Apparently, when I was at the just learning to walk stage of my life, I got out of the house somehow and tried to get out in the street. We had a collie at the time and apparently the dog started herding me like a stray from a flock of sheep, keeping me out of the street. I got pissed and started yelling, which of course alerted my mother who found the whole situation hilarious.
Seven or eight years ago, my chow-lab mix Dakota (who’s currently lying at my feet) let me know that my house was about to burn down. She was scratching and whining at the basement door, and when I tried to ignore her she started barking furiously at me. When I went downstairs, I discovered a sock stuck in the clothes dryer had caught fire, and was able to put the fire out before it spread.
I also spent a few months living in a truck and traveling around the country with Dakota. She would sleep while I drove and stand guard at night like appleciders’ dog. We never had any problems during that time, but she did wake me up a couple of times when people wandered too close to the truck.
Once when Mr. S was about four years old, he went missing. Eventually they found him out in the woods playing happily, surrounded by several of the family farm dogs, apparently keeping an eye on him. (I guess none of them thought to do a Lassie and go get somebody . . . :dubious: )
Indiana Bones my daughter’s first dog saved her.
She got this puppy when she was 10. When she was 11 we left her home and went shopping. By now Indy had grown to about 90 lbs of loving mixed breed mutt. Very friendly to all.
While we were gone a bad guy came in through the unlocked front door. The dog went berserk. My daughter hung on to his collar because as she said later “I was afraid he would get hurt” (we explained that this was his job and if it ever happened again she run like hell)(thankfully it never has)
Anyway after a minute or so of threats to let the dog go, the guy leaves.
The police later said that based on his actions he was quite likely a rapist.
Indy got steak that night.
RIP Indy we still miss you.
I wouldn’t say this exactly falls under the category of “came to my defense” but I’d bet dollars to donuts that my dog saved me from a moose or bear encounter on a hike once.
There is a trail that I frequently go for hiking with her (you GOT to exercise those aussies, they get very hyper without it :D), it’s one of her favorite things to do and it’s a good hour and a half from my house to the trail, up to the horse stables and then back to my house. The trail itself is in a wooded area called “Section 16” in Anchorage and it runs way back in the woods even though it’s surrounded by human dwellings and roadways.
So we’re going our merry way along our regular route and all of a sudden she starts hanging back more and more, which is HIGHLY unusual for her. Hanging back, and doing her growly-talk and giving me THAT look. The I’m “trying to tell you something” look. But I keep on trying to get her to come along down the trail. Finally she sits down on the trail and starts the talky-whine and refuses to go one more step. The further I go down the trail, the more she does her talky-whine thing.
Finally I say “Okay! have it your way we’ll double back”. As soon as I turn around to go home (the long way at this point, if we’d kept going we’d have circled back), she DASHES back the other way. This is not a lazy dog and she’s been on this trail hundreds of times before the whole way and never acted like that before.
She never did it again either. I’m guessing that she smelled either a bear or a moose and was trying to tell me that. She saved me, at best, from an iffy encounter (getting charged by a moose is NOT fun, and encountering bears, even if they’re not in attack mode and just raise up to look at you is pretty unnerving, and with a dog as “bait” who knows how that would turn out?), at worst from a kicking or mauling.
I was walking the late and lamented Bitz the Wondermutt (90 pound Rott/black Lab mix who looked mostly Rott) one evening when three drunk teenagers came walking up the sidewalk.
One of them asked me for a cigarette. I said I didn’t have any.
He said, “Well then maybe we outta take your dog then!”
Bitz took a half step forward and lightly placed her hip against my leg. She let out a growl so low you didn’t hear it, you felt it in your chest. She was 100 percent set to go.
I opened my knife and said to the kid that threatened us, “I’m going to kill you.” To the second kid I said, “She’s going to kill you.” To the third kid I said, “You’re going to take off running, but she’ll be on you before you make it to that street sign. Or you can all walk away, right now. Your call.”
They walked around us in a wide berth. Once they got a few paces away I yelled, “Maybe you’d better run!” Bitz gave the loudest single bark I’ve ever heard come out of a dog and they took off like their heads were on fire.
