Last Sunday evening turned into a nightmare. Caroline and I had a goal to walk Benson 'every day in May.' We didn't get to walk him on May 1st because it was pouring rain all day. But May 2nd she was determined to get that walk in. After dinner, Josiah, Caroline, and I set out on the walk. Benson had on his special metal collar that helps train him to walk with us and not pull. It is not a choke collar, but a pinching type. We walked a few blocks from our house and were looping around to come back home when we spotted two dogs that were walking free. There were two teenage girls behind the dogs, so we just assumed they were all together. However, I did take the leash from Josiah at that point and we did keep walking with more determination towards home. The kids kept looking back at the dogs. They were getting closer. They kept looking back, they kept getting closer. I did not want to run because that did not seem wise, however I was not sure what to do besides continue walking on towards home. And then they attacked. They came from behind, completely unprovoked, and just started attacking Benson. Biting his neck. Growling. It was incredibly scary. I screamed as loud as possible and I did not stop screaming. The teenage girls were there, but my focus was solely looking down at the dogs. I pulled Benson on the leash when I thought it would help and slacked off so he could defend himself. I smacked the more aggressive dog's back to get him off Benson, knowing it wasn't a wise move, but I couldn't help myself. Still constant screaming. I looked up at one point and saw two men running towards us. One carried a rake, another got a hose to use as a rope. I do not recall them using either, but when they approached it seemed the attacking dogs stopped. It was incredibly scary. The scariest part was I had no idea how to stop it or when it would stop or if they would attack us. I had nothing to defend us with, except my constant screaming for help. I didn't carry my purse that has mace in it. I didn't have my phone on me to take pictures or call the cops. I didn't know what to do. Finally, one of the men and one of the teenage girls told me it would be best to walk home, so we did.
We later learned the two dogs were pit bulls. About half an hour after the attack, someone posted online that the two dogs had showed up in her backyard. They weren't hers and she wanted the owner to come get them. I took a screenshot of the dogs and warned her of their aggression.
Benson walked home, but it must have been because he had so much adrenaline coursing through his veins. When we got inside, he laid down and Todd cleaned his wounds. He had a bite mark on his front leg and his eye was a little bloody. His neck seemed fine - the metal collar probably helped prevent the other dog from getting a good bite. When he finally got off the floor again to go to his hammock bed, he was limping. He didn't do much that night except lie in his bed. The next morning, we took him to the vet. We dropped him off after explaining what had happened. When we picked him up, they had shaved parts of his front leg exposing the bite mark that we knew he had, as well as the bite mark on the other side of his leg that we hadn't seen. They put him in a cone to prevent him from licking it and gave us three medicines. One was eye drops since the white part of his left eye was blood red. He got antibiotics since we knew nothing about the attacking dogs. He also got a pain reliever/inflammation reducer for his leg wound. We took him home to rest and recuperate. He has slept a lot this week.
Day 1: He couldn't climb on his hammock bed just yet, so he slept in front of it.
That Monday, he was still limping, but within a day or two, he was back to walking fairly well. The problem with the bite on his leg is that it is in the crease/joint area, so the skin is always bending and stretching out, which makes it appear to be healing slowly. It looks good, just not scabbing over as quickly as we had hoped. The bite mark on the back of his leg is healing much quicker because it is more protected.
Benson has been a champ at taking his medications. He allows us to give him his eye drops really well. We made him some banana/peanut butter muffins to help him take his pills, and he has swallowed them each day without any problems. We've run out of muffins at this point and give him his pills in cold meatballs. He's a fan.
That first day after the attack, Benson barely ate or drank. We didn't force him to do either, but we did want him to have a little bit of both just because his medicine was to be taken with a meal. Henry hand fed him at one point. Josiah held his bowl up for him another time. Josiah and I both held up a cup so he could drink better. We first held out a cup of ice just to let him lick it and see if he was interested (he loves ice). We ended up holding that cup of ice for a good five minutes while he licked it. We kept refilling the ice, and then added water and he drank a lot. The cone has made it harder for him to eat and drink. We've had to put his food in one of our regular cereal bowls because he's able to access it better.
