I have not been writing for a while and that is for a reason. I was in shock. Our sweet playful doggo and a friend of all dogs was attacked by two huge dogs that escaped from their enclosure. What was supposed to be a lovely Sunday morning walk in a forest turned into a bloody scene playing out right in front of my eyes. I did not know these dogs. They were huge like bears and they came running like an undercover commando, appearing out of nowhere. These monsters kept on running like a horde of Mongols set out to burn Baghdad from the ground. I remember the feeling of panic and total helplessness that overcame me in a second. I was desperately looking around for the owners of these beasts but there was no one. In my desperate attempt to protect my screaming dog from getting bitten even more, I started shouting for help at the top of my lungs. I feared I was going to witness the worst. Thankfully my neighbour heard me screaming like she has never heard me before. Whilst I held one of the big dogs by the collar ( Note: this is apparently not to be done in case of a dog attack according to all the smart books I read afterwards. In my case, I disabled the big dog at least for a few seconds.) my doggo managed to sneak away from the other one and ran towards the gate of our garden. There, my inventive neighbour responding to my panicked screams opened the gate and let my dog in whilst keeping the two attackers outside. I am forever thankful that she saved his life. The two dogs stayed behind the gate until their owner realised that they had escaped from their guarded enclosure. I ran back to the garden when both my neighbour and my doggo were behind the gates.I hugged my shaking dog and quickly inspected the wounds, pieces of torn fur, blood dripping from underneath his belly. I searched for the nearest vet emergency clinic and drove the doggo 13 km to the vet. Both of us were in shock.
Judgments and opinions aside, the owner apologised profoundly, promised to make amends on the their enclosure and offered to paid the vet’s bill. Already at that time, I was cognisant that both my dog and me were lucky. I was aware that such dogs should not exist. My dog could have been mauled to death and into pieces right in front of me and I could have been severely wounded too. I kept on insisting with the owner that this can never happen again and asked her to do everything in her power to stop anything similar happening again. She promised. In many other countries, such dogs would have been put asleep. Unfortunately, laws in my country are extremely weak and victims are at best compensated for the treatment or even loss. It’s painfully little and I did not want to be silenced. I tried to do what I thought was the best solution for that situation even if it was not enough.
And here I am coming to the main part of the story. Recovering from adversity.
One of the first emotions I felt was injustice. Why would these bullies attack our sweet shelter dog who has already had his share of suffering early in life? Our dog who is being given as an example of a super friendly player by all dogs trainers and a master of dog socialisation? Whilst I had seen immense accounts of injustice in the world of humankind during my 20 years of aid work, heard and read thousands of agonizing stories and accepted injustice among humankind as a matter of fact, for some naive reasons, I was not ready to face the same in the animal world.
Fast forward 2 weeks, countless visits to the vet, starting with emergency treatment, cleaning the bite wounds, disinfection, stitch, sonogram, ultrasound, you name it, my dog was wagging his tail again. I was still in a state of shock trying to make some sense and comprehend what has happened and revisiting the same spot to avoid developing trauma. The truth is that I became suspicious of other dogs and maybe a bit paranoid too. Not my dog though. Early on in his recovery and immediately as he started regaining some strength, he would want to play with his dog friends and people too. To the extent that we had to stop him for he still had big wounds that needed to heal.
Today, a month has passed and if you did not know, you couldn’t tell that my dog had been wounded in what I refer to as a vicious attack and being aware that things could have been much worse. Whilst he might be a tiny bit more careful with some dogs, his playful nature is totally restored. He plays with other dogs like there is no tomorrow, running, jumping, chasing, you name it. He gets super excited seeing his dog and human friends. He is the same happy dog again. I, on the other hand, am still not like before. I am still harbouring some fears that I did not have before and my distrust of some dogs has also not gone away yet.
And maybe that’s not so surprising. We are hardwired by evolution to pay attention to the negative and this sticks with us. Evolution wants us to survive no matter what. Resilient people don’t negate the negative, instead they put a lot of effort into the good. In other words, they know that « adversity doesn’t discriminate » as Dr. Lucy Hone explained in her TedTalk.
Recovery is inevitable if we want it and give it a chance. My dog is teaching me that you can trust again, be playful again, risk again and have fun again. It may be a silly and a gross oversimplification to compare ourselves to animals, for we are different species and react to life and in life differently. In spite of it, seeing my dog wagging his tail when he sees his friends gives me hope that we don’t have to become bitter, paranoid and closed off when unexpected, difficult and even traumatic events happen to us. We must seek out the necessary care and support that we need. I have personally had three coaching sessions dedicated to this event, to process it, not to bury the emotions deep inside, to look at this from different perspectives, not act from a place of fear and to move forward whilst learning from this. And needless to say, countless support from family and friends.
To recover from adversity we also need to:
- Recognise and name the feelings we are feeling and not bury them.
- Carefully choose where we put our attention. Pay attention to things that you can change and accept things that you can’t.
- Find the positive in the negative and look at the situation as a learning opportunity no matter how difficult the situation. Sometimes, it may take a very long time to find the lesson. In my case, it took me a while too. I said to myself that I will never ever be upset with my dog ( also means more spoiling for the dog), I also equipped myself better and set out to be more outspoken on similar issues and raise awareness among dog owners.
- Give yourself time and space to heal.
The road to recovery is never straightforward. We must do what is necessary for our own physical or mental healing. If we have been traumatised, we need to seek out a therapist or other specialist. Don’t sit and wait until it goes away. It will likely only be buried deep inside to come to haunt you when you least expect it.
You too can recover and rise up from adversity!
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