The GinBlog

Can You Fight A Dog? If So, Could You Expect To Win?

January 5th, 2009 | by Ginnie | (Visited 470,486 times)

We see it all over the news and media. Some new “murder dog” has savagely attacked a young child or older adult leading to massive injuries or even death. But as someone more in the middle of life with a reasonable health record, it becomes a curious question, if you’d be able to handle a fierce dog coming at you.

This whole topic reminds me of the How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take In A Fight? website idea where based on some stats and other input, it was calculated how many 5 year olds you could theoretically beat up should the situation ever arise.

Even the larger and heavier dogs rarely broach sizes that would prevent you from being able to physically move them around. Aside from some gnarling teeth, there’s not too much to worry about, one would think.

When the question arose, turned out some readers even had experiences with this. Here’s what they had to say:

I’ve fought a dog before, it was only ~25lbs though with a smallish mouth when I was 10 or 11.

At one point I had it pinned on it’s back with my had around it’s neck to make it settle down. It clawed the hell out of me but it was better than getting bit.

When I was younger about 4 years ago I was walking down a road when I seen a stray dog barking aggressively at a young girl, she was scared sh*tless picking up the pace and looking back at it not having a clue that she was causing the dog to get more excited. it was a dark brown mut, some sort of Labrador cross breed, but a good size.

It was clearly ready to go for her so I shouted in the dogs direction to get its attention which sure enough it did. It stops and gives me a look and then leaves the girl for me. Party on I guess.

Comes trodding along barking at me and I keep eye contact while walking to its side. It gets pretty close to me barking and snapping by this point I guess to see how I would react, while doing so I just had my right foot primed for a football kick to its head. Then it just jumps at me and snaps my left leg, I follow up with a nice leg kick to its ribs. It goes for my upper left leg not far from my groin and catches the skin to which I landed a nice hammer fist clean on top of its head which seemed to stun it and get the dog into defensive mode. I guess with the adrenaline I just snapped and followed up with heavy kicks to its face and sides to which it was responding with moans after each kick. Then this dog clearly is in no condition to fight as its tail sweeps under its legs and it begins to retreat. I push on as it runs around the corner but stop after I see it pick up the pace.

Human 1 - Dog 0

No sign of the young girl I stood up for, she had no idea that some random person just took on a dog for her.

I wouldn’t run… it excites their play drive and gets them more excited and bent on hunting you.

When I was 9 I was bitten in the back of my leg by a large mixed breed dog that was traveling in a pack of 3 other dogs. When it bit me I didn’t cry,run, or fight. I turned around and walked slowly back down the mountain and the pack stayed put. You have to try to stay calm even if you’re being bitten.

I’d say realistically, you HAVE to fight.. not much other choice. If you run, chances are the dog will just become more determined.. they love to chase things.

Dogs are pretty tough though.. I think some people sorely underestimate them. You can really hurt a dog and it can basically ignore the pain if it is determined/desperate enough. I read somewhere about a guy breaking a baseball bat over the back of a pit bull and it didn’t even let go of its grip.

Plus once it’s got you by the arm, a big dog could pull you to the ground.. and which point it gets your neck and you’re screwed. I hope those of you saying you’d pick it up and swing it are pretty strong because if you’ve got an angry, squirming 50-100lb dog on the end of your arm, I can’t see how you’d swing it anywhere.

I own a murder dog (Pit Bull), she scares me sometimes when the mailman drops mail on my front porch, my dog goes ballistic. Fur on her back stands up, she snarls, barks, and jumps on the window violently I’m afraid she’s going to break it out one day.

Then after a minute or so she calms down, jumps on the couch and curls up next to me for a nap. I pet her thinking “I’m glad you’re on my side”…

I do it a few times a year.

Vibram therapy usually works. OC always works.

At the Academy, we’re taught (if unarmed) to offer the dog your left arm, and to stomp it’s feet and strike it’s head.

I used to be a meter reader for PG&E. I came across every dog imaginable. The worst were those medium sized sheep herder dogs. Little sh*t back biters, all of them.

I used to carry a ‘dog wand’, it was a stick with a tennis ball on the end. I had every dog imaginable try to attack me. As long as I stood my ground, and used my wand, I could handle nearly ANY dog. Never had one get past my wand.

One thing I learned, don’t show fear, and NEVER run. I had a huge Pitt bull coming at me full stride on the side of a customers house. I didn’t have time to get back to the gate, so I swung my stick and hit that huge bastard in the head as he leaped at me, he did a 180 and his legs were still kicking while he was airborne, his legs kept kicking as he landed and he ran back to the direction he came from.

In other words, if you fight you will win. Never run.

I Was walking my dog, got attacked by a pit bull, and the pit knocked me down several times while he got into it with my dog. I kicked him several times hard enough to lift him off the ground, and couldn’t even get his attention.

When you say you are going to get all level-headed clever with this kind of dog, I dont buy it. After ten seconds, when you realize you need to get the hell out of there, it will be too late.

But good luck.

Depends on the dog, but yes. I’ve worked as vet tech for 3 years.

I could take down a dog but I would get my left arm bitten to sh*t in the process.

I would like to think that if you kept your wits about you, being much smarter than the dog, you would be able to fight it off…but you’d probably have to actually kill it. I mean, if you just jam your thumb in its eyeballs and blind it, it seems to me the dog would be pretty much done at that point.

But of course, keeping your wits would be the tough part with some huge dog jumping on you.

Lots of stories both ways. What do you think? Could you take a dog in a fight?

Tags: pitbull, dogs, fighting