If a attack dog is ordered to take you down, and you are not fond of getting bitten, and just happen to be able to jump into a large body of water before the dog gets to you, would that be a reasonable method of avoiding such a attack? Can a person expect to out swim a attack dog, and/or would this give the person a additional advantage in such a attack?
Don’t need answer fast.
Are you a strong swimmer? Will you have to swim in all your clothes? Dogs are strong swimmers. if you’re weighed down by clothing, you’ll probably exhaust yourself, if not drown, trying to swim in open water in a panic.
My three dogs LOVE the water. If I jump in off the bow of our pontoon boat, my gf has to hang onto the dogs to keep them from following (although we usually just allow them to jump in).
I’m confident a good human swimmer could - and pretty sure many (including me) could not.
Dogs have been known to jump over twenty feet into the water with a running start.
If the water was deep enough that the dog had to swim but shallow so the person could stand, I think the person would have a real advantage. Even if the person couldn’t stand, I think the dog is going to have a tough time attacking since it would have to grab hold of the person’s head or neck to remain above water.
Why does it have to remain above water? Dogs can swim underwater and hold their breath. this guy has a whole book of dogs chasing tennis balls underwater.
Even this Australian can’t believe what he’s seeing as he watches a dog dive under water to bite a shark.
I would feel much more confident in the water than on land against any dog.
You might not get a few bites, but it will be hard to get killed and you’ll probably have better chances of totally escaping injury. You’ve taken most of the dog’s advantages of maneuverability and speed and those arms and legs, bite targets on land, are now formidable weapons that can move much more quickly in water than the dog’s face can.
And no doubt about it, the time underwater to fetch balls is much different from successfully attacking a (likely) much larger, (likely) much smarter human. If the dog latches onto my arm, I can simply lower that arm under the surface and unleash (heh) a fury of kicks and punches with my other limbs. Hard to imagine a dog taking more than 15 seconds of that underwater. Or, I could hug the dog to my underwater chest and kicktread till the threat… calms down… a lot. It wouldn’t be a day at the beach (snerk) but I’m pretty sure I’d win.
I think your underestimating the effort it will take to drag a large dog under water. They’re pretty bouyant. Plus, your own kicks and punches have less strike force and take much more effort underwater, so it will be very tiring. Wearing all your clothes, I still thing there’s a large danger of drowning for most people. Larger than the risk of being actually killed by the dog on dry land.
Unless its shallow enough for the human to stand but not the dog. Then the dog is tiring faster than the person, and the person has leverage while the dog doesn’t. However, the chances of meeting the dog in combat exactly where conditions are advantageous seem small to me.
You just have to keep the dog’s head underwater, of course. I really can’t see how a dog can begin to kill or seriously injure an average person without some one-in-a-million neck bite or artery puncture or something. The dog can’t pull you to the ground and I’m going to get three or four kicks and punches while he paddles into range. Latch on and you’re going under, boy.
Granted, I always take my side in Me vs Dog hypotheticals.
[QUOTE=myself]
You might not get a few bites…
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That should have been ‘You might get a few bites…’.
I never said the dog would kill you. I said there’s a big danger of drowning.
Ok, I see. Still, if I was losing the fight on land, I’d call in the navy.
I believed the dog biting the shark. What amazed me was that the sharks swam away instead of retaliating. I would have expected the dogs to be shredded.
Predators tend to be cautious creatures; it’s been injured by a creature it’s most likely totally unfamiliar with, so it backs down.
That sounds like a good way to get chewed up as you drown.
The dog would swim to shore claiming, “I don’t know. That guy was here a minute ago.”
Dogs are buoyant?
Good! <takes note: trap attacking dog between legs and ride it like a beach ball>
Besides that, I’m 100% confidant I can hold my breath longer and get under the dog and keep pulling it down and making it panic.
Dogs have to breathe with the appendage they’re attacking with. Humans don’t. Humans (who can swim) win.
I think a large dog who was really intent on killing you would be hard to survive, land or water. They are much better predators than most people imagine. For example, what if the dog got you by the throat? How would your intelligence work that problem out?
Just came into say the (excellent) movie No Country for Old Men begins with a scary dog attack over a river. The hero wins by shooting it in the face.
My dog wouldn’t attack you, or anyone, but you could definitely get away from him by jumping in the water. He hates water. It’s like World War III to give him a bath. 