Monday afternoon, nearly get mauled by massive dog

[Twit 2]

Got chased and very nearly attacked by an angry Alsatian earlier. It was not very pleasant.

I was walking along a country lane and a dog starts going mental behind a hedge/fence to the side of the road. Proper ferocious barking and snarling. Oh well, I thought, it's behind a fence, can't get to me and it's probably just defending it's territory. This is a massive garden, so the fence just keeps on going, dog keeps going, it's getting increasingly irate. Then I hear the owner on the other side of the fence, calling it back, only he's sounding alarmed himself, not your typical "Oi get back here" but frantic yelling after it. He's in the distance on the other side, well away from me and the dog. I wonder why he's so angrily shouting the dog back, but thought maybe he's having a bad day.

By now, it's getting a bit weird. This dog is going apeshit and the owner is getting evermore frantic. But I'm on holiday, the sun is shining, glorious day, nice bit of Valium and weed in me, I'm floating along listening to Jon Hopkins and pretty arsed cigs, all things considered. Then I wonder idly, "be funny if there's a gate open or a gap in the hedge or whatever." Thought nah, I get barked at by dogs a fair bit, that's why they're kept behind fences in these situations. But owner was really screaming at the dog to get back now, proper frantic, which is starting to not bode well. And then the dog appears in the driveway to my left, loose. The one thing I didn't want to happen. Yeah I'm guessing the bloke left his gate open accidentally or whatever, hence his alarm.

(My brother in law has an Alsatian, beautiful dog. Ex-police dog, unbelievable thing, well trained as fuck. Once it knows you it's chilled and your mate forever: it will behave beautifully. But it really doesn't like strangers and I've seen it go mental at stuff on walks before. Under control and on a lead, but have remembered thinking it wouldn't be fun to be in its sights. So I have a healthy respect for these things. Not a dog lover, but not scared of them either really.)

So the big dog is right there, and it's a big fucking Alsatian, and it's really not happy. Starts tearing at me full pelt. The owner is still nowhere near and I'm in the middle of nowhere. Fight or flight. I'm not sure what to do. Logically, I think I better stay put and hope it doesn't bite me. But that's quite hard watching this thing coming at me like a speeding bullet. I start instinctively running, turn round and it's gaining on me so fast I realise it's pointless. Then I trip over and hit the deck. Dog is practically on me so all I had left was to shout at it. So I got up quickly and shouted at it, which made it pause.

By now, owner is out on the road, but about 100 yards behind. Dog starts finally going back to its owner. I am shaken, in a bit of pain, but otherwise ok. I considered walking back to the guy and telling him WTF, except dog is still not on lead and I didn't fancy walking back in its direction in case it breaks away from him and has a second go. I considered staying where I was and waiting for owner to come over but not sure what would have come of it except him apologising and me saying "can you keep your dog under control" which I think he knew he had fucked up on. So I walked off.

Phoned my brother-in-law and he said it was right to stand ground and shout but also if that hadn't worked I'd have been in A&E. That made me a bit pissed off, as if there had been a child there or someone with a dog phobia they'd have been traumatised. I mostly felt a bit silly and walked another hour home with cuts and grazes from the fall. Better than having an Alsatian hanging off me, apparently they've one of the most powerful bites of all dogs.

Ever got chased by a dangerous animal? Or, even better, mauled?!

[Buelligan]

I had a small fight with a dog in the lane.  It was intent on killing my neighbour's beloved cat.  Ended up trying to strangle it because it wouldn't release the cat.  Escaped hunting dog.  It bit me rather badly in the hands as I was determined to open its dumb mouth.  All three of us bled quite alarmingly, sprayed all up the walls it was.  We all survived to fight again, glad to say that and the cat really loves me now.

I'd never advise running from a dog (or other attacking animal).  Send out the calm love but I'm the fucking boss vibe.  Do it with humans too if you can be arsed.

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

ETA  I think the best bit, in my imagination anyway, was when the owner of the cat, who'd run to fetch the owner of the dog, the two of them, came running round the corner to see me holding the dog off the ground by its throat, whilst the dog clenched its teeth on the cat and the cat bit (shredded) the dog's ear.  Blood absolutely covering us and the immediate area.

[Twit 2]

Yeah I quickly realised running was the wrong choice. But standing still and hoping shouting works didn't seem great either. I think I got lucky.

[Buelligan]

Well I'm glad it didn't bite you to death anyway.

[pancreas]

Just beating the rush.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Jesus, between this and the bath incident you're having a nightmare week.

[selectivememory]

My friend's lovely Greyhound got attacked and badly savaged by an Alsatian a few weeks ago. Had to have a couple of rounds of surgery to fix her up again.

