My dog licked my father-in-law to death.
Exactly! I own a terrier mix who would, if given a chance, lick a person to death. I have a cat who's slightly bigger than he is.
Several years ago he was hit by a car and I heard him screaming from inside the house. He'd managed to sneak outside while fiance was distracted. Hearing him screaming I ran outside, saw him and ran up to him. I started talking to him and he calmed down a bit but when I went to touch him he bit me three times...to the bone. I ran back inside to get a towel and yelled out to fiance that Rufus had been hit by a car. Fiance ran out the back while I hurried back through the front with a towel. By the time I arrived back on the street fiance already had picked Ruf up and was about to bring him inside.
I went into detail because even I as Rufus's owner was bitten. We talked about it later and decided Rufus hadn't recognized my smell because I'd been inside cleaning the house so my hands smelled like the different cleaning fluids I'd been using. Fiance was a safe smell and one he instantly recognized so he didn't bite him.
Even if you are the owner caution needs to be excercised when an animal is hurt.
(I'm happy to report that while Rufus did require surgery he's suffered no lasting affects from getting hit or from the surgery. I also didn't suffer any lasting affects other than having to get a tetanus shot.)
It does happen like that; dogs will bite when distressed. Sorry to hear about your little guy and hope he's ok.
The one small sentence in this story that speaks VOLUMES is that the dog was almost always alone in the back yard. This tells me the owners never bothered socializing him. People like that make me sick.
The same thing happens with children that are neglected and/or abused. They become something society won't tolerate, often.
Rufus bit you because he was distressed and in pain...and he was lashing out at anything that moved as his way of defending himself against further injury and he saw a hand and bit it....even though it was the hand of his owner.
My dog licked my father-in-law to death.