Rottweiler Near-Miss

Minuteman

Minuteman

Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Messages
234
During my evening walk last weekend I had the unexpected and unfortunate experience of being charged by a very large and aggressive adult Rottweiler. In my area, we hear frequent news reports of people being attacked by dogs that have been allowed to run loose. And regardless of the fact that it's illegal to not keep them confined in my town, everyone seems to think it's OK when it comes to THEIR dog (after all Fido is just a big playful pup). The damage dogs like this are capable of dishing out is considerable. Occasionally a child, or sometimes even an adult, is actually killed (or close to it) in one of these incidents.

In this particular case, I had just walked to the end of the culdusac one street over from my own house and began heading back up the street. Having not gotten very far, I noticed a couple of barks coming from behind me. Nothing uncommon as dogs are everywhere in our neighborhood. I did happen to glance back over my shoulder at the sound and saw the dog in its owner's yard moving in my direction. Two things about what I saw caused me alarm: (1) it was a big Rottweiler in prime physical condition and (2) there was no gate or leash.

Regardless of my initial concern, I expected the dog to probably stop at his property line and make his last stand by the road as many protective dogs often do. No such luck this time -- he never even slowed down. In fact he was picking up steam as he left the old homestead behind and started charging down the street after me. Bad situation! Especially since the only thing I had with me was my Al Mar SERE 2000. Not ideal for dealing with a 120 pound carnivore.

Which brings me to my question. And before I even ask, I know that a big bore pistol would be ideal for taking care of the problem. But there are many houses and children around and even if no one were ever put at risk, there would be serious consequences for discharging a firearm in the city. Maybe not worse consequences than getting 200 stitches and a pint of blood, but for now let's put the pistol aside.

So with that in mind, I can think of three alternatives: (1) an edged weapon, (2) and impact weapon, or (3) some kind of aerosol. For those with related experience or credible arguments, which of these would you convince yourself was best? Don't think poodle now; think 120 pound lean, muscular, lip curling, ferocious, barking, glassy eyed, spit dripping cur. And he's right in your face trying to convince you that he is some kind of tough guy (exactly like the one did to me last weekend).

By the way, for those who are interested, as he was putting on his little display about 12 inches in front of me, the owner came running down the street making nervous chitchat along the way. Something like, "Oh I don't know why he is doing this. He's really just a big friendly puppy. Really, he's NEVER like this. Really!" Then she grabbed his choker chain at the last minute, pulling him back and turning his head away from me. This gave me my chance to be on my way, which I took.

Happened to turn out OK, but could have just as easily not. So what do I carry with me next time to make sure that the odds are stacked well in my favor? Assume that I completely don't care what happens to the dog in this instance.
 
I walk a couple of miles each afternoon, in a neighborhood where, on occasion, a dog is out without a lease. So far, no problems, but I always carry a handgun and have for so many years I would feel extremely uncomfortable without it. That said, you mentioned to put aside carrying a pistol.

So, if it were I, in a neighborhood where a big pooch might be a problem, I'd carry a can of the most potent "bear repellent" spray I could buy, and a good, hickory or hardwood hiking staff.

FWIW. L.W.
 
Interesting story, thanks for sharing it. Nope, don't need a pistola, at least not in a neighborhood like that. I've been confronted by dog(s) in the past and one was a young healty Rot while I was camping at a popular lake. When walking anywhere, I either have a staff or cane with me. I prefer a cane in such a situation as you are describing and mine is actually just a short staff or walking stick like a shalalee (sp). It's about waist high and has a large bulb thing on it's end that's part of the growth. Hard as heck and puts a hurt on rambo dogs. Anyway, this was out in the bush so I had one of my oak staffs that's tapered on the end and has an rps insert from an aluminum arrow glued into place. I screwed a field point into it for off road traction. I also carry a large two bladed broadhead around my neck in a one arrow sheath quiver. When the dog started raising heck with me and refusing to give up ground, I unscrewed the field point and screwed the broadhead into the end of the staff. The owner saw what I'd done and came running over to the dog. Said he was gonna call the sheriff and I said, go for it dude. Your unsupervised animal attacked me and I was preparing to defend myself. Who do you think the sheriff is gonna arrest here? That was that.
 
