This is one of life’s lessons you hope never happens to ya, a dog you’ve grown to trust as your friend gets ugly.

Be patient, some of this is fuzzy, it was almost 30 years ago 😛
This happened back when I was 5 years old, and was a pretty big deal at the time. My mom and I were alone in the house for a while and my Mom had borrowed her sister’s dog for added security. “Spade” was a jet black Lab/Colly mix that I had long since befriended and he was one of my friends to play with as a kid. One night its was getting late i was watching tv, I got real tired. Since Spade was right next to me sleeping blissfully away, i thought he would make a great pillow and put my head down on his chest.

Spade was greatly startled and growled and snapped at me for what seemed like 5-10 seconds. What really happened was the dog was having a dog’s version of a nightmare and I was mauled when the dog was woken. After the dog got through, I turned to my mom (who was knitting on the couch behind me) ans said, “Something is wrong with the dog.” I have never seen a look of terror so great on my mom’s face. All of a sudden I realized that i could not see through my right eye and my lips felt funny. My mom was running to me dragging the phone in one hand and a towel and stuff in the other…

…*blink*…(minutes pass)
We’re driving someplace, I think the hospital. Aunt Toni and my Mom keep yelling at me to keep the towel pressed to my eye.

…*blink*…(minutes pass)
I am on a hospital gurney. There is a gazillion people standing over me and we’re moving quite fast. Everyone is talking to me and I am trying to respond, but it doesnt seem I have the ability to speak properly all of a sudden.

…*blink*…(minutes pass)
I am in a scary room with lights. The guy standing over me says “Tony, you’ve got to try and stop talking, we cant help you when you’re talking.” Another guys says, “Turn the juice up, he’s not going under without a fight.” I remember distinctly being able to count down to 56 from 100 before the lights went out.
…*blink*… (days pass)

I wake up to being dressed like a mummy!!! As I am trying to make sense of things like – Why am I bandaged up all over my head? Where am I? Why wont my legs move where I want them to? I figure comes in and tells me I need to go bacl to sleep. The world goes dark again…

…*blink*… (days pass)

I wake up again, this time I am WAY HUNGRY. I see that to my left is a candy bar waiting for me on the nightstand. I reach for it, and am quite thankful they didnt dress my entire body up as a mummy, as well as having a snack ready. I get myself off the bed and promptly fall down. All of a sudden there are bunches of people around me all grinning ear to ear and it seems like everyone is carrying a present of some sort…WOOHOO!! I try to talk and find that this stupid mummy thing is REALY getting on my nerves. People are totally interpreting my words wrong and scrambling to get stuff I dont need…wierdos. I decide that the funny mask has to go and reach for it…suddenly everyone is holding me down. I still dont know whats going on, and proceed to start bitching at everyone in the room with alot of words I am not supposed to even know yet.

Then…I get a taste of the truth. I am told that they are keeping me sedated on purpose because i keep trying to mess with the face mask. I retort that it may have worked better if they had remembered that I could hear just fine, and thankfully didnt get put to sleep again…at least not by more drugs…however it seems what was already in my system was enough.

..*blink*… (days later)

I wake up again…everyone in my local family is crowded into the room. One of the docs I remember from the gas-mask count down incident is checking my bandage…no…he’s taking it off!!! A big letdown, he’s only taking it off enough to let me speak clearly (as much as possible with 70+ stitches running throughout my mouth.)

…*blink*…(amount of time unknown)

The big day is here!!! I get this stupid bandage off! Everyone is around again, i have candybars…pop…and a pile of homework thats just scary all waiting for me 😉

…*blink*…(amount of time unknown)

I am fully coherent now, the drugs have worn off, and I have seen what happened in the mirror…it was pretty gruesome. I also get more details about the incident. I was in shock so much that the NO2 they were feeding me wasnt working well. It’s also the reason everything was so clear. However they had to give me too much, and me, being a little 5 year old boy, too a nice long nap. Yes…that time measured in weeks. Technically they never said the word “coma” to me, but thats what it felt like and ther was an element of dialogue I remember occurring with my mom and the doctor that was deliberately forgotten after I came to.

So, I am awake and totally hating it…there is this big wire loop coming out of my eye! There are stitches virtually everywhere and I am all kinds of swollen. Three more weeks I endured those damn things…still hated them.

…the worst part was my reaction to dogs. Even though I had one, I still never really got over what the dog did and to this day can “freeze up” when a dog enters the room. It happens only once in a blue moon now. But after spending so much time terrified of them, I almost feel like it was misused time. My next dog will be a German Shepherd / Mastiff mix.
The moral of the story:

Let sleeping dogs lay.

Dont use sleeping dogs as pillows either.