dog bite

i was on the phone with my sister while i watching my daughter play outside. she walked over to our dog, jesse. next thing i know, she is screaming and crying, running inside and holding her arm. jesse had snapped at her arm. he was laying outside chewing on his rawhide. she went over to him, talked to him, and then reached down to pick up the rawhide. the officer has told her to not handle any of the dog's food. i imagine she was just going to pick up to look at. jesse snapped and her on the inside of her forearm. he did get her but i think it scared her most of all.

when she came in crying, she was screaming, "this is the first time jesse has ever bitten me! he's bitten brother before, but never me!!!!" jesse had snapped at our son before when he had accidentally fallen on him. she's holding her arm and when she pulls back her hand i see this is not a horrible bite but it looked weird. the part that was red and bleeding a little was in the shape of a "3". i called the nurse because even though our dogs are up to date with their shots, i didn't know if there was something outside of putting neosporin and a band-aid on it.

the nurse could hear my daughter crying in the background and said "well she's upset anyway, so if you can take her into the bathroom and scrub the wound with a washcloth & soap for 5 minutes. try to make it bleed. okay - this is going to be fun. i take my daughter into the shower and sat her on my lap. she had calmed down and i was prepared to have to fight her to scrub her bite. i told her i had to clean it and she let me have her arm. i started to scrub with the bite and she didn't cry. she didn't cry the whole time i was vigorously scrubbing her arm. she said it didn't hurt. it didn't start bleeding again for a couple of minutes. she didn't really like the blood but she was a trooper. we put a dora band-aid (a cure-all in our household) and she was fine the rest of the night.

i was worried about if she was going to be scared of jesse, but this morning she went out to play. she came in and said, "mommy i gave jesse a hug and petted his head and he said, "i'm sorry."

it could have been much worse. she didn't have to get stitches. it's a little more red today than yesterday, but we will continue to watch it. all is good.

**update** well it's been 3 days and the bite did get infected. we took her to the doctor today and the doctor gave us some antibiotics & a topical cream. she's been hanging in there but doesn't really enjoy the washing with soap and water bit. everything should be cleared up in about a week.