I think a decent sized ASP baton would be the first reach as it gives you a reach advantage and keeps the dog farther away but I would keep the Al Mar for back up. I think a cane is great and wouldn't raise and eyebrow like a baton but think it would be too long to swing unless you really see the dog coming. I think a cane is good at that first initial blow but in close it's too long to manuver(sp?) My dad's got one of those batons and it would give a nasty feeling blow.
 
21" or 26" asp(depends on your size and what you can swing and move faster). I've got a 21" as 2d maglight that I carry when I'm out walking(yes, the flashlight even during the day).

Also carry fixed blades.

Give it a good swing and hit it nice and hard on the skull, or neck/spine as it passes if you can get out of the way. Dog should get the hint if it doesn't drop after the first shot. Dogs are usually smarter than street punks, and they quit after the first contact(either 2d mag or asp)...
 
@Minuteman

From what I know about really determined/'crazy' dogs, you better forget about ASPs and such. Sure, a really good hit might stop or even kill the dog - but honestly, your chances for that are slim unless you are Bruce Lee. :)

What works is a heavy stick/cane (with sharpened tip) or a blade, the larger the better. Expect to be bitten anyway but once the dog is in reach you need something to kill it fast and a big blade would do that - if you manage to pull it out in time.


By the way, did you just wait for that Rottweiler to reach you, or did you draw/open your Al Mar SERE 2000?

-Connor
 
Old topic Minuteman... a simple search on this forum would have brought you at least two threads on this very topic...

And I will still stand behind this simple, LEGAL, solution - a simple water bottle filled with a solution of soapy water or water and ammonia... ain't no animal going to bother you when it's eyes are burning... as a Rotty and a Dobbie found out twenty five years ago when I was bicycling in the southwest Virginia countryside... both of 'em about as big as the one you encountered and as seemingly intent on harrassing me...

'Course... you have to carry it... in which case if you decide it's too bothersome... carry a big stick like Longbow says...
 
I also take daily walks and a similar incident with a Rottie scared the beejeebies out of me about three years ago. I was at the point of the unsupervised dog closing on me snarling at a distance of about 10 feet; I had my High Power out and was taking up the slack on the trigger when the Rottie took a sharp right and strutted away. It couldn't have been closer. Asp, club, knive you had better be real good and fast. I was so concerned during my incident I was posturing myself with consideration to back stops and all that.

I still carry, only now its a .45. and have become so much more aware of whats happening around me.

If you kill an animal around here and you are not bleeding you had better get a lawyer.
 
I have been attacked by a Rott and let me say THEY BITE HARD,When he grabbed my hand it felt as if someone had smashed my hand with a hammer.
Alot of people watched as I was being eaten,lucky for me I left my front gate open and my dog came to the rescue....thank god...My Pit Bull probably saved my life.

I still have a scar the size of a penny where his fang punctured in the top of my hand.........I was punching that dog in the face,I poked it in the eyes(no stooges jokes please :D )and that bastard wasnt letting go,I was even trying to get him to turn to kick him in the nutts.........Did I say how much it hurt:eek: I hope none of you ever have to feel that crap.
 
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I concur with joeshredd:

1. a search will get you prior info on this topic, including the multi-page thread linked below which has quite a bit of info.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=255959

2. undiluted bleach or ammonia smell stings the sensitive noses of dogs enough to be a deterrent most of the time. Think how quickly & seriously those fumes affect your relatively dull & unsensitive human nose & eyes, then multiply it many times for a dog's nose. If the fumes don't stop the dog, a squirt of the liquid in the face WILL DO THE JOB.
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One of the most salient points made in the thread linked in #1 above is that impact to the dog's nose will stop them. That snozzola tacked on the front of their face is VERY sensitive to impact, as well as to stinging smells. So a whack on the nose will stop the attack. I'm talking about a whack hard enough to either break the bone of the nose, cut the facial area of the dog (either with an edge or "bursting" the skin), or yield concussion/unconsciousness.

