Vicious Dog Attack Question

Factual Questions
1

Any dog handlers out there? I have been reading a lot about dog attacks in the news lately and I was wondering what exactly I should do if a pit bull decides to attack me and I have no weapon and there is no safe place to run to.

I don’t think sticking my leg out to try and kick the dog would be a very good idea or to try and strike it with my arm or hand. So what should I do? Try to stare it down? Roll up into a ball on the ground? Hope to find a rock or stick nearby to throw at it? :dubious:

If this is more IMHO territory Mods feel free to move it!

2

Makes my CC weapon feel good but if I was silly and left it home…

Not pit bull but big Shepard.

Panic and fear is what allows dogs to kill humans. At least big mean humans.

Accept that you are going to get bit.

This dog had a chain collar which I grabbed, made a half turn and then picked up the dog, which was eating my arm despite the fact I had it upside down, and was banging it’s head on the pavement. I finally threw it one handed over a fence.

After the trip to the hospital and aspirin and a nights sleep, I thought I was going to die. I think I pulled every muscle in my back and arms fighting that dog. The adrenalin gave me the power to do what I had to do and it also masked the damage I caused myself.

Do not let one at your neck or the back of your legs. Don’t lose your head or panic.
Don’t forget your weapon.
Don’t get in that spot in the first place, you should be more aware of your surroundings.

If you are small and the dog is big… good luck…

3

Excellent reply, Gus.
A pit bull weighs (on average) between 40 & 70 lbs. I’m an average sized guy, I have a hundred plus pounds weight advantage on most pit bulls. Most adult humans will have a similar weight advantage. If a dog shows agression it is usually about dominance. I can usually stand down an aggressive dog by reminding him that I am bigger than he is, and that I know it. I can do this by standing in a dominant posture, with my back straight, shoulders square and chest out. It doesn’t hurt to clap my hands, raise my arms above my head and yell at him in an authoritative voice.

Dogs are cursorial hunters, and if you act like prey, it triggers their hunting instinct. They are also social animals and instinctively hunt in packs. Like humans, they are more confident when in groups than when alone. That means that you will have more success standing down a single dog than two or more. If you run from a pack of three or more aggressive dogs, they will chase you.

If you are attacked by a dog, try to put something between you & the dog to distract it for a short time. Something as simple as a notebook, or if you’re wearing a jacket, take it off, roll it up & put it out in front of you so the dog will bite it instead of you. While you are doing this find a place you can get inside. Put out your forearms so the dog bites them instead of your hands or head. If the dog takes one of your forearms, you will want to attack it with your other hand as fiercely as you can. Go for it’s eyes, genitals, throat or belly. If you can get the dog on the ground and stomp on it, go for the throat, chest, belly, back of the neck and the spine. Go crazy on him like your life depends on it, and make enough noise so someone will hear. If a pit bull does attack, he may not stop unless he is physically destroyed. If the dog is young and healthy, this will be difficult. I don’t think it is possible to strangle a pitbull without a rope.

I have a pitbull who I raised from a puppy and he’s almost ten years old now. He’s not the first pitbull I’ve raised. Pound for pound, a pitbull is probably the strongest and most athletic breed of dog there is. They do not show pain or fear the same way as most breeds of dog. As a puppy, I could not leash train my dog with a regular choke collar. He would pull so hard on the leash that he would pass out from lack of air, wake up after a few seconds and want to pull some more. I had to switch to a prong collar and later had excellent luck with a head halter.

Fortunately, pit bulls are (almost always) good-natured, playful, docile and submissive towards humans, but unfortunately, they are game and aggresive towards other dogs. They were bred for centuries to fight other dogs with tenacity and savage ferocity. If raised with genlteness and firm training, they can be the most loyal, loving and gentle pets. If they are raised with cruelty, they can become monsters. Not much different from humans in that respect.

4

This was a medium sized mutt, but I think the advice holds for most breeds. I took of my t-shirt over my head but left the hands in the sleeves. When the dog approached to bite my leg, I wrapped its head on the shirt , grabbed its neck and mounted on his back. Hard. It collapsed on its side with me putting all my weight on its ribcage. That cost me some teeth marks on my hands, even through the shirt around its head. After that I just punched its head and banged it on the pavement until the owner appeared. By then the dog was barely moving. I think the dog had to be killed, but the assholes never even dared to mention it.

