By Jeanne Moos

(CNN) - In North Carolina, a police dog nearly lost a chunk of his ear. But it wasn't another dog that chewed him up.

They say, "Take a bite out of crime." But this is about taking a bite out of a crime fighter.

"The dog went for my upper here, upper thing up here," said 22-year-old Travis Glaspie. "I ain't never been bit by dog or nothing, so I bit the dog on ear."

Glaspie has some bite marks all right, but the dog's bites look worse.

This isn't just a man bites dog story, it's man bites police dog as police dog bites man.

Wilmington, North Carolina police officers and police dog Maxx were chasing Glaspie, a convicted felon wanted for shooting a firearm into an occupied car.

Maxx got Glaspie by the leg, while the suspect tried to get the dog off.

"He was actually poking at his eyes," said Cpl. David Pellegrino.

"When the dog came up here on me, I just bit the closest thing," said Glaspie. "I bit the dog. That's what got him off me good."

The bite on Maxx's ear required stitches.

Lest you think man bites dog only in movies like "The World According to Garp," we've even heard of woman bites dog, when a woman was being attacked by a Rottweiler.

And another man says he bit his neighbor's growling dog after it had messed with him and his dogs for years.

Glaspie admits biting the dog wasn't exactly a smart move. On the other hand, "I got the dog off me. So, evidently, I must have done something right, 'cause I could have been killed."

Maxx, by the way, is fine. It was his first bite, dog or human.

After only 10 months of K-9 duty, he's already looking a little dog-eared.

CNN