I advocate a stick or staff for one simple reason: ZERO DEPLOYMENT TIME!!! If the stick is in your hand (which it will be if you are carrying it), it is already deployed and ready for action.

My "doggie deterrent" of choice while walking our little dog is a 36" long Newt Livesay WA-1 stick. (see links below for info & ordering) It is made of 3/8" diameter Saynite rod. Saynite is several thousand (10,000 IIRC) microscopically small diameter glass strands embedded in resin under extreme pressure. I have tried to destroy a couple WA-1 sticks by whacking them around and failed pretty miserably. These sticks are insanely TOUGH mid-distance defense weapons.

This WA-1 stick is so stiff & thin that it approximates an edge, as on a knife, when applied to soft tissue. And it is FAST in the hand. Until you've played with a WA-1 stick, you can't imagine how quick they are and how much energy they transfer into a very tiny area of your target.

I see that Newt still has his 30" long version of these priced at $10, which they have been for quite a few years. So they are pretty cheap for their toughness.

Multi-page BFC discussion on the WA-1 sticks, including the results of some specific testing a friend and I did:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=95708

WA-1 order page on Newt Livesay's website:
http://64.227.169.223/NL_WA-1.htm
 
My wife successfully used a 2x4 to remove a Rottweiler from the head of my border collie. $200 in vet bills for the collie, fractured his sinuses. The Rott was fine. The owners said they'd pay cause I had my SKS and was ready to nail him, but were on welfare and never did. (the dog was later nailed with a rifle by another neighbor)


My wife was also attacked at night when the local drug dealers Rott attacked the dog she was walking on a leash. The guy kept him tied up after that mostly. I have my 6.5 with the 12x scope ready if he gets up in my hayfield. He has been a little bit more mellow since my 3 great pyrenees got out of the goat pasture and went down and castrated him at abou 5am on morning;)

I feel like these dogs are like assault weapons or .44 magnums. Safe in the proper hands, but more likely to be purchased by fools who don't know how to use them properly.
 
Originally posted by joeshredd
Old topic Minuteman... a simple search on this forum would have brought you at least two threads on this very topic...
Click to expand...
Actually, not that simple of a search -- you would have know to misspell Rottweiler. When I tried earlier by spelling it correctly I found very little. I see now that spelling it incorrectly (Rottwieler) gets you several relevant threads.

At any rate, between those threads and this one I am beginning to like the idea of carrying three things: (1) a can of bear pepper spray, (2) a super stout walking stick, and (3) a fixed blade knife. Also from what I read I would try to use them in that order.

The walking stick is already in your hand, so it is obviously the fastest if you get caught unaware. But from what I read, bludgeoning appears to get mixed results on big mean dogs.

On the other hand, I did not notice one instance of someone shooting a dog in the face with the high-powered pepper spray where they did not change their mind about the biting thing immediately. If anyone has had negative results with the pepper spray, please advise.

The fixed bladed knife is obviously in case everything else goes wrong. I guess the pistol would fall into that category as well.

Originally posted by Connor
By the way, did you just wait for that Rottweiler to reach you, or did you draw/open your Al Mar SERE 2000?
Click to expand...
Actually I had it out, but with the lady coming down the street I was going back and forth between keeping it behind my leg and getting it out between me and Cujo. In the meantime, I was paying particular attention to the fact that there was a picket fence about six feet away that I was thinking about hopping over. Don't know if he would have followed me into someone's yard.
 
Being rather limited in motion, strength and reflexes, saying I need an edged weapon is an understatement. I am reminded of the old wild boar spears with the cross piece that kept the critters from walking down the shaft and stomping and goring you anyway. I would like something to absolutely keep some distance between me and the teeth and claws, but walking around with obvious pole arms is usually frowned upon.

