German Shepherds Can Kill. I’m Just Asking Owners to be Careful.

This morning, I awoke to news on the “Today Show” that the First Couple’s family pets -- German Shepherds – had been sent home to Delaware due to a biting “incident,” laughed off by Today Show personalities as a Big Nothing Biscuit.

When news broke a few months ago about the dogs joining the President and First Lady as permanent residents in the White House, I felt trepidation, based on my own early-life experience – but in addition, based on the seemingly total naivety from the news media, which widely fawned over the “furry friends” and the White House’s “first rescue dog,” along with the promise of photo opportunities to come.

My own experiences aside, I don’t begrudge anyone their choice of household pet, as long as those choices don’t endanger the lives and safety of other people.

In the case of any First Family, there is also the inherent matter that choices modeled by a President and First Lady may be adopted by others.

I was concerned about German Shepherds – as a breed – being adopted suddenly by households nationwide as “America’s Dog,” or something like that, and without disclaimers for households with young children or similarly vulnerable individuals.

German Shepherds can be very dangerous animals.

There is a reason why they are the No. 1 breed for K-9 police units: they can be ferocious, and they can kill.

Does it mean that no one should have German Shepherds as pets? No.

However, owners need to be aware of the risks specific to the breed, and as a matter of personal responsibility, owners should train, manage and – most of all – contain their German Shepherd, for the protection of others.   

The same holds true for any dog breed or any kind of pet that could pose attack risks.

When I was a 1st-grader in elementary school in April 1979, my family travelled to a neighbor’s farm to look at buying a new horse for my brother.

The family had a working farm just down the highway from our farm, with stables and – as we discovered when we arrived – three dogs as pets.

All three dogs seemed friendly. 

We had a dog at home ourselves – a collie – and at that age, I only knew dogs to be friendly.

My family and I ventured to the horse stables, with the three dogs following closely alongside us.

My brother and I were patting and hugging all of the dogs, just as we would our own dog at home … but I noticed that when I would pat the big one – the dog that almost looked wolf-like – a low, guttural sound would come from his throat.

“What is that sound?” my mother asked, out loud. Clearly, it was coming from the large dog I was patting, but it didn’t sound like a “growl” that we had ever heard. 

“I’m going to go put him up,” said the farm owner, as he left with the German shepherd – presumably to put the dog in a pen or back inside the house – and soon, the owner returned to the stables, as we continued looking at the horse for sale.

As my family wrapped up the visit and prepared to leave, I ran ahead of my parents and brother back to our car, which was parked at the edge of the front yard.

There, sitting on the ground next to our car’s rear door – not tied up or contained in any way – was the German shepherd.

Just before reaching the car to get in, I bent down casually to give the dog one last pat on the head.

With lightning speed and unbelievable ferocity, the German shepherd leapt up with his full weight overtaking my body, thrusting me backward, his front paw knocking out one of my teeth as the back of my head crashed into the ground behind me.

Then all I saw was red.

The left side of my face was getting ripped apart.

But I felt nothing.

My body’s nerve-endings immediately shut down into survival-shock. Total numbness replaced what would have been unspeakable pain, had I been able to feel it.

A German shepherd’s bite power typically registers at 238 pounds per square inch, and in that moment, every inch between this dog’s 238 pounds of brute bite-force was my seven-year-old face.

The entire episode lasted only seconds, and it was later conjectured that the only thing that kept this dog from doing to my windpipe what he did to my face was when my father and mother came sprinting from the horse stables, having heard me screaming… but then not screaming.

As soon as the dog saw my father running toward it, the dog ran away, leaving me in a bloodied lump for my father to sweep up in a total panic.

My brother dived into the front seat of the car.

My mother frantically entered the rear door as my father draped me over my mother’s lap across the back seat.

The property owner hastily tossed to my mother a rag through the car window to stave off the bleeding as my father floored the accelerator, racing to the closest hospital.

Everyone in that car believed I might die, prompted, I’m sure, by the fact that I kept mumbling it in my haze… “I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”

The rest of that evening in April 1979 is a blur…

...The sound of sirens from the ambulance as I was transported from our local hospital to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville;

...The ambulance medic telling me over and over during the drive to Vanderbilt, “Don’t fall asleep; Stay awake; Don’t fall sleep,” as I fought to keep my eyes opened and they clearly feared the potential outcomes of my losing consciousness from the blood loss;

...Seeing my distorted reflection on the curved-chrome light fixture over my pre-op hospital gurney… and not knowing if the mangled mass that I was seeing of my own face was real or not;

...Feeling two nurses hold me down while another stuck what felt like countless needles in my face as they tried to deaden the flesh where a surgeon was about to sew 100 stiches across my left cheek, eye and forehead, as my family went through the additional horror of hearing my screams down the hospital corridor.

For years after that night, there were follow-on experiences that shaped my childhood:

First, I didn’t return to school that academic year; but I managed to complete 1st grade, thanks to my parents’ efforts and a home-bound teacher.

The first day I was ever back at school, many kids either stared or ran away, often with comments like "Eww... Gross!" in clear earshot. But several children whom I’ll never forget gathered around me on the playground, holding my hands, and placing their arms around my shoulders in friendship, and shooing away the obvious gawkers.

A year later, I had a second round of plastic surgery to take the worst gash across my left check and surgically re-sew it into a sort of up-and-down zig-zag – like a flame-stitch – so that as I grew up and my face matured, the scarring would blend more naturally into my face. More stiches, which were not welcomed, but the strategy worked. Once it healed, fewer people stared.  

For the remainder of my young childhood, I wasn’t allowed to have direct sunlight on my face that could enflame the scar and exacerbate the permanent damage. I was a sunscreen maven before it was cool.

I ultimately recovered, and I was thankful.

About 20 years later – after I was married and living in an East Tennessee community hundreds of miles away from where I grew up – I took a walk one peaceful evening, alone, through our neighborhood.

Suddenly, a very large, viciously barking dog (not a German shepherd) came running from behind a close-by home and charged at me through the boundary of the yard to the street (clearly, there was no fence, invisible or otherwise).

Petrified, I stood still, as the dog stopped just short of me, still barking and growling and appearing that it was going to attack me at any moment. It was something of an ambush, and I didn’t have a way to get away from or out-run it.

Finally, the homeowner peeked her head out the front door and – saying nothing to me – instead sweetly called to her growling monstrosity to return to the house, which, finally, it did. 

I proceeded the rest of the way home on my walk, stepped through the front door of my house, and promptly lost it. 

In this day and age, people throw around the word “attack” in describing simple disagreements of words or ideas.

But I’m not sure that anyone can perceive the word “attack” in a realistic way until they’ve experienced and survived a physical assault – whether by a so-called “domesticated” but otherwise wild animal or by another human – something or someone with every desire, intention and capability of physically ending your life by inflicting violent, irreversible and fatal damage to your body.

I share this story with a repeated word of warning about the danger that certain dogs can pose. 

When a dog behaves in an unpredictable way – whether “snapping” at someone or in an all-out attack – owners need to take notice and take action.

After my experience in April 1979, my parents learned later that the dog that attacked me had also snapped at the farm owner’s granddaughter, months prior. The dog was known to be unpredictable. Unfortunately, the risk was shrugged off, and my young life (and that of my whole family) was impacted in a very serious way.

I applaud the Bidens for giving a home to one or more shelter animals, but I hope that they will take seriously the issues I've tried to explain here, for the safety of their own family as well as White House staff and visitors. 

Mary Beth West can be followed on Twitter: @marybethwest.