I grew up with a phobia of dogs, though these days I'm fine with them for the most part. But Alsatians do still scare the shit of me. The story in the OP is the kind of thing I have nightmares about.

[Twit 2]

Just beating the rush.

A coward I am, an expert on dogs I am not.

[Captain Z]

Am I going to have to be the one to ask about "Saturday afternoon" / "earlier".

[Zetetic]

... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ... Alsatian ...

I'm inclined to side with the German Shepherd.

[madhair60]

I really hate to be the one to introduce this little snag but Alsatians are well-known to only attack active paedophiles. :/

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I understand a fairly successful tactic when dogs are defending territory is to calmly but deliberately walk off steadily, occasionally checking the dog and giving verbal cues that 'yeah got it, shut the fuck up'. Also don't walk off directly behind it if possible but just at a 'not particularly threatened by you' angle.

Another tactic is to absolutely melt the cunt into a different time zone with a 12 bore.

[Twit 2]

Am I going to have to be the one to ask about "Saturday afternoon" / "earlier".

Shit it's Monday isn't it? On holiday, so feels like Saturday. Always go for a walk on Saturday.

[Buelligan]

I understand a fairly successful tactic when dogs are defending territory is to calmly but deliberately walk off steadily, occasionally checking the dog and giving verbal cues that 'yeah got it, shut the fuck up'. Also don't walk off directly behind it if possible but just at a 'not particularly threatened by you' angle.

Obtuse?

[idunnosomename]

you should've given the he*king doggo a big ol kiss 14/10

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Obtuse?

Yes. This one saved me in Skradin after I took a path down through a back alley after visiting Utvrda Turina fortress. Both of us got what we wanted. I got to fuck off, the dog got to scare me off.

Of course I didn't get everything I wanted, I didn't get to totally delete him from the universe, but that I didn't dwell on that shows I was the bigger person.

[peanutbutter]

This is a massive garden, so the fence just keeps on going, dog keeps going, it's getting increasingly irate.

This is a big issue in the area I grew up. If you've a large garden but the house (i.e. the dog's base) isn't fucking miles away from the road then it's a recipe to turn a dog into a fucking psycho as it follows every single thing that passes.

Either fence it into a much smaller area and turn the rest of the garden into a field, or don't get a dog.

[danwho9]

you should've given the he*king doggo a big ol kiss 14/10

heckin' wholesome pupperino amirite??

[Twit 2]

Obtuse?

I went with my reflex and ran, as I was worried things could have got acute.

[Pijlstaart]

A dog tried to "have" me some months ago, a sinner-woman stowed him in the living-room without telling me, because why would I need to know? This dog was an absolute state, about yea high, sylvanian families reject, like one of those long-haired guinea pigs, the only way I knew he was a dog was his bad manners. He accosted me as I entered the kitchen, he was bellowing gibberish and lunging at me. Belonged on the end of a mop handle, and I was about to put him on one, but he got rescued. Was he held to account? No, the police don't want to know, without intervention this little fuck's gonna do it again, and this is how Starmer wins big in 2024, headline policy, corporal punishment for dogs, we could be the banda aceh of the dog world. The audacity of hope

[danwho9]

No, the police don't want to know, without intervention this little fuck's gonna do it again, and this is how Starmer wins big in 2024, headline policy, corporal punishment for dogs, we could be the banda aceh of the dog world. The audacity of hope

We laugh but that legitimately wouldn't surprise me. After all as someone accurately observed in a Facebook meme (rare I know) he always looks like he's doing a missing cat appeal.

[bgmnts]

Alsatians are Nazi dogs, pure and simple.

[Brian Freeze]

There were two of us abroad, in the middle of nowhere and it was extremely barren and very flat with no trees or nothing to climb. We were just mooching about exploring and minding our own business when a barrage of angry barking set off in the far distance.

We didn't pay attention at first as it can't have been anything to do with us.

Because it was so flat and barren we could see and hear them coming for a long long way. The only options were run a couple of kilometres to find some kind of shelter, get in the sea or stand there and wait for them to turn up. Not sure why but we held hands and chose the latter.

I think six or seven mangy mutts charged right up to within ten foot of us, still barking and carrying on.

We must have looked much braver than we felt as they stopped, gave a couple of half arsed barks, probably had a piss or something, kind of went "yeah, nice one, enjoyed that, see you around " and then they fucked off.

[Attila]

When I had my own house, it was out in the country, deep in a couple hundred acres of woods (second growth after logging a few decades before). There were a few other houses dotted throughout the woods with us, everyone on 5-20 acres or so of land. Anyway, one of these houses was owned by a dude who kept dogs, and absolutely would not get them neutered. Subsequently, we had a dog pack of semi-feral dogs roaming through the woods.

