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Originally Posted by AZME  When I first found my little Yorkie Lou he was about 4 at the time he could be a mean little SOB seemingly out of nowhere. He was nippy and tried to bite some of my kids teenaged friends. I had to break him out of this and I did thankfully. HOWEVER when my young nieces or nephews or great nieces and nephew (big family  ) came to visit. I put him in my bedroom. It wasn't until he turned about 10 years old that he was okay with kids. So yes little dogs can be vicious and yes he pinned my yard guy up against a block wall because he came into the yard unannounced (came a day early to take down a tree) Lou was 7 lbs the guy about 180. That said. If you have a dog that has aggressive tendencies it is a big issue and a big responsibility. If that dog is a large dog you have a lawsuit or a potential fatal injury waiting to happen. Are owners responsible of course the are. And like an earlier poster with the border collie stated sometimes it comes out of the blue. We have to remember we have animals and not humans and they are wired the way they are wired. People who own large breed dogs need to be able to handle them (unlike my neighbor who rides her bike with a large dog on the leash and two kids in a little trailer…sorry but I fear for all 4 of them the dog, the kids and a little less the woman w/out the brains on the bike) A 7 lb Yorkie who can pin a man to a wall is scary. When I saw it I thought holy crap but he was protecting his turf and would have died doing it. Translate that to a 70lb dog who feels threatened and it's over.
I had a personal experience that pretty much left its stamp on me. This was prior to owning a little dog. I was walking in my neighborhood a quiet suburban place and did about a 3 mile loop. My son who at the time was about 10 usually rode his bike while I walked but that morning (by the grace of God) was still sleeping when I left. As I rounded the corner about a block from my house there were two very large Bull Mastiffs lying in their front yard (these were acre lots) the owners were nowhere to be found probably taking an early morning dip in their pool. The dogs were each well over 100 lbs. It was about 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning. They would not let me get by their teeth were barred they were growling. Honestly I feared for my life. I would not turn my back on them I did not make direct contact. I kept hoping that their owners would come. I did not have anything other than an empty water bottle with me. My instinct (right or wrong) was that if I yelled they would be more aggressive. I felt that I had to try and remain calm as possible. One dog was more dominant than the other. I kept thinking that my young son could have been with me and would have been even more of a trigger for them. I kept hoping for a car, another human or the owners. I finally sternly told one dog to sit. He or she did the other continued to slowly come towards me. I took one step backward at a time (fighting the urge to run) I kept giving the sit and stay command as I walked backwards very very slowly until I was out of their sight. It took me about five minutes to do this and it was a very LONG 5 minutes. Did the owners ever come out NO. Could they have heard the dogs, sure if they were listening. The crazy thing is they had a huge blocked wall back yard but had left these dogs out front. When I got home my young son was eating a bowl of cereal and said "Sorry I woke up late for your walk, Dad wouldn't let me take my bike out by myself to catch up with you" THANK GOD! I called animal control. I told them that I was threatened and felt that I was more than fortunate not to have been attacked. These dogs obviously thought they were protecting their turf unfortunately they never got the surveyor lines down for their yard's plot plan and thought it extended a half of a block in every direction. AND YES THE OWNERS FAULT. But truly it is difficult for me (who never met a dog she didn't like) to not be fearful of this breed now. Animal control apparently cited them for not keeping their dogs under control. I saw these dogs on leashes with their owners occasionally when I was in my car. I changed my daily walking route and the best news? They moved in the next 6 mos. |
Scary, potentially dangerous experience that you escaped through using your brains and staying cool. It's a shame big, powerful dogs are allowed out loose by irresponsible owners or guardians who are sitting them.
I'm so tired of being scared to go out in the neighborhood for fear some 50-lb.-plus dog will come dashing from behind a bush and see my Tibbe as instant prey - again, which is only dog nature and not his fault. It's his owner's fault for not properly leashing him or housing him within walls or fencing. There are so many, many dog owners who just flat drop the ball and the bigger the dog, the bigger the ball they seem to drop!
Still, my trusty, big, black, auto-open umbrella has heretofore stopped every dog I've had time to unfurl it on in the last 15 or more years when I've gotten the drop on them with it. The only time any dogs even got close to us is when I was walking Tibbe in the rain with the umbrella already open and over our heads so they didn't get the full effect of it whooshing open before their eyes and making our outline suddenly, "magically" big and intimidating but, still, I used it as a shield in front of us and the two little dogs never got to Tibbe in one hand on the leash before the owners rushed off the porch to retrieve them. They were both twice Tibbe's size but small and it was still scary. I can only imagine how scary those two big Bullmastiffs were advancing on you and I can only imagine how much worse it could have been if you little son had been with you! Glad you called AC and at least some action was probably taken.