Fact or Fiction? Kill a dog by breaking its legs.

[Ford Prefect]

Covenant, what would you do if a large dog ( a bulldog or whatever) is attacking your dog ( a smaller breed, for example mine is a Welsh corgi)?

Hope to God that the owner of the big dog isn't a complete asshole and idiot, though if it is already on your corgi you an already the the quality of the owner.

Honestly, situations like these I don't have any personal experience with. My dad's dogs never liked other dogs on first meeting, but they were extremely well trained and agression towards smaller animals was never tolerated, because 'smaller animal' could mean 'child'. Assuming a terrible accidnet with a good owner and they should be able to handle it; they may be carrying a 'breaking stick' on their person, which are used to lever apart jaws and force a release.

However, assuming that you end up with an ownerless dog, or an asshole owner, then aggression on your part will help. Covenant's analogy to being a bully with no balls is very accurate; only the most utterly tenacious of fighting dogs would continue to attack a dog while someone totally different was mashing into them with boots or heavy objects. I have known a lot of pit bulls in my time, and while my dad would never fight his dogs, he has rescued, so to speak, more than a couple of dogs who have been put in the pit.

To give an example, we had one dog in particular who had clearly toed the line and very rarely backed down, with a powerful build and more than his fair share of scars. He was not very fond of this other rescue dog we were looking after (just this one dog too, he got along fine with the others), and on one occasion got free. Despite being extremely angry at each other, dad was able to break up fairly easily, and they stopped wnating to fight once the 'big dog' got involved.

Err, getting to the point, it is a rare dog that will ignore someone pounding at them like that. Mind you, I have a fairly limited experience with dogs from outside my father's 'stable' or handling.

[redmagister]

for one thing I have never heard of a confirmed case of a person crushing a dogs heart by levering the legs apart, it might be something someone said to get their kid to stop playing roughly with the dog. my expirience with dogs has been varied in nature. I've played with goofy Dobermans and prised the jaws of a chihuahua off of my leg. my advice would be protect your legs and throat because those are the dogs targets. and I'd reiterate the point to never run, because not only does that firmly place you as prey and you will in all likelihood be "brought down". The only way that has really been demonstrated to me to work effectively is to from the beginning of the encounter establish yourself as a bigger dog. It's like ford said when the alpha male steps in then the fight will in all likelihood end.

[ShadowRider77]

The dog won't care about ultrasound. Some of these things can be effective as annoyance versions of deterrant, but what you need is something loud and present. The reason an airhorn is effective, especially as it comes close to you, is because it interrupts the dog's train of thought. The mental effort required to evaluate the thought breaks it out of attack mode, which drops it back into it's default mode of worried, lone predator.

I suspected it. Indeed, the idea that a sound can scare/annoy a dog just because it is at higher frequency is quite stupid. I suspect it is just like people - a low-volume sound won't affect you much, no matter the frequency, while a high-volume sound will.

I'm in the Chicago area so guns and pepper sprays and stuff are off-limits. Not that they'd be of much use anyway, if you can even hit the dog you may not be able to put it down. Pepper spray might work but it's mostly just useless. Something suprising and extremely offensive like a citronella spray usually works the best. It's also used to break up dogfights already in progress, so you know it must be effective. Don't overdo it of course, it's not a deterrant. Think of it as a sucker punch. The idea is to suprise the dog and block the aggression.

Really, you shouldn't go looking to fight a dog, and you shouldn't murder someone's pet just because it goes off the handle. Like in the clip below, usually it's just a dumb dog doing some barking and posturing but it's not going to hurt anyone. Just like the best way to win a fistfight isn't to always assume your opponent needs to die you can certainly get out of a dog attack with just a bit of bluster and some avoidance.

Of course I don't have any intention to pick fights with dogs, neither I am willing to hurt anyone's pet. I know people who like to kick defenseless living beings, but I'm not that kind of person fortunately. As I said, the only time I had a problem with a dog my main concern was not to hurt him. Even when I had to (just three times, luckily...) defend myself from human aggressors, I always tried (and fortunately succeeded) to disable them without hurting them too much.

Just, around where I live there are many dogs, and although all of them seem educated enough, it is never a bad thing to be prepared for any eventuality. The fact you are basically suggesting ways to scare/discourage a potentially threatening dog with little to no actual damage inflicted comes as a very good bonus to me.

That is why your suggestions about airhorns and citronella sprays are interesting to me. Sound me as good ways to defuse conflicts without anyone being hurt.

<SNIP>

Interesting movies. Had no time to watch them with the needed attention, I will as soon as possible, but seem to cover a good variety of situations, and suggest some good "Do" and "Don't".

Even more interesting are your considerations about pack mentality and behavior. Having never been around dogs that much (I am not particularily into pets at all. It's not that I hate dogs, cats, etc., just it is not for me...), I had never observed their behavior in depth. I'll have to ponder on the informations you supplied when I'll have time.

If I may make a suggestion, you should consider to gather and organize all that you said above in an article and publish it somewhere. You have a good knowledge of the topic, and the gods know that on the internet there's a lot of rubbish about this, so there is a need of informations from actually informed people...

[Oni Koneko Damien]

My own experience with dog-attacks match the better advice given here. Don't run, face the dog, be assertive, but slowly give ground. And yell, always yell. It's basically the one-two punch of shocking the dog enough to get it to think about things, and then slowly giving ground to make it realize it has a non-violent out to this confrontation.

In my own experience, nine times out of ten the dog has skidded to a halt about five to ten feet a way, made a whole lot of noise and posturing, but didn't attack. And the exceptions, thankfully, were dogs seeking affection, rather than going on an outright attack.

[Larz]

I just have to echo the advice of being assertive, yelling, and not backing down as key points to difusing a potential dog attack. I've unfortunatly have had real life experience with this as a neighborhood pitbull who had always been very loud from behind a fence whenever me, the wife, and dog (a boston terrier) passed finally forced its way through a loose board. The dog instantly went after my boston terrier attempting to bite her but I was able to get between the two of them, shouting commands at the other dog while broadening my stance and apperance. It postured some, made a lot of threatening noises, came at me and attempted to go around me a few times (which I just circled about the dog rather than attacking it) before it finally backed off still barking but it allowed me, the wife and dog to back away while it lost interest and wandered away in the opposite direction.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Well, I've had a bit of experience with this (We used to live in a rather bad neighbourhood, and everyone, us included had a dog for security).
The very best thing is to avoid the dog's attack entirely. Full stop. (This won't help against a dog wandering around, or a nasty bastard, or it following you, but it will help against dogs kept in homes or backyards).
First way: Keep a good safety margin, as in 20 meters/other side of the street.
Second way: Deterrence. If the dog starts following you (But isn't running & frothing at the mouth in full blown attack mode, yet), then do Not start to run away. Instead turn towards it and "half-jump" towards it, as though you're about tu run at it, or to attack it. This is best accompanied by a shout, and maybe waving your hands aggressively. The key is to establish yourself as unafraid, if you turn around and start running, then that can lead to very Bad things if the dog starts running after you and is un-intimidated.

It (Psychological deterrence) has worked for me well enough, worst I've suffered is a golden retriever/doberman chewing up my hand, which is a pretty good track record, and this helps prevent the incident at all.