Woman Bites Dog
The old saying about a man biting a dog is news has to be updated. A woman in Minneapolis bit a pit bull who was attacking the woman's dog. In doing so, she may have saved her dog from the attack.
(Amy) Rice says she bit the pit bull on the nose Friday after trying to pull the dog's jaws off her Labrador retriever, Ella. The dog had jumped a fence to get into Rice's northeast Minneapolis yard, and Rice says she feared the pit bull would kill Ella.
Ella is recovering. Ms. Rice may need rabies injections, since she drew blood from the pit bull. Personally, I don't know if I would have chosen biting as the way to get the attacking dog's attention, but it obviously worked for her. Good job, Ms. Rice.
By TKelso, Thursday, 3 April , 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Agreed. While the nose is a verrry sensitive organ, I can think of 1 or 2 other points which are at least as vulnerable (assuming the pit bull was an "intact male"). That’s one gutsy lady.
By C Stanley, Thursday, 3 April , 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Water hoses are generally your best bet in these situations. Ms. Rice is extremely lucky that the jaws didn’t clamp down on her own face after her bite caused the pit bull to let loose of her Lab.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Thursday, 3 April , 2008 @ 9:26 pm
Amy Rice bit a dog. My son got bit at school today by another toddler. Maybe Ted Turner was right - global warming causes cannibalism…
By Foxfier, Friday, 4 April , 2008 @ 2:33 am
Pardon me while I’m heartless…
Kill the F*ing pitbull and check to see it if has rabies.
It obviously is willing and ready to attack other animals, and the owners are unwilling to control the animal.
Do so and save the woman who was crazy enough to protect her dog from having to take the (really, really painful) rabies cure.
By BubbaB, Friday, 4 April , 2008 @ 10:07 am
I have been told that if a pit bull attacks you, the best thing to do is grab it by the throat and choke it to death. Anybody have any comments on that?
By martian, Friday, 4 April , 2008 @ 11:14 am
You don’t usually have to take the rabies shots for biting a rabid animal - just for getting bit by one. It’s highly unlikely to get rabies from being the biter.
By Lars Walker, Friday, 4 April , 2008 @ 1:06 pm
According to our local news (this story is local here), their concern is that she had contact with the animal’s blood.
By ted goldman, Saturday, 5 April , 2008 @ 9:45 am
Pit Bulls are inherently dangerous. Ms. Rice should have bitten off the nose of her next door neigbor, allegorically speaking, of course.
By C Stanley, Saturday, 5 April , 2008 @ 4:10 pm
Rabies innoculations aren’t that bad- about like tetanus shots. But in a case where exposure is suspected, you’re generally also given gamma globulin, and that’s a b*tch. Think of a very large hypodermic filled with stuff that’s the consistency of honey, being pumped into your derriere. Not fun recalling my personal experience with it.And BTW, it’s appropriate that she got postexposure treatment from biting the dog, because of the possibility of the dog’s saliva entering into any cuts or even areas of her oral mucosa. Just like an STD, which is transmitted by body fluid contact- bites are the most direct and efficient route, but anything that gets a body fluid into another individual’s bloodstream can do it. And with rabies, the mortality rate is too high to take a chance. My own postexposure treatment was for a much more dubious possibility. A dog that we treated in Vet School ICU died of advanced renal disease, and the routine necropsy showed some unidentifiable viral inclusions in his brain tissue- the dog was extremely geriatric and there was really absolutely NO WAY he’d been rabid (no possible exposure) but there was a protocol saying that viral inclusions in the brain meant potential rabies and thus any people who’d had contact had to get treated. Ugh.