In all honesty, I don’t think they even noticed the knife. Their attention was firmly fixed on Bitz’s growl and snarl.
Gods, I miss that dog.
GOOD dog! 
Easy to see why you miss her.
I have two.
The first happened when I was maybe 18 months old, but no older than two. I’d learned how to open doors and had wandered outside. I thought the cul-de-sac was a great place to play, cars or no. My dog, a yorkshire/poodle mix, barked at the cars to keep them away from me until my mother came out to get me.
The second happened when I was in my 20s. I was asleep on my parents’ sofa when their German shepherd started barking furiously. She was always a little territorial, but this wasn’t that. This was “I know you’re out there, and if you get any closer, I’ll bite your fucking head off.” When the sun came up a couple of hours later, my father went outside to check the gate, which was open. Since the gate had been designed to require human dexterity to open and close to prevent the dogs or wind from opening it, there was no way it opened itself. I’m also sure the dog heard human sounds, and (IIRC), someone was arrested for prowling. Just not at my parents’ house. 
This is a GREAT thread!
Morris Frank, a blind man who brought the first Seeing Eye dog to America, told a great story in his autobiography. IIRC, he was sleeping in a ground-floor bedroom at his parents’ house in the summertime, with his guide dog, Buddy, on the floor at his side. He was awakened by the sound of someone cutting the screen on the open window. Then he heard Buddy get up and quietly walk to the window. A few moments later there was a scream and the sound of someone running away. Then Buddy padded back to her bed.
His guess was that Buddy preferred the silent approach to home security, rather than barking her fool head off. I loved his description of the burglar reaching through the window to find a silent set of gleaming white teeth.
I never thought my previous dog had it in her, until one day a friend drew “tackle” for his charades assignment, and paid the price for picking me as his prop. No real damage - just a knockdown and little teeth-shaped bruises. I think the worst part for him was The Stare, which he had to suffer for the rest of the night.
My girl barked at a mouse last night. From a distance. (The top of the stairs.)
My Springer, Kate, was sweet as pie and loved everyone. She was staying with my grandfolks one night and had a rip-shitting frothy fit.
The grandfolks got up to investigate and found a guy trying to open their sliding door. The fella was drunk and claimed to need directions, he left without incident. To here the 'folks tell it, he’s lucky he left with all his limbs. Maybe it was nothing but that’s the only time anyone ever saw my dog get angry.
Kate’s been gone 4 years and my grandfolks still talk about the night she saved them. I miss her.
Even one seems to do the trick! I had a couple show up on my doorstep the other day, and I could hardly speak to them for trying to keep my vicious killer dog in the house. Of course, I think she just wanted to bounce on them and stick her nose up their skirts, but she looked very scary.
I’ve often wondered if she would protect me if necessary. I feel safe just being with her…who’s going to mess with the person walking around with the wild-eyed Doberbeast?
When my sister was 10 or 11 she had taken our two dogs to a friend’s house. We had a cock-a-poo and a GSD. The dogs were very good dogs and were on lead.
The neighbor to the friend had a couple of huskies that got out of their kennel. They ran toward my sister and her friend. Honey and Meghan defended the girls against the strange dogs. Luckily, another neighbor witnessed the attack and was able to separate the 4 dogs. Meghan, the cock-a-poo, was in bad shape. She was torn up pretty badly and covered in blood. Honey, the GSD, had only the blood of the other dogs on her and a couple of scratches.
Meghan survived the attack, but was never quite the same. Turns out the owner of the huskies was previously cited for his dogs being aggressive. He claimed our dogs provoked the attack by being near to his property, but he was supposed to have them in a locked kennel after the last time they attacked another dog. Anyhow, one of his huskies had to be euthanised due to it’s wounds and the second was euthed after the dog warden deemed the dog a danger.
Honey was never an aggressive dog. She was the pillow we laid our heads on as kids. She liked everyone and everything. She would always get between you and a stranger, but never had an aggressive posture.
I have two stories.
