Help!

[judy0429]

Yikes!!! We just encountered something we've never heard discussed before.

As a bit of background, we have long been in opposition of breed-specific bans. We have been very vocal about it. We still feel that way . . .

Then today, this. Our 4 year old male Bouv is very dog-friendly. We went to the park today, where part of the park is enclosed for dogs, and part is general use. Just as we were leaving the general area, we walked along the outside edge of the dogs' enclosure and a large-ish (80+ pounds?) "pit" bull came barreling about 50 yards over to the fence barking fiercely at Wim. Our dog returned the barking challenge, and both lunged for each other with the fence in between. The other owner came running over, grabbed his still lunging, growling dog, and dragged him away. We did the same.

Perhaps some do, but I have yet to see or hear of any Bouv shrinking back from a blatant challenge and a fight. I am concerned that if the fence had not been between them, and a fight had ensued, my beloved dog could have been dead in a pit bull's jaws.

My questions is had there been no fence, what should I have done? I'm really frightened in that this scenario could well repeat itself in any public place. I've broken up fights between two 100-pound dogs before (my own), and am not afraid of getting bitten per se. But this was different.

Suggestions? PLEASE !!!!!!!!

[Sarah Alling]

>>Perhaps some do, but I have yet to see or hear of any Bouv shrinking back from a blatant challenge and a fight<<

Sounded like a very frightening situation. If I knew that my dog was going to be jumped, the first thing I would do is try to remove or let go of the leash. I agree that most Bouvs will not shrink from a fight if they have no option, but I also think that a smart Bouv would know when to run if he/she was getting mauled. Ihave had a Rottie come after my much smaller Curly, and that was my only resort--I turned her loose and she ran. With the fence there, your dog was still separated from the aggressor though.
Have you been to the dog park before and seen this behavior from the same dog?
How does your Bouv normally react when meeting up with nonaggressive dogs on a walk (with no fence between them)?
Unfortunately, it is for that very reason that I don't use the dog parks here--it only takes one out of control dog to make it a bad experience for all.

[judy0429]

Thanks, Sarah. In all the furor, I never even thought of that.

After my post, I started googling how to break up dog fights. I found the best information under a pit bull site. They said to have each owner grab their dogs by the hind legs, pull away at the same time they turned around in a circle. The circle part of the move is designed to keep the dogs from turning around and biting the owners. (Dogs aren't thinking - just responding - when they're in the middle of a fight.) Circling keeps the dogs from looking at each other (continuing/escalating the aggression) at the same time they are forced to put their front feet on the ground.

Then take the dogs to separate enclosures and confine them, as they would likely start up the fight again for a fair amount of time. This is, of course, in a perfect world, not dog parks. If you don't have an enclosure, they said to take the dog to some stationary object (fence post, tree, etc.), and attach them to it to cool off, then remove the dogs elsewhere.

If the jaws were locked on the other dog, they said to take a certain kind of stick/rod and insert it behind a certain space in the aggressor's jaws, and maneuver it until the dog let loose. (Don't know about you, but that's a LOT closer to a pit bull's jaws than I ever want to be!!!!) Then to proceed with the other measures. The article said dog owners should NEVER be without their rod. Yeah. I carry one of those with me at ALL times . . . . I don't even know what it IS !!! And this irresponsible pit bull owner certainly didn't have one!!!

I also looked up things like mace. It appears that will work, on some dogs, at least sometimes. I'm really not so sure about this dog . . .

I truly don't blame this dog. I truly DO blame its foolish owner. That dog should never have been in a common area. Besides other dogs, in this confined area are all kinds and sizes of other humans . . . including noisy, running children. There was about a three-year-old there at the time. This was a disaster waiting to happen. In our case, I still don't know why, from 'way across a field, this particular dog selected my particular dog. None of us were even aware he was there!

I also did some research on dog parks. As you inferred, they're not good places. They have had waves of parvo, etc. go through them. They've had MANY dog fight deaths (mainly larger dogs killing smaller ones), etc., etc. You, that, and my own experiences in the past (never the dogs; often crazy, neurotic, ignorant owners), has convinced me dog parks are not good places to be.

Thank you SO MUCH for responding to my plea, Sarah! I truly appreciate it!

Judy B.

[Mike]

Although I agree that the fault was with the owner in bringing a non-friendly dog to a public park like that, there is a good chance that it was the fence that caused the problem. Our dogs use to do fence wars with a neighbor's dogs. You would have thought that they would kill each other if they got through the fence... well, one day our Bouv got through (bulldozed right through the board on board fence). And what happened was once she got over there, she kind of looked around and said, "oh, high there... wanna play, huh huh huh?" and they went romping around the yard. After we retrieved our dog and fixed the fence, it was back to "You are dead meat if I get through this fence." type of wars. We're glad that those dogs moved away. Ours have learned what "Away from the fence" means since they only bark when they get up to it and there is a dog on the other side.

So it is very possible that this dog was reacting the same way, although still not very responsible for the owner to bring their dog there.

Once when I was living in a trailer park while I worked away from home, there was a person that had an aggressive dog go after another dog as they passed each other. The one getting attacked was on a leash and the woman would not let go of it and the owner of the other dog could not pull her dog off. I was just a little ways away and as I ran over I took off my leather belt and got it around the attacking dog's chest and neck and pulled back. I had to yell at the other woman to pull her dog away (she was freaking out and wasn't thinking very clearly). If the owner of the attacking dog hadn't of gotten a leash on it and got it under control, I would have kept the belt around it's neck (and probably pretty tight too). You can use garden hoses, rope and anything like that to loop and grab so you can pull back. I've also used garbage cans, boxes and blankets and dropped it on one of the dogs to get them seperate long enough to get the other one away.

I don't recommend mace or pepper spray... it usually ends up going on everything and everybody and then you have to deal with it for a while.

It does get the heart pumping though and really drains you afterwards, that's for sure.

Mike

[judy0429]

Wow, I never would have thought about the fence thing. Our neighbors don't have dogs, and it never came up.

Also wouldn't have thought of the belt, blanket, garbage can, etc. either. I've only seen a couple of dog fights in my life, and one was between my own dogs where I was able to stop it. (It was in the car, a "You took up some of MY space" event. They were really fighting, but it wasn't an "I'm gonna kill you!" thing.)

Add an unknown, loose pit bull, and it's a whole different scenario! Thanks so much for the insights!

Judy Brock