What a bizarre thread.
You know, several people in my area, mostly children and elderly folks, have been attacked by dogs in the past few years, some of them fatally. Quite recently there was a 76-year-old woman who was mowing the front lawn while her husband was inside watching a football game; a pack of six dogs attacked and killed her. This was while she was on a riding mower in her own front yard, not breaking into someone's home or being chased by police. The dogs were pit bull-Rottweiler mixes and belonged to a neighbor. They weren't fighting dogs, they weren't attack-trained; the neighbor's granchildren used to play with them. No one expected them to get loose and kill someone.
I love dogs; I love my dog in particular, but not all of them are lovely wuffly things. I'm regularly approached by strange dogs when I'm walking mine in the neighborhood, and sometimes they can be aggressive. A lot of people in our area keep pit bulls, German shepherds, chows, and other large breeds that can be trained as attack and guard animals; not all of them are vicious, of course, but most dogs are territorial to some degree, and I get very nervous when I see that one of them is loose and running towards me.
So far, I've managed to get rid of them with a bit of stern yelling and stomping, or their owners have come after them or called them back. However, I don't think it's inconceivable that I might sometime find myself having to defend myself (or my dog, or my child, or someone else's child) from a vicious dog. I'd like to have a better idea of how to do so.
That said, I'd rather find that information somewhere else. It doesn't seem like a very Barbelith-friendly topic... as evidenced by the number of people who find it offensive. Barbelith-at-large is awfully fond of dogs as a rule; surely Tuna Ghost should have anticipated that this would be a controversial thread, although hir initial post isn't offensive IMO.
Would the reception have been different if the attackers in question were sharks, tigers, wolves, or perhaps unspecified "wild animals" rather than dogs? |
