My son and I were fishing a lake in Vilas Co with the dog. Son lifted his bait out of the water once without doing the 8 , but immediately saw a 45inch musky cruise by looking for the bait. In his haste to get the bait back in the water he tried to make a real short cast in front of the musky, but didn't hit the free-spool button first. Yep, the bait bounced in the boat and hit the sleeping dog; Dog got scared and pawed frantically at the bait. By the time we were able to get things settled down all three trebble hooks from the Suick were stuck in the dog on two legs. Trying to cut the hooks with the bolt cutter was unsuccessful because the dog was scared and couldn't be calmed down as we worked on the bait. My son was able to hold him quiet in his arms as we raced to the landing to find a vet (on a Sunday morning). Found one in Minocqua that would open up the clinic for us. One tranquilizer shot .... snip, snip, snip ... and in 5 minutes we were heading back to the landing with a woozy dog and a $175 lighter wallet. So I gues you don't have to worry too much about the dog as long as you keep your wits about you when the muskies appear.