What would you have done? - Page 2

Well we now have to carry a stun gun, legal of course along with bear spray also legal, so unfortunately if a dog approaches my dogs at an aggressive speed snarling and hackler up;  guess what..  Hate to do it but cannot let it happen to my guys ever again.  End of story.  Nan

Animal control in So. CA. do not do shit.  They told me basically we wait until something happens.  Then we warn.  Sucks, by then someone might be dead.  Does not work for me.  N

    In a situation like that I am going to give my dog the latitude to take care of the problem. I am not going to risk damage to my dog by correcting them or getting in the way. The last thing I want is for my dog to feel that they are fighting me as well as the other dog. There are quite a few loose dogs that I encounter in my neighborhood , some communicate well with other canines and avoid conflict, some can't handle seeing another canine and approach menacingly. I haven't come across one yet that didn't stop this behaviour after reaching us but I have allowed my dogs to confront this behaviour head on.

A tennis racket is a good tool for dealing with a small terrier.  There is no right fix for all situations.  A flexi lead of 30 feet will give your doga  chance to deal with the terrier(s).  A big walking stick or hiking staff is good when you have a  puppy that can not defend itself.  One dog at a time walking for me and no friendly dog introductions or letting the dogs introduce themselves nonsense of course.  I had a 5 month old female GSD puppy that weighed about 50 pounds and she was a terror.  My neighbor had 4 white terrier mixes about 20 pounds each.  I would walk my female Bella in a large 60 acre field behind my house and my neighbor's house.  I walked Bella on a 30 foot Flexi Lead and halfway across the field the terriers would come for us barking and screaming.  We both would stop and wait for them and Bella never made a peep or moved a muscle.  When the terrier banditos got twenty feet from us they would pull up and bark their heads off and that was when Bella would make her move and she would hit the end of the 30 foot Flexi with her teeth about to snap shut on a terrier.  The terrier had to travel 10 feet to escape while Bella traveled 30 feet to close on them and it was very close two or three times and then the terriers quit coming.  They just stayed in their yard and barked at us instead of making the commute.  The terriers eyes were as big as pie plates when saw Bella launch toward them and even as a puppy she never made a sound.  That said I also remember two smallish pit bulls coming after Bella as a puppy and my work boots came in handy.  Every situation is different but I like heavy duty footwear and a collapsable steel baton or a walking staff when I walk a dog where I am possibly going to meet dogs or people.  The bear spray and collapsable baton are great but usually it happens so quickly that getting to those and deploying them may not go as planned.

To be honest, this is the reason why I don't feel comfortable walking my dog in public anymore.  The sad fact is that here in the Bay Area, most of these dogs are Pitt Bulls that are owned by irresponsible owners.  We've gotten attacked or seen an attack 3 times in the past month so this is a very dangerous and growing problem.  If anyone has any ideas on how to stop these dogs quickly let me know lol.  I am currently frustrated due to this problem.

vonrivera

You can't use bear or pepper spray when it's windy either. I like a wiffleball bat, but it's cumbersome. I've thought about a paintball gun too. I'd be afraid my dog would break a flexi if she hit the end of it while running at full bore. The only positive thing I can say about 12 attacks in a year is that it's only made my dog wary of other dogs here where I live. I can take her to training class and trials and she pays no attention to any of the other dogs.

Everybody's stories sound so familiar to my daily life in suburbia.  I make it a point that my dog and I shall bother no one, but we're always getting bothered by the rushing, yapping, barking, 10 to 20 pound doodle mixes that live around here.  As the dogs come charging at us, I always hear the owners (30 feet away at least), yelling: "They're friendly!"  And thats right as these dogs are launching themselves at my dog's face.

So, I have a question...do these kinds of unfortunate interactions lead to negative dog reactivity in an otherwise previously dog-neutral dog?

 I've been noticing that my dog is starting to get reactive at just the sight of strange dogs.  For now, I keep a ball or tug with me and redirect him to focus on me as we heel away from strange dogs or sometimes we have to pass them (the strange dogs being leashed by the time we pass).  The dogs who have charged us repeatedly in the past takes more discipline from me to keep him focused on me, because, frankly I think they've ticked him off enough that given the chance, he would take matters into his own teeth.

Zenit2010, that may very well depend on the dog, and even more how you handle the situation.  My dogs seem no more reactive towards others than they have before, after the attack yesterday. In fact Buck was at the brunt end of an attack about four years ago by a large Labrador (the thing jumped the fence and charged him, attacked, but did not physically damage him. None of that has changed any of my guys behavior. I think a lot of it just has to do with your dogs, as well as how you handle the situations honestly.  My dog Max who turns 9 in August has a tremendous amount of experience around other dogs, but also seems to trust me that I won't let anything happen to him.  So guys, as far as taking something with me to defend, what do you guys think about nun-chucks? They're easy to carry along, they're not massively big, but you can inflict pain, and depending on how you use them you could do serious damage if needed. I had thought about that for some of the larger dogs. I'm leary though of pepper spray (though I thought about using it) because it tends to be windy a lot this time of year.

Some of you guys may be familiar with my dogs from the past, here are a couple of them from a picture I took the other week when we actually had some snow....

OH they are beautiful;  love siberians.

Just wanted to say one final thing about protection for you and your dogs;  have your plan in place prior to your walks;  as you probably know there is not a lot of time to give any extra thought to what to do when the pursuit happens and my Samoyed that was injured twice (two different attacks) did NOT fight back.  Probably a good thing but there was no time for anything but to try and save him.  JMHO  Nan

After the 4th attack by the same 3 dogs, my GSD did start to bark and hackle up as soon as she saw them running at her.  Now she acts the same when any loose dogs bark and run at her.

How about using Pet Corretor or Pet Convincer compressed air?  Supposedly very effective (when used at close range with a blast to the face), but it's harmless and wont get ticked-off owners screaming at you for kicking their crazy, out of control, dogs.