Was my dog strangled?
We used a Rover sitter to watch our dog Max while we were on a cruise. At first, the sitter said everything was going fine and sent us a video of Max happily playing in their yard.
About three hours later, they called and said Max needed to be picked up immediately because he had bitten the sitter’s husband. They said he tried to grab Max’s harness to bring him inside, and Max bit him.
This is very out of character for Max. He has never shown aggression toward anyone before. Just last week, we took him to a new vet, where he was clearly scared, and the vet physically examined his neck and moved it enough that Max cried. Even then, he did not growl, snap, or try to bite.
Because we were out of town, new to the area, and had no one nearby who could pick him up, we had to urgently find another Rover sitter to get him. The second sitter was also a stranger to Max. She said that when she arrived, Max was shaking in the first sitter’s backyard but still approached her. The first sitter had claimed they grabbed his harness because he kept running away and would not come inside. When the second sitter was leaving with him, Max also tried to bolt out of the house.
The second sitter later told us that Max has been nothing but sweet with her and the other people in her home. However, the next day she noticed redness in both of his eyes, which he has never had before.
We are worried because we do not know what happened at the first sitter’s house. I know no one can diagnose this from a photo, and we plan to follow up with a vet, but does this kind of eye redness look more consistent with allergies, stress, trauma/pressure around the neck, or something else?
The only two new variables are that Max is in a new environment and whatever happened during the incident with the first sitter.
In my other most recent post I provided some photos.