Yesterday I encountered a situation I never anticipated ever happening to me: I was attacked by a friend’s Great Dane.

It was my first time meeting the dog, I’d spent hours at their home for a group lunch. The dog was quite cuddly and close with me from the moment I arrived, happily getting pats and sitting with me for most of the time.

I grew up around primarily dogs and my partner owns an intact German Shepard and we all live together, I always approach and treat every dog with caution, no matter how well they know me.

As my partner and I went to leave the house and were walking toward to gate, the dog ran from across the yard and lunged at me from behind. He took hold of the back of my arm/elbow, bit in with a considerable amount of force and ripped me backwards. Everyone started yelling, jumped onto the dog and ripped him away from his grip on me, I remained silent, calm/still throughout this situation, I didn’t see it coming and it took me by surprise.

I ended up with several stitches, a tetanus shot and my surrounding skin separated from the tissues underneath. I’m only 5ft tall, this dog was more than half my standing height. But I have no idea what I had done to provoke this attack and now I’m scared of this unintentionally happening with another dog. The owner said when he was a puppy he had aggression issues but hasn’t has an issue for years, the owner is a friend and he was absolutely beside himself. I honestly feel so sad because I’ve never had a dog be angry with me, let alone run and attack me from behind.

At the end of the day, I’m happy it was me he went for instead of someone else who may have freaked out, or to the young child who was present at the lunch. But that moment truly humbled me into realising that I’m not sure if maybe I’m behaving wrong with dogs after all these years.

Is there situations where dogs have attacked truly unprovoked? I genuinely cannot think of what in that moment even happened to cause this, I feel so guilty and sad because I absolutely love dogs and I’ve just never had a dog dislike me or show aggression, let alone this.