Warning: This article contains graphic images
A bit of heavy petting on the way home might be a sign the date’s been a success, but for this woman it ended in horror.
Rather than her partner, Connie Wanberg pet a stranger’s dog outside of a restaurant in Minnesota, US, and ended up having her lips ripped off.
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The professor and partner Joel Marty were enjoying a day out in August when they had decided to stop for a bite to eat, riding their bikes there.
"I parked my bike and my partner went inside to get a table. To the left of the restaurant there was a coffee shop with a patio," the 58-year-old explained.
"Two women were sitting there with their two dogs and I said hello and asked to pet their dogs."
Connie says she was then told she could pet the brown labrador retriever but as she reached to do so, ‘it jumped up and bit me on the mouth’.
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"It took a huge hole out of the side of my face, it took 75% of my bottom lip,” she explained. "I was bleeding quite extensively. There was blood all over the patio and on my shoes.
“The dog just jumped so high and it was one huge bite. Later they found my lip on the patio and it was all chewed up and was impossible to recover.”
The mum-of-two says her body went into shock and she was rushed to hospital, where she underwent a four-hour emergency trauma to stitch her face up.
"I had a complex left cheek laceration, my left jaw was exposed and the muscles around the left side of my mouth were just gone,” Connie explained.
"Initially, I didn't feel pain, my body went into shock from the adrenaline. At the time, I felt bad for the owner and the dog as I'm such a dog lover."
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She has a six-year-old pitbull rescue of her own but says since the attack she’s had a panic attack when faced with a dog in public and now restrains from petting them in the street.
A few weeks after the surgery, she had to have a ‘rare’ operation called an Estlander flap procedure to create a 'new' bottom lip.
Connie has had to spend the past year on medical leave as she ‘couldn’t speak’ and now hopes to get back to teaching in the autumn.
"I was stuttering and slurring right after that surgery and I couldn't open my mouth for several weeks and had to be on a liquid diet,” she added.
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Now, she attends regular therapy sessions to help with her speech and Bell’s palsy that developed as a result of her injury.
"I've been pretty balanced about my reactions to the accident throughout but I have had lows,” she said, describing how she was ‘really self-conscious’ when she started going out again.
Plus, Connie now has microstomia, an abnormally small mouth, making it harder to breath as she also finds talking to be ‘so much more work’
When the attack occurred, Connie says Minneapolis Animal Care and Control were on scene and quarantined the dog to check for rabies, which it's not believed the animal had.
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A City of Minneapolis spokesman said: "The dog in this case does/did not live in Minneapolis (the bite occurred in Minneapolis).
"Therefore, the City's procedure is to notify the jurisdiction in which the animal resides. It is then up to that jurisdiction to enforce any action. The fine issued by Minneapolis Animal Care and Control in this case was paid."
Jess Battison