While doing research re. Pit-Bull attacks for the Pit thread on them, I stumbled upon a few sites with vets answering this exact question. According to them, the best approach is to roll down into a ball, face to the ground, head between your knees, arms inside the ball. That way the dog can’t get to any vital organ, has a hard time finding any place to bite seriously and will probably get bored soon enough if you don’t show aggression or fear.
The only problem with that sterling idea is that if the dog has rabies, you’re pretty much screwed.
As for me, I’d rely on standard anti-male defense : find the scrotum and twist hard.
But just having a very commanding “don’t you DARE fuck with ME dog” presence has worked virtually every time some aggressive dog was eyeing me.
Here’s a funny one that worked. Farmhouse in the middle of a big field. End of driveway a long way from house. I had never visited that house before, so a total stranger there.
Start walking up the house. Get about half way there, here comes a big growling slobbering kujo dog a running. Ohhh crap. My alfa male routine worked enough to fend off an actual physical attack, but he was still extremely aggressive and wasnt letting me go anywhere.
Then this idea popped into my head.
I crouched a bit and then in a very sweet and playful tone said something like “Hiya booyy, yourrr suuch a sweeet, gooood little dogggy, yessss you arrrrre…”
He stopped cold. He twisted his head sideways. You could almost hear the gears grinding in that little brain. Hmmmmm, everybody who is SUPPOSED to be here talks to me like that. He is talking to me like that. Therefore he belongs here too! Q.E.D
After that he was quite friendly.
I thought that was pretty sophisticated logic for a dog.
Running from a charging dog is a bad idea unless you are certain you can get a barrier between yourself and the dog before he reaches you. Otherwise you are acting like prey and he will really want to chase you.
I saw a dog running loose in the neighborhood and I thought I could check its collar to see if it had a tag but when the dog saw me across the street he looked at me and started barking and looked like he was going to charge. I turned my back, pulled my arms to my chest and slowly walked away ignoring him. I made sure I was close enough to my neighbor’s fence to hop over if I heard the dog behind me before I turned back around. The dog had already run off in the other direction and I was not so concerned about whether or not he might get hit by a car.
When dealing with vicious dogs at work I have put many in a headlock while laying across its back waiting for the vet to pop some heavy duty sedative in his butt. This is really not ideal because its head is too close to mine if I should lose my grip, however fear usually keeps me strong but I’m definitely getting too old for that shit. And this wouldn’t work for anyone that did not have someone nearby with a sedative because you will tire out before the dog does. It’s also difficult to mime “sedative” when you have your arms wrapped around the dog’s neck. I suppose if you manage to get in that position with a strange dog you could try choking it and cutting off its oxygen.
As for rolling up in a ball not working for a dog with rabies, well, animals with rabies aren’t very well coordinated and you might be able to run from this one, providing you have a head start and it’s obvious that it is rabid and not just a really angry dog. If there’s a handy unlocked Ford Pinto nearby just hop in and wait for the dog to get bored and go away. I’m sure it won’t take long.
I’m partial to the hand-in-mouth tactic. My brother’s black lab was a biter since he was a puppy. Uncontrollable, that thing was. When he’d try to bite me (he thought it was playful), I’d push my arm or hand all the way back to his molars. The dog’s jaw wasn’t strong enough to bite down on something that far back. It’d be like shoving a sideways pencil into someone’s mouth all the way to the back. Impossible to bite down. No choking required.
My husband is a letter carrier and his office (might be a more widespread regulation, I’m not sure) requires you to have it on your person on your route; if you’re attacked by a dog and it’s found that you didn’t have it, you could be disciplined because you didn’t take proper precautions.
The major dog attack he dealt with was a Doberman who charged the screen door he was walking up to, popped the door open, and knocked him down with the force of the charge. He pulled the mail bag up to shield his face/torso and pushed the dog back with it, so it attacked his shorts-clad legs. He lashed out with kicks, striking the dog around the neck/chest, and finally struck hard enough around a shoulder that he heard the dog yelp in pain and take off, limping. The dog turned out to be rabid.
He’d probably advocate pepper spray (if you know the wind isn’t unfavorable to you), or a punt to the chest/neck. Pepper spray tends to result in whining, sneezing, rubbing the head on the ground, and/or running. For smaller attacking dogs, he’s hooked the dog under the body with his boot and kind of tossed it a short distance off; it tends to be enough to convince the dog that he shouldn’t be messed with, or at least the owner that their dog needs to not be allowed to attack people on their property - the next time might be the toddler from next door.
He’s said the “fist down deep in the mouth” bit works too, if it comes to that level of fighting.
I’ve heard that the ideal way to control a dog is to grab both sides of its head by the muzzles and hold it at arms’ length. It can’t turn its head to bite either of your arms, it won’t be able to reach your body with its claws, and you’re not causing any injuries to the dog. The problem is that it’s got to be a really difficult manuever to put into effect.
Me, I’d reflect on the fact that evolution pushed primates further up than the canines. And then I’d whack that dog across the head with a club. That’s right, Fido, you’re messing with a tool user now.
