some people are afraid of dogs....when I walk my dog down the sidewalk, people move out in the road, generally if I see them coming, I move out in the road....he doesn't bite unless commanded to 'protect', even then he won't bite unless you go after me or if you threaten him, he just makes alot of noise....

one thing people have to learn about dogs is that you can kick their a$$, even large dogs. It does not take much to disable a large dog. Your main thing is not to run unless you can get away or get to higher ground. If not, face them. Move your strong leg back with about 60% weight on your strong/rear leg. If you know the dog is going to attack you, then you wait and kick it. Don't just kick at it, try to take it out. Your strike should be aimed for the center of the chest, not the head. You want to hit the dog. If you aim for the head, there is not much mass there and if you miss you could fall which you absolutely do not want to do.

If the dog keeps trying to bite, you keep planting and kicking, it needs to be with force. Granted, you may get bit. Thats just the nature of the beast, but almost all people are strong than dogs. Dogs do not know how to wrestle, if for some reason they go for your head or throat area, it is imperative that you position yourself that they cannot get to it to bite. Sacrificing one of your arms may be necessary.

I'll give my experience. I was attacked by a large dog, it was a mix, probably weighed around 130-140 pounds. I wasn't sure the dog was going to bite me, so I didn't take him out with the kick. It only took a second to figure out that he wanted to rip me apart. I was in about a foot of snow. Since I didn't take my stance, he actually got hold of my lower calf. I grabbed the dog with both hands on the skin right behind the ears, the dog released his grip on my calf. I lifted the head and front end of the dog off the ground and straddled his back, I then sat down on him and put my left arm under his next and choked him. I held him until he passed out. At first I thought I killed him, but he woke up. He staggered his way back to where he came from.

The problem comes when there are multiple dogs. You cannot let one get behind you, they will alway go for the ham part of your leg as they do to take wild game down. I had two chows attack my Rottweiler when I had him out walking. My dog works by command and follows them. Even though we have leash laws here, I don't walk him on the leash, he can't get exercise on the leash. I saw the two Chows coming commanded him to sit. I leashed him. I could see the chows wanted blood, the guy that owned them was yelling for them to stop, but they wouldn't listen and were coming fast.

I put my dog on command to protect, so now instead him wanting to see if they were friendly, he went into a defensive stance. Both dogs went at him, he started fighting one straight on while the other went for his rear ham/tendon. That second one got my patented boot. I kicked him so hard that he probably lifted two feet off the ground. He yelped and went down on his side. My Rottie got hold of the other one by the side of his neck, I punched that dog straight down from the top and about broke most of his teeth when I hit him between the eyes, I then grabbed him and I spun and flung him about 10 feet. The first dog got back up and I planted him. The guy was screaming at me, asking me why I did that to his dogs. I told him if I ever see him walking his dogs off the leash again, I'll shoot both of them. I have never seen him again.

One thing about trying to break up a dog fight is you have to be careful of where you own dogs teeth are at. The get into the fray and strike out at anything near them and even though they don't mean it, your dog will bite you when trying to get them apart. Thats why I purely believe in ending the conflict with strong force, quickly.

I had another attack on my dog by a Pitbull and a mutt. The pitbull immediately went for my dogs throat. I wasn't sure if they were friendly or not when they were first coming so I didn't give my dog the command to 'protect', I just alerted him. He was on the leash, the other dogs weren't. He rolled the pitbull and got him by the neck and side of his face. The other dog was trying to bite him from behind. I kicked that dog and then grabbed the pitbull and picked it up off the ground. I had to give my dog the command to stay back, which is simply 'stop'. I was holding the pitbull up in the air when the guy and his wife came out. He was joking about it saying something about dogs fighting. I gave him the same riot act I give everyones dogs that are aggressive and mean.....'what if there were small children out here?'. I tell them to put their dogs on a leash if they cannot control them and if I seen them up in the area again I will call them in or hurt their dogs next time. Haven't seen them again either.

I thoroughly believe in learning how to protect yourself against dog attacks and every mother/father should teach their children what to do. Even though I have a Rottweiler, they are very good dogs and very smart. They are easy to train them and are wonderful towards children. Its all how people raise their dogs. My dog was raised with the neighbor kids, dogs, cats, etc. I used the neighbor kids to come over to the house and take his food away from him while he was eating. Anyone can walk up to my dogs foodbowl and take it away from him. My dog is aggressive if you try to enter the house and I do not let you in. He won't go after you, but he won't let you come in and he is very quick in the defensive mode. He is always in the defensive mode when it is just me and him at home, he is there to pretect 'his' house and to protect me, his 'alpha'. He is very good when I have people over and there is a crowd, he is not in the defensive mode then. He has gotten loose a few times, I left the back gate open. He doesn't really go anywhere, but run around the neighborhood alittle. I found him twice at the front door wanting to get in. One other time the older retired lady down the street brought him back as him came over and started licking her in the face while she was working on her flowers in the front yard. She said it scared the hell out of her because she didn't see him coming, but then realized it was Bear and she played with him for awhile and then brought him home...lol.

