“The Bachelor” star Sean Lowe is sharing details about a recent “traumatic” experience with his family dog, Moose, that required multiple trips to the emergency room.
On March 17, Lowe uploaded a nearly 14-minute video to Instagram explaining the painful and violent attacks he recently suffered. As he spoke, wife Catherine Giudici, whom he proposed to on the reality dating show and has been married to since 2014, sat beside him. She became emotional as he told the gruesome story.
“OK, everybody. So I guess you could say our family has been through something pretty traumatic over the weekend. Wouldn’t you say?” he asked Giudici.
She simply responded with a soft, “Yeah,” before he continued.
Lowe said, “I’ve debated on whether or not we should share this publicly, but I just figured you guys are going to ask questions and probably see things, so I might as well get out ahead of it.”
The 41-year-old explained that on Thursday, March 13, he decided to have a barbecue and invite some friends over while Giudici took their three children — Samuel, 8, Isaiah, 6, and Mia 5 — to the mall.
He recalled that smoke from the grill started to waft inside the house, setting off the alarm. So, he grabbed a dish rag and attempted to fan the smoke to stop the siren. At that point, Moose came up to him and “aggressively” nipped his finger, something Lowe said the boxer didn’t typically do. The dog then bit his feet.
“He was biting my feet so hard he actually put holes in my shoes, and it was hurting my feet,” he shared. “So at this point, again, there’s so much chaos going on with the alarm going off. I give him a very stern, like, ‘Moose, no, no!’ It was right about that moment where he shows his teeth at me and just attacks me.”
Lowe said the dog didn’t just bite him a couple times and stop. He remembered feeling the dog “ripping into the flesh of my arm.” The reality television star attempted to fend off the dog and briefly moved him into the backyard.
“He comes back through the door (and) attacks me for a second time,” Lowe said. “I’m not trying to be dramatic, but I honestly just felt like I am fighting for my life here against a dog — no, not just a dog. My dog, right?”
He explained that his family rescued the dog less than three months ago and he had already developed a strong bond with Moose. He recalled the two going on walks and running errands together.
“All he’s ever wanted was affection,” he said, adding that the sudden change in Moose’s temperament was “bizarre.”
After he successfully moved the boxer to the backyard a second time, his friends shut the door and went to help him.
“I look down at my arm that was cut so deep,” he said as he showed the gashes and bruises to the camera. “I just see blood squirting, probably a couple feet. And so my first thought is, ‘I think that dog may have nicked an artery.’”
He added that he had the attack on video but didn’t want to share the clip because it was “way too violent.” Lowe asked his friends to take him to the hospital immediately and to call his wife.
He went to the ER and received stitches on five or six different places on his arm. As the doctors were tending to him, he tried to grapple with what happened, Lowe said. When he returned home, his friends had isolated Moose in the backyard and cleaned up the blood.
“I’ve got photos of this, too, but (there was) a literal pool of blood on our floor. Nothing I’ve ever seen,” he recalled.
The next day, he said he felt “confused” and “heartbroken” knowing that he couldn’t keep his dog. He contacted local animal control and was put in touch with an officer, who listed some options for relocating Moose. Lowe also phoned the animal adoption agency where he adopted the dog.
He called his parents to ask them to watch his children while he recovered from the accident. When his parents arrived, he helped Samuel, Isaiah and Mia get into the car before he heard Giudici shouting, “No, no, no, no!” behind him.
“I see Moose running out the front door,” he said, adding that the wind had blown the doors open and allowed the boxer to get loose. “So, going through a dog attack is pretty darn traumatic. Having to relive it less than 12 hours later, seeing that dog running straight at you, is a feeling that I don’t think I ever want to experience again. Not to mention my arm (was) just useless because it was all stitched up and I was having a hard time moving it.”
He saw the dog and hoped that his usual friendly demeanor had returned, but that wasn’t the case. “He made a beeline right at me and lunged and started attacking me again and again,” Lowe shared.
He started screaming for help as he felt his skin tearing on his other arm. Eventually, he wrestled Moose to the ground and grabbed his collar. Lowe said he experienced the same feeling of needing to fight for his life.
“‘If this dog gets up, he is going to kill me,’” he thought.
Lowe, who said he was 220 pounds, laid on the dog for about 10 minutes until the police arrived. He said the officers also struggled to control Moose. He then returned to the hospital and received more stitches.
He added that he wanted to share the story because he thought fans would notice his injuries or Moose’s absence on his social media. Just a few days prior, he had posted a video of him walking the boxer.
Despite the attack, Lowe still expressed love for his dog. “I don’t blame Moose a bit,” he continued. “I know it’s been really hard for my wife to reconcile, and, by the way, she’s been the most amazing caretaker over the past few days. It wasn’t Moose’s fault.”
He mentioned the boxer must have experienced some type of trauma in his previous home and that “a switch flipped and he turned into an absolute killer.” Lowe said Moose didn’t show any signs of aggression before the incident.
He also said he didn’t blame the rescue group that gave him the dog because they weren’t aware of Moose’s past.
“I’m super grateful it was me and it was not my kids or my wife, and I made it out relatively unscathed. You know, I have scarred arms for the rest of my life, but I can live with that,” he said. He asked his fans to pray for Giudici and the psychological effect the attack will have on his family.
He concluded, “We’re torn up about it. We really are. We miss our dog, as weird as that sounds. He was a really, really good dog.”
