We got a new dog, a dalmatian. This was not inspired by a movie, we just needed a new dog and this one was available. 

I liked the idea of a new dog. Not sure what happened to the previous dog; might have been the one that bit some visitor and had to leave us.

So I was outside the house, hanging out with the new dog.  And I did something silly that I never told anybody. I had a butter knife from the kitchen and for some reason decided to pet the dog with the knife, to run it over the dog’s fur as if it was a dog brush.

I will never know if the butter knife struck some sort of fear into the dog, but it turned and bit me hard on the arm. I was wearing a fairly warm jacket on this fall day, so I didn’t bleed, but it hurt and I ran into the house and told my mother the dog bit me.

I left out the reference to the butter knife.

That evening when my father got home from work he and my mother gathered on the living room couch with the dog and discussed what to do. It seems pretty clear that the dog was gentle and friendly and they figured that the afternoon incident was just a one time oddball thing that would not happen again.

I was up in my room in order to stay away from the dog. But they called me down and said I should come down and make friends with the dog, who was clearly a sweetheart.

So I joined Mom and Dad, and probably big brother Fred, by the couch where they told me to go ahead and pet the dog. I reached for his fur – with no butter knife.

The dog turned and this time did not bite my arm; it bit my face and there was a goodly amount of blood. I have no idea if they took me to a doctor or called good old Dr. Jacobs, who made house calls.

I remember nothing after that scene by the couch. But I still have some little scars on my face from that dalmation.

Needless to say, the dog found itself a new home, or perhaps something more sad was in its future; I never knew.

We soon got another dog, a collie named Bonnie, who was as gentle as a collie should be. In fact, when groups of deer would gather to graze in the fields, Bonnie would hide under the couch (that same couch) because she was scared of the deer. 

Perhaps because Bonnie was so truly gentle, my bad experience with the dog bite never developed into a general fear of dogs, not even of dalmatians.