3. Where Quigley is bitten by a dog, called Tarzan.

I used to be a dog man.

This is to say, that I was, formerly, a lover of man’s best friend and not that I was some bizarre (and now cured) semi-canine creature, given to such unfortunate, if not to say rather pointless, transformation. 

This changed, at 7pm on Tuesday, October 23rd, when I was bitten by a Jack Russell, whose name happens to be ‘Tarzan’.  Very close to the top of the list of things from which pet owners should be excluded, is the ironic naming of their unfortunate animals. Big dogs called ‘Tiny’ and  small dogs, laden with the epithet ‘Killer’, for example, may be the cause of some immediate, short term amusement for the owner, but this is, ultimately, an entirely shameful and useless exercise. Keep the naming literal or abstract, or take it back to the kennel, would be my heartfelt (and correct) advice.

At the time, I was living in a first floor flat, sharing a communal entrance hallway with the ground floor neighbours. I was taking a bag of rubbish through this passage, when the main street door opened, whereupon I greeted and exchanged pleasantries with the old lady from the downstairs flat. This was a sweet little old lady, whose remaining years can surely not be plentiful, and with whom I was never less than charming and amenable even though she had nothing of any value to offer, which I thought rather charitable of me.  My point being, that I provided no discernible threat to her.

Subsequent to this dutiful exchange, I proceeded outside to place my rubbish in the bin, like a good boy, and not like what most folk seem to do these days, which is to try and force it all through the letter box of the local Oxfam shop.

It had, however, been raining, and my feet were clad in the merest of coverings, my faithful, but not yet waterproof, socks. I therefore, understandably, returned indoors, in order to place my size nines in my sturdy Docs.

In the interim, however, she had, not unreasonably, opened the door to her flat.

 

 

 

I shall mention the hallway light, which is of singular importance in this episode. This light is set on a timer. Pressing it in with minimum force, the light will remain on for 20/30 seconds and then return the hall to the previous darkness.

The dog, Tarzan, came out to greet her, the light went out, I walked up to my door, at which point this pint sized Zoltan, growled and jumped up at my groin. He bit into my trousers, just at the left of the zip.

Instinctively, neither wanting a gnawed teste nor for a section of my penis to be removed, I put out my left hand, to protect that which is delicate from this insane fucking midget. At this point, he bit into me, in the fleshy bit where the thumb adjoins the forefinger.

I bled and I swore, a commensurate response, given that I’d just been bitten by a fucking dog!  Not something I’d had down on that day’s itinerary, as such. Cup of tea, episode of Breaking Bad, that kind of thing. Certainly nothing about my flesh providing lunch for a deranged and vicious pooch.

The neighbour was, rightly, horrified by this. Her concern for me, however, was slightly outweighed by that idea that her dog would have to be put down.

‘He was protecting me!’ she defended.

And so it was that as she reprimanded Tarzan (Bad dog! Mummy’s very cross. Don’t do it again. He’s a nice man!), I made my way to the A&E department of St. George’s in Tooting. Here I was tetanus jabbed, had my wound cleaned with a large squirty bag of iodine, plastered, bandaged and put in a sling. ‘Dog bites are very infectious’, I was informed, by a charming Doctor, ‘we sometimes keep dog bite victims in overnight, put them on an IV, get the antibiotics straight in’. I declined this kind offer, as it was not presented as an absolute.

I returned home, treading cautiously, but quickly through the passage of doom, to spend a sleepless night, mostly due to not having been provided any guidance on how to comfortably sleep with one arm in a sling.

 

 

The Aftermath.

From this point on, I acquire the, mostly unwanted, attention of a building’s worth of work colleagues, providing a variety of viewpoints and opinions, which I shall appraise:

1)  That I should sue. Give the dog a fucking good kicking, and sue. Give the old woman a fucking good kicking and sue her arse off. Take them for everything they’ve got. Kicking. Sue. Court. Kill the dog. Admittedly, only one individual was quite this litigious/violent in his response, but I thought it worth noting.

2) ‘What did you do to it?’ This was the most popular response, to see things from the dog’s point of view.  Not quite sure what these people thought I might have done. Bad mouthed it in front of other (better) dogs? Stolen its fucking bone? No. I merely existed in the same space as him, at a point in time when he was, apparently, ‘frightened’.

3) At least one wag did not believe it was a dog bite, as though those kinds of things simply do not happen. ‘No, what really happened?’ the giggling implying that the injury was somehow the result of excessive self-abuse or bizarre sexual injury.

4) That I should, rightfully, have been embarrassed to have been bitten by such a small dog, and that if I was to have been bitten by a dog, it should have been a much better and manlier dog.

‘Ere, lads, Quiggers got bit by a dog. I heard it was one inch tall and fucking bent!’

‘We fucking hate you, Quigley, you effeminate little ponce, and we’re going to stamp on you until you’ve been bitten by the Hound of the facking Baskervilles, you piece of shit!’

‘My Granddad got bit by a dog every day of his life and it never did ‘im no ‘arm. ‘

 

So, yes, I did used to be a dog lover. Over the years my family home had a procession of unloved dogs from the local pound, which we saved from extinction, loved and cared for.

Now I cross the street to avoid them. They know that I’ve been marked for life. One of them has tasted my blood, and he liked it. They somehow understand that my blood, flesh and, probably, balls, are theirs to devour.

Yes, a dog may be man’s best friend, but it’s worth considering, I think, that they don’t always share this point of view.

(And for future reference, it’s my right hand where I sustained my wanking injury).