I had a very large shepherd once that I think would have defended me to the death if the occasion had ever come up. He was really big. I am sure he was mixed with something but I got him from the pound so who knows what was in his background. I remember when I adopted him there was a lady there that asked me if I was getting him as a guard dog and I said no a family pet. She looked at me like I was a nut case. I mean he was so large when he barked when he was outside my husband used to say he probably bumped into himself.
I remember one time it was late at night and I was in bed watching TV. My husband came home but Sam did not know it was him. He stood in bed with his front legs on one side of me and his rear on the other side. The growl he let out was something I had never heard before in my life and I have owned several dogs. If anyone other than my husband had walked in that bedroom I have no doubt he would have attacked.
I only heard him make that growl one other time. It was real early in the morning. He was at the bottom of the steps looking up and he made that growl. It was dark upstairs and I was almost afraid to look up the stairs. I turned on the light to see what he was growling at and it turned out to be the paper mummy I had hung on the bathroom door the night before. I guess to Sam it looked like a man standing there. I tried to get Sam to some up and see it was just a paper decoration but he wanted no part of it.
When I got home from work that day the mummy was off the door and shredded to pieces. 
The other time was a dog I still own. We lived on a dead end street at the time with no sidewalks or curbs. There were only seven houses on the entire street and we lived at the very end. Some friends were over and their three year old daughter was drawing with sidewalk chalk on the street while we sat on the front stoop and talked. She was no more than ten maybe fifteen feet from us as we had a very small front yard.
The asshole dog Gigi that lived across and up the street was let out. The owner never tied her up. She would just roam around the dead end street acting like she owned the place. God I hated that dog.
Anyway, I don’t think that Gigi realized the little girl was a person. She was hunched over drawing. I think Gigi thought it was another dog. She charged across the street at her. It was like it was all happening in slow motion. Just as we both leaped up to grab the baby my dog Queenie came from around back and slammed right into Gigi knocking her back. I don’t think that dog knew what hit her. She ran back across the street with Queenie standing in front of the baby barking and growling at her.
There is no doubt in my mind that Gigi would have bit that little girl if Queenie had not protected her. She must have been watching and saw Gigi before we did and reacted way before we could have.
Queenie is old now at thirteen years. She is nearly blind and she does not move well anymore but she still barks and I have no doubt she would protect me if needed.
People need to stop posting heroic stories and then finishing with the fact that the wonderful dog is now dead. It’s turning this thread into such a downer!
Anyhow, a couple of days ago, we went shopping and bought two new boxes of kleenex. EVIL kleenex! Kleenex with a horrible spell on it that would instantly kill anyone whose nose came into contact with it! At great risk and with no thought to their own safety, our two heroic Basenjis destroyed those two kleenex boxes and saved our lives!
Actually, now that I think about it, a surprising variety of objects in our house, and, for that matter, actual parts of our house, have had horrible evil curses on them recently…
I am a hopeless Cocker Spaniel dag (the English ones with the longer noses). I had a little girl who was adorable - tricolour, with the floppy ears, the endearing eyes, the happy disposition. The full catastrophe.
We later got another little orange roan boy, towards whom she was indifferent and perpetually mildly irritated, or so it seemed.
One day, some friends visited. They owned a vast, solid Rottie.
Said vast solid Rottie got bored after a while and took a swipe at the little orange roan boy.
Scarcely had the swipe commenced than my brave little girl hurled herself bodily at the Rottweiler to defend the boy. She was horizontal lightning, all teeth and terror. Utterly careless of the disparity in their sizes, she set to the Rottie with a vengeance. Could have sworn she thought she was a tank with a cold wet nose. The Rottie didn’t quite do that cartoon Yipe Yipe Yipe thing, but backed off very quickly.
My little girl gave a derisory “Don’t let it happen again” snort and returned to happily keeping my feet warm.
Yes, that was exactly the one!
shudders god I lurked a long time.
Wow. I was literally cracking up one moment, tearing up the next. I’m so lucky to have found this place and get to read y’all’s stuff.
Doesn’t Scylla get paid for writing? Should.