If a dog bites you, your first priority is cleaning the wound thoroughly with soap and running water, then getting medical attention. Most dog bites don’t cause life-threatening injuries, but roughly 1 in 5 become infected, so how you handle the first few minutes and the days that follow matters significantly.
Clean and Dress the Wound Right Away
Start by stopping any bleeding with direct pressure from a clean cloth. Once the bleeding slows, wash the wound with mild soap and warm running water, rinsing for at least three to five minutes. This step is the single most important thing you can do to prevent infection. Dog mouths carry bacteria that are harmless to the dog but can cause serious problems in human tissue, and flushing the wound mechanically removes much of that bacteria before it can take hold.
After rinsing, apply an over-the-counter antibacterial ointment and cover the wound with a clean, dry bandage. If the bite is on your hand, face, or near a joint, or if it’s deep enough that you can see fat or muscle tissue, skip the home bandaging and head straight to an emergency room.
Get the Dog Owner’s Information
Before you leave the scene, collect the owner’s name, address, and phone number. Ask whether the dog’s vaccinations are current and request proof of rabies vaccination. This information is critical for two reasons: it helps your doctor determine whether you need rabies treatment, and it’s required if you report the bite to your local health department or animal control. If the dog is a stray or you can’t identify an owner, note the location, time, and a description of the dog (breed, color, size) as precisely as you can.
When You Need Medical Attention
The short answer: nearly always. Dog bites are puncture wounds, which means bacteria gets pushed deep into tissue where surface cleaning can’t fully reach. You should seek medical care promptly if any of the following apply:
- The bite is on your hand, face, or near a joint. These areas are especially prone to infection and scarring.
- The wound is deep, ragged, or won’t stop bleeding.
- You can’t confirm the dog was vaccinated for rabies.
- You have a weakened immune system. This includes people with diabetes, cancer, HIV, those without a spleen, those on chemotherapy or immunosuppressive medications, and people with alcohol use disorders.
Even a bite that looks minor can benefit from a professional evaluation. A doctor can assess whether the wound needs stitches, prescribe preventive antibiotics, and determine your risk for rabies and tetanus.
Stitches and Scarring
There’s a longstanding debate about whether dog bites should be stitched closed or left open to heal. Research now shows that closing bites with sutures doesn’t significantly increase infection rates compared to leaving them open, and it produces noticeably better cosmetic results. In one study, sutured wounds scored nearly twice as well on cosmetic appearance scales as unsutured wounds. Bites on the head and neck tend to heal with the best outcomes when closed.
For deeper or more severe wounds on the arms and legs, your doctor may use specialized wound-care techniques that help reduce infection and speed recovery. In studies of serious extremity bites, patients treated with advanced wound management healed in about 10 days compared to roughly 16 days with standard open-wound care.
Antibiotics and Infection Prevention
Your doctor will likely prescribe a short course of preventive antibiotics, typically three to five days, if the bite is considered high risk. Not every bite requires antibiotics, but hand bites, deep punctures, and bites in people with compromised immune systems almost always do.
Watch the wound carefully over the next two weeks. Infection from dog bites typically shows up within three to five days but can appear as late as 14 days after the bite. Signs to watch for include redness spreading outward from the wound, increasing swelling or pain, pus draining from the bite, blisters forming around the area, fever, or unusual symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, headache, confusion, or joint pain. Any of these warrants immediate medical attention. Dogs carry bacteria that can occasionally cause severe systemic infections, particularly in people with weakened immune systems.
Rabies: What You Need to Know
Rabies is rare in domestic dogs in the United States, but it’s almost always fatal once symptoms appear, so doctors take the risk seriously. If the dog’s rabies vaccination status is unknown, or if the dog was behaving strangely, your doctor and local health department will assess whether you need post-exposure treatment.
If the dog can be identified and located, animal control will typically confine it for an observation period. A dog that remains healthy during that time almost certainly doesn’t have rabies, and you won’t need treatment. If the dog can’t be found, or if there’s any reason to suspect rabies, treatment begins immediately.
Rabies post-exposure treatment involves thorough wound cleaning, a one-time injection of rabies immune globulin (given near the wound site), and a series of four vaccine doses spread over two weeks: one on the day of treatment, then on days 3, 7, and 14. People with weakened immune systems receive a fifth dose on day 28. If you’ve been previously vaccinated against rabies, you only need two doses on days 0 and 3, with no immune globulin required. The shots are given in the arm, not the stomach, contrary to the old reputation.
Tetanus Boosters
Dog bites count as “dirty” puncture wounds for tetanus purposes. If more than five years have passed since your last tetanus booster, you’ll need one. If you can’t remember when your last shot was, your doctor will likely give you one to be safe. Most adults should be getting a tetanus booster every 10 years regardless, so a dog bite is often the prompt that catches people up.
Report the Bite
Report the bite to your local health department or animal control. Many jurisdictions require this by law, and the report serves two purposes: it triggers a rabies risk assessment for you, and it creates a record of the dog’s behavior. When you report, you’ll typically be asked for the location, time, and circumstances of the bite, the dog owner’s contact information, a description of the dog including breed and color, and the dog’s vaccination history if you have it. If the dog has bitten before, this record helps authorities take appropriate action to prevent future incidents.