GD pitbulls are a menace.
Semi-related question...
Does a lock-jawed pit respond to sticking a finger up its ass?
Any dog can become violent.
The most vicious dog I ever encountered in my life was a Golden Retriever named Bella who attacked my German Shepherd.
My dog was leashed while being walked, the Retriever was playing fetch in its front yard with its owner.
The dog ran up two houses to initiate the attack. The owner did nothing to stop the attack. The only reason I know the dogs name is because the police told me the name. The owner never even called the dog back.
I had to beat the crap out of Bella, because Bella wanted blood. She got her ass kicked real good. Neither dog suffered any severe injury, the owner tried to have me arrested for beating her dog.
All that being said, I do not trust Pit Bulls at all, I never want to own one, I’d never have one around children or seniors, and I also know that German Shepherds can be dangerous, I have met two male and two female Shepherds that are not safe to be around even when muzzled with heavy duty gear.
I feel sorry for both these men and both dogs. Sad situation.
I had a strange incident between my GSD and a pit bull.
I was walking my GSD late at night. A young lady was walking her pit bull across the street. The pit bull somehow slipped its leash and charged running at my dog. I screamed at the owner to get her dog.
Because a pit bull once charged my GSD from a garage, I had taken to carrying a Spyderco knife with about a 4-inch blade. For the life of me, I do not recall that knife getting into my hand and flipping open. All I know is that without conscious action, the knife was in my hand and at the ready to kill that pit bull if it attacked my German Shepherd.
The dogs engaged each other with lots of barking. I could see little in the darkness away from the street light. I was yelling at the pit to back away and I started kicking it with all my might.
Then I started screaming at the young lady to come and get her dog or I was going to kill it before it could kill my Shepherd. I think I terrified her with my screaming and knife brandishing, because she just stood well outside of the circle of me, my dog, and the pit bull, and she was crying and screaming. I mean, really screaming in fear that I would kill her dog.
I kicked the snot out of that thing but never had the heart to kill it. For whatever reason, I just could not muster the will to stab the pit bull with my knife, even as both dogs were engaged, circling, bouncing, and barking between my legs with my dogs leash almost tripping me up.
Eventually the pit bull disengaged and the young lady charged in and grabbed him and ran off. She went through a nightmare but at least I hadn’t killed her dog. The only question in my mind was how badly the dogs hurt each other and did I need to immediately take my dog to a Vet. I couldn’t see a thing throughout the melee and just assumed the dogs were going at each other and assumed my dog had got the worst of it, but hoping he at least got a few good licks in himself. German Shepherds go down fighting.
I petted the fur on his neck expecting to feel it full of wet blood. Nothing. Bone dry.
The dogs had just been playing. They had been barking, and bouncing and rough housing each other in play. I couldn’t see and had already convinced myself the pit bull was charging to “attack” my dog and the possibility never once occurred to me that the pit bull was just anxious to play with another dog. The way he slipped his leash and charged my German Shepherd, it just seemed he was in “attack” mode.
I could not have been more wrong. Man, I kicked the hell out of that dog’s ribs. Fortunately I’m a pretty weak old man and I know I didn’t do any permanent damage. I could tell I was not getting any real kicks in. The dogs were underfoot and I couldn’t really wind up my leg to land a good blow with my soft shoe. So it was a really meager attempt kicking the thing, but boy I was kicking as fast and hard as I could under the circumstances.
Long story short, I am SO GLAD I did not kill that young lady’s pet. Neither dog had bitten the other. My dog nips other dogs to herd them and that is probably all he did to the pit bull.
The point of my long winded story is, you can’t tell the intent of a dog charging you, and while the victim in the story had every right to shoot the “attacking” dog charging him, it could very well be like in my situation, the pit bull was charging his dog to play, not to attack.
We will never know. Had he waited to see if the pit was truly attacking his dog before firing, then we would know one way or the other. Such a shame as it is possible he killed a dog just playing. I won’t judge him. I don’t blame him. He had every right to do what he did. I will just always wonder if that pit was attacking or playing as in what I experienced.
We will never know.
I was in my front yard with a lab/shepard mix that was pretty tame but would still bark and run to strangers.
Mailman drove up and it took off for him pretty fast. No leash on.
All I had to do in that circumstance was to angrily shout its name as loud as I could, stressing the last syllable, and it stopped dead in its tracks.
If you can’t control your dog w/”voice command”, consider not having one.
I wouldn’t have given two warnings - just one. As soon as the owner let the pit bull go and it advanced in my direction again I would have opened fire and kept firing for as long as I had bullets in the gun.
The only dogs that I have been bitten by and one of my dogs have been bitten by are German Shepherds.
I am very wary though of full bred Pits.
But like any dog breed some breeds will bite when feeling threatened.
Supposedly only 5% of dog owners deign to bother training their animal, even the basic come, sit/stay, no. For all the billions we spend on dogs you would think that % would be higher, trained dogs are happy dogs and make the people around them happy. Untrained dogs can make everyone miserable, including the dog.
Freegards
You could have trained your dog properly.
Doubt that is the answer you want to hear but it is what could have been done differently.
You also could have put a muzzle on your dog.
I received a long involved semi-threatening email about how my pitbull was running loose and almost attacked a couple walking their dog. It was several paragraphs lecturing me on pitbulls and how his wife was attacked by a pit and I was careless..blah..blah.
I sent an email back “I don’t have a dog. I have 4 cats”. I know the pit in question and it doesn’t even bark so I doubt the whole story.