That’s how my brother handled it when he and I were attacked by a dog last summer. We were walking on one of these lovely country roads when a Rottweiler that looked to be half-starved popped out of the trash cans in front of the only house in sight and came at us, snarling.
My brother, fifteen years old and full of more bravado than fear, picked up a branch from a tree, held the branch in both hands with his arms over his head to look as big and intimidating as possible, and screamed at the dog. That stopped the dog for a second, before he tried to circle around my brother to get at me. My brother brought the branch down to intercept, screamed at the dog again and it backed off. We turned around to walk the other way and whenever my brother thought the dog might be following us, he’d turn back towards it with another threat.
I felt kind of useless, but I was really impressed with how calmly he reacted. His feeling on it was that a dog might go after a person because it’s been raised to not be afraid of people–so act like a big, scary animal, instead.
As a tangent to the “down the throat” method, I’ve also heard of trying to break the dog’s neck while it is latched to your forearm. With the dog on one arm, put your other arm around the back of its neck and push/pull/squeeze. I’ve always kinda wondered if that would work, or just further hamburger your arm (with bonus claw marks down the whole front of your body!). If you have the presence of mind to wrap your shirt on your arm, all the better.
Does an average person have enough strength to do that to a large dog?
One mailman was forever being nipped around the ankles by a farting little Yorkshire terrier, one day he’s had enough of it despite asking the dogs owners to keep the dog in.
Terrier rushes at his ankles, postie puts foot under dog and lofts it in the air, it plummets to earth and lands head first in a plant pot.
Scratch one Yorkie.
Owners sue postie, postie wins on the defence that it matters not how big the dog is, a bite is a bite is a bite and when bitten accident reports have to be filled in and hospital visits are required.
If the dog isn’t feral, your body language and voice go a long way.
A while back, I was taking an evening walk with my daughter in her stroller. We were making a big loop around the neighborhood, part of which takes us through an area that’s bordered on one side by solid six foot fences and on the other by horse corral fencing. As I walked, I saw a dog at the far end of the road. Not a huge dog, bigger than a terrier, somewhere around Lab-sized. No one was with it. I could see that its ears were pricked up in interest. So, I’m basically in a long corridor, from which there’s no escape (not with a stroller, anyway; being with a toddler seriously limits your options). I can turn back and hope his chase instinct doesn’t kick in, or take Option 2.
Option 2, I decided. I kept walking, head held high, never slackening my pace. I didn’t swerve away from the dog, either. I kept walking until we were right alongside the dog, and then, never slowing, I looked right at the dog and said in a firm, loud voice, "Home."
His ears dropped. He didn’t approach. The dog knew the voice of authority and knew better than to challenge it. And, we walked on, in peace, unfollowed and unbothered.
I have no idea if the dog would have attacked, but in a situation like that, I figure it’s best to control the situation and make sure the dog knows that you’re controlling the situation.
Funny yet sad because it was so preventable (by the owners). Cesar Millan is definitely right in saying that little dogs get away with so much more because people think they’re cute and harmless. If it was a big dog acting the exact same way, you better believe (or hope) the owner would have corrected it the first time.
In trying to be a good country neighbor, I don’t let the lose dogs get into chase mode. If walking, riding a bike or motorcycle, or driving a 3-8 wheeled vehicle, when the dog/s charge out/get up off the porch an come towards me, I stop, make sure my CC pistol is in my hidden hand and firmly tell the critters to “Go to the house. Go home, etc” I try to be loud nuff to get anyone inside to hear me and come out. I have most completely trained for all my different modes of transport in the local area.
Had a visiting son or son-in-law at one place bring in two big boxers that were being slow to learn and they would watch from back in the barn area to see what would happen. (Can you tell these are not the ‘good’ neighbors of the area?) Anywho, I took my motorcycle round and trolled past and sure nuff, here came the critters. I kept going slowly along, firmly and loudly telling the dog to "Go to the house, etc. After I went over a small rise where they could not see me from the barn, I stopped, screamed real loud, “Get back.” and put three fast shots into the ground near the dogs, then two spaced shots. I was between the dogs and their home so they went the other way fast. I drove on.
The next time I went by, the dogs were tied. About a month later they were gone and the usual dogs for that house would just look up, see it was me and lay back down…
Out in the country, we are not so harsh about leash laws, But the leash law for the State Park cross the road does come in handy sometimes, We do insist that the owners take care of business…
Yeah, but the trouble with that is, life’s a bitch.
My mom used to own an aggressive dog, apparently a lab/border collie mix, that challenged me a few times. I found that I was able to wrestle him into a position where his back was towards me and I was holding him off the ground with my arms around his chest, under his forelegs. From that position, he wasn’t able to bring any of his weapons to bear on any part of me. He never did submit, but at least he couldn’t harm me while I had him in the hold. Thankfully, I’ve never had the opportunity to learn whether I could get that hold onto a dog that was attacking, rather than challenging.
