Yes, they can try. That does not mean the footage wins.

If your child was bitten in the face at a friend's house in Ann Arbor, and now a private investigator is parked down the block near Burns Park or trailing you through the Meijer lot on Ann Arbor-Saline Road, that usually means the homeowner's insurance company thinks the claim is worth real money.

Facial dog bites to kids often are.

Scarring. Plastic surgery consults. Trauma around animals. Sleep problems. School issues. It adds up fast.

And the insurer knows juries hate this kind of injury.

So they go hunting for anything that makes the damage look smaller than it is.

What the investigator is trying to get

The footage is usually not about proving the bite never happened. A dog bite to the face leaves records. ER photos, stitches, follow-up visits, maybe treatment at Michigan Medicine, maybe counseling after.

The video is about minimizing the fallout.

They want clips of your child laughing at Gallup Park, running at recess, going to soccer, playing in the driveway, or looking "fine" outside Slauson or Pioneer. They want you carrying on with work calls, lifting plumbing tools into the van, acting calm, not visibly rattled.

Then the adjuster builds the same ugly argument: if life looks normal on video, the injury must not be that serious.

That argument is often bullshit.

A child can laugh for ten minutes and still wake up from nightmares. A scar can heal badly over time. A kid can go to school and still become terrified around dogs. None of that shows up in a 40-second clip filmed from a Honda parked across the street.

In Michigan, the dog owner doesn't get a free pass

Michigan is generally tough on dog owners. If a dog bites someone who is lawfully on the property and not provoking the animal, the owner can be on the hook even if the dog never bit anyone before.

That matters at a friend's house.

The usual homeowner-insurance move is to hunt for some excuse: your child startled the dog, got too close to food, ignored a warning, pulled fur, opened a gate, whatever. If they can shift blame onto the child, they will.

Michigan also uses modified comparative fault. If a court decides the injured person was more than 50 percent at fault, recovery is barred. If fault is 50 percent or less, damages can be reduced.

With young kids, that blame game can get nasty fast.

And surveillance footage is part of it. Not because it proves provocation at the moment of the bite, but because the insurer wants leverage on damages and credibility.

What the investigator usually can and cannot do

If the investigator is filming from a public street, a parking lot, outside your house, outside school pickup, or while you're walking into a store on Washtenaw, that's generally allowed.

Creepy? Absolutely.

Illegal by itself? Usually no.

But there are lines. A private investigator should not be trespassing, peeking into your home, contacting your child directly, pretending to be a neighbor to get access, or harassing school staff for information. If somebody is crossing those lines, document it.

Do not confront the investigator in some big driveway showdown.

Do not post about it on Facebook either.

That just gives the insurer more material.

The biggest mistake families make

They start performing.

Either they tell the child to "act normal" because they're embarrassed, or they shut down completely and keep the child inside because they're scared of being filmed.

Both reactions can backfire.

Your kid is allowed to live life. Go to school. Go outside. Smile. Play. None of that cancels out a facial injury or emotional harm.

What matters is consistency between the medical records, the photos, the treatment history, and what daily life actually looks like.

If your child says dogs now cause panic, and then there's video of a meltdown when a neighbor walks a labradoodle past your sidewalk in Water Hill, that footage may actually support the claim.

The insurer is counting on you assuming every video clip hurts you. Not true.

As a plumber, your own routine can get dragged into this

This is where people in working trades get hit from two directions.

You may be the parent taking your child to appointments while also trying to keep jobs moving in Ypsilanti, Dexter, or over toward Saline. The insurance company may film you lifting pipe, loading fittings, climbing in and out of the van, acting like the family is "doing fine."

That can get used to suggest the injury has not disrupted home life much.

It's a cheap trick, but it's common.

Keep the focus where it belongs: the child's injury, treatment, visible scarring, mental health changes, missed activities, and what doctors say about future care.

Do these four things right away

• Save every photo of the wound, healing stages, and scar progression
• Keep a simple log of nightmares, fear around dogs, school problems, and appointments
• Tell doctors the full story, including emotional changes, not just the scar
• Write down every surveillance incident with date, time, location, plate, and what happened

That log matters more than most people realize.

If a PI is outside your home off Packard Road three mornings in one week, write it down. If someone follows you from a follow-up visit near Michigan Medicine to a grocery stop on Carpenter, write it down.

Patterns matter.

The friend's house part makes people hesitate

A lot of families freeze because they know the dog owner.

That's understandable. But the claim is usually against the homeowner's insurance policy, not out of somebody's checking account. Meanwhile, facial injuries in children can involve revision procedures years later as the face grows.

This stuff does not neatly resolve in one urgent care visit.

And the clock still runs. In Michigan, the general deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit is three years. That sounds like plenty of time until the records pile up, the scar changes, memories get fuzzy, and surveillance clips start getting used to tell a false story.

The video is not the whole case.

It's just one tool the insurance company uses to make a hurt child look less hurt than they really are.