mav
NES Member
My wife and I were walking our dog last night when we were attacked by another dog. We usually walk to one of two conservation trails in the area, both within a mile of our house. On this particular evening, we were walking back from the trail on a public road (no sidewalks). We hear barking and my wife tells me to get ready as she sees a large German Shepard bearing down on us. The Shepard is obviously not under the verbal or physical control of it's owner and comes running out into the road where we are walking and immediately attacks our dog, a fixed female Pit Bull mix.
I had our dog on a leash and tried to restrain her as she is very aggressive at other aggressive dogs and was prepared to fight. Unfortunately this put my dog at a severe disadvantage as it limited her mobility. My wife tried to get between them to keep the Shepard at bay as did I, trying to keep our dog behind me. Of course the Shepard, being likely 100lb of muscle and teeth, had no problem getting close and managed to get a few bites in on our dog before she could respond. I shouted, lunged, and kicked at the other dog, which seemed to keep the fight from getting too bad.
While this is happening, one of the owners, the wife comes running out and is trying to restrain her dog, but isn't really successful. Then the husband shows up, sees me kicking at his dog and immediately shouts at me and prepares to throw down (hand cocked to throw a haymaker), which meant I now I had to take my eyes and attention off the German Shepard and get into a defensive stance in case this guy engages me. My wife is shouting at them to get control of their dog while he continues to circle to re-engage us.
Overall, a complete clusterfck. They finally managed to get control of their dog. We continued on to finish our walk. The wife was very apologetic and during the whole thing tried her best to get control of the dog. The husband was obviously not thinking straight, but apologized after. He was triggered by my kicking his dog, and at one point yelled at us because we had a pit bull... had zero understanding of what happened and that his dog initiated the attack in a public space while loose. Not to mention ignoring the fact that his male German Shepard was much bigger/heavier than our dog and obviously the aggressor.
We checked our dog at home. She was fine except for a 3 small puncture wounds, one on the face, and one on each rear leg. They bled for a bit, but eventually stopped. It didn't look like they needed stitches.
No one was hurt beside some superficial wounds on our dog (she never made a sound and managed to defend herself as she's a tough dog). No one died or went to jail, and I think we did about the best we could in that situation. Afterwards, I told my wife that I probably should have handed the leash off to her in order to be able to more successfully engage the German Shepard and later, the owner when he became aggressive (didn't expect that). I wasn't carrying concealed at the time, but had I been, I told her I would have shot the dog as soon as it engaged us. That dog could have easily killed her, killed our dog and was very much a threat to me. That would have opened a crap show of legal issues (this is MA so...). I would have been certainly within rights on a public road to defend my family against an aggressive and dangerous threat. There is no running away from a dog, so I don't think duty to retreat would be an issue.
Besides this dog, there are some other very aggressive German Shepherds in the area. From this point forward, I'm carrying when I'm walking. I was in gym shorts and a tshirt and didn't feel like carrying as we've never had an issue before. Obvious mistake on my part and we got lucky. Just goes to show how fast things can turn to crap when you least expect it.
WWYD?
As an aside, WTF is with crappy dog owners who don't leash their dog and have zero control over them? I can't count how many times I see dogs off leash on our walks, in our neighborhood running loose, etc. All of this would have been avoided had these owners kept their dog within a fence or on a leash/run.
I had our dog on a leash and tried to restrain her as she is very aggressive at other aggressive dogs and was prepared to fight. Unfortunately this put my dog at a severe disadvantage as it limited her mobility. My wife tried to get between them to keep the Shepard at bay as did I, trying to keep our dog behind me. Of course the Shepard, being likely 100lb of muscle and teeth, had no problem getting close and managed to get a few bites in on our dog before she could respond. I shouted, lunged, and kicked at the other dog, which seemed to keep the fight from getting too bad.
While this is happening, one of the owners, the wife comes running out and is trying to restrain her dog, but isn't really successful. Then the husband shows up, sees me kicking at his dog and immediately shouts at me and prepares to throw down (hand cocked to throw a haymaker), which meant I now I had to take my eyes and attention off the German Shepard and get into a defensive stance in case this guy engages me. My wife is shouting at them to get control of their dog while he continues to circle to re-engage us.
Overall, a complete clusterfck. They finally managed to get control of their dog. We continued on to finish our walk. The wife was very apologetic and during the whole thing tried her best to get control of the dog. The husband was obviously not thinking straight, but apologized after. He was triggered by my kicking his dog, and at one point yelled at us because we had a pit bull... had zero understanding of what happened and that his dog initiated the attack in a public space while loose. Not to mention ignoring the fact that his male German Shepard was much bigger/heavier than our dog and obviously the aggressor.
We checked our dog at home. She was fine except for a 3 small puncture wounds, one on the face, and one on each rear leg. They bled for a bit, but eventually stopped. It didn't look like they needed stitches.
No one was hurt beside some superficial wounds on our dog (she never made a sound and managed to defend herself as she's a tough dog). No one died or went to jail, and I think we did about the best we could in that situation. Afterwards, I told my wife that I probably should have handed the leash off to her in order to be able to more successfully engage the German Shepard and later, the owner when he became aggressive (didn't expect that). I wasn't carrying concealed at the time, but had I been, I told her I would have shot the dog as soon as it engaged us. That dog could have easily killed her, killed our dog and was very much a threat to me. That would have opened a crap show of legal issues (this is MA so...). I would have been certainly within rights on a public road to defend my family against an aggressive and dangerous threat. There is no running away from a dog, so I don't think duty to retreat would be an issue.
Besides this dog, there are some other very aggressive German Shepherds in the area. From this point forward, I'm carrying when I'm walking. I was in gym shorts and a tshirt and didn't feel like carrying as we've never had an issue before. Obvious mistake on my part and we got lucky. Just goes to show how fast things can turn to crap when you least expect it.
WWYD?
As an aside, WTF is with crappy dog owners who don't leash their dog and have zero control over them? I can't count how many times I see dogs off leash on our walks, in our neighborhood running loose, etc. All of this would have been avoided had these owners kept their dog within a fence or on a leash/run.
