You Can Build Trust for Years… Then Lose It in Seconds: My Dog Bit My Daughter

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You can build trust over years and lose it in seconds.

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And when it breaks, it doesn't just affect the moment.

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It changes how you see everything after.

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I want to tell you the story of how I lost trust in my dog.

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But I want to tell you how he was before that as well.

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Welcome to Overcome with Travis White.

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This episode is going to be a little bit different.

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This is my first time doing a solo episode since the very beginning.

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you all need to just bear with me because I may struggle through this a little bit.

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I'm used to having somebody else on the other end.

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Well.

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Enough explaining.

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Let's start from the very beginning.

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As most of you know, I suffer from bad anxiety and depression.

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And I was at a point in my life where I was finally able to hold down a job and things

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were going a little bit smoother.

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I was getting to the point where I I was getting out of my rut.

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However, I still living with my

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fiance and her mom because I was still having some seizures and my emotional state was I

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just couldn't handle being alone a lot of the time.

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But life was somewhat moving forward.

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So this August day in 2016, we went to a parade.

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know, every, every city kind of has their festival days or whatever.

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That's what was going on where we were at.

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There was this rescue shelter that was walking in the parade with a bunch of puppies.

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and I remember seeing one cute dog that was being held because he was too tired to walk.

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And I made a comment about that dog right then.

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can't remember exactly what I said.

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probably some of the long lines of like, Oh, look at how cute that puppy is.

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The parade ended.

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We went down to the park and visited the rescue shelter booth that was selling these dogs.

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And half joking, I turned around to my fiance and said, we should get a dog.

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And I didn't think anything of it.

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I just sat there and played with him for a minute, but he was that day.

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He was so tired and uninterested, but he was super cute, but you could tell that he had

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had a long day.

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So my fiance ended up calling your mom and asking if we could bring a dog into her house.

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And she ended up saying, yes, I think that'd be good for the both of you.

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And that's how we got Simba.

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And little did I know at that time, he would end up being one of the best things that

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happened to me.

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For the first time in a while, I'd be focusing on something other than myself.

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He would bring a companionship that I really needed to...

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helped me push through the challenges that were going on in my life.

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Uh, but he.

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When we first got him, he had this weird resource guarding issue.

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It was like this weird bit of aggression where he would be out walking around and smell

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something that he wanted.

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You take him away and he'd turn around and snap at you, get a little aggressive.

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So we decided that we needed to take him to some puppy training classes.

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So we started doing that on Saturday mornings.

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And I remember the first day that we were

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in this class.

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We afterwards we were speaking to the dog trainer and we said our puppy has some issues.

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We think he's has a little bit of aggression.

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It's more of a resource guarding stuff issue, but that's we need to learn how to get rid

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of this because we don't want it.

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So he's like, this little guy like he's still so super nice and sweet.

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I don't see an ounce of aggression.

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And right then.

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As the trainer was petting our puppy, he turned around and started biting him and getting

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actually really mean.

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So the guy had him down him in this kind of submissive hold that we learned how to do.

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And he told us that, yeah, the aggression is there and this is what you do.

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And it's going to be hard for you to do because it's, it's, it takes a toll emotionally,

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but you have to do it in order to.

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allow this dog to learn that he can't behave like that.

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And so we, from that point on, we started hand feeding him all the time, started training

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him daily, like probably two or three times a day.

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And when he started doing this aggression thing where he would be resource guarding, we

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would have to basically make him submissive.

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And we eventually got through all that.

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And I would dare say that we.

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got it out of him.

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But this, by this time, this dog had basically helped me overcome the majority of my

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anxiety.

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I'm not saying that it fully went away because that would be a complete lie.

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But he helped me create a sense of purpose that I didn't have before.

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It was a responsibility during this time in my life that I needed because he was dependent

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upon me.

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But I was also very dependent upon him.

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He was always a constant that I could come home to.

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and I think he also

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He also just that constant companionship that he provided was, was fantastic.

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But I was reading these.

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So I've been, you know, looking at different ways and thinking about how he has impacted

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my life.

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Did you know that 84 % of pet owners say that their pet has a positive impact on their

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mental health?

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It's a high percentage.

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I wouldn't.

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Growing up, I wouldn't think that because I didn't know that much about dogs.

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I mean, we had one, but I wasn't close with those, as close with those dogs as I am with

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my own.

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However...

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That did change.

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And this is the main story that I want to get into.

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because it doesn't take long for all that trust to go away.

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So, you know, eventually I got married.

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We had a daughter and...

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that Simba loved and still loves my daughter to this day, but he loved her as a baby.

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Absolutely adored her.

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I remember bringing her home and we were introducing her to him, the baby to the dog.

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We have him kind of walk up and smell her car seat a little bit.

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And then we bring her in in the car seat.

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and kind just get them used to her, him used to the baby.

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And from that time on, he was, he was hooked.

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He would follow her around the house wherever she was.

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He was right next to her.

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He would lay on the bed next to her, like not a mean, like bone in sight.

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Like he was very gentle.

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He listened really well.

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But this is where

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you kind of learn your lesson being a dog parent.

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And I understand that everybody trains their dog and, you know, differently than I do, and

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the boundaries are different.

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So anyways, on this particular night, my daughter was 13 months old.

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And Simba usually slept at the bottom of our feet.

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We had a little bed for him on the floor in our room, but eventually every night he'd jump

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up on the bed and sleep at the bottom of our feet.

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And we basically just let him because he wasn't hurting anything.

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But this night he was acting a little bit strange, a little bit off.

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So I was like, well, maybe we need to put him somewhere else.

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And I honestly.

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think we had a crate set up at the time, but I don't think he was trained well enough to

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go in it.

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And he didn't like to be away from us.

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And so I had put it tried to put him in the crate and he just start kept whining and

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whining.

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I was like, okay, well, I don't know if this is going to work tonight because we were

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trying to get our sleep.

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So I ended up moving his bed out to like a little landing loft area that we have upstairs

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by our bedroom.

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And he was getting very anxious.

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And this is where, if I knew back then what I knew now, he would have just ended up not

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suffering, like shoved in his crate for the night and would have to self-soothe himself to

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get over his anxieties.

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But we ended up taking him in the room.

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He fell asleep on the floor.

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And my daughter was

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hard to put to bed that night.

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kept getting up and walking around.

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So about 5 a.m.

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I remember.

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she got up to walk around the bed.

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And I remember my dog being asleep on the other side of the room.

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And I turned to my wife, I was like, where's Ellie?

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What was that?

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What's?

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Where is she?

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I can't see her.

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It's dark.

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And I heard the slight growls and then I heard a, you know, like a sound of like a snap.

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I was like, and that to me was the oh shit woman.

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Something just happened and it did.

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not sound good.

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I got up, turned on the light.

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My dog had, I think, got off his bed and went across the room and I could see my

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daughter's cheek had blood coming out of it and he got her pretty good on the cheek and

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the face.

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Luckily he missed her eye in her jawbone.

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So he didn't do the only permanent damage she has is a scar, but she now she doesn't think

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anything of it.

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But I cannot tell you the amount of guilt that I felt for the longest time and still have

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to work through.

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And it's been, my daughter is six years old now.

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And it's been rough over the years to actually not blame myself because I feel like I

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could have stopped it.

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There was, I remember talking about this in some therapy sessions.

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And I've just had to push past it.

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But the crazy thing is, is my daughter does not look at the dog any differently.

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She was so young, she doesn't remember it.

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And if this were to be a full on aggressive aggression attack, that would have been

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different, but he got scared.

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And I realized that.

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But my daughter absolutely still adores him.

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And when she'll get asked about her face now, she says, yeah, my dog bit me, but he wasn't

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being mean.

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was an accident.

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But to make matters like that, that day even it was a little bit harder than that because

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in the state of Utah, and I think this is most states too, if a dog bites a person, they

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have to be quarantined in state of Utah.

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It's for 10 days.

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In most cities, you can quarantine your dog at home, but the city that we live in, the dog

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has to, uh

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go to like a shelter or something for the 10 days so they can watch out for them.

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They're looking for signs of aggression and rabies and stuff.

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So I remember that animal patrol, before we even made it to the doctor to get my daughter

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stitched up, had called me and said, I'm on my way to get your dog.

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And I said, well, right now you're wasting your time because she did get bit and we are

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taking her to the doctors.

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So we'll be back.

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Probably around this time.

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I can't even remember what time I said, but

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He actually ended up coming to our house and called again and said, well, where are you?

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And I said, we're still at the doctor's.

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He was wondering, kind of a douchebag officer.

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He was wondering what took us so long.

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Cause like she, he broke through a lot of layers of skin.

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So she had to have stitches underneath and on top of each other.

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Luckily he did not go through the cheek.

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And we did call the ambulance to make sure that

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He didn't hit anything that was gonna have to make them rush her to the hospital.

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But anyways, back to the jerk cop.

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So he came to show up at our house.

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He was here by the time we got home.

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And he's like, well, I'm here to get your dog.

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You can just give me his leash and I'll take him from here.

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And I said, no, my wife's gonna be involved in this too.

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because that's how we work as a couple.

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We make decisions together.

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And we still didn't know our full rights as owners of the dog.

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So we were calling places to make sure that he really had to go somewhere to be

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quarantined, but we didn't trust how the officer would actually treat him.

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Although he did this and the guilt was

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on me.

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still loved my dog.

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I just had a time seeing him back at the time and I didn't want to deal with him.

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So we were trying to figure out our rights while the officer was threatening to give us

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citations for impeding on his investigation.

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He had to call his supervisor over.

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he came over and.

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Very cool.

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If you don't let us take him.

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Then you're going to get a ticket.

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It's going to be classy misdemeanor or whatever for this.

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You'll be arrested.

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We never said that you can't take him.

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We want to know if we can keep him in the house.

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Like, no, that's not the law.

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So we ended up calling a couple of places.

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said, no, where you're at, that's it's different in that area.

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But you do have the option to take him to a different place and you'd have to take him and

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just give the paperwork to send off paperwork to the police station to make sure that you

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did it.

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So the officer.

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We said, well, we're going to take him somewhere else because we don't want you to handle

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him because this time we'd spent tons of money, tons of time.

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He's a well-trained dog, but he wasn't always, he didn't always work well with other

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people.

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Cause I don't know if you know that, like once most dogs.

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only listen to certain people and won't listen to others.

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So we didn't want him like yanking him up and pulling on his leash and all this stuff.

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So we ended up taking him.

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Everything was fine.

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Had to have him quarantined for the 10 days.

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Came back and we realized, you know what, if this is the case, he can't do this again.

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I like already don't trust him because of this.

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And I could tell from the moment he got home that that bond that I had with him previously

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was gone.

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I couldn't look at him the same.

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I felt guilty.

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I didn't want to really be around him, which I wish it didn't get this way.

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took me years to even build that trust back up.

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And I would say that it's pretty close to where it was, but not, it will never be the

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same.

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But we ended up getting a lot of questions like, well, why didn't you put your dog down?

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I would killed that son of a bitch right there.

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And I was like, well, he wasn't mean.

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He's not a mean dog.

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This was an accident.

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But if it was your dog, you have every right to do that.

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But let me take care of my own.

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So instead of taking him and giving him away, putting him down, we ended up paying some

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money to send him to a dog training camp for 20 days.

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because we knew that they would have the time to and the ability to train him and be a

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well behaved dog.

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And after that, the key that we found, and I think this should go for every dog owner is

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you need to set boundaries with your dog, dogs and kids.

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Like in my opinion, and I'm no dog trainer, I'm no professional.

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Kids and dogs should never

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Young kids and dogs should never be left alone without adult supervision because that's

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when accidents can happen.

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Never again will my dog be up on a bed with my baby.

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Never again will my toddler walk around my dog's bed without me being right next to him.

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It's just the key is setting those boundaries.

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And I know there are some uh dog trainers out there that will fully agree with this.

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So we've set those boundaries and we've been good, but it took probably until May.

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a third kid was born for me to really...

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uh be able to start trusting him around kids more so now we'll let him outside with them

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and kind of roam around and then kind of interact with each other a little bit more but he

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he's we still he still doesn't have my full trust with like

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My youngest.

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And he probably never will.

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He gets a little bit weird when there's, he can't predict what our kids are going to do.

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So like a two year old around him, like kind of stumbling and he doesn't know quite

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understand what their next move is.

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He gets a little bit weird.

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So we have to remove him from that situation.

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Not only do you set boundaries, but you need to learn your dog's body language.

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If your kids are out about and playing and the dog's out there and something happens and

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your dog's ears go back and tail is tucked between their legs, that's a sign right there

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that you need to remove your dog from that situation immediately.

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In order to prohibit something bad from happening.

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You need to learn your dog dog's body language.

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So in order to do that, need to spend the time with your dog that is needed to figure that

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out.

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But the big word that I want to point out today is trust.

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As all of you know, I have been working hard on a, I've mentioned this in a few episodes

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with some of my guests.

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I've been working hard on my framework, the faith framework.

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And T stands for trust.

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And this is uh how you can, trust is a big part of how you can overcome obstacles and

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challenges in life.

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you need to

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Uh.

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You need to trust yourself.

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and your decisions, your instincts.

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at times you need to trust others.

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And you need to trust the progress that can come from trusting yourself and trusting your

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others.

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Because what happens when we actually learn to trust is it creates a safety net.

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And now that I'm back to trusting my dog, it's reducing my anxiety once again.

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He calms me down because I don't believe he's a threat anymore.

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And if you, if your trust breaks in one area of life, whether it's, know, with somebody

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else, work, home, the whole other pieces of the faith framework can crumble around you.

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This trust is what allows you to feel safe enough to live, connect, and grow.

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and I'm just thankful that I've been able to build back up this relationship with my dog

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and trust him again.

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because I feel like.

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It has helped me.

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be able to connect all the faith framework together and keep a good attitude.

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But my dog is also part of my the foundation of my life.

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He's he's a he's one of the things that really motivates me to keep going and do better as

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a as a person.

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But all that set aside.

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My dog has really eased my anxiety over the years.

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And I know I felt all the guilt of the world crawl up on me when he did what he did.

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but it's just another challenge that I had to overcome.

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And I know that whatever you're facing.

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If you can look it up, look up, look within yourself and trust yourself once again, it

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will do wonders for you.

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So today I want to challenge you

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you think about the areas in your life where you're lacking trust, whether it's with

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yourself or someone else, a job or whatever, and write them down on a piece of paper.

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and start thinking about ways that you can change this.

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What is it?

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Is it something that you've done?

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Is it something that somebody else has done?

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Like, what is preventing that trust?

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And that is all that I have for today's episode.

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You will definitely hear a few more solo episodes from me.

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I'm trying to make it so you guys, my audience, can get a better understanding of who I am

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and my background, because I have some stories and I want to share them.

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And I want to continue to.

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have people come on the show as well to tell theirs because this is that's what this

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platform is.

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This is a place for you to share your your stories, your mental health stories and how

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you've been broken and how you were able to get back up on your feet.

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So thank you all for listening.

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Hit that like button.

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ways.

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And if you know that this will, somebody who needs to hear this, please share it.

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Thanks again until next time.