 

Hey elkbow. Great advice, thanks for the words of wisdom. Never know when it might come in handy. My wife always puts me between any dogs and her. Yeh right, like I'm going to do any good. LOL
BryceGTX

 

I have a suggestion as well, This worked many times for me if a big dog is barking at me a growl back and run towards it and all ways scares it off and I heard this back in school and don't know why it was brought up then. But I had heard that if curl all 4 fingers up and leave your thumb out and hit he attacking dog with the palm of your hand as hard as you can it would kill it. Well it may work on some dogs as far as killing it, but for me I had hit a dog like that few yrs later for protection and it didn't kill it. But I busted its noise wide open and blood poured out, I will say this I didn't have any problem with it any more.

 

That works for dogs that are naturally scared, they bark to sound mean but will run when you go at them. Thats not an agressive dog, you wouldn't want to come in my house and then do that to my dog. If you stayed still you would be okay, if you act aggressive, he is coming at you. Aggressive dogs are aggressive dogs, they aren't attacking because they are scared, they are attacking because thats the way they were raised or for some other reason.

I've had the pleasurable experience of being charged on two occasions by bears (sows) defending their cubs. Both times I spooked the cubs up in to trees, so here comes mom. I truly know what the feeling of not being the alpha is....both times I had a pistol, but doesn't make you much less scared when a sow is snapping her teeth, wuffing at you and running at you....but all the times she turned off her charge. I had one come in to less than 10 yards, I almost shot, but she stopped. She was just making sure that I wasn't going to hurt her cubs....I was backing up the whole time....backing up real fast when she wasn't looking...lol

 

Elkbow,

That sounds like good advice, but not everyone is going to be strong enough to wrestle and pick up a 130lb dog, or kick one hard enough to phase it. You're obviously a big, strong guy. One thing I'd like to add is that people aren't really stronger than dogs. Pound for pound, a human isn't even close to as strong as a pit bull, nor most dogs for that matter. The main thing is that we have three things a dog does not....hands, leverage, and smarts.

I had a 170lb Great Dane that gradually went psycho and aggressive on us. I had to put him in his place. Fortunately, I'm a 215lb, 6' weightlifter, and after avoiding his bite attempts, wrestled him to the ground and gained control, which wasn't very hard to do because of his long, lanky legs. Then I proceeded to rough him up and teach him a lesson. But there's NO WAY that I was stronger than that dog.

 

In a sense you are right, dogs are strong, but the other parts you listed are true, the do not have the tools we have. I'm 5'9" and 170 pounds, so I'm not that big, but I assure you that a 100 pound woman can kick the $hit out of a 130 pound dog, with the correct training. We have many wild dogs out here and I recommend that everyone learn how to protect themselves. Where I walk my dog, guns are not allowed. I do carry a police version of pepper spray, this is my first choice, if it doesn't work, I will disable any dogs that I need to.

As you said, the advantage is our flexibility. You use this to disable an attacking dog. The kick that I mentioned has to be done right. The kick contact needs to be with the top part of your foot and directly in the chest, alittle low. Its not a measure to move the dog back, but to break the dog. I've used it a few times and it has worked everytime.

As I said though, multiple dogs are a problem. My first recommendation is to get away, and if that can't happen, do everything deliberate and to disable each dog.

 

Hey elkbow. The funny thing about your advise is that everytime my wife puts me between a dog and herself, I wonder what would I really do if a dog attacked. I was never really too worried about it, but your posts sound sensible. I know if someone kicked me in the chest, it problably would put a kink in my enthusiasm! LOL
BryceGTX

 

lol....my last want is to get attacked, even though I have run in to alot of dogs that were aggressive, most of them were just protecting themselves and were actually scared....I've only been attacked a few times by aggressive dogs, most of the encounters are going after my dog....Dogs will be dogs.

I ran into about 6 or 7 wild dogs where I walk my dog, luckily I backed up quick enough and they weren't sure whether to come or go....they just watched us walk away....my dog is pretty smart, but he still wants to go after them. When I go elk hunting each fall, I take the dog to camp, I lock him in a large kennel while I am hunting....I saw coyotes going into the camp one day when I was coming back around lunch....I had noticed that he was all wound up when I would get back to camp each time so I cleared all the leaves and sticks from around his cage, what was happening is that the coyotes were going after the dog in the cage, thats why I kept him in the kennel, if I tied him to a tree they would kill him....a pack of coyotes....He really wants to play all the time, he is 4 years old, but he also knows what it is to fight.....

We ran into a large bear last year when we were on a search party for a missing women, luckily he didn't go after it, it was a very large black bear boar (male)....I mean a 400-500 pound bear, one swipe from that bear and no more dog....he is quick though, that is one animal you can't fight off....well....actually.....

Black bears are one of the worst animals to get attacked by, worse than a grizzly, the black bear will almost always try to kill you if it actually tackles you....if ever attacked by a black bear they recommend that you fight them....on grizzlies it depends why it is attacking you, sometimes you fight, others you try to play dead....but most of all try not to run into any....lol

 

Elkbow, I live in Wyoming, so bear attacks are a reality for those of us that go into the backwoods hunting, atving, and fishing. One thing I can tell you, the mace (O.C.) does not work on aggresive bears, that is basically seasoning for the bear. What does work is a .40 federal round to the chest and head. I have been attacked by large aggressive dogs a few times as a Deputy in Oklahoma. The meth cooks would chain thier pits to the front door so when the cops kicked the door in, the fight was on. That was until we started using "Shredders" door breaching rounds. They have a 10 foot kill radius and would splatter a dog all over the living room. I also assisted out K-9 handlers with wearing the bite suit. I have been torn up by a 115 lb. belgium mallinoise (sp?) a few times.