Assuming that you have (or have had) a generally friendly dog, do you believe that your dog would come to your aid if you were being attacked by a stranger?
Poll coming.
Currently dogless but my last faithful friend would have proudly leapt forward and defended me from a plate of nachos. Anything much larger than my sister’s cat, he would just hide.
We have an exceptionally friendly Golden Retriever. He doesn’t bark, or seem to care when strangers come to the door. I’ve never seen a dog quite so mellow. I like how relaxed he is, but I don’t think he would lift a paw in my defense. Perhaps, (just perhaps) he would help my wife. They spend most days together and he is a bit more bonded to her.
She would come to my aid, but wouldn’t help in the slightest. Probably just yap annoyingly. maybe nip at the strangers ankles, which would do any damage.
I have the sweetest, friendliest little dog in the world - with the heart of a lion. The sound that comes out of him when he senses a predator is something I’ve heard only twice in six years, but it would freeze your blood.
The only question would be whether he figured out that I wanted help. I’ve never trained him for that, and he pretty much trusts me to take care of things. But he seems to know when something is in his bailiwick (taking out a rat) or I can’t sense it (he smelled a predator hiding in a thicket.)
He’s only 16 lbs, so couldn’t take out a full grown man, but he’d make himself useful.
My friendly affectionate 60 lb older lab mix would hide behind me, but she would protect my daughter. That I am sure of.
My dog is not friendly to other people. He would still be useless at defending against an attacker. He would bark, but if challenged, he’d quickly run away or roll onto his back. It’s quite sad, actually.
My dog would absolutly defend me. When he was younger he fought off a pack of wild dogs while we were out hiking. Most people think of him as a quiet couch potato but when he’s needed he’s scary.
My two little dogs would run upstairs and hide under my bed. I have seen it happen. They are useless bits of hair and air. The beagle would bark maybe twice. The Yorkie would be under the bed in 2 seconds. I wuv them tho!
ETA The cats on the other hand would sell me out for Shrimpy- shrimp cat treats.
Our heeler/beagle mix would be 35 pounds of fury. She’d almost definitely do some damage to anyone who attacked one of us.
All my dogs were very, very friendly, once one of us (me, my husband, or my son) let them know it was ok. All 3 were fiercly protective of all of us.
Nope. Our 11 year lab will bark, growl and snarl when someone walks by outside, but that’s only because she can’t see them. There is no one she wouldn’t try to befriend. And if they were unfriendly she’d run away and hide.
She does try to run interference if my wife and I hug or dance though …
My dog is very friendly with people. He would likely attack if I was in danger. If an assailant offered food I think all bets are off. My dog is a 100lbs boxer/mastiff so could be pretty intimidating.
The one instance I had with him showing aggression towards people. Was I woke up to ‘POLICE!’ and knocking on my bedroom door. My dog was in the bedroom with me and was growling at the door. I asked can ‘Can I help you?’ through the door. They asked ‘Are you John Doe?’ I answered ‘No, that’s my neighbor’ They asked ‘can we see you to confirm’ I answered ‘Yes I’m putting my dog in a kennel’ I shoved the dog in his cage and opened the bedroom door. My dog was acting pretty aggressive at that point in his cage, growling and biting at the cage. I stepped into the hall and closed the door behind me. One of the officers told the other ‘That’s not John Doe’ I told them ‘He lives next door’ They apologized for the confusion and left.
My neighbor was reported to the police as suicidal and they entered the wrong apartment looking for him. It was a duplex house. I typically did not lock my front door there.
I’m pretty certain he would have attacked the officers if able. So waking us up in the middle of the night and yelling might be a trigger. My half asleep self, wanting to tell the officers to piss off was probably giving the dog the wrong signals.
My last three dogs all passed within the last four years or so.
The last, a Harlequin Great Dane that my sister rescued after it was half abandoned, would run away if I was attacked, then hide and totally freak out and become a yelping howling neurotic mess. She might not even come back in the room, but I suspect that the noise would scare anyone away.
The next, a Schnauzer-Retriever mix …hell, he used to attack anyone who wasn’t the head of the household, even my own kids (The suckup–anything to get ahead! 
) He’d attack them just to gain approval and establish himself as second in command and then come up way too close, sit down, smile, wag his tail and try to ingratiate himself further.
The third from last was my Shepherd mix (Way back, I posted something about her when she was a puppy that I still deeply regret, and yes, she lived beside my bed once I was single again.) She lived a long life and was very weak at the end, but she would have given it everything that she had.
I had a Rat Terrier that would fight a wolverine if the chance came up. Particularly for my Husband. She felt quite protective of him. I was just protected by default. She wasn’t particularly people friendly. She wasn’t mean, she jyst didn’t prefer to be around them.
I don’t know what our dog would do. He’s a Swissie, and generally the sweetest thing ever. I’ve often thought he would show intruders around the house, but I’ve seen him get protective. It’s at least possible it could happen.
They ain’t called The Killer Elite for nothin’!
But I think I’m fucked unless being attacked by a field mouse. 
It’s my job to defend them.
My dog is not all that friendly, although generally not menacing, but I expect he would bark and growl, and then if the threat got closer he’d hide behind me. Unless the threatener had a hamburger, then he might change sides pretty quick.
When we first adopted Ella she was aggressive to strangers. A cop friend who is a master trainer offered to work with her and us (it was actually our reaction to her initial tension that caused her problems).
Anyway, for part of the training he wore bite sleeves and pants. He wanted to demonstrate that if we were relaxed, she would be as well. At one point he “attacked” me while I kept Ella calm. Out of nowhere, my other dog (who is gone now) attacked him, trying to kill him. He actually had bruises under the bite sleeve. She was a great dog!
Don’t have a dog, but I KNOW our cats will protect us. Well, at least my wife and daughter.
When MilliCal was a toddler, Maggie regarded herself as her watcher and protector, like nana in peter Pan. One day MilliCal was petting a dog in our yard. Maggie was outside, and saw the dog as a major Threat (he wasn’t, but she didn’t know that) She immediately went into Guardian mode. Her back rose, her hair bristled up, her tail puffed out, her ears went back, and she launched herself at the dog with a deep-throated growl, clawing wildly with her right front paw at a dog ten times her weight. Scared the hell out of him, too.
Years later, after we lost Maggie, we had Clarence, the one-eyed cat. He’d been attacked and worked over by something before we adopted him, and he was gentle as could be, but very unwilling to go outside. We had a midnight emergency, though, and I called 911 for my wife, Pepper Mill*. The emergency tech came in to the bedroom to find our ordinarily gentle (but BIG – Clarence was a Maine Coon)cat standing defiantly between him and my wife, his hackles up and claws out. the tech wouldn’t go near my wife until I got Clarence off the bed.
So, yeah, when the chips were down, at least two of our cats would fight to defend us against threats many times their size and weight.