The worst part of the cone, probably, is that it has really messed with Benson's vision. He has no spatial recognition of the width of the cone. He bumps into EVERYTHING. He has now been in it a full week and it is dented and bent and just a mess (but still functional). Worse than bumping into everything, the cone seems to have messed with his depth perception. As the week has gone on, it has gotten worse. Sometimes he'll be on the carpet that we have near our garage door and he'll just start barking. He cannot get off of it. He just stands and barks like he's stuck. One day I pushed our long carpet runner to the garage carpet and he walked right onto it. He walked the length of the runner and was 'stuck' again. So I pulled the carpet to the next carpet, with him riding on it, and he walked off like that was what he needed. This has happened so frequently that I got his car blanket out and made it into a carpet runner of sorts to connect two other carpets. He stays on the carpets and gets around this way. It's his own little game of The Floor is Lava.
The cone has also made him miserable because he cannot scratch himself. He tries in vain to scratch his ears and we just hear the thump-thumping of his foot scratching his cone. Josiah has been great at scratching all around his ears and neck. Benson has been very appreciative.
Todd calls him Flashlight. Caroline says he looks like a vacuum. They're both right.
A week out, he is doing much better. It was scary. Josiah and Caroline had bad dreams for a few nights. At first I was scared and a bit angry about the attack. Especially after learning that they were pit bulls roaming free. However, I was also incredibly, incredibly grateful for God's protection of the children. It could have been a lot worse. The fact that we had nothing with which to defend ourselves and how helpless it felt in the situation, the greater I see God's hand on the situation protecting all the people involved. Benson will get better. And we'll try to make sure these dogs do not do this to anyone else. We will never take him on another walk without mace, my phone, and some walking sticks.
The majority of our week was caring for Benson, while getting our schoolwork done. Caroline has been reading quite a bit lately. One evening, Todd was talking to her and she mentioned she was in the middle of three different books.
Todd - "You're reading all three at the same time? How do you keep them all straight?"
Caroline, matter-of-factly - "I have bookmarks."
Awana finished up this week. It was just a catch-up night, so the kids were able to say their verses and go. The boys had already completed their books, so Todd took Caroline to say her final verse of the year. It was a long one and she had been working on it for two weeks. She went in and recited all of Psalm 78:1-8,
Caroline has also been in the market for a new bike. Hers broke over a year ago and I just kind of forgot that she didn't have a bike. Usually she's on roller skates or riding one of the boys' bikes. This weekend, she was looking online at bikes so we could get an idea of what she wanted. (In case you're wondering, she wants pink, purple, and/or rainbow colors, with streamers. She was also in the market for a matching helmet.) At one point, we had to reboot our computer, so she lost her bike tabs. Once rebooted, she sat at the computer typing in 'bikes for girls' to find the bike she wanted again. All of a sudden, the web page comes up with a bunch of ladies in bikinis. Bike! Bike, Caroline! B-I-K-E!
For Mother's Day, each of the kids wanted to do something with me. Josiah put on a Beatles concert. He was lip-syncing, dancing, and acting out 10 songs. He did what seemed like an entire CD of songs and then went to get another CD. How many songs are you doing from that CD? Just one. Yellow Submarine. Henry wanted to play a board game together. He picked Apples to Apples which requires more than two players, so Josiah was recruited to play with us. Later, Henry felt it 'didn't count' since it wasn't just the two of us. Didn't you pick out the game? Caroline wanted me to help her clean her room. It needed a pretty thorough cleaning. When Caroline cleans her room, she likes to pick up each item she owns and talk about it, share a memory about it, etc. At 2:30 p.m. she told me she wanted to have her room cleaned by 5:00. 5:00?? Me, too!!
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