Does anyone make an adjustable cane that pivots? I have this picture in my head (what there is of it) of a cane top part with a bottom arm that attaches at a pivot point. The bottom part would have two bottom points or pads, either to have different heights or different tips for alternate terrain, that are selected by unlatching the bottom part and rotating it 180 degrees to present the other end. Half way through the rotation you would effectively have a short staff with a crossarm attached at a pivot point. If the bottom end of the upper arm of the cane were to puncture ice, get swallowed by an overeager rotty, or start to go through "whatever" the half-pivoted bottom arm would come up against the ice or "whatever" and prevent the "whatever" from coming on up to the handle and your hand, and also hopefully prevent you from going on into the "whatever". I guess this would in effect give the cane 3 tip types, especially if the bottom arm had some detent at the half-pivoted point.
 
Minuteman-

Regarding keeping that knife behind your leg, I wouldn't have, but I wouldn't have put it out in mid air either. I'd have resigned myself to the fact that if the dog came for me he was going to get a hold of something and made very sure that my knife hand was far enough away so that it wouldn't be that.

Personally, I think you should call the cops about that dog if you haven't done already, otherwise it could and probably will happen again.

As for what I'd like to have in that situation. A cane would be great because it allows you to use the strength of both arms and still have a hard object between you and the dog. If it comes iunder the cane you hit down, if it tries to come above it you hit up. Something else to think about is that with a cane you could most likely break the dogs leg, it'd probably leave you alone after that and if not you can finish him off. I'd also like to have a blade incase the dog got past the cane and I had t let it go.


Featherstone-

I'm very surprised that poking the Rott in the eye didn't get it to stop. Did you try gouging it out instead? I guess doing something like that is quite tricky with a 100lb+ dog pulling you around by the hand. As for kicking it in the balls, would it stop you? Or just make you even madder?

Matt
 
One of my friends in Quebec raises Bull Mastiff's. These are slightly larger than big Rott's, but they play in the same categories. Whenever the females get a little hot, the males have testosterone raises and they have a tendency to fight between them quite hard. My buddy over there uses a short aluminum baseball batt to calm them down... He hits as hard as he can and they hardly even care about it. It'll take 3-4 square blows on top of the skull to make them stop fighting, and usually 3-4 more to get them to really calm down... and that's mainly because they were all raised very well, thinking of him as the Alpha guy... Really, they could eat him alive without much trouble if they ever dared trying.

I don't think people really inderstand how tough and powerful these big dogs are...

I think a full length baseball bat wouldn't be an overkill against an adult Rott that really wants to get you... and you better get it square on the first hit...

I guess the best defense is to call the police and have that dog put behind a fence !!!

David
 
I agree with Moine. Some of you are way underestimating the potential toughness and determination of an attacking dog. Of course it varies--I've seen a Rott flee in terror when a friend of mine shot it in the rear with a BB gun. But in other cases, I don't think a big dog will stop until it is totally destroyed.

Once, when I was coming down from a hike to Shirley Lake (near Lake Tahoe), a pit bull came around a bend and charged me full speed. I managed (by luck more than skill) to jab it full force in the head with the spiked end of my walking stick. It stopped short, stunned, for perhaps a second, then lunged at me again. Again, I jabbed the spike on the end of my walking stick full force into its head. I'm talking about bone breaking, brain piercing, blood spurting jabs, in both cases. Again, the dog-still half stunned--started to lunge at me. I whacked it in the head with the walking stick, with considerable force, and I'm sure that I caused some bone breaking damage with the blow. And yet the dog lunged again. At this point, the dog's owner wrestled the dog away, apologizing profusely to me.

The damage I inflicted to that pit bull may have been fatal, but the dog was going to keep attacking until it's last dying breath.

A dog like that doesn't stop just because it' eyes burn, nor even have been gouged out., nor its leg is broken. A dog like that doesn't even let up when you've rendered a deadly blow. Some dogs will fight until they are literally physically incapable of doing so anymore, which means they either have to be stone-cold dead or have the body parts they use to attack destroyed, such as a broken neck of a chopped off snout. I respectfully disagree with advice to choose weapons which will only cause extreme pain and minor damage to tough and determined dogs.

