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I have never been bitten by my own dogs. I have been bitten by a big, white, fluffy dog when I was a teen. But you didn't ask so I won't tell the story.
To break up a dog fight, yes, the LAST thing you want to do is put yourself or any part of your body between them OR grab for their necks.
Grab them by the hind legs and DRAG them away from the fight. Hard to do when no one has the other dog but sticking your hand or leg or arm or your entire self in between them will not work and trying to grab yours by the scruff of the neck isn't going to work either. By that time, your dog is, "in the zone" and it just reacting, not aware of who is grabbing him/her.
Take the hind legs, or wrap your leash around their hind legs, and pull them away.
I was bitten by my dog (what's a shame) because I was a teen and didn't know how to train him properly, or because we teased him a lot and made him more aggressive (it's our fault, not his). When he slept at the end of my bed, I turned over and kicked him by accident, and I thought he was panicked and bite my foot
And another time with my another dogs, 2 of them were in the fight and I tried to pull them apart but they were fighting and one of them bite my hand, I had to go to the hospital and got 6 stitches
But I still love them ...
Yes. I have small scars on my right thumb and the back of my right hand from being bitten by a dog. I was a little girl at the time -- 4 or 5? -- and I really don't have any recollection of it. I just remember where we lived at the time, etc. Like, I can remember that we lived in an apartment complex, and I can remember that the bite took place in a breezeway/stairwell. The one scar on the back of my hand is about 4 mm long as an adult, so I imagine it was a much bigger injury when I was little. The scars on my thumb are very small. (Edited to add that I just realized the OP was asking about having been bitten by one's OWN dog. The dog that bit me was not ours.)
As an adult, I've never been bitten and required medical attention. However, we had a Sheltie who bit my grandmother, and we had to take G'mother to the doctor. I really don't remember the circumstances, as I wasn't living at home at the time. The dog bite was reported to the authorities, and Animal Control came out and checked Phoebe out to see if she was "dangerous." And about 5 years ago, my parents' dog (a small Siberian Husky female) bit my dad on the hand and put him in the hospital with dangerous septicemia. In her case, she was having a grand mal seizure in the yard. My dad went to try to help her, and when he got too close, she lunged and bit him on the hand. Animal control investigated that one, too, and again nothing came of it. (She was having a SEIZURE, for crying out loud! How do you blame a dog for biting when it's having a seizure??)
Despite having been bitten, I have never had any fear of dogs. Actually...scratch that.... I wouldn't call it "fear," but I'm definitely FAR more wary of little dogs -- under 15 pounds, we'll say -- than big dogs, especially if that little dog is displaying lots of fear aggression and barking. (I wonder if the dog that bit me was a miniature poodle, because they're one of the dogs I still can't stand as an adult. I'm always going to give a wide berth to a yappy miniature poodle.) Big dogs can do more damage when they bite, but little dogs seem to get away with it precisely BECAUSE they are little dogs. I sometimes think owners feel that little dogs aren't as much of a threat, so they don't put as much effort into training, etc., which often results in a little 10-pound terror who snaps and lunges and makes wolfy faces. Whereas, all the big dogs I know are much better behaved/socialized.
I've never been bitten by my own dog, who is neither big nor small. Willie is a 35-pound beagle mix.
Willie bit J. on the face a few months ago, and it was very, very, very upsetting to me. Willie sleeps at the foot of our bed, and if we're in bed but still awake, like reading or using a laptop or something, he'll down at the foot and just kinda chill, but he doesn't usually go to sleep until we do. I was in the den one Sunday night, grading papers, and J was in bed, using his laptop. Willie had been lounging on the bed, too, but had fallen asleep. J's laptop needed to be plugged in, and he sat up and reached for the cord, which was alongside the bed. He had to reach over Willie to get it, and while he was doing that, Willie woke up, and lunged, and clipped J right at the eyebrow. Scared the hell out of J. I heard him shout, and came in to blood EVERYwhere, John with his hand over his eye, and Willie curled up in a ball in the corner. All J could say was "Willie bit me in the face." My heart stopped...I pulled J into the bathroom, cleaned him up, saw that it was a small cut over his eye, nothing big or deep, and disinfected it. Then we had a serious discussion about what to do about Willie. We ultimately ended up keeping him, and, against my preferences, he still sleeps on the bed. J. is careful to nudge him awake before making any sudden movements. I'm not as thrilled, since I don't want to get bitten for rolling over in my sleep, or anything, but I didn't win this one.
Willie's never bitten, before or since, since we got him, or even acted like he might. It was obviously a case of him being startled/awakened to someone bent over him. But even at that rate, it left me feeling really shaky about things. When I saw J holding his eye, I thought Willie had put his eye out.
Yup - I've been bitten a lot and every single time its been my fault. We always adopt "damaged" dogs. The ones that carry physical and/or emotional baggage and their chances of being adopted by most other people is pretty small. Mostly, I've been bitten in training sessions working with a dog to get them to overcome some sort of fear. Garden hoses, brooms & leashes, seem to be the most common fear triggers I've run into. The training is mostly helping them to understand that it wasn't the "object" that hurt them but the "(insert your favorite expletive here)" that used the object that was responsible. Over time, they "get it" and the object isn't scary anymore. It takes a lot of work and patience though. There have been times when I pushed a bit too fast or to hard and a dog has lashed out. I've never been seriously hurt. Fear aggression is about getting away, not attacking or doing damage. None of them have ever been aggressive, they were frightened.
Yes, I've been bitten but none ever broke the skin. First time was a toy poodle when I worked for a vet.
A few years ago one of my own snapped when I was trying to very gently remove some burrs from his coat and he had always been super sensitive when being brushed and the least little tug on his skin was beyond what he could endure.
About two years ago one of my old black labs bit me when my foot ever so gently grazed him as we were both asleep in the bed. For some reason he'd become intolerant of that sort of touch and had snapped at both the other dogs on several occasions when awoken like that. Although he did not even break the skin when he caught me it hurt and I yelped once since I was startled too. But I didn't yell or scold him, since I know it was sort of an instinctive reaction, not really intentional on his part. After that night he never again slept in the bed with us even though I encouraged him many times. I can only assume that either he didn't want to be disturbed by me or the other dogs or that he didn't want to ever inadvertently bite me again. He would come up in the bed in the mornings when we were all awake and have a pet and a snuggle but from then on he spent the night sleeping in my old daybed in the office which is very comfortable and I am known to nap there on some afternoons.
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