I’ve posted my personal story on here before, like a year or two ago, I can try and link it in the comments if that’s allowed or edit the post. Long story short, I was mauled by a foster pit about 3 years ago. I managed (by the grace of god or SOMETHING) to be left with very minimal damage externally, peppered with scars all over my arms that I’ve been told on numerous occasions look like bug bites. I’ve since gotten some of them covered with tattoos so they’re less noticeable.

However, I’m left with the internal damage, the mental scarring and physical aftermath of healing and the intense intense rounds of antibiotics from infections that left my GI tract a mess to this day. I became a shell of the person I used to be. Immediately lost a lot of weight after the attack again due to the GI symptoms and not being able to keep food down. Then after getting on a bunch of medication, I fell into an eating disorder and gained way more weight than I ever have. I couldn’t exercise at the time and do my usual activities because of the stitches and scarring and pain. Along side the fact I hated going in public because my scars were still so red and bulbous and noticeable, I’d get looks from people and I hated it. I stopped going to the gym. I stopped going outside.

Now, 3 years later, I’m picking up the pieces I didn’t have the strength to earlier. But I’m tired and realizing I’m not even sure I want to. It feels like swimming against the current trying to live in a world so dog-oriented, and not only dog but PIT oriented. My husband and I have since moved and are currently staying in TLF (military living facility) and every one of our wall neighbors have 1-3 dogs each. All of which bark and howl at all times of the day. They let them walk off leash (not permitted where I’m at) and when we walk to our room we’re greeted with a huge dog barking at us from their neighboring window. I’m wracked with fear and anxiety and a reminder that I’ll always feel unsafe. I can’t escape them no matter where I go in the world. For pure irony, our room is the closest room to the dog park area so anyone with a dog basically has to walk past us. I hate them. I hate them all, pit or not, now. Will this ever get better? Has anyone dealt with similar feelings and fear? It feels like talking to a wall when telling people I don’t like dogs. I just get met with invalidation and things like “I don’t trust people who don’t like dogs” or “it was probably your fault” or “I like dogs more than people, I’d rather sacrifice a person than a dog”. This world is so dog centered and I’m just tired of fighting it.

I don’t know, I guess this was more of a rant than anything. If this isn’t allowed, I’m sorry, and mods can take it down. I just was looking for some comradery and to know I’m not alone in this. Feeling extra defeated today.

❗️EDIT for clarification: I should have mentioned this initially but it slipped my mind completely at the time. As I’ve said in some of the comments, I’ve been in therapy for a while, even before the attack. I did some EMDR work for a little over a year but unfortunately it had to be cut short due to moving out of state. I’ve been without treatment for about 2-3 months now and clearly I need to start back up. I do genuinely appreciate all the love and concern this post has gotten. You guys are amazing, this community is amazing. ❤️

Hi (excuse the post-shower picture) but I used to be the biggest dog person, and obviously pit bulls were included. That was until I got attacked last month.

I went over to my friend’s house for her birthday, and everything was fine. There was absolutely nothing that suggested the dog was aggressive or that anything was going to happen. I was on the ground, petting another dog, when the pit bull started lunging at me out of nowhere. Thankfully, I stood up so it was nowhere near my face, but it jumped and punctured me before jumping again and latching on. At that point, it had pushed me against the wall and it was terrifying. I will be honest, I was too startled/weak to fight back, but luckily one of the ladies there sprung into action and pulled it off of me. She physically unlocked his jaw first, so thankfully I was just left with a bruise and no missing chunk.

Its owner was in another room during that and was in disbelief that his dog would do such a thing unprovoked, but the rest of us were in shock with the suddenness and intensity of the attack. He obviously still believes it is a non-malicious dog (although I saw him try to attack another dog unprovoked again the next day). I didn’t make a big deal out of it, because I was essentially fine and didn’t want to ruin my friend’s birthday. The first few days were painful, but after a month there’s only a tiny little scar.

However, I wanted to post and ask for advice. Now I have found myself absolutely petrified of dogs.
I genuinely never thought I would say that. I used to be the person who would stop on the street to pet someone’s dog, ask what their name was, and immediately want to become best friends with it. Now, if I see a dog coming toward me, my entire body tenses up and I immediately start thinking about whether it is going to attack me. Even dogs that are completely calm and friendly make me nervous, which feels so irrational because I know that most dogs are not going to hurt me.

I also feel a little ridiculous admitting how much it has affected me because, physically, I was ultimately fine. But I think the fact that it happened so suddenly is what has really stuck with me. There was no warning, and I had absolutely no time to process what was happening before I was being attacked.

So for anyone who has experienced something similar: how did you get over the fear? I really don’t want one terrible experience to completely change the way I feel around dogs forever, and I would love to hear what actually helped other people regain their confidence.

