dog attacks dog

[Anonymous]

Not your leashed dogs fault.

[Anonymous]

My incredibly wimpy, lovable 80-pound snow dog would have taken his big paw and 'pawed the little one' and held him to the ground. That is the way he deals with little dogs that jump and bite him and get in his face, his giant paw ever so gently placed on their head and keeps them in a headlock until the owner handles it. I do find the small dogs to be the nippiest---snappiest right in the face. He's been attacked and his mode is to roll over and lie on his back. I've never seen him fight back ever. Luckily, his fur is so thick the little dogs can't even get to his skin. Cats, he's particularly afraid of. We have some crazy-ass outdoor ones in our neighborhood that hiss, swipe, pounce...he jumps in the air and runs away. The cowardly lion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you're walking your very large dog (NOT even remotely a pit bull, for what it's worth), which has never bitten a person or thing and actually has a history of playing well and at times living with little dogs, on leash down a city street Two little dogs that your big dog and you don't know and have never seen before appear out of nowhere, having got loose after their owner left the gate to their front yard open, and both little dogs come running at your on leash big dog on the sidewalk out of nowhere. Before you even have a chance to react, one of the little dogs jumps right into the face of your dog, which is ten times bigger, and your dog bites and very seriously injures the little dog.

Would you now consider your dog to be a dangerous dog?

Dangerous animals attack unprovoked. Your dog was attacked by a dangerous animal, and did what most animals being attacked would do: fight back.

I kick unruly small dogs for exactly this reason, and I own a small dog (mine has his good citizen cert, because I'm not an ass). "Small Dog Syndrome" is very much a thing, and small dog owners aren't usually great about preventing that mentality in their animals (in fact, most encourage it by treating the dog like a damn accessory).

[Anonymous]

Too many people think of their small dogs as toys rather than animals. No/minimal training, off leash (or long retractable ones), major behavioral issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a dog is ON leash and OFF leash dogs approach and attack and my ON leash dog bites/lunges/attacks, etc. The OFF leash dogs are at fault. It does to matter the size of any of the dogs.

OP here. I feel terrible for the little dog -- really terrible. But there were two little dogs off leash surprising my big dog on leash on a DC street. Not just one little dog. And it happened very very quickly, before I could react. You just don't expect unleashed dogs on DC streets.

NP here. Dogs tend to be more reactive in general if they are on leash and an unleashed dog comes up to them. My young GSD is sweet and will take a lot of abuse from children and dogs he knows, but I am not letting him meet strange dogs face-to-face on the street in DC. I'll cross the street or have him sit/stay out of the way if I see a dog approaching whose owner is not paying sufficient attention (which is most of them). If I see an unleashed dog with their owner I will sharply request they leash and contain their dog. Most of them make the assumption that my dog is vicious and will do so promptly, which I am fine with. Walking a large dog in DC is definitely an exercise in hypervigilance, but we still get about 8-10 miles in a day on downtown streets. He's been attacked a couple of times but fortunately has not hurt another dog. We stopped going to the dog park altogether after he was a year and a half and about 10 dogs did a pile-on. The biggest thing we work on is recall, but many dogs if they get into sudden overstimulation may not actually hear commands to respond to them. But this is why we go to training literally every week and have done so since he was a puppy-- both to work on response, and getting him used to many different situations without getting overwhelmed.

So, basically, while I would not consider your dog dangerous-- it's a normal response, especially when both of you were completely surprised-- I would encourage you to go re-engage in dog training classes for a bit if you aren't currently going. An instructor can help you identify if there are any areas of concern, and can do things like test for and work on small-dog socialization if your dog is showing reactiveness to dogs similar to the ones that attacked him. And I also would encourage you to try to be a lot more observant of the areas you walk your dog-- for example, if there are particular yards where people do not secure their dogs, I try not to walk my dog in front of those yards. Or I will walk him on the opposite side of the street and reward him liberally for paying attention to me and ignoring the bad noisy dogs across the street. The result is that now, when many dogs have an aggressive stance and start hurling insults across the street, his first response is to look to me for a treat rather than to start shouting insults back.

Except for the FBI dogs, he still shouts insults back at them. Apparently their insults are more effective than the average dog on the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a dog is ON leash and OFF leash dogs approach and attack and my ON leash dog bites/lunges/attacks, etc. The OFF leash dogs are at fault. It does to matter the size of any of the dogs.

OP here. I feel terrible for the little dog -- really terrible. But there were two little dogs off leash surprising my big dog on leash on a DC street. Not just one little dog. And it happened very very quickly, before I could react. You just don't expect unleashed dogs on DC streets.

I think your dog may have done the little ankle biter a favor. Perhaps that dog has been cured of its tendencies and won't attack another dog. Another larger dog may have killed it whereas your dog seemed to show some restraint and did not "go for the jugular". Hopefully the owner witnessed it and will be a more responsible dog owner.