Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyingNimbus  The umbrella thing should work on a lot of animals... it's the same thing those umbrella lizards do. Probably wont work on larger animals than that but yeah. |
It's worked on several small, medium and large dogs over the years with me, all except two small neighbor dogs that excitedly tried to get around it to Tibbe on a rainy day. I'd already had it open over our heads when the little dogs rushed off their porch, across the street and tried to get to Tibbe. I quickly put it down in front of us and it held them off but they didn't get to see it unfurl in a starling whoosh and were little-dog thrilled to see another dog out walking and stayed in place until their owner got there. But it kept them from getting to Tibbe as I just lowered its edge to the sidewalk level and rolled it in whatever direction they tried.
I began using an auto-open umbrella during walks after a large, aggressive Dalmatian rushed from nowhere and grabbed my Yorkie, Jilly, up in its jaws. And it stalked us all the way down the block afterward as we headed home to the car and emergency vet, even though I repeatedly threatened it with a raised walking stick I'd taken with me for the first time that day and had used it to beat the dog off her to allow us to get away from it.
After that vicious attack, I realized I needed something to intimidate approaching dogs and my trusty auto-open umbrella has done the trick. Walking sticks are just that - thin sticks and not really too worrying to dogs unless they are close enough for you to threaten to hit them with it. Even then, a dog who has never been hit usually won't react to just a raised stick unless your very aggressive body attitude and eye stare can serve to warn him off. But a big, mysteriously enlarging umbrella a dog can't see through and assumes is a huge, solid object usually intimidates dogs that have an interest in approaching you.
Of course it can't prevent the highly dominant, aggressive dog interested only in attacking or the sudden, unseen dog coming from out of the bushes or from behind but those you can see coming are usually suddenly unsure about the rapidly whooshing open umbrella before you. And they can usually shield the dog from actually getting to whomever is behind them while you yell for help or get to safety during an actual attack attempt. Over time, dogs quickly learn you will always have it and whoosh it open if they approach you and oncoming dogs just tend to give you a wide berth or go the other way.