I’m writing today because during the 2 years the Academy has been running, I have had multiple request about defending against dogs. In the past year I’ve been attacked by dogs myself two times so I decided this would be a good topic to cover. I know in the last 5 years, I personally have been attacked by these animals much more often than a human. It’s not something we really train for in the academy but definitely worth reflecting on.
The first thing I always see with people and dog attacks is that the person is generally scared of the dog, either because of its size or it’s vicious attitude (ie: growling). So first I want to address fear of the animal, because of the fear being bit or something we see the animal as dangerous. But as humans, we are bigger (except if your a child maybe), we are also generally stronger, and smarter. With more muscle and a better ability in strategy, we of course can easily beat dogs in fighting. No one is actualy scared of the animal iteself, only that it may bite and that will hurt. Being aware of this might help in that a dog is less likely to attack someone who isn’t afraid of it, and if your confident you can handle the animal, it can really help with fear.
The second Mistake I see is people turning around and running. It is my personal opinion that when confronted with any sort of animal, you should never turn your back to it. This gives it the chance to attack you without even being seen. I have had some dogs try to sneak up behind me to bite but as soon as I turned to face them they got scared, jumped back, and would only bark in fear that I might attack them, backing up anytime I moved closer. Dogs seem to leave to go for the backside of the body, that is my opinion anywa. Even worse is running. Although I have not done any research, in my opinion this promotes a predator prey chase, if you run the dog will chase you. Animals out in the wild often chase their pray, running and allowing the chase makes you food. This advice was giving to me by a guy I met that trained tigers. The man had a tiger with him that day that he had been training and I turned to open a door, when I turned the man had to make sure to have the tiger held back to keep it from attacking, as soon as it saw my back turn, it went into hunting mode but as long as I was facing the tiger, it was very friendly. Strange experience, but I learned a lot from it. I would assume vicous dogs to have some of that same natural response.
Now in the case the dog does try to bite anyways, the best thing to do of course is always to find a quit weapon. Rocks are good for throwing, sticks for hitting and keeping some distance from the dog. In the case their are no readily available weapon to use I suggest using kicks to keep the dog in kicking range. That way the animal can’t get to anything vital and enough kicks to the head will deter the dog from continuing, or a good swift kick to the heart will kill the animal in a matter of seconds (given you applied enough to force to rupture the heart). If the animal does get closer don’t hesitate to use fist though, try punches in the body away from the head where the dog might be able to bite onto an arm. In the case the animal does get a hold of you, give it more than it wants. If you’ve ever played with dogs much, you know they hate having this shoved in their mouth to far. And the further down you hold your arm in the mouth the more it forces their mouth to be open due to their anatomy. So at this point, try to gag the dog. Shove arm or fist down or whatever, let it know if it tries to bit it’s going to have so much shoved in its mouth it will either hurt its jaw or make the animal gag.
This work is based totaly off my personal experiences in my life with animals. I have only experienced a total of about 6 or 7 dog attacks in my life, and almost one tiger if not for the trainer being there, but have found these methods very effective. The works are completely my opinion, however if you have arguments or comments I would love to hear them. Ive never seen much on defending against dogs and thought it would be a good thing to put out there, if there is a lot of interest in the subject I will gladly do more research to see what else I can find. Hope this helps