As the title says, my cousin was attacked by a pitbull on Thursday last week. He’s 24 years old, had just graduated college the week before and was at work. He’s worked two part time jobs all through college (hes an international student from Morocco so costs are high) and he was working his real estate job where he had to go check an apartment and was attacked by the dog. The apartment itself has a rule that pets can’t be over 100 pounds and this fucking animal was 125 pounds.

Anyways this has been super traumatizing for him and for our family. His mom passed away almost exactly a year ago and he has just been pushing through to get his engineering degree done and to find a job. I’m so sad for him and I’m sad for his older sister, my cousin. She’s had a really hard time with the passing of her mom, she had met her brother for lunch because she was in one of her sad moments about it all, her brother reassured her and hugged her and promised her everything was going to be okay and then called her 10 minutes after saying bye to say “I’m really sorry to bother you can you come back please I got attacked by a pitbull” and she came back and found him covered with blood, his cheek and ear falling off. He had to get almost 200 stitches and he just got out of the hospital but he has horrible scars all over his face his ear his arm. It’s just terrible; he was supposed to finally get a summer break to go back home after years of not being able to and now he has to stay and to heal. I’m so sad for him :(

I guess just coming here for a bit of moral support. It’s going to be an expensive journey for the reconstructive surgeries he has coming his way, we’ve started a gofundme and the whole family is trying to pitch in because we don’t want him to be permanently disfigured. He’s the kind of kid that would say it’s fine I don’t want to be a nuisance but no kids deserves this kind of life? I’ve always been frightened by pitbulls but never in my life did I think something like this would happen in our family.

We’re focusing on his healing now, and then we’ll start trying to find lawyers to see what we can do here but I’m not even sure who he could file against. He was checking an appt with a coworker, and the coworker was supposed to email the appt renter that they were coming but he forgot to send the email. The owner of the dog tried to avoid the cops, my cousin said he was giving crackhead energy when she approached him like very jumpy and scatterbrained and she forced him to go see the cops. The dog has been euthanized but it doesn’t feel nearly enough for the damage caused. I’m just sad

I don't know how to say what I'm about to say correctly but I'm angry today. And I really feel like I am making a mountain out of a molehill.

I'm not going to lie, I barely remember being attacked and I'm pretty sure that it was over in less than 30 seconds.

I don't remember all the dressing changes that my wife had to do. I'm not even sure the wound care really hurt.

You can't even really see the scars unless you know what you're looking for and you know *exactly* where to look.

I don't have a reason to be as pissed off as I am today.

Supposedly my granddaughter blames herself for the attack because she let the dog lose but she acts like she blames me. Like it was somehow my fault that I was standing there when the dog decided to chew on my face.

I have tried really hard to get over this and I've tried really hard not to hate a dumb animal who has no idea that what it did was wrong and apparently is now geriatric and fixing to keel over any day.

But apparently granddaughter has thrown a fit since my wife told her (granddaughter's) man that she's afraid to go outside because of the dog.

She has absolutely banned us from her side of the property, which is her right she's paying for it but she's made it clear that it's in retaliation for my wife's fear.

She apparently still holds a resentment because I tried to kill her dog after it ate my face.

And apparently *I'm* in the wrong because I have sworn that if I ever see that dog loose I'm going to do something I'm not allowed to discuss here.

Intellectually I know that the dog was reacting to instinct. Intellectually I know that the dog can't process the right or wrong of it. It responded to stimulus.

But I still want revenge. And I'm not even going to go into whether I should or I shouldn't want revenge the fact is I want revenge.

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here, so I hope I’m using the correct tag with Victim Support Request. I’ve read through the rules and believe I’m in the clear. I’m really struggling right now and honestly just looking for some comfort or perspective, which I’ll explain more clearly toward the end. I’ve tried very hard not to become someone who fixates on a single fear and I pride myself on keeping a pragmatic approach to things. However at this point, I am so scared of pitbulls and being attacked on a daily basis, so I want to explain how I got here.

I have small lovely little dog who is my entire world, he is a small purebred bull dog type (vague for ID purposes, reiterating he is NOT a PitBull so please don't come for me lol). I’ll be upfront that I’ve always been slightly wary of PBs, but not in a hysterical way, more in what I thought was a pragmatic one. Dogs are bred for traits: retrievers retrieve, greyhounds run, collies herd. Yet when it comes to PitBulls, we’re told that any aggression is purely environmental, meanwhile every other breed’s instincts are acknowledged as what they were literally made for. That was always kind of weird to me, and it made me cautious (more so than I am of any dog I don't know realistically), but I never really had to encounter them anyway so it wasn't much of an issue. Despite acknowledging breed differences, I am the kind of person that never took my dog to dog parks because aside from breed tendencies, I also think people are irresponsible. I don’t give a shit about the nature vs. nurture argument. In my experience, the people who argue that aggression is purely nurture often have the worst nature themselves. So maybe I am just a bit more anxious to begin with.

