A few weeks ago, I was walking home with my Siberian Husky after a nice neighborhood walk. Suddenly, I hear some heavy barking, and a pit-bull charges out from one of my neighbor’s backyard and starts barking at us crazily.
If he were a truly aggressive pit-bull, we would have been toast.
Instead, I backed away from him slowly and shouted out to my neighbor. Of course, he was doing yard work at the time, and did not hear me over the noise of his lawn mower. He had left his gate open so that he could get easy access to his recycling bin.
Dude! … I mean really?!
Luckily another neighbor heard me, came out, and secured the dog.
Several days later, I was charged by an Akita. She came over, and started bullying my Husky girl. A boy came running after the dog, and then just stood there. He did not know what to do.
I raised my voice and said Stop to the Akita, which surprisingly, she did. Maybe she was just momentarily startled. I asked the boy to please remove his dog, but he just hit his dog on the muzzle. Since the dog did not have a collar on, the boy was unable to effectively remove her.
However, since the Akita was no longer focused on my dog, I was able to move away, and then Akita Inu finally followed the boy home.
Dude! … I mean really?!
And then today, I was charged by a large Labrador. He was being walked off-leash in the neighborhood even though he had 0% recall.
Then one of the owners said, “Don’t worry, he is not aggressive”.
Another one said, “I am doing off-leash training with my dog and I did not see you.”
Dude! … I mean really?!
- Point – Someone who lets an untrained dog run about off-leash in public neighborhood streets has no understanding of dogs. I very much doubt they know whether their dog is aggressive or not.
- Point – Leaving a dog with no recall, off-leash, is dangerous to other people, other dogs, and to the dog himself. There are not too many cars in my neighborhood, but all it takes is just one.
- Point – Perhaps the Labrador is not aggressive, but then my dog could be aggressive. In which case, a fight could have broken out when the Labrador invaded my dog’s space and forced a butt sniff on her.
- Point – One DOES NOT do off-leash training on public neighborhood streets. Find a private enclosed area to start recall training, and once the dog is more advanced, take him to an off-leash hiking park.
What to Do When Charged by Off-Leash Neighborhood Dogs?
I usually just ignore the owners and walk away as soon as they get control of their dog.
I don’t really want to converse with them, because I would likely lose my temper and that would upset the dogs even more.
I am not sure if that is the best thing to do though. I would like to try and convince them not to leave their untrained dogs running around off-leash.
What do you think?
- What do you do when charged by off-leash neighborhood dogs?
- How do we get our neighbors to keep untrained dogs on a leash?
My dog is completely blind and has been in numerous scary altercations with other off leash dogs barking in his face. These dogs keep getting off their properties and rushing at my dog. I have gotten a lot of the same responses as everyone else but my normally friendly and happy dog is terrified to walk around the neighborhood and reacts to every person and dog now in the area. Thankfully I can still take him to the park and the pet store because the dogs are leashed and he has not made the association of all dogs and people being scary. People in the neighborhood act like my dog is the aggressor probably because he is a pitbull mix. If he was a tiny dog I doubt we would get the same reaction. My dog has no eyes and is on a leash. I’m not sure how he is the intimidating one in this scenario. He was fine until this all happened and now I am working with him to try to lower his anxiety. I can’t stand irresponsible pet owners.
Leaving your dog off leash is not only a bad idea, it’s illegal in most communities! I was chased, attacked, bitten and frightened by numerous dogs in the days I had a paper route. Complaining to the local police didn’t do much most of the time – they said it was difficult for them to enforce the law and they had to catch a dog’s owner in the act to issue them a citation. Fast forward many decades later, it seems to be less of an issue but I still know it’s possible I’ll be out walking with my four year old boy and a loose dog comes running at us through the street. Then I have to watch out for the both of us.
I have nothing against dogs in general – I know they make great pets for many people and many of them are completely harmless but I am SO SICK of people saying, “my dog’s very friendly”, “she won’t hurt you” and other BS. None of that matters when one of them is running towards me (and my child) at 40+ mph, jaw wide open and saliva dripping. Sorry, I’m finicky like that.
Dogs of course don’t like being on leashes, I get that. Sometimes dogs gotta go out and run free, I get that. Well, you as the dog owner made the choice to own a dog, so it’s YOUR responsibility to find some large empty field with nobody around so the dog can do what it wants and not pose a threat to anybody. There are also dog parks in many cities with fenced in areas for your dog to run around to its heart’s content (just watch out for other dogs). Too far to drive to? Not convenient? Well then I guess you are keeping the leash on – obey the law!
Don’t even get me started on all the times I’ve seen dog poop laying on the sidewalk by some entitled A–HOLE who felt it was alright to leave it there.
I see this blog post is around five years old – sorry I had to vent.
We have a horrible neighbor directly next door to us. They let their untrained dog off leash to wander the neighborhood and leave surprises for us in our front lawn. When we first moved in we did not have a fenced yard for a while due to construction of our detached garage. This untrained dog wandered into our backyard and charged into our house though our doggie door. Luckily our dog charged back and chased it away keeping us and our 2 year old daughter safe inside. Our dog stood between us and the intruding dog. We had enough and contacted police. This happened about 4 years ago. Since then, the awful neighbors still allow their dog to wander around and mostly on our property. It’s the husband that does it and thinks we don’t see it or take notice. We now have a new puppy we are training. Hoping we can keep this nuisance dog away from us and our puppy for the remainder of our time in this house. It’s so stressful to have awful neighbors and unsafe dogs living right next door!
I was charged by my neighbors dogs 3 of them while walking my dog. My dog has never had to defend herself or me and the dogs were a terrior, lab and pitbull. This is the second time this has happened and i want to know if there is a safe spray that will not hurt them too much but let them know I mean business. My neighbor stood on the porch and called them but to no avail, he didn’t even have the decency to come try to help me. I’m 66. I need some kind of spray what does anyone reccomend?
Do you have any possible explanation as to why off-leash, friendly dogs continue to walk right up to my German Shepherd even though the closer they get the more my dog displays abundantly clear, aggressive body language indicating that he is unfriendly and wants them to go away?
I was attacked by a pit bull and had 11 deep puncture wounds and a chunk out of the back of my leg. It took them 2 days to get the bleeding to stop. They normally don’t like closing animal bites because it can trap the infection in and lead to more problems. However, the bleeding would not stop so they had to close them up. I could not walk or take care of myself for 4 mo. and I will have problems with my leg, back, hip and walking for the rest of my life, I’m so glad everyone else finds such humor in my pain. Since that happened 2 years ago, I am now terrified of dogs. Numerous times I have encountered these idiot dog owners who think they are more important apparently than everyone else at “where ever” public parking. They leave pit bulls unrestrained in there vehicles with windows all the way down so people like me can’t even get out of there car. I would like to know why people need to keep there dogs restrained at home but can bring them to a public parking lot and leave them as a threat to everyone and the useless police do nothing except laugh at you. I’m sure they would not be laughing if it was their child, or sister or wife that was attacked. Then 2 mo. ago I even ran into another idiot that either thought it was funny, or thought this was some sick way to cure someone of their fear of dogs and I was locked in a room with a barking jumping pit bull for 5 min. I went into shock, was not acting normal from what I was told, I quit my job and was curled in the fetal position for 5 days in bed. The police also thought it was funny and said that they couldn’t arrest someone cause it was only 5 min.? Funny, I would think locking someone in a room or holding someone against their will for 1 sec. should be illegal. When people laugh at others pain, I think God has a way of turning things around. I would be willing to bet that it won’t be long before they have an encounter themselves, and they will no longer find this soooo funny.
you really need to report that behavior (i.e. taking you hostage and terrorizing you) to the police and investigators, that is crazy. That is a dangerous individual that would do that.
My neighbor lets her aggressive pit run free. It doesn’t listen to her, so she kicks it, which does not elicit a response either. I have contacted “law enforcement” 4-5 times about this, but her behavior has not changed. This situation will not end well, and she certainly knows it. When her dog ultimately mutilates a child, she should be convicted of first-degree murder. This behavior constitutes premeditation. Unfortunately, homicidal dog owners have no fear of consequences. Oh well. I will testify against her when it happens. And I will testify against local “law enforcement” too. They are complicit.
What about using a strong, foul smelling spray in addition to any deterrent spray? I think Amazon has at least one option…think about something along the lines of any skunk/fart-gag/malodorous smelling sprays (which may also act as a deterrent if you are lucky).
Regarding pepper sprays….I’ve heard that pepper sprays work best before the dogs engage. From personal experience, I’ve seen dogs engaged in a fight will not disengage when sprayed in the face with pepper spray at near point blank range, directly in the eyes and snout (it seems to bother them later, but they were too adrenalized in the fight to notice). FYI… the quickest way we were able to get them to 2+ dogs to disengage was using 3 people – 1 on each dog lifts a single rear leg (it’s important that it’s one rear leg to destabilize them – this worked better than lifting both legs, believe it or not). If you only have 2 people, each waits for their respective dog (and know that the waiting here feels horrible, but it’s necessary) to try to regain their footing – whether they are advancing or pulling away. Usually there is a moment where both dogs adjust and you can break their holds on each other – but it is only for a moment and you must be ready for it, and pull them back towards you to intervene. Then, ideally there is a 3rd person, but it could be one person if needed if there is only 1 aggressive dog. I wrapped my hand and arm in a big piece of cloth – think blanket, sheet, heavy jacket – as thickly as possible and insert it between the dogs faces – hopefully neither can see each other and the hand/arm will break their ability to lock onto each other. The expectation is that they will bite me, so I wrapped my hand/arm thickly to protect myself. Once their hold was broken, each person pulled their dog off in the opposite direction and restrained them and then one was moved behind a door or to a safe area while the other was held still by pinning it down. …. Now, we had to do this with dogs that were well known to us, and it would be risky to do it with strange dogs – but if you are going to jump in anyway, this info can give you a starting point of reference….Also, google, “How to break up a dog fight” there are WikiHow articles and other information and the time to learn is not when you are in the middle of a dog fight for the first time, it’s extremely disturbing and it’s not intuitive if you have a serious fight on your hands – you don’t have much time to do the most effective things, and forewarned is forearmed.
Regarding the skunk/fart spray for less-than-life-threatening situations ….Maybe if the offending off-leash-dog-owner had to wash their foul smelling dog then they may think twice about letting it off leash, at least if the dog lives indoors with them.
It seems like irresponsible owners will continue to offend until their actions somehow end up in inconveniencing them instead of everyone else.
Our young hound mix has anxiety and fear with other dogs. We are working with a trainer to get over his fears which requires going on walks in our neighborhood. We walk our dog on a leash but have a neighbor who walks her dog off leash. She has absolutely no control over her dog and I am terrified my dog might bite him out of fear if he comes running over to my dog. Her dog is always running into our yard which really upsets my dog. Not to mentioned I’ve almost hit him with my car twice driving down our street because he come bolting out of the bushes!
Put your dog on a leash or go practice in a private off leash area.
There is a stray pit bull coming in my yard for a couple of days now. At first he seem pretty harmless, still in puppy stage I think. He is still big however. Now he has started to stand in my males face and constantly barking at him. What does that mean?
My neighbors just introduced two pit bull puppies to the neighborhood. They leave them off leash. They claim that it’s all good because they are service dogs.
It means the dog owner doesn’t have much sense.