Our dogs, Yogi the Basset hound, and Gunny, the German Shepherd in my avatar, have been attacked about 7 times in 14 years while out for walks in our neighborhood. That's about once every 2 years. We are sick and tired of it.
My wife and I always carry pepper spray, whether it's effective I don't know except the last time Yogi was attacked about a year ago, she said she sprayed the pepper spray at the attacking dog with no results. She said she thought she might have missed it's face. Two guys working down the block came to assist her. One was getting ready to clock the attacking dog with a long 2x4 when the owner came out and got his dog. My wife hates guns although she doesn't interfere at all with my owning and collecting. I always carry legally concealed.
About 6 weeks ago, she was walking Gunny for me. Gunny is a 4 year old 110lb East German bloodline German Shepherd. He's my 3rd Shepherd. I haven't been able to walk him since mid February due to an undiagnosed hernia, which I have since had surgery for. I was upstairs and heard a loud distubance and I looked out the window to see a 55-60 lb mutt that's owned by a rental property couple down the block attacking Gunny, who is on his leash of course. I limped downstairs to see Gunny with the mutt in his mouth shaking him back and forth. The mutt was off the ground completely. The owner arrives at this time and gets his dog and apologizes in such a way, with his arms outstretched and says, "I'm sorry I apologize" when my wife reminds him his dog has gotten off the property many times before. His words may have been an apology but his body language and tone of voice indicated he was annoyed at being hassled. He only said he was sorry because he was smart enough to know it was smarter to do so. If left off his leash there is no doubt Gunny would have killed this dog. He is very protective and confident dog, but he's not a psycho. He's very gentle and extremely loving with us and strangers off the property in neutral territory. He will challenge visitors until we quiet him down with proven techniques. 5 minutes later, he'll be leaning his side on them and kissing their hands. We do not allow him to be present if the visitor has visible fear of a big dog. So ocassionlly I will put him in another room if we have a scared visitor or a repairman over. I make sure visits of those type of folks are short because I don't like to isolate him from his environment.
I took Gunny to the vet and had him checked out. The mutt had bitten him where his neck joins the right shoulder. No break in the skin and only minor bruising. I don't know how much damage Gunny did to the other dog and frankly, I don't care. It's the owner's fault more than the dog's. My wife reminded me that when Gunny was a puppy about 3 1/2 years ago, the same dog ran down the block and turned the corner (we have a corner property) and ran all the way down the one side of our property to attack this 3 month old puppy. There was no damage luckily. The wife or daughter was right behind the mutt and pulled him off before he could do any damage. I had forgotten the incident because Gunny was OK and I had been at work when it happended and heard it afterwards.
I reported the current incident to the local PD. I expected the other dog's owner to just pay our vet bills as the proceedure in the borough is usualy to warn the attacking dog's owner the first time as to the legal and financial fines attached to having a loose dog around here. If the victim dog has serious injuries I think the police around here would handle the violation differently. The responding officer cited the owners for letting the dog run free, a lapsed rabies vaccination, and no dog registration.
So now the idiot is facing $400-$500 worth of fines instead of a $100 vet visit reimbursement.
It's because this idiot's dog attacked him as a puppy and due to the same type of incident that happened with another grown dog when Gunny was a puppy, that he hates all other dogs aside from his 'bro, Yogi.
I could tell Gunny was made of harder stuff than my other Shepherds even at 8-9 weeks old. I took him to a puppy training class around here so he could meet a lot of other dogs when he was a baby and so he would be well socialized to other dogs. I have raise and trained 5 dogs and I didn't need to take him for training so I would know how to handle him, just for the socialization. Most of the dogs owners around here are too lazy to walk their dogs. They never get out of the yards. No wonder they are mostly very territorial and don't like other dogs to the extent they will race 2-3 blocks off their property to attack. Of those that do walk their dogs, a number of them are too lazy to pick up the dog poop. Hey, I hate handling dog poop too, but it's a law and it makes sense.
Ironically, of the 7 or so times our dogs have been attacked, it's only been when my poor wife was walking them. I can't say for sure I wouldn't have shot the big nasty Rottweiler that got out of his yard and threatend my 2nd Shepherd, Jesse and Yogi years ago. The owner was right there and had to back his dog up with a rake to get him to stop moving forward.
I have -0- tolerance for other dog owners who neglect their animals and put them at risk by not making sure gates and doors are secure. They put their own dogs at risk to getting hit by vehicles and other people and dogs at risk, too. If it was up to me and any of these aggressive dogs had attacked when I was walking my guys I would shoot them out of hand. But I know better and will only really do so if there's no other alternative. I always let the cops handle it since it's never been a dire emergency, only frightening.
