From recent experience with our Shih Tzu being attacked I completely agree that what you say you will do, and what you actually do are completely differant.

Another unknown dog ran over to Akira and grabbed him by the neck and started shaking him. Intial reaction was to try to throw the other dog off. The problem was that Akira was still attached to the other dogs mouth and it would not let go.

Next thing I did was to jump on the other dog (literally jumped and body slammed it) then I held it in a sort of headlock. My OH managed to prise the jaws open whilst I was still pinning the dog so that she could free Akira. I then screamed at the owner to put a muzzle on the dog (she had a muzzle with her but not on the dog). She put a lead on it, and said "its okay now". I refused to let go (still shouting at her) until it was muzzled.

To be honest if it was only me or my partner on our own we doubt Akira would still be alive.

Akira in recovery:




Akira recovered:



With regards to what to do afterwards the police/dog wardens were not interested unless it bit a human. If it had bitten a person then the police said they would be on it straight away.

Quite right - I've had mine attacked recently, and even though the attack was performed in the same manner( Staff jumped over fence to attack), and due to this previous warning and others since, there was little the police could do . Unless the dog warden saw this dog loose outside the garden ,they admitted there was little they could do .
That's why with this sort of situation, getting a minor bite makes it dog on person and action gets taken .

Can I see pictures?!



to the rest of it, though. Our staff isn't very good with other dogs, due to owners letting their dogs "make friends - he doesn't mean any harm when he's doing that" at him when he's on lead.


I really do think that even a rudimentary knowledge of dog behaviour and expression thereof should be complusory for all dog owners. Teeth bared, head down, growling... none of that is "making friends". Please go far away from me, you blithering idiot owner, and take your agressively-acting dog with you. I'm tired of being forced to curb my dog's natural reaction to a threat, just because you have no clue.

Image blocked by stupid work stupid firewall... I shall be coo-ing this evening!



And blame Rach more than me, then!

Really interesting replies, so sad to see the pics of little Akira. hope the psychological damage isn't too long term

Two things have struck me; firstly, no matter how much you consider what you'd do... it happens so quickly that your brain is trying to catch up... while its all going on around you. I was acutely aware (because of the training with my little wirehair) that I should remain calm. I'm pleased I did this and my sister stood between me and the dog as long as she could while I kept walking slowly, but I felt rising panic inside and shouting or panicing would have made it worse. Luckily neither of my dogs barked or did anything to try and protect themselves.... just went round and round my heels trying to get away... or they would have ended up worse too.

The bite wasn't bad, it's almost healed and thankfully didn't get infected and wasn't worse.

The other thing is that this can happen at the least expected moment, ie in a sleepy seaside town path, mid afternoon, quiet day - not in a dog walking area, so totally unprepared in terms of walking 'kit'. Really though, I'd take a Tazer with me now if I could!

With little dogs VS big dogs, any 'situation' could potentially be so tragic, even with one bite or a short attack. That Rottweiler could have got it's jaws right around my smaller dog's whole body. That really frightens me, it's given me nightmares, pets are one of the family, mine are my children, and it makes me very sad that the few idiots and thugs out there get away with being so completely irresponsible.

People forget that their dogs are perfectly capable of murdering the sh*t out of things.

Irresponsible dog owners should be given jail time, in my view. I've had a few encounters with bigger dogs attacking my little Shih Tzu. Scary business, it happens quicker than you can react and the other owners usually have no clue as to how much stress it can cause.

Sorry, very small rant there ; )

Just how I feel. Mine has gotten that bad ,that anything with a short muzzle gets a warning. Nice to know that it's not little terriers that have this problem . How often do we get "it's all right" when you ask the owner to put it on lead.And when the owner doesn't, it tries to have a go .

Perhaps we need dogs to hold licences for their owner .

I asked this on another thread about dogs attacking dogs but it was ignored.

If your dog is attacked by another dog and you whilst attempting to rescue your dog/free it from the jaws of the other dog were to either seriously injure or kill the attacking dog, what could happen to you?

Could you be punished legally?

Thanks Jase, purely hypothetical from my point of view. I'm far too lazy for this dog ownership malarkey

Thanks for that one as I had to "persuade " one cross Staff/Old English bull off my dog's neck with my boot .This is the one I mentioned in an earlier post that savaged a Westie.
As last poster said, decent owners are on the look out for problems. Mine, he's a GOS with pups, so any pup around, he's straight on lead . Strangely enough, with even the smallest of Yorkies ,he perfect( BUT not with pups).