After a dog bite, your first move is to wash the wound under running water with soap for at least five minutes. This single step does more to prevent infection than almost anything else. What comes next depends on how deep the bite is, whether you know the dog, and how quickly signs of infection appear.
Immediate First Aid Steps
If the wound is bleeding heavily, apply firm pressure with a clean cloth or bandage until it stops. Once bleeding is controlled, hold the wound under a faucet and wash it with soap and water for at least five minutes. Use the water pressure from the tap to flush out bacteria, but don’t scrub the wound. Scrubbing can bruise the tissue and make things worse. After washing, apply an antiseptic cream and cover the wound with a clean bandage.
For shallow scrapes or scratches from a dog you know is vaccinated and healthy, this home care may be enough. But puncture wounds, deep tears, or bites from an unfamiliar dog need professional medical attention even if they don’t look that bad on the surface. Puncture wounds are deceptive: the opening is small, but bacteria get pushed deep into the tissue where they thrive.
When You Need Medical Care
Some bites clearly require a trip to urgent care or the emergency room. Get medical attention if:
- The wound is deep, crushed, or torn. Skin that’s badly ripped or a bite that went through to muscle or bone needs professional wound care.
- Bleeding won’t stop after 10 to 15 minutes of steady pressure.
- The bite is on your face, hand, or near a joint. These locations carry a higher risk of infection and complications. Facial wounds are sometimes stitched early because of the face’s strong blood supply, but hand and joint bites are treated more cautiously.
- You don’t know the dog or its vaccination status. This raises the possibility of rabies.
- You have diabetes, liver disease, or a weakened immune system. These conditions make infections harder to fight.
Why Most Bite Wounds Aren’t Stitched
You might expect a doctor to stitch the wound closed, but that’s often the last thing they’ll do. The World Health Organization recommends postponing suturing of bite wounds because closing a wound that may be contaminated with bacteria can trap infection inside, delay healing, and become dangerous. Puncture-type wounds and any bite that looks even mildly infected are typically left open and allowed to heal from the inside out.
Exceptions exist. Fresh wounds less than eight hours old on the face are sometimes closed right away because facial tissue has rich blood flow and a lower infection rate. If rabies treatment is needed, doctors may delay closure for several hours after administering the immune globulin so it has time to diffuse into the tissue.
Infection: What to Watch For
Dog bite infections typically show up within about 24 hours, though they can appear sooner. If you notice any of the following in the hours or days after a bite, you need medical care:
- Increasing redness that spreads outward from the wound
- Swelling and warmth around the bite
- Pus or cloudy discharge
- Fever
- Worsening pain, especially pain that seems out of proportion to how the wound looks
The most common culprit in dog bite infections is a bacterium called Pasteurella, which is found in roughly half of infected dog bites. If signs of infection appear within just a few hours of the bite, Pasteurella is a likely cause. These infections are usually polymicrobial, meaning several types of bacteria are involved at once, which is why doctors choose a broad-spectrum antibiotic rather than targeting a single organism.
Rapidly progressing pain and swelling, skin that crackles when pressed, or signs of widespread illness like high fever and confusion can signal a deep tissue infection. This is rare but serious and requires emergency care.
Antibiotics and Tetanus
Not every dog bite needs antibiotics. Doctors typically prescribe a preventive course of antibiotics for three to five days when the wound is considered high risk: deep punctures, bites to the hand, bites in people with weakened immune systems, or wounds that already look concerning. The standard first-line choice is a combination antibiotic that covers the broad mix of bacteria found in a dog’s mouth.
Tetanus is the other concern. If your last tetanus booster was more than five years ago and the wound is deep or dirty, you’ll likely need a booster shot. For clean, minor wounds, the threshold is 10 years since your last shot. The recommendation is to get the booster within 48 hours of the injury.
Rabies: When It’s a Real Concern
Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, but it’s entirely preventable with prompt treatment. The risk depends heavily on the situation. A bite from a neighbor’s vaccinated golden retriever is very different from a bite by a stray dog with no known vaccination history.
If the dog can’t be identified or observed, or if there’s any suspicion of rabies, doctors will start post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). This involves a dose of rabies immune globulin (injected around the wound site) plus four vaccine injections given over two weeks: on the day of treatment, then at day 3, day 7, and day 14. People with weakened immune systems receive a fifth dose at day 28. If you’ve been vaccinated against rabies before, you only need two booster shots on days 0 and 3, and you skip the immune globulin entirely.
If the dog is a known pet, animal control will typically require a 10-day observation period. A dog that remains healthy for 10 days after biting someone was not shedding rabies virus at the time of the bite. This observation period can spare you from needing the vaccine series.
Reporting the Bite
Most jurisdictions require dog bites to be reported to local animal control or the health department. Even if the bite came from a friend’s dog, reporting creates a record that protects you and helps public health officials track rabies risk in the area.
If you’re bitten by someone else’s dog, collect as much information as you can at the scene: the owner’s name, address, and phone number, the dog’s license number if it has one, and whether the dog is current on vaccinations. Note the date, time, and location of the bite, along with where on your body you were bitten. This information is useful for your medical provider, animal control, and any insurance or legal follow-up. Take photos of the wound before and after cleaning it.
If a stray or unknown dog bit you and you can’t locate the animal, tell the medical team. The inability to observe the dog for rabies may change your treatment plan and make post-exposure prophylaxis necessary as a precaution.