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| Belle and Rascal in their Thundershirts which saved them from getting bitten |
This morning, while I was walking Rascal and Belle, we were suddenly attacked by a huge, black German Shepherd!
I had stopped to let the kids have a sniff and was watching Belle (cause she has a tendency to pick up and eat rubbish) when I suddenly felt Rascal's lead stiffen! I turned to look and I saw a massive, black fur ball hurtling at us from across the road!
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| Playing with a German Shepherd puppy! |
Before I could even react, the dog - a German Shepherd - was upon us! He basically charged us and was for some reason determined to grab Belle. He kept charging Belle and would not let up!
As you can imagine it was quite a situation. To their credit, Rascal and Belle held their own ground. In part, due to Rascal constantly trying to bite the GSD and Belle also fighting back, the GSD did not manage to really grab Belle.
And thankfully they both had their
Thundershirts on this morning, so that also gave them an extra layer of protection (I normally don't put the
Thundershirts on them on their walks but because they just had a bath yesterday, and it had rained heavily in the morning, I put it on them to prevent them from getting wet and dirty!). Can you imagine if they didn't have their
Thundershirts on? The GSD's teeth would probably have sunk into them especially Rascal as he hardly has any fur!
So what did I do? I basically yelled at the dog to try and get him to back off. At the same time I tried to put myself between him and my kids (which of course may not seem like a very clever thing to do in hind sight) because as far as I was concerned they were my babies and I wasn't going to let them get hurt.
I knew that I had to do something more or we would have all been finished. So I decided that I had to kick him because I had my hands full - one lead in each hand - and I knew I couldn't drop the leads cause my kids may run onto the road and into on-coming traffic.
So I kept wedging myself between the kids and this GSD, and as soon as I could I yanked both kids back and landed a solid kick into his chest! That startled him and then I yelled at him to go away! And thankfully he did. He ran back across the road and disappeared!
I just hope that he didn't attack any other dogs or anyone else for that matter.
I took the kids home quickly and looked them over thoroughly. Thankfully they were not hurt at all although they were a few small tears in their Thundershirt.
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| Working with a Rottweiler |
The reason I am sharing this story is because I feel that everyone should know what to do if something like this ever happened to them. In this case, I had to fight the dog (because he was attacking my dogs and I had no other alternative) although I normally would never advocate fighting or challenging a dog.
Additionally, should you ever decide to challenge a dog that is attacking you, you need to be very confident yourself. If you panic or show fear, the attacking dog will be even braver!
Note that probably one of the reasons why I was able to get the dog off my kids was because I did not panic and I was not afraid of him. I have dealt with many dogs in my lifetime and I have dealt with many breeds that are deemed dangerous, and therefore have an advantage over the situation where most people would not have.
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| Fun time with a German Shepherd cross |
In my other blog, I have written a few articles on
Aggressive dogs and How to Prevent Dog Bites etc. Please do share these articles with your friends to prevent any untoward incidents.
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| With a Bull Mastiff - another "dangerous breed" |
However, what I would like to highlight here is that this German Shepherd behaved the way that he did because his owner has never been able to control him.
We have seen him on our walks every now and then, and it's a constant battle between him and his owner. Additionally his owner is quite strange and in my opinion encourages his dog's bad behaviour.
Every time the dog sees any other dog, he would bark incessantly and lunge madly. The owner never seems to be able to control the dog, and sometimes I see the owner doing really weird things like squatting down and banging his shoe on the ground when the dog is in that heightened state. It has always seemed to me that he was goading the dog on.
I have wanted to speak to the guy for some time now, but of course I have never been able to because his dog is always in a crazed state! And whenever I do see them, I always have at least 2 of my kids with me and therefore cannot risk approaching them.
Douglas and I drove around the neighbourhood this afternoon in an attempt to locate this dog and his owner, but unfortunately we were unable to find them. I will definitely talk to this guy the next time I see him though. I dread to think what would happen to the poor dog if he did attack a person and caused injury or worse, if he attacked a child!
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| With an Anatolian Shephered Cross - a very powerful dog |
So I just want to re-emphasise to all of you, who may be quick to judge and state that all dogs are bad or that certain breeds are killer dogs and should be banned, to understand that a dog's behaviour is usually shaped by humans. In my book, dogs are not born bad. They become bad because we make them bad.
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