What To Do If A Dog Off Lead Attacks Your Dog

[indigirl]

I stand in front of my dogs and shriek obceneties at the approching dog lol. I also stamp my feet and yell in an angry voice to warn it. If it still continues to come towards me I will kick the dog (i wear runners while walking the dogs) if it gets close enough - but that rarely happens. They almost always back off. I had a staffy come right for my old dog and I klicked it hard in the ribs while yelling my head off. The owners came out of the house and I admit i used VERY unladylike language regarding thier dog and what I thought of it going for my dog whilst mine was on lead.

Years ago i actuallty hit a GSD in the ribs with half a house brick as it was on top of my very passive golden and biting his neck. My dog was yelping his head off so I reached for the nearest object I could find - it happened to be a brick. One good thump in the ribs with the brick and it let go of my dog in a hurry. That dog was lucky I didnt hit it in the head! Im petrified of GSDs but was scared it would seriously injure my golden so I did what I felt was necessary to protect him.

[corvus]

IME, there are two kinds of "aggressive" dogs. The ones that come at you hackles up and barking at a quick trot or slower, and the ones that charge you, either silently or roaring. I have had the former too many times to count and have never seen it result in an actual physical attack. Still scares me, and I concentrate on getting distance between us quickly without running, but the vast majority of the time my dogs do a better job than I ever could with their calming, no-threat signals. These dogs are not, IME, committed to attacking, so there are plenty of things you can do to convince them not to.

The charging ones are a whole other matter. I've been charged with my dog four times. Once the dog got mine and it was only that our other dog got that dog that she was uninjured. Twice I watched and pulled my dog out of the way at the last moment so the charging dog missed. Once the charging dog hit a tree and we were able to get away before it had another go and the other time it gave the owners enough time to catch their dog before he had another go. The fourth time turned out to be a friendly dog. I had nowhere to go and my dog was too big to pull out of the way. I thought I was going to be prising it off with my fingers. Thank goodness it was just a weirdo. The owner goes "Excuse him; he's Irish." I could only kind of laugh shakily.