Every day I interact with my puppy, an 8 month old pitbull with large, beautifully white, razor-sharp teeth, I am reminded of an experience from my childhood.
I was 8 years old. My sister, 10 years older, had invited a friend from high school over and the girl brought her dog, an Irish Setter. The girls were kind enough to let me hang out with them in my sister's room. At some point, they left the room and me alone with the dog. I put my arm around his shoulders the way one does when about to have a conversation, and turned my face to say something to him. And in a split-second, he bit me.
I screamed. The dog ran out of the room.
I screamed again. The girls came into the room. My sister called for my mother, who was in her studio, and rushed me to the bathroom. In the mirror I could see my right cheek hanging off my face. Blood everywhere. My mother held a towel to my face and remained calm, despite the fact that my face was a bloody mess and I was crying hysterically.
We drove to the emergency room. It took 25 stitches to sew my cheek back on. The doctors told my mother I would need plastic surgery one day to repair the scar. I went to school a day later with a patch on my face, and for the next few months had a terrible-looking wound in plain sight of the other children, who were fascinated with the morphing scar tissue and discoloration.
The bite spanned from half an inch below my right eye to the right bottom of my nose. Early on, my mother had told the doctors I would be fine. No plastic surgery would be necessary. By that point, I was familiar with her stubborn positivity. When we had moved from Israel to America mid-way through my last year of kindergarten, my U.S. teachers wanted to keep me for another year. My mother told them "No way." I would be just fine.
She ended up being right in both cases.
I was fine in the first grade. And though the scar took a long time to heal, it did heal. To the point of being almost imperceptible.
We owned two dogs after that, consecutively not at the same time. Judah was a German Shepherd and Lenny was a mix of German Shepherd and Saint Bernard. I always felt a special connection with Lenny, whom we adopted when he was two years old and I was 12. I walked him every day after school. I told him all my problems and made up stories and entire conversations. I took him sledding with me and my friends. I would watch TV with my head on his stomach. If I looked at him from across the room his tail would start wagging.
Sometimes I wonder how did I not develop a fear of dogs. Besides being exposed to them, I think on some instinctual level I knew that there was something wrong with that particular dog, not all dogs in general. Which is not to say I don't get a little nervous when I see children put their faces into a dog's face. But I do it all the time with my own dog. She has grown accustomed to me hugging and doting on her. We are often nose to nose, looking into each other eyes, her paws pushed into my neck.
Unfortunately, she does bark at small children. I think they scare her. She looks at them with confusion, as if unable to comprehend how humans can be small and unpredictable like that. She's still too young to feel more mature than them, or perhaps safe from them. But I have faith that she will overcome this and be just fine.