Recently, a friend of mine from church got a brand new puppy. You know, as is generally the case, the puppy is kind of adorable. It’s an empirical fact: puppies are cute.

But they have razor sharp needle teeth!

I had the distinct pleasure of playing with this puppy in recent days. In my experience dogs like to interact by playfully biting whatever or whomever they’re playing with. Young dogs are no different than their older counterparts. Except that those teeth are newer and have had less time to get worn down by years of chewing on rawhide, so they’re sharper.

There’s a fairly obvious laceration on my forearm. It’s the result of playing with the puppy. He grabbed onto my arm, sinking one of those teeth into the skin, then pulled away as if attempting to tear the flesh from my bones. Granted, he’s small and I really didn’t notice that he had broken the skin until some time later. But he did, indeed, break the skin.

Now, I’m not an expert in lycanthropy, or the supernatural transformation of a person into a wolf, but if I’ve read my folklore correctly, a bite is what triggers the transformation. We’re roughly two weeks away from the full moon, so I won’t fully know the effects of being bitten until that time. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the lookout for a heightened sense of smell, an increased sensitivity to high pitched sounds, and an unparalleled ability to play basketball.

Don’t let the adorable face and puppy dog eyes fool you. This creature is vicious. And he has tasted blood. Once they have a taste for it, they may just want more.