Dogs lose a lot of their advantages in the water. They can’t swim very fast, and they no longer have a base for their feet, compromising most of their strength. But they still have large powerful jaws and sharp teeth. Unless you’re very comfortable in water, you’ll have those same disadvantages, and your jaw won’t get any bigger. I’d say in most cases, no difference overall in the water. The exception would be where you could swim away.
Again, I always pick Me to win against a Dog but I think the odds are much better that I get the dog’s throat in the crook of my elbow than he gets mine in his mouth. Without having ever been in the situation, I’d say I could handily beat any dog I can lift.
My tactic would be to dive under and swim away as fast as possible. I am fairly confident I could outswim most any dog. I’d avoid engaging the dog in the water – its gonna go straight for the face.
The absolute best case scenario would be to kick the dog off the bridge then go on my merry way while it splashes ashore.
If it was an attack cat, it would probably be pretty safe to do just that.
Why not climb a tree, OP?
Thumbs through its eye sockets.
People underestimate the force of a dog bite. They can break your arm bones, snap them right quick.
However, I still think I’d have a better chance in the water than on land. If I can keep my forearms out of Fido’s maws and get a grip on his shoulder skin I can keep him under.
With two dogs, all bets are off.
I also bet a good swimmer could outswim a dog, at least, most attack dogs. A decent swimmer could outpace a retriever at first, but darn those pups can be tenacious and swim a long way. Fortunately, they’re rarely trained as attack dogs.
The big problem is that we can’t swim for crap with shoes on. Taking the time to pull off shoes might not be advisable. They also make our feet considerably more formidable as weapons. But I suspect we’d lose the swim race against the dog with shoes on, as well as much loose clothing.
This answer covers it pretty well.
We use trained dogs to hunt feral hogs on our deer lease. The hogs frequently try to escape by jumping in the river. The dogs follow them into the water and take turns pushing them under (by climbing onto them). This continues until the pig is exhausted and nearly drowned, and eventually climbs back onshore (to meet its gruesome fate). AFAIK, no hog has yet escaped via water.
Admittedly these are well-trained dogs, but the that seems to be the question the OP asked (“attack dogs”).
I suspect it would work a little better for a human who could stand up though.
Various googling suggests that best canine swimming speed is about 60% of a top-level human swimmer. Which means that a good human swimmer should have no problems against a good dog, but a mediocre human probably would.
The dog in the film No Country for Old Men did not hesitate to jump into the river and swim after its human prey.
One of my dogs does competitive dock diving. He is extremely driven to “win” and because he is determined, fast, utterly unafraid of water and by nature a carnivore and hunter, I can’t see a human avoiding an attack *by jumping in water.
- Not that he would attack anyone; he is a marshmallow. But I’m pretty sure he could outswim or out-maneuver any human.