Dog bite

Sometime back in August we started cleaning the deck. Gobs of green-gray grunge had grown thick, creating a gross and, when wet, greasy coating on the surfaces of the wood. We scrubbed and scrubbed and eventually it came clean. Most of it. And then the fall rains set in and soaked the wood, delaying the staining of the newly-found surfaces.

In addition to cleaning the deck, we extracted the stump that protruded through the floor near one corner. The extraction was quite a project. We should perhaps have hired a good dentist. Once I had it was cut off underneath the deck, it took both kids and Sharon to help me gradually lever the thing up and out of the hole. When the deck was new, several years before it was our deck, it was probably really nice having that big tree to create a natural umbrella. Perhaps instead of patching the hole where the tree came through, we should have planted another. That would have required a little deeper digging to extract the rest of the stump. It's still an option.

Here's Quinn popping up through the tree hole a few weeks ago:



And this is the deck with it's fresh coat of stain, just a couple of weeks ago:



We still have the stump. Perhaps, since Quinn just loves "stump-jumpin'" on his little red and white bicycle, we should figure out a way for him to jump it. It's not more than 30 cm in diamter.

And what does this have to do with a dog bite, anyway? Nothing really, but last weekend the kids and I went to Rose Lake for a run-n-ride. Rose Lake is a public hunting and wildlife area with lots of good trails for skiing, biking, and running. We went on a Sunday afternoon while Cindy was resting after a 10-mile training run. I ran, and the kids rode the trails (we've been testing out everyone's interest in doing some trail running and mountain biking). While we were there, we passed a man walking a couple of skinnny white dogs. He warned us not to pet them as we went by. He had their leashes in his hand but they were running ahead on the trail. When they heard us, they turned around to run back to him - maybe he had called them, but I'm not sure. As they ran past us, back toward their owner, one of them took a bite of me. It nipped me on the calf, only slightly breaking the skin, but leaving quite a bruise. I yelped! He put the dog on a a leash, and apologized. Even now, a week later, I have an oval bruise on my leg that's about 30 by 40 millimeters across. We talked to the man briefly and he assured us that the dogs had had rabies shots - but was I going to try to read those tags? No. I should have asked for his name so I could confirm the status of their shots. I didn't. Later we thought we got his license plate, but we must have been wrong, because the plates didn't match the vehicle the guy was driving, and the owner of that car said he was nowhere near the park that day. Maybe I got a couple of letters or numbers turned around, but I didn't think so. Interestingly, the guy the officer spoke to did have a white dog registered to him, but not two white dogs.

I have until Wednesday this week to decide whether I should start the series of rabies vaccinations. I think I will not. There have been no dogs with rabies in this area for several years, and this year only two bats have tested positive. No raccoons and no skunks, either. I think my odds are pretty good, but there is a very, very slight risk.