Attacked by a dog

[BWT]

Watch that bite closely. Dog bites get bad infections easily. You didn't reach for your weapons because you froze, a perfectly natural reaction when being attacked by "man's best friend", it startles you into inaction for a few seconds. "This can't be happening." ANY animal will bite and attack, given the right provocations - fear, food, territory. The spray probably would have worked, even if it did get the owner, too. The BIG question is WHY? Why did the dog attack and will it do so again? That needs to be addressed immediately if you and the dog are both "out in public".

I'd agree.

That maybe a long term behavior.

As for the situation, I can't Monday-morning quarterback too much.

The only thing that I'd be concerned about with you is taking the time to pre-game stuff like this mentally.

Having a well thought out plan before hand will lead to better results when the adrenaline hits and time is a luxury. I'm guilty of not doing that enough myself.

What would I do if a dog charged me? Right now, I genuinely have no plan. That's a problem.

[theJanitor]

I got bit several years ago. I could see bone in my forearm. As it was very late, I just washed/bandaged it up and went to bed. I went to work the next morning and my arm was very swollen. When I went to see my doctor later that day, his eyes nearly popped out of his head, and had me taking antibiotics out of those sample packs, and injecting me with stuff. He commented that the infection was riding up my arm, and had made it halfway up my bicep. If I had waited longer, the infection would have reached my torso and the results would have been very bad. I asked why he wasn't going to stitch me up, he said he would rather let the body expel all the crap that the dog bite injected into my arm, rather than seal it in, and let my obviously overtaxed immune system deal with it. +

What happened to the dog? Nothing. It was the dog of my future wife. I had just met her and killing it in her front yard might have soured the relationship. With it's jaws around my arm, I took it to the ground, and repeatedly punched it in the face with my support hand. That was just a distraction to the mutt, and it only stopped when I managed to get a knee on it's throat

[MichaelD]

What happened to the dog? Nothing. It was the dog of my future wife. I had just met her and killing it in her front yard might have soured the relationship. With it's jaws around my arm, I took it to the ground, and repeatedly punched it in the face with my support hand. That was just a distraction to the mutt, and it only stopped when I managed to get a knee on it's throat

I'm hoping she at least decided to part with the dog after that...

[Clay]

I deal with people's dogs on a daily basis, and pepper spray is a life saver for sure. With that said, the real key is alertness. I've been surprised on a few occasions though, and can say that dealing with a truly vicious dog that gets the drop on you is downright scary as s**t.

People always say that their dog won't bite. I like to say that every dog will bite, it's just a matter of what you have to do to make it bite. Some dogs, it's not much at all.

I prefer FOX Labs and DPS pepper spray. A 26" ASP baton is pretty handy too if you can carry one legally.

[Salamander]

I've only had one serious encounter with a dog, and it was a long time ago; I was 20-something and almost certainly had faster reflexes then relative to now. It was a semi-feral doberman, it was eating something when I came around a corner and surprised it. The dog lunged at me, and I instinctively kicked it in the head, hard. It knocked the dog back a few feet but didn't stop it, the next very tense 30 seconds or so it just growled at me and and we stared each other down and then it slowly backed away. Maybe I hurt it more than it looked like, but there was no visible physical damage to the dog.

I'm actually far more concerned about dogs now, because one of my current project sites... and I'll be out there a lot for the next two years... is a lonely and semi-remote coastal stretch with a handful of squatters living on it, and one spot... a place we call "sketcherville"... has a collection of abandoned cars, a few human low-lifes, and at least two rottweilers that routinely roam loose. Whoever they are, they don't like visitors. Since that's not exactly a friends pet though, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot if attacked by one of those particular dogs. So far I've always seen them at distance with the wind in my favor, but can that luck hold forever? Lots of places with shrub cover there, where an animal could get close.

[KevinB]

BE VERY CAREFUL SHOOTING PEOPLE DOG'S.

I have no qualms shooting someone (again) over a dog, especially on my property, and I know I am not alone.

[Sadmin]

I killed a border collie that attacked me when I was 18. Bit my thigh and I punched it in on the nose until it let go. It wigged out pawing at it's face so I kicked it in the side with my red wings. Dog died the next morning and the owners were sympathetic to me. They were worried I would sue them and said she had been aggressive in the last few months.


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[Sheep Have Wool]

BE VERY CAREFUL SHOOTING PEOPLE DOG'S.

I have no qualms shooting someone (again) over a dog, especially on my property, and I know I am not alone.

I would be extremely hesitant to shoot a dog unless I felt like it was the dog's life or mine, especially on someone else's property. The dog may very well be doing just what you'd want a dog to do: keep strangers away. Shooting Fluffy - even if Fluffy deserved it - seems like a great way to precipitate a confrontation with Fluffy's owner. I'd much rather look ridiculous hauling ass back to my car/to the nearest cover.

This is also an argument for carrying some sort of happy medium tool that lets you avoid choosing between "fending off dog with bare hands" and "shooting dog before it can hurt me."

[Clay]

BE VERY CAREFUL SHOOTING PEOPLE DOG'S.

I have no qualms shooting someone (again) over a dog, especially on my property, and I know I am not alone.

So if your dog attacked someone and they shot it, you would then shoot that person?

I love animals, but if I'm attacked by a dog and pepper spray and feet don't do the trick, I'm shooting the dog. My escalation of force with an animal is the same as with a person. If someone wants to pull a gun on me in those circumstances then I imagine there would be a gunfight.

As I said earlier, I deal with dogs (and people) daily, and consider myself pretty good at deescalation, so don't think at all that I would be quick to go to deadly force over a barking dog defending his territory.

I have found that dogs often times are reflections of their owners - mean lousy dog, mean lousy owner. I rarely blame the dog.

[Josh Runkle]

In my area, any animal that bites a person has to be put down. If my dog bit someone out of fear/anger and was very aggressive and a person shot it, I'd feel bad about everything, but wouldn't feel that the person who shot it was out of line.

If I could avoid shooting a dog, I would, but if I couldn't, I'd shoot it rather than be bit. Who knows what damage could be done by the bites? What if the reason the dog is biting is because it has rabies?