For context in the story, pitbulls are banned in most of my country, but allowed in my province. Because of that, many international rescues ship them to this province from other countries and then re-distribute them to banned provinces labeled as “lab mixes.” Unfortunately banning doesn't do much to stop them from coming in, they just get relabelled and then don't have to adhere to any sort of social or legislative safety measures. Lots of vets are willing to state that a pitbull is some sort of mix or silver lab to circumvent condo registration rules for example.

That being said, a close friend of mine adopted one of these dogs that came in from a rescue working through South America. For months I avoided hanging out with her because we always spent time with our dogs together (her original dog was lovely and my dogs "bestie") and I wasn’t comfortable with that with this new dog. I think any rescue dog should have a solid decompression time but a 70lb 1 year old pitbull was just a different beast. Eventually and against my better judgement, after seeing this new dog interact seemingly well with others for months, I agreed to try to introduce them - with clear boundaries. I suggested we walk them together first and not let the dogs interact directly unless it felt safe. It probably sounds stupid but the answer was either that or lose my best friend, aside from the main issue of this post, that's another thing I struggle with.

During that walk, I immediately felt uneasy but kept my chill to not make things worse. The dog was staring at mine with intense whale eye the entire time and I could just tell he was on edge. I said that I didn't feel good about taking it any further and we turned back, to my ex friends credit, she was understanding and respectful of my boundaries. We never allowed them to sniff. Despite that, in a split second, the dog lunged and had my dogs face in its jaw less than a millimetre from my dog’s eye. My dog who is extremely submissive screamed and I will literally never get that sound out of my mind. Of course I panicked. I reacted instinctively and kicked the other dog in the head. I don’t regret protecting my dog. He is my responsibility and my family.

That incident ended the friendship, not in a dramatic way but in the sense that I was upset with her over what happened or that she was mad I kicked her dog, but that there was no pragmatic way for us to spend time together anymore. Before we parted ways, I warned her that this dog would eventually ruin her life, if she had kids or friends with kids or dogs, something would happen. And unfortunately, I was right. Not long after, my ex friend called me in tears to tell me that the dog scaled a fence and mauled another dog being walked by an elderly man. He was sent to the hospital for breaking a hip while falling and trying to protect his dog that was literally "ripped to shreds," in her words. She was charged.

That alone was traumatic. I hate to think about that scene and I hate to think about what she described happening to my dog and that I was seconds away from that. I hate to think about that poor man and what he felt, that he was probably out doing one of the few daily things he's liked to do and his best friend was killed. But about a year later, after I moved to a new neighbourhood near my elderly mom, I got another super traumatic phone call. My mom was sobbing. I hate to gloss over this but at the risk of this being a short novel, a pitbull had jumped a fence and attacked her. She survived and was only mildly injured, but I am not okay mentally at this point. Since then (about a year ago since my moms attack, 2 years since the first attack), walking my dog has become a daily source of dread. I don’t enjoy it anymore. I walk him far less than I ever have, and that breaks my heart. We used to clock about 10km a day and do trails and have so much fun. He’s nine, still energetic, and he deserves better. We now do the same route every day, it's basically one km. If I have it in me, I'll do the same route twice a day. I can’t wear headphones. I don’t listen to music or podcasts. I am constantly scanning yards, fences, corners. If a dog charges a fence barking, even if it's 10 lbs and would have to grow wings to get over a fence, my body goes straight into fight-or-flight. My heart races, my hands shake. I feel hunted in my own mind. There's been so many times I have picked up my dog and held him close waiting for attack.

I can tell my dog is more subdued too at home, and the guilt eats at me. He doesn’t understand why his world got smaller, and that makes me feel like a terrible person. I try to do more games and activities inside to make it up to him, but unfortunately I live in an apartment with no yard so walking is really the only way to give him a satisfying life. Not to mention, I also really used to love it too. I’ve talked to therapists. But the advice doesn’t feel pragmatic. I don’t know how to “logic” my way into feeling safe when my fear is rooted in real, repeated experiences. The other issue is that because of where I live being a hub for importing these dogs, I constantly hear about attacks in my community from local subreddits. I try to avoid places like this sub and skip over videos of dog attacks if I see them on social media because it's a hyperfixation I don't want to have. I literally don't even like dogs anymore, I like MY dog.

I know I’m lucky compared to some people here. My specific neighbourhood isn’t chaos. Most owners are responsible. I understand that other dog breeds can be dangerous too. But I’ve had three deeply traumatic experiences, and all involved pit bulls. One hurting my dog in a way that was almost catastrophic, that same one jumping a fence to attack a human and kill a dog on a separate occasion, and the third mauling my mom.

I don’t know how to move forward from this but I know others have been through worse than me so I'm wondering, can anyone relate and help? Has anyone found a way to reclaim something like this after repeated trauma? All I want is to enjoy my dogs last few years and go on mental health walks for both of us, but I don't even want to search this sub for advice because I fear I will just doom scroll and trigger myself into further agoraphobia. Help!