarily more vicious than little dogs, but when they are irritated enough to bite, the consequences are much worse. Toddlers are vulnerable because they are down there at dog-face level.
I had friends who had dalmatians, which are often deaf. They cautioned me not to surprise them, but — hey! — I was an animal control officer, an expert. So I gently patted a sleeping dalmatian on the head. YIKES! A snapping eruption! At least I had reflexes.
Some kids and I were clustered around a street-killed possum and a dachshund with one blind eye was with us. Along came a cop who joined us. Proving he was a nice guy, he patted the dachshund from its blind side. Nailed. I took the report. We all forgot about the possum, who had a lot of teeth. I’ve never known anyone who was bitten by a possum. I myself was never bitten by a dog, even when I was moving a grievously hurt animal.
Too many people have been misled by sentimental screenplays and carefully edited scenes so that montage either exaggerates monstrous attacks or daring rescues. Dogs are presented as human, which they are not, though they are close enough that we form attachments and loyalties. They become knee-jerk generalities, obscuring the complexity of incidents.
The earlier canine “scandal” was about Champ, the older Biden German Shepherd. He’s a bit seedy in his last years and this was portrayed as neglect. The accusers appear to not know animals, which are living beings who change through their life-arcs, so that they may be more easily triggered in their early years and a little less shiny in their later years. Each of these accusations is a little media story about good “bois” or bad “bois.” They are formulas, short-hand, pinned to their closest humans. Note that accusers present the dogs as “bois” rather than “goils.” I daresay they are surgically altered. Make a scandal about that, why don’t you?