It got really bad one summer -- this pack of dogs coming into people's property and attacking/destroying other animals (I kept sheep, another neighbour with a much bigger patch had horses and cows, some people kept chickens). Guy with the horses took to shooting at them whenever they came into his yard, especially after they decided that one of his barns was a great place to live; every time his wife came out to ride her horse, these fuckings would come fuming out from under the barn and swarm after her.

I had two dogs of my own -- both originally feral puppies from this pack that we rescued, plus the immediate neighbours' Good Brown Dog. My dogs stayed on leads with me outside out fence, mostly because they were still a bit wild and would run off (I had to wade down into the swamp where the beavers made their dams to collect them one day, a magical day as they'd treed a bear cub). We used to walk the half mile or so and back up the dirt road every day from the house to the paved road at the time, thought a cut in the woods, to get the mail. We had to walk past the back end of the horse-property, so yeah, these fuckers would be out and about after anything that looked tasty.

It all came to a head when I was coming back from getting the mail one day: the entire pack erupted from the barn and came haring across that field directly towards us.  I unleashed my dogs, who were terrified, so that they could get away -- one ran straight back to my house like a blue streak, where I found her cowering under the porch. The other took off in terror down a side road with part of the pack after her. The Good Brown Dog stood her ground with me; she was part German Shepherd/part boxer we think, and as someone mentioned, the German Shepherd part can often mean a loyal, protective dog. She was elderly, though, and would have bought me time to get away at the expense of her own safety.

The part of the pack that had gone after the first dog (the one who ran off home) turned around and came baying back towards me and the Good Brown Dog. As mentioned above, the thing you do not want to do is run, although that's a really difficult instinct to avoid when you are being pursued by a pack of feral dogs born out of various Rottweiler, Stafford Terrier, and other big dog mixes (because of course that's what the arsehole who let them breed wildly kept). So I ended up waving my arms, shouting at top volume, and racing straight back at them head on.

Absolutely terrifying, but they all stopped with a collective 'Huh?', kind of scrambled about, and slunk off. I guess it's being that whole alpha dog thing, but it was upsetting and just awful. As much as I geniunely love dogs and wish I had one now, I was not particularly upset to find out the horse-owner-neighbour finally just shot the lot of them, tired of them harrassing his own animals and people on his property.

From what I understood from other neighbours, words were exchanged again with the guy who owned the dogs, who still refused to have them neutered. Instead, he simply forced his (adult) nephew to 'take care of the puppies.' Said nephew was something straight out of Deliverance, but for some reason had taken to me -- I think I was the only person who ever said 'Hi' and waved to him whenever I saw him. The last two dogs I had (before I had to leave my ex) arrived on the front porch of the house in a cardboard box -- two of the pups he'd been told by his uncle to destroy, and he couldn't bear to. He assumed that since we had dogs, we'd take these two in  (which we did).

Aftermath of the dog day afternoon -- both of my dogs were all right, and the Good Brown Dog lived to be a smidge over 20 years old! What finally slowed her down was the day she tried to defend me from a copperhead and got a side strike off it, which left her really ill and never quite as hale and hearty after that.

[The Dog]

Alsatian is medium sized dog.

[The Mollusk]

A dog attacked me once but I booted its head clean off like the top of a dandelion. Simples. Maybe consider doing that next time.

[Buelligan]

Went in Rarotonga once.  Nothing much there then, very big ocean in a circle, white sand, palms.  An old volcano.  Seawater lagoons full of interesting shit and a big pack of wild dogs.  We spent whole days, running in the shallows, searching islets, small outcrops of wood.  Dog heaven.  I hope they're still there, singing in the night.

I went with my reflex and ran, as I was worried things could have got acute.

:)

[katzenjammer]

Phoned my brother-in-law and he said it was right to stand ground and shout but also if that hadn't worked I'd have been in A&E. That made me a bit pissed off, as if there had been a child there or someone with a dog phobia they'd have been traumatised. I mostly felt a bit silly and walked another hour home with cuts and grazes from the fall. Better than having an Alsatian hanging off me, apparently they've one of the most powerful bites of all dogs.

This would be on one of those long walks like the ones you were doing during lockdown where nothing untoward could possibly happen, right?

[Jittlebags]

[wooders1978]

Sorry to hear this, glad you're ok, blokes a twat for not making sure his property is secure to be honest, as you say it seems he knew he'd fucked up badly so I hope he has learnt his lesson, it's the stuff of nightmares the idea of some cunt of a dog getting loose and mauling mine in a walk.

That said my dog got out the other day and started chasing a bloke on a bike, fortunately she's shit at riding a bike - boom boom