Everyone reading this, whether you’re a professional media type or not, knows the expression “man bites dog.” It’s one of those things that we say to briefly describe the eye-catching, unusual stories. The sort of thing that nowadays is called “clickbait.”
The thing is, “man bites dog” is a metaphor, one of those things that’s so patently absurd that you never expect it to actually happen. So when it does happen, as in the case of Riley Carter, Jr., of Kansas City, Kansas, it feels a little bit surreal. It turns out, though, that “man bites dog” is a much more serious situation than you would guess from the old expression, especially if the dogs bit first.
On Monday morning, Carter heard a noise behind his house, and when he went to investigate, found two Boxers — a brindle male and a fawn-colored female — and tried to shoo them away. They didn’t shoo. “They didn’t do like regular dogs and run,” he told television station WBIW. “They came full force like some attacking lions.”
As he staggered alongside the side of his house, trying to fight the dogs off, Carter bit one of them in the neck. “I had to actually hold him up and stand him,” he said. “I bit him behind his neck just to hold him there. Just held him there until I got exhausted and trying to fight off the second dog at the same time.”
He told reporters that he bit down so hard that on Tuesday morning, he was still brushing dog hair from between his teeth. Carter finally escaped by throwing himself over the railing of his porch. The dogs, fortunately, decided not to follow.
Although he escaped, Carter suffered serious injuries to his arm, leg, retina, and the tip of his nose. “I thought I was actually going to die in the front of my house,” he said.
The same two dogs were reported in another attack only hours later. Robert Philips was attacked as he went out to his car on Monday morning. His girlfriend chased them away with a metal rod, but his injuries were serious enough that he’s going to be unable to work while he recovers. “I can’t walk on my leg, I can barely walk anymore,” he said. A third dog attacked a woman a few blocks away.
Police have captured two of the dogs, but are still looking for the brindle Boxer that attacked Carter.
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