It just takes some speed and courage to reach out to a dog that is trying to bite you, but once you get a hold, your weight advantage should take care of business.

The thing is that once you have him you are quite literally in a wolf by the ears situation. You have to either kill the dog or wait for someone else to come to the rescue. It really sucks and without a reasonable tool, it can take forever to knock a dog out. Those little heads are hard. The sidewalk edge is probably all you will have. If you are in a dark alley situation, it is likely that other dogs will approach.

In the end, and although it is not the answer to your question, this is a fight you can only win by avoiding it.

5

I had a rottweiler mix come after me. I had on a fairly thick jacket at the time so I offered my left arm to bite on while I tried to kick the dog. The third kick caused the dog to let go and he came back at me about the same time I was swinging my right fist. I just happened to catch the dog in his open mouth and my fist went all the way to his throat. He couldn’t bite anymore and after 10 seconds or so he realized he couldn’t breath. He began to struggle and I pulled my fist out of his mouth. While the dog struggle to catch his breath, I made my way back through the gate I had come through. 15 minutes later the a sheriff (with his gun drawn) and I went back through the gate, the dog saw me and ran under a shed. It turned out the dog’s owner had abandoned him when they moved from the house and he was likely scared and hungry when I found him. After giving him some food and water, he turned out to be one of the friendliest dogs I have ever met. Unfortunately for the dog, when the Humane Society showed up a few hours later, they took him to the pound and said he would be put down because he had bitten me.

6

Mitpick: The American Pit Bull Terrier is breed-standard 35-65 pounds for a male, 30-60 pounds for a female. You will find bigger-bred dogs these days, especially in nasty urban and rual areas, but they are not the orginial APBTs. There’s a movement to designate the round-headed, bow-legged, oversized ones into a new breed under the name American Bully. American Bully types are more liely to be used by the sort of trashy people who would make a pit bull mean – they’ll be larger but slower and less physically able than a true APBT, although the bite will still be quite capable.

About that bite – science shows that a pit bull’s bite strength is a function of its size and weight. Other, larger dogs will have proportionally more fearsome bites.

Assuming all dogs start with a clean slate (that is, leaving human malfeasance out of the picture for the moment), pit bulls are not human-aggressive, despite what you’ve heard in the media reports. You have more reason to fear a guarding breed – Rottweiler, Doberman Pinscher, German Shepherd, and many others – which has been selected for hundreds – in some cases many hundreds – of years to be wary of strangers and aggressive towards humans.

This is not to argue that pit bulls cannot be mistreated into fearing and hating humans, or trained to attack just like a guarding breed. Pit bulls make poor guard dogs as a general rule, but there are exceptions; breed tendencies are generalizations, always.

The safest way to win a dog fight is to win the contest of wills that precedes contact. AVOID the dog if at all possible. Avoid staring at it challengingly. In particular, avoid any property the dog may be guarding – territoriality will drive the dog toward the “fight” end of the “fight or flight” spectrum.

If avoidance is not possible – usually because you are surprised by the dog’s presence, or it’s running loose, or you’re an idiot – many dogs can be cowed into flight by a show of size and aggression on the part of the human. I’ve seen someone turn the tables on a pursuing dog by whirling and running at it, yelling at the top of his lungs, arms raised.

A weapon can be useful – a stout stick, held straight toward the dog’s center of mass to fend off the dog, while you retreat toward safety or assistance may be better than a bat or club used to strike and possibly further enrage the animal, and eitrher may be better than perforating the dog (and the child-filled neighborhood behind the dog) with your hand-cannon.

In general, prevail with your head – don’t panic – and your knowledge of how to end the situation rapidly and safely – rather than with lethal secrets of dog anatomy culled from Soldier of Fortune magazine.

Sailboat

7

There’s a lot of good advice in this thread, but I like this one best. I don’t think I saw any advice that was absolutely off-base.

I had/bred/raised Great Danes for 20 years, and I’ve had to break up fights - by myself (not often; I considered temperament when I bred). If the dog can smell fear, that’s bad. If you can summon anger, that will at least mask the fear. But it’s best if you can think. You can get ahead of your amygdala, and avoid the fear response, with that betraying, titillating (to its attack reflex) scent.

