About two years ago, I was bitten by a friend's dog at their house. This dog, as far as I know, had been abused or treated badly or something had happened to him that made him wary of people, and the dog was also known to get excited at loud noises. This particular day, we'd been having a bit of a party in my friend's basement and we'd gotten a bit loud and I just happened to be near the dog when he got excited and WHAM! I was bitten in the face.

Sucks to be me.

What I learned after I'd been bitten, however, was that this dog had bitten/attacked people twice before me.

This raised my first flag.

If you know that your dog has a tendency to get excited around people AND has a history of biting people, shouldn't you have taken steps to prevent it after the VERY FIRST TIME?

Anyway, fast forward to about two weeks later when I'm all stitched up and recovering and receive my doctor bills. I don't need to tell you, Blogville, that it was more than I could afford. After talking about it with my father, long story short, it's agreed that we are going to sue my friend and her family. This was something I didn't want to do. She was my friend, and I didn't want to put her family through that, but I had no other way to pay for my hospital bills and who knew how much treatment I'd need after the initial stuff? So I let my dad go ahead with it.

During the grueling [for whom? I dunno; I rarely got updates about it] process, we found out a few things, the most shocking of which being this: my friend's house insurance did not cover dog bites.

. . .what? Doesn't cover? What do you mean? You've had two other dog attacks by the SAME dog and you don't have coverage for them? Apparently, after the second attack, they had to get a new insurance company or carrier or whatever and this policy did not cover dog bites.

And this is where I begin my rant, ladies and gentlemen. How, after two dog bites and no treatment to the dog, do you not protect yourself against that sort of thing happening again? The court case is in the process of settlement as far as I know (I won), but word from a mutual friend of myself and the friend whose dog bit me is that they are going to lose their house.

I don't want to sound heartless; I think that's horrible. I think it's absolutely horrible that it had to come down to this. I don't want to see anyone homeless, out on the streets, etc.

But how do you not take the necessary steps to ensure that such a thing doesn't happen a second time? Let alone a third? I just don't understand it.