I think you ought to have all three of your choices: an impact weapon, an aerosol weapon, and an edged weapon. And if you are ever in a serious situation with a truly determined dog, they better be serious weapons, not some cane made out of aluminum tubing, or some four inch folding knife. You need to be able to cause decisive damage, very quickly.

--Mike
 
Originally posted by Evolute
I think you ought to have all three of your choices: an impact weapon, an aerosol weapon, and an edged weapon. And if you are ever in a serious situation with a truly determined dog, they better be serious weapons, not some cane made out of aluminum tubing, or some four inch folding knife. You need to be able to cause decisive damage, very quickly.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more. There are dogs and then there are dogs.

Some are just loyal pets that believe they are trying to protect their master's domain. A smack or a swat and away they go to check out their dog dish or take a nap. They don't need or deserve any worse.

Then there are dogs like the ones you and I encountered. Really almost a different species. For them, it is difficult to muster too much force against them if they are bent on attacking. I think the three weapon combination we talked about is not out of order here. Really, more force than that would be welcome if it were permissible.

Of the three weapons, I think it may be easy to choose the club or the knife over the bear spray since it seems like you are taking more direct control over the situation that way, but I have read numerous accounts of the bear spray being VERY effective even on large grizzlies and such -- a big grizzly being easily ten times the beast my Rottweiler friend was.

The reason the bear spray works so well is because, with it, the animal CHOOSES to call off the fight. You are impacting his will to fight, not his ability to fight. And when they can't breath this apparently happens very quickly -- like on the first inhale. One story had a thousand pound charging bear suddenly stop in his tracks and start pushing his nose through the dirt with his hind legs, trying to grind the hot stuff off. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't have the same effect on a dog. Seems like great idea.

I bet it's pretty darn pavlovian when it comes time for your next walk, too.
 
In my state there are all kinds of stupid people and disturbed dogs who've been taught violence from the time they were puppies. Man, their ideas on training make me so mad I could smack the daylights out of someone for thinking that way. People just think you've got to "Hit a dawg 'en feed it raw meat to make it mean, if you don't the dawg ain't no good."
It makes my blood boil. Add their mindlessly ignorant reasoning to the fact that everyone around here owns pit bulls or rottweilers, and you've got a bad situation. These are breeds that may or may not have a bred-in genetic "turnon" to become violent/unmanageable given the wrong conditions. I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses, so I run into a lot of crazy dogs when I'm doing door to door work. I don't carry anything at all to defend myself when I'm going door to door, but what works the best when I'm just on a walk or something is a cane. My favorite is the Cold Steel City Stick- it's quite capable of convincing any 150 pound canid monster that I'm not really worth the effort or pain it takes to dismember.
 
Minuteman... didn't realize it was that hard a search as I hadn't tried; it's just that this topic came up twice within the last two months?
And I will have to admit my encounter was while I was mounted which may also have given the dogs in my encounter more of an incentive to quit - they'd 'a'bin hard pressed to catch me back then when I was really riding...:D
However, thier reaction to soapy water was very demonstrative as it brought them both up short, thus enabling me to pedal away...

One other encounter I had was on a totally unlit street in the Georgetown area of D.C. - I left a party and was wandering towards my car when I heard the clicking of claw nails coming at me... no bark, no growl... and as I turned - just a dark shadow barreling down on me... Back then I din't carry anything other than a SAK... and my keys mounted on a leash attached to a full size carabiner. I already had my hand on the carabiner, as I was removing it from my belt loop as I headed towards the car... I always thought that I might have to use this as a flail against the two legged predators (keys towards the eyes, spun at a high velocity!) Well, as the 'biner gate snapped back shut... the click - incredibly loud on that dark, quiet urban street - scared the heck out of the dog and it simply turned tail and ran...
Yeah, I simply got lucky, and maybe it was only a black lab that wanted to play... but it never made a sound other than it's nails clicking both coming and going...
 
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