You need to summon up a Marine Drill Instructor voice of absolute dominance and command (along with the dominant stance), and yell as loudly as you can. I prefer to start out with No, no, no, bad dog! No! Go home! And do it in the deepest voice you can, but anything, so long as it’s not shrill (wrong overtones - their hearing is better, too, remember; even if you’re a soprano, shrill is different from yell). You’d be amazed just how effective this can be, regardless of what kind of dog it is. It will work for a 95 pound woman just as well as it will work for a 300 pound guard. It’s the human = boss thing. Almost the only instance in which it’s just about guaranteed not to work is if you bear some physical resemblance or scent resemblance to someone who has tormented the dog.

On an occasion when this doesn’t do the job (usually only if the dog has been baited and trained to attack - and not by someone who trains dogs for police/military work; those dogs have carefully built-in limits to what damage they’ll do, unless you’re attacking their handler), putting anything between it and your tenderest and most vulnerable parts is essential, even if it is your arm or leg, but of course something else, even an item of clothing, is preferable. :slight_smile:

But there’s absolutely no substitute for being aware of your environment. It’s a lot easier to prevent trouble than to get out of it, and it’s usually possible.

8

If a dog moves as if it is going to attack you take a quick half of a step towards it and raise your dominant arm high as if you had a large heavy club poised to strike. I think they have some deeply ingrained instinct thing from the wolf-dog transition that makes them flee a Homo with a hammer.

9

  1. the semi-bald spots infront of the ears are the canine equivalent of the human temple - a sharp blow to one can be fatal.

  2. an untrained dog will wait until it is directly in front of you before leaping:
    Kick its belly. Real Hard - the next county is its preferred destination.

a trained attack dog will leap far out (to prevent belly kicks) and arrive at you nearly parrallel to the ground. Grab a fore leg, and drop/roll backwards while holding the leg at arm’s length. The idea is to slam it face-first into the ground. If it is still moving, stomp its head until it no longer moves.

In any event, you are in a real, live fight. The only rule is to kill it before it can harm you. gouging out eyeballs, ripping off genitalia, sticking fist down throat and seeing what you can grab, banging heads on pavement until strange fluids ooze out - these are nothing compared with what it is trying to do to you.

NEVER roll up on the ground - that is classic submission/surrender - YOU are the DOMINANT here - NEVER do anything to suggest otherwise.

10

In the UK Pit Bulls are illegal - having seen a couple demolish marrow bones, I can see why - what they can do in seconds to a cow’s leg makes me doubt the wisdom of feeding it a limb.

A long time ago, a guy from WWII told me that the trick is to grab a front paw in each hand, then push sideways - supposedly dogs are not built for having their front paws splayed - and it ruptures them internally.

Personally I doubt many people would have the speed or dexterity to carry this out.

I’ve found that dogs tend to respond to German - beats me why.

11

Yup! I’ll go along with what’s been said above, and agree that there is no easy way to stop a determined dog, but for the vast majority of dogs, Hank’s plain advice will suffice to prevent an attack. You’ve got to at least appear to be fearless when faced with an aggressive dog.

12

Sounds like a bark. Okay, that’s just a WAG, but IME, short guttural tones come out deeper and more bark sounding, and German (even pseudoGerman) is full of them. Of course, there’s also a phenomenal training school in Germany, and your better German Shepherds may have been trained there and “speak” German, and some asshole dog fighters think German sounds badass, and may learn a few commands in German or pseudoGerman, so it’s possible that the dog may respond to German commands because of training.

I’m a 5’6" chick, and I’ve diffused a few aggressive dogs by the “make myself look big and make my voice a bark” method. Never actually been attacked, so I don’t have advice there - but maybe effective avoidance is better, anyhow! “No” is a good word - easy to keep low pitched and open and not shrill. But feel free to use any word that works for you, even if it doesn’t make sense. It’s the tone, not the content, than an aggressive dog will respond to. “Back” is another good one - short and barklike.

13

And just as with human temples, when it comes to the real thing, that lethal sharp blow in the right spot can prove elusive. I punched and banged this son of a bitch on the pavement for quite a while with no oozing fluids to show for it. Still, it didn’t take more than a couple blows for the dog to noticeable slow down so I think the advice is still good.

