In most cases, a run-in with a dog is usually a non-incident marked by a little scare, but everything is fine, and no one got hurt. As a norm, when we think of a run-in with a dog, there is going to be a bite. A little more trauma, but it’s a little scratch, and you can put a Band-Aid on it when you get home.
You may come out of it leery about dogs, but not so much that you want the dog punished, but you have some harsh words for the owner!
But for many city dwellers, a scary run-in with a dog contains no teeth whatsoever; it consists of a sudden lunge, a massive jump, or a chase that ends in a hard fall. In the realm of holistic wellness, we know that trauma is not only about the ‘wound’ but is about how everything becomes impacted on the body, mind, and nervous system.
Whether in the crowded sidewalks of San Francisco or along the lakeside paths of Chicago, an awareness of the entire range of how these interactions influence us is the first step in the process of recovery and healing.
Here are five ways that ‘non-bite dog encounters’ can have an impact on your long-term holistic health, usually overlooked in animal health science circles.
The Disruption of the Nervous System
The balance that brings about holistic health rests on a regulated nervous system.
When something big happens, like a large animal suddenly charging at a person or jumping on you, your body goes into ‘high alert.’ The adrenal glands flood the system with cortisol and adrenaline (a type of stress hormone) as you prepare for fight-or-flight.
A totally automatic response to the incident.
The problem occurs when that energy has no destination.
When a dog lunges but doesn’t bite, lots of people ‘shake it off’ and keep walking. But the body has a different response, and because the feelings have nowhere to go, we push them down. When we do this, we can remain stuck in that sympathetic state, and it can increase anxiety, disturb sleep, and cause hypervigilance or caution when out in public.
If you feel stuck in this state, try to experiment with somatic healing – it’s the practice of us allowing our bodies to discharge that stored ‘survival energy’ that has accumulated. This enables us to relax and stabilize.
- Use grounding (feet on the floor).
- deep breathing (diaphragmatic).
- and gentle shaking/movement (like dancing or TRE).
- mindful meditation.
The Physical Toll of High-Impact Falls
Perhaps the biggest misconception is that non-bite dog attack injuries mean that you don’t get bitten, so you suffer no injury.
It turns out that when knocked down by an animal, as powerful as it is, the physical results can often be just as painful as a puncture and even more so. Such a sudden impact can result in ‘invisible’ injuries that take several days or weeks to appear fully. The force of a large dog leaping can cause a person to strike the pavement with significant momentum.
In such cases, a person’s body suffers blunt force trauma, which can cause internal bruising, concussions, or very complicated orthopedic disorders.
Musculoskeletal Misalignment and Compensatory Pain
Think about the exact last time you slipped on ice or fumbled but caught yourself.
Your muscles probably spasmed or contracted violently to avoid the fall. If a dog lunges at you, your body can do a ‘startle flinch.’ This reflexive response can pull the spine out of place, strain the neck (whiplash effect), or tear delicate muscle fibers in the core and back.
Over time, these mild strains may become compensatory pain ( i.e., you adjust your movement, such as how you walk or sit, to avoid aches) and perhaps eventually result in secondary problems of the hips or knees.
Recovery should always be viewed as a holistic process where a chiropractor or osteopath is consulted to ensure that the skeletal system has not been damaged by the experience of shock.
How ‘Safe Space’ Confidence Is Eroding
Wellness is deeply connected to our relationship with our environment.
For lots of people, taking a daily walk in Golden Gate Park is moving meditation, a space to slow down and to reconnect with nature. A traumatic encounter in one of these ‘safe havens’ can turn into a place of dread.
This psychological dynamic is termed ‘environmental anchoring.’ If a specific corner or park gets tied to a memory of fear, you’ll immediately trigger a stress response whenever you step into it. This results in sedentary living as we now avoid outdoor environments to avoid potential encounters.
Our brains keep their own maps of places we know — your city is no exception. What your brain does here is it marks parts of the city in red as ‘danger zones’ — even if that zone might be safe; you’ll perceive it as red simply based on your previous (negative) experience(s).
Getting better here means that you have to retrain your brain. Revisit those places and show your brain that this is a safe place. It is not red, it is green.
Once your brain accepts that, you won’t feel stressed out anymore.
Effect on Prior Chronic Conditions
Ultimately, we need to include the ‘inflammatory spike.’
For people who are already living with autoimmune diseases or chronic pain such as fibromyalgia, a physical shock can cause a huge flare-up. The systemic inflammation induced by the sudden flood of stress hormones can worsen joint pain, fatigue, and brain fog for weeks after the incident. We don’t view the dog encounter in the context of a vacuum.
We have to look at it with regard to its interaction with your existing health profile.
Recovery after such non-bite incidents usually involves an anti-inflammatory plant (e.g., nutrition, hydration, etc.). The goal here is to bring your body’s inflammatory markers back to their baseline.
Conclusion
Recovering from an animal encounter has to do with something more than a little ice and a bruise. It is recognizing the complicated relationship between the physical impact and the emotional residue.
Whether you need to go through the legal minefield of an injury in a metropolis like Chicago or work toward a therapeutic balance in San Francisco, remember that your health is a systems-based problem.
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