Outdoor Safety
Dog Attack

Outdoor safety includes knowing how to deal with a dog attack. You might someday need to save yourself or a loved one. Here's how:

Margaret Hargrove, 73 years old, was taking her Scottish Terrier for his nightly stroll. Suddenly, a pit bull attacked her dog and clamped its jaws around the terrier's head and Margaret dived into the fray. She had no luck trying to pry the pit bull's jaws apart. "There I was, wallowing in the street on top of two dogs," she said. "I could see my dog dying right there." ... Margaret decided to fight jaws with jaws. "I reached over and bit as hard as I could at the nape of her neck, and she went, ‘Yip!'" she said. The pit bull let go of the terrier and backed off, but came back, fangs flashing. Margaret bit it again. Just then, a neighbor ran up and whacked the dog with a baseball bat. It ran home. "I didn't realize how scary it was until it was over," she said. "Another two minutes and my dog would have been dead." She needed four stitches in her arm, and her dog needed a few, too.
Excerpted from The New York Post – 17 June 2001 [She’s lucky someone with a baseball bat came to her rescue.]

125 POUND DOG ATTACKS GIRL
A five year old girl has been hospitalized with severe injuries after suffering a violent dog attack. Selena Burks and several other children were playing when the 125-pound animal attacked. The young girl suffered crushed ribs, a punctured lung and a punctured liver. ... Witnesses say the heroic efforts of an 11-year old boy who kicked the dog possibly spared the girl from suffering further injuries.
Excerpted from WTVY-TV (AL) – 08 April 2008

The Humane Society says children are more likely victims because they behave in ways that dogs find disturbing, like running, yelling or making sudden moves, and less likely to be perceived as dominant because of their small size.

10-year-old Kenny survived an attack by a huge Mastiff. As the dog lunged at his throat, Kenny instinctively threw up his arm. The dog latched onto his forearm as Kenny remembered his father's advice for outdoor safety, "Plunge your thumb deep into the dog's eye." Kenny burst the dog's eyeball like a grape. The dog released him and fell whimpering to the ground just as Kenny's older brother arrived with a pipe and beat the vicious dog to death.

Usually, a dog's body language indicates it's about to attack by standing still with a stiffly upright tail while barking and snarling. An especially attack-prone dog usually will not back away, and in fact may try to circle around and attack from a different angle.

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that our outdoor safety impulse is to run when threatened by a dog. That’s the worst response – it triggers the chase instinct in dogs (and knocking down a runner from behind is easy).

Instead, stand still and act calm. Don't stare into its eyes because dogs consider that an aggressive challenge, so just look in its general direction and watch it with your peripheral vision. Oftentimes it will eventually lose interest and wander away.

Make fists so the dog won't bite off a finger and cross your forearms across your chest. Be ready to protect your most vulnerable anatomy – the front of your torso from your groin to your throat – often a dog's primary target. Let the dog sniff you. In a low voice say, "No!” Stay still until the dog leaves. Back away slowly until it's out of sight.

An ultrasonic dog repellent is useless on a vicious dog, but pepper spray usually works for outdoor safety. See www.GuardDog.net.

If a dog does attack you, try to "feed" it your jacket, bike equipment, briefcase, or purse as a distraction while you back slowly away toward safety. If you’re knocked down or fall, curl into a ball and keep your arms wrapped around your ears, face, and neck (with your hands curled into fists). Try not to scream or roll around.

If a vicious dog has clamped onto you, do not try to wrench yourself free – that’ll just add to the damage.

One myth says to use a free hand to grab the dog’s jaw and nose, pinning the nostrils shut. It can’t breathe with its mouth full and nostrils shut, so must release you. Unfortunately, that’ll be a very brief solution – until it immediately resumes its attack. Since a vicious dog can severely injure or even kill you, an aggressive defense may well be necessary.

A second myth says putting your thumb into a dog’s mouth and pressing down on its tongue (while curling your fingers into a fist around its jaw) engages the dog’s gag reflex making it unable to bite down. However, that may well be very dangerous for your thumb.

A passive defense may well be futile, if not deadly. You can strangle an attacking dog by pressing with all your might on the carotid arteries on both frontal sides of its throat (a few inches below its jaw's hinges). Its brain is quickly deprived of blood/oxygen and the dog will go limp within seconds (or die, if held longer). YOU NEED BOTH HANDS with your thumbs pressing while your fingers grasp the back of the dog's neck for leverage.

If you release the limp dog too soon, it will regain consciousness within seconds and perhaps attack again. Thus you may want to first bang its head against a solid surface to knock it out, or break its ribs by ramming its chest with your bent knee, or heel-stomp on its legs to break them so the dog will be less able to attack you further.

In 2002, a stray pit-bull dog attacked a two-year-old Detroit boy and began dragging him down the street. Horrified witnesses tried to intervene but the dog would attack them briefly then resume dragging the child. No police were nearby, six people were hurt, and the child seemed doomed until a passing motorist noticed the commotion, stopped, and shot the dog to death.

If a dog has clamped onto another person or dog, simply use the same grip but now you’ll be behind the dog and your thumbs will be on the back of its neck for leverage while your fingertips press on the carotid arteries.

Make sure you press on the carotid arteries on both frontal sides of its throat, rather than pressing on its windpipe in the center of its throat because that merely chokes it (depriving it of oxygen to its lungs) and takes 30-90 long seconds for the now violently convulsing beast to be rendered unconscious (or dead, if held longer).

What if the dog has already clamped onto one of your hands or arms? IF YOU CAN’T USE TWO HANDS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE DOG’S THROAT, try to grab its collar or loose skin to wrestle it to the ground and kneel on its throat. Or, quickest of all, plunge your thumb deep into its eye to burst it! That'll probably stop its attack. If not, to most effectively defend yourself, strangle the beast!

It’s impossible to fully anticipate the panicky chaos of a sudden threat forcing you to make split-second life-and-death decisions. Nonetheless, understanding your options now will help your Intuition choose an option then. Pepper Spray will greatly enhance your outdoor safety.

For convenience, learn self-defense ONLINE:

KRAV MAGA, a practical self-defense system used by many police forces worldwide, teaches you to defend yourself, enhances your survival instinct, and can be applied under extreme stress. It's not flashy, just very effective. I highly recommend it. The Krav Maga TV - Online Training videos are especially convenient to learn at home when your schedule allows or if you don't live near a training center.

Find Outdoor Safety for parking lots, city streets, suburban byways, country roads, and secluded paths by going to:
• Outdoor Safety - Overview
• Friendly Predators first try to get near you to isolate and trap you, then attack you. Never forget that and you’ll never fall for a stranger’s lure.
• Force Predators: ambush zones revealed.
• Predator’s Favorite Targets: how not to be one.
• Spotting Danger ahead of time, and sensing if someone is about to draw a weapon - and what to do before it's too late.
• Facing Danger: if you're already targeted in a robbery, purse snatching, rape or kidnapping attack, choose among the five outdoor safety options: Posturing, Fleeing, Outsmarting, Surrendering, or Fighting.
• Rescuing a Victim Safely: how best to be a hero.
• Dog Attack (YOU’RE NOW ON THIS PAGE): facing an attack on you or a loved one.
• Pickpockets: stopping masterful thieves from stealing you blind.
• Recap of this section.
• Pepper Spray & Devices for Outdoor Safety.

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