While there is no substitute for next county, next zip code is often enough. In an ideal world, next week is, of course, preferable to all.

14

Never had to do it, but thought about it some, and this was what I decided upon. Tho I imagined slamming its back over the fence - ot a tree or post - instead of banging its head on the ground.

If you are wearing good footwear and know how to kick, I think a powerful kick to an onrushing dog’s chest would be of use.

And of course, attempting to intimidate should always be the first step.

But I was second-thinking myself the other day. Had my dog at the dog park, and some other guy had 2 HUGE rotts. Well over 100#. At one point one of them bulldozed my pup (9 month old golden) and instantly had her on her back and was going at her throat with her teeth bared. The owner immediately called her off, but the size of that beast made me really think that now - 10 years older and further from my fighting days - I would have limited ability to manhandle a 100# rott the way I imagined. 50-60# of pit - sure. But not something the size of a small pony.

15

I flee those too.

16

I can second this. On Sunday, I was walking through my neighborhood at dusk, when I saw a strange dog ahead, no owner in sight. Making things worse, at the time I was pushing my 17-month-old daughter in her stroller. If something went south, protecting her would be absolutely Priority One, which would put me at a distinct disadvantage.

As I approached (there wasn’t any way out other than passing the dog; this was a long east-west street running by some horse corrals on the south side, and fenced curbs on the north side that block the cul-de-sacs coming from one street over), I could tell he was curious, because his ears were perked and he was staring right at us. I kept up my stride, knowing that speeding or slowing could trigger “chase”. As I walked past him, I looked down at him and said, loudly and firmly, “HOME.”

The ears drooped. He’d become the submissive one. And we kept walking without further incident.

Now, it’s not likely to work on a truly feral dog, but just about any dog that has lived with people for a time will know the tone of voice and the command. It’s worth trying before things escalate.

There’s been some very good advice put forth here, but I think this needs to be stressed: don’t be too proud to get down and dirty when you’re fighting for your life. My favorite example of this, when defending against a human attacker, is jamming your fingers up his nose. Totally gross, totally against the social contract, but it’s a hell of a lot better than getting killed. So, don’t be too noble to yank the dog’s nuts, jam your thumbs down its ears, bite its throat, wrench its tongue, or whatever is necessary; they’re not gonna listen to reason, so make your shots count.

17

Definitely go for the soft spots – I have a Rot/pit mix, and I have seen her slam her head into a coffee table with enough force to knock it over, and not even miss a step. When they’re in all-out fight or play modes, they can take a lot of damage and not even feel it. Her jaws and teeth are immense, and I’m sure she could crack an arm bone if she tried hard enough. Luckily, she has the most submissive nature I could ask for, and tries to please.

18

No kid. I had a mastiff, sweet and smart as a barrel of molasses. If you didn’t pay attention to her, she would just step back put her head down and push you hard on your hip. She could just topple you without even flinching. You couldn’t have hurt that head with ten hammers.

19

Spealing of soft spots, I recall reading some folks claim their front legs/breastbone were susceptible to being split like a wishbone. No idea how you’d go about testing that, tho.

Also recall hearing people describe shoving their hand as far down the dog’s throat as possible. Again, not something I’d like to try out.

20

This was alluded to upthread as well. I think it comes from the fact that dogs don’t have clavicles (collarbones) that stick out like ours do, or true ball and socket joints in their “shoulders”, so their range of motion in their forelegs is very limited in the lateral direction. That is, they can’t move their forelegs out to their sides without dislocating their scapulas (shoulderblades) and ripping muscle off their sternum (breastbone).

Theoretically, if you’re strong enough to force a dog’s front legs out to each side from the shoulder (not the “forearm”) without getting bit in the face, you can dislocate his shoulder and cause massive tissue damage with fairly little effort.

Here’s a sketch of the normal range of motion for a dog. Figure B-2: Abduction and Adduction of the shoulder. But notice from Figure B3 that there’s a lot of *rotation *possible in the shoulder, which lets the foreleg move outwards quite a bit. So if you do this, you’ve got to grab hold high up on the humerus, not the radius/ulna of the foreleg.

And now I feel all icky, like I’ve used my powers of anatomy for evil or something. :frowning: