A woman was left with “black, rotten” flesh hanging off her face after her ex-boyfriend’s dog allegedly bit off her ear in savage attack.
Erin Doherty claims she was set upon by former partner's German Shepherd back in July 2021.
The 24-year-old says she went to stroke the animal after it started growling – but the dog quickly turned on her, biting the architectural designer's hand before latching on to the side of her face.
The painful attack led to Erin losing half of her ear and her flesh rotting while she waited for surgery.
“I was alone with the dog for the first time in a setting where maybe he didn't feel so comfortable and he growled a little bit,” Erin, from New York, US, said.
“Instinctively I went to pet him to offer comfort or reassurance that I was there.
“He turned around and started attacking me. He bit my hand first and then I started shouting. I turned my head around to protect my face and he bit my ear off.
“My ex ran out of the bathroom and started to pull the dog off of me after he heard my screams. The dog actually started lunging back at me a second time as if he was going back for more.
“At this time I did not know how severe the attack was, I was in shock and was replaying the scene of the dog in my face over and over. I just knew I was covered in blood as well as the bed.
“He shut the dog out of the room and called for his parents and roommate who were all at his house at the time and they drove me to the nearest hospital."
Putting the ear in ice, they were forced to drive to a hospital two hours away as the local facility did not have a plastic surgeon.
Erin said: “By the time we got to that hospital and had surgery my ear had been detached for five to six hours before we got in an operating room.
“Not until then did I know that I actually had a piece of my ear that needed to be sewn back on.
“They sewed it back on, and eventually my ear went necrotic [dead body tissue] about a week later, and led into them taking it off again, and now left with half of an ear.”
After the initial surgery to sew on the missing ear, Erin described the end result as being a "very white, frostbite colour", but it soon started to change.
She said: “I went in for a week and a half to various appointments. I would say it started to turn green and yellow within four days.
“They thought it could've been a good sign, but then a few days later it started turning black and smelling really bad.”
Erin’s ear started turning black and rotting around the same time as her sister’s wedding, which she still managed to attend, but two weeks later she had to have another surgery to remove the ear again.
Ultimately, it was decided that a prosthetic ear would be more beneficial than further surgery – a process that took nearly seven months.
Erin decided against suing or allowing the pet to be put down and believes the dog’s steroid medication may have contributed to its aggressive behaviour.
She explained: “The dog was aggressive towards me before this incident but my ex was always around. If I would ever touch my ex's arm or anything the dog would snarl and come at me.
“The dog went to intensive training for a four-week program and was re-introduced to the family and at the time we were still together, so I was introduced to the dog once but I got scared to see him again and backed out the first time.
“I just did not let anyone get the dog close to me. I was just there to make sure the dog knew I would be around.
“After that, the dog was on a shock collar and would follow orders from owners and from what I saw, which was little.
“Before I ended the relationship the dog was behaving much better.”
Despite the traumatic event and the difficulty that followed, Erin has now fully recovered and can manage without her prosthetic, relying on her hair to cover her ear for the most part.
A video Erin shared to TikTok explaining the incident has racked up over 500,000 likes.
One user commented: "Today I'm grateful for...the top half of my ears."
"How is he going to casually explain to everyone he ever dates again that his dog bit his exes [sic] ear off," someone else said.
One person joked: "Did you give your ex an earful?"
"Thats why I'm a cat person," said another user.
Someone else asked: "Was your hearing affected at all?" To which Erin replied: "No! Luckily only thing it affected was wearing sunglasses not crooked."
