Now, in all fairness, Tuesday wasn't the worst day I've ever had. In fact, it doesn't even rank in the top 10 of worst days. But I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a bad day though.
It started out with ominous foreboding. I got called into the break room to sit through another in-house video. Everyone has to go through this once in a while. The company you work for has a series of video productions designed to train you to do certain things or point out better ways to handle certain situations. You have to watch them. It's sort of a necessary evil really. The people in the video are always exaggerating everything. If you work in a store and you're supposed to be smiling all the time to greet customers, you can bet that the person in the video is wearing a grin as big as Batman's The Joker.
20 minutes long, this video. That's much longer than the previous ones we've sat through. I kept thinking that there were much better ways I could be spending my time. Worse, I got called in Monday afternoon so I closed the store Monday night and had to open again Tuesday morning. Lost a little bit of sleep along the way so I was already dragging.
Fast-forward to about noon. Things are busy but not hectic. I'm scheduled to go home at 1 when the bather comes in. I'm packing things up because an hour isn't enough time for me to have a dog finished so anything that comes in at that point is shifted to the bather. We get a phone call from said bather who wants to talk to someone about calling in sick for a second day. The groomer on duty takes the call and then calls the salon manager to ask how she should handle things. She turns to me and asks if I could go check on a chow that's been drying and if it's ready, bring it out. Sure, no problem.
I go back to the kennels, open up the cage. I reach in and check the chest, nice and dry. I check the belly, nice and dry. Check the dog's left side, nice and dry, then I reach across to check the right and, well something just didn't add up right. Couldn't quite figure out what that was at first but then it hit me: my arm is in this dog's mouth . . . and it HURTS!
It's one of those situations where, looking back, everything seems like it's in slow motion. I'm reaching over to check the dog, its mouth moves down, opens up and clamps down on my arm. Teeth sink in. Just like that. No growls, no shrinking back. No warning. Just the bite.
Now, I'd LIKE to say I handled this calmly, like in the movies where the hero takes a bullet to the shoulder and shrugs it off. That would be lying of course, but I'd LIKE to say that's how I handled it. Instead I let out a yell that had me sounding a lot like Eric Cartman from South Park. Then I pulled back, the dog let go and I slammed the cage shut with my foot and latched it.
I didn't go nuts after that. I was pretty calm. Got a paper towel to cover it up, told the groomer to call the manager on duty so we could write up the paperwork. Oddly enough, it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have, which worried me a little bit.
I called CC and had her come over to take me to the emergency room. Did a little paperwork, showed a few people how nasty it looked. Then over to the ER where they pretty much took me right away. Not that I looked all freaky with blood pouring out of me or anything like that. In fact, very little blood at all. Just two big punctures and teeth marks (CC has pictures that she'll post to her blog).
The whole time I kept thinking that it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should. I've had less serious bites by smaller dogs that hurt WAY more than that. Then I figured out what it was. The bottom jaw of the chow hit my elbow. Made it all tingly, like when you smack your elbow on the desk or the corner of a wall. So that's really all I felt, that sort of tingly, almost numb feeling.
It didn't take long to get it cleaned up. We made it home a little early in fact. My arm's sore now, but more like muscle pain than anything else. Nothing some Tylenol can't take care of. And I've got to clean the wound twice a day and take antibiotics. Otherwise, that's about it.
My boss told me this morning I've officially been Christened in the world of dog grooming. I'm now "one of them."
All this drama gives me an excuse to post this music video CC showed me once. I like how it ends and it didn't really go with any of my previous entries . . .
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