Bad dog! No biscuit!

I normally walk to the gym. It's close to my house, I'm not burning fossil fuels and I have to spend less time on those horrible cardio machines (a whole room full of people simultaneously running to nowhere while completely ignoring one other gives me nightmares about chain-smoking, philosophy-reading French hamsters).

Yesterday, as I was marching along while looking for any couches that might have been dumped overnight, a black furry missile appeared from nowhere, launched itself at my legs and began to bite indiscriminately.

If he barked, I didn't hear him. He (and I'm just assuming it was a male dog - I didn't get a good look at his undercarriage) closed in so fast I didn't even have time to react - I just kept screaming "help me, help me!" at a passerby who very kindly ran in the opposite direction as the 50 lb-ish dog tore up the legs of my (thankfully wide-legged) pants and landed bites on two different parts of my calf (a few inches above the Achilles tendon and top of the calf about four inches below the knee).

I was afraid to run in case the dog tripped me and I fell (which would have given him a really good shot at my face and neck), and backing away slowly only gave him a fresh angle. The only reason I got away was because the dog charged at yet another approaching pedestrian who was apparently a better target (I guess he had fatter legs).

So much for my action heroine fantasy ("Hasta la vista, doggie! Today, I teach you de lesson you voooon't fooorgeeeet..").

Luckily, a guy across the street happened to see the whole thing as he was leaving for work and called 911 on his cell phone, which meant I provided the afternoon's entertainment for the neighbors as the fire engine (why? Nothing was burning) and ambulance blocked traffic while the paramedics sat me on the curb to field-dress my leg before hauling me to the ER.

The firemen managed to chase the dog back into his yard (his owner had left the front gate open so the dog was wandering around on the public sidewalk where I was walking when he bit me), so the neighborhood's safe until they leave the gate open again.

After a three hour wait to be seen by sleep-deprived interns, they cleaned up the wound, determined that my tetanus immunization was up-to-date and I wouldn't need stitches (thank you, loose clothing - out of a total of 10 or 15 bites, the dog only got skin contact three or four times. Of course, he made the most of those opportunities. My leg looks like hamburger), then released me - without warning me that the wounds would bleed like hell all night.

That's okay. I didn't really like those sheets anyway.

This being Los Angeles, animal control never showed up, and when I called them today to ask them if they'd picked up the dog and rabies-tested him they pretty much told me to go fuck myself. They're busy.


Damned dog. I loved those pants.


Couch of the day: