Tiger and Stitches

BEWARE, long story, no stitching of our kind and photo at end not so pleasant.

I woke up this morning and thought it feels like an off day, something just wasn't right. Took Mom to Tim Horton's for coffee and was thinking about how I was going to spend the day after I took Tiger to Trout Lake. Mom settled that for me, asked if I would drop her off at a friends and pick her up on my way back. No problem. Dropped her off, stopped and bought treats for Tiger, gassed up the car, got to Trout Lake and decided to park in the west parking lot instead of going to the north parking lot (where I usually park), mistake #1. We started walking and as I was nearing the south end of the lake I saw a city truck and a women with 6 dogs. My first instinct was to put Tiger on her leash (this end of the lake is not off leash for dogs) , realized they were just chatting and were not animal control, but park workers, so didn't bother with the leash, mistake #2. As we walked by her 6 dogs "swarmed" Tiger, I got a hold of her collar and pulled her away and walked off. The women did call off her dogs and said she was sorry. I walked a little ways, realized Tiger was out of sorts stopped to hug and pet her, when I then realized she had been bitten on the back. I turned back and in the meantime the women was walking off in the other direction. I walked as fast as I could and started yelling for her to stop as I needed to talk to her. I must have yelled this out about 3 times, saying lady in the black coat with the white dogs, so she would know it was her being asked to stop. By this time I am getting very agitated and will admit I did use the B.... word. I'm sure she did have some female dogs :) She finally stops and turns around and as I am still walking towards her I asked if she would please come here as I needed to talk to her about what happened, she says she doesn't take orders from me. I get to her and show her Tiger's back, she does say she is sorry, but my dog turned on hers first and she has 3 witnesses. Words were exchanged and I went back to the city workers to ask them their version of what happened. Well they saw her dogs go after mine and she immediately put a muzzle on the dog who bit Tiger. I started to go towards the parking lot and see her heading in the same direction and had this awful thought that the van I had parked next to was hers. I thought this as the van had no back seats and was covered in pillows and blankets as was the front seat and filled with "junk". One of the park workers came after me and asked if that women was still here and we kept looking and finally saw her with one dog on a leash going toward the van. Yup it was hers, the other 5 were already in the van. The park worker went up to her and said that she saw her dog go after mine and that she would be responsible for half the vet bill. Long story short, she admitted "one" of her dogs bit mine but she didn't know which one, gave me her first name and phone #, I also took down her plate number. City worker gave me her name and # and advised me to call Animal Control, which I did after I got home from the vet. Something this women said made me think she had problems in the past with her dogs or at least the one. Guess what, she is "known" to animal control. I need to send in a signed statement, have already e-mailed them photos and they will be going to her house to talk to her. So far the vet bill is 468.42, they had to sedate Tiger and put a drain in as when she was bit the dog pulled and there is a pocket that could fill with fluid, she has 5 stitches in her. Decided not to show the close up I sent Animal Control, it is just too awful.