Have you ever been attacked by a dog?

I don't know Dr Wu (other than the fact that it's one of my top-5 Steely Dan songs ever), but I'm not sure why dogs weren't part of his poll. But, hey, his poll, his rules.

So, since dogs weren't allowed on the other thread, I'll start this one. Have you ever been attacked by a dog on the trail? What happened? What did you do about it? How did the dog's "owner" react? Did it affect what you now carry, and how you now react when you see a dog approaching you on the trail?

If I may be presumptuous enough to anticipate the moderator's request: "Please keep it civil." Let's not make this an "I hate dogs" thread, nor should it be a "You're evil if you don't like dogs" thread. We can disagree without being disagreeable.

I have come close to being bitten by a dog on the trail before. Fortunately for me, my former husband, not being afraid of anything, got between me and the dog and chased it away.
I have witnessed however, a dog, killing a deer on the trail before, at Marcy Dam.

Let's just repeat this paragraph one more time.

dvbl said:

If I may be presumptuous enough to anticipate the moderator's request: "Please keep it civil." Let's not make this an "I hate dogs" thread, nor should it be a "You're evil if you don't like dogs" thread. We can disagree without being disagreeable.

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Attacked?
Approached univited?
Barked at?
Jumped on by over friendly dog?
Circled and avoided by unsocial dog?

Lots of shades of grey here and individual perception/appreciation of dogs may muddy the waters even more.

Maybe breaking it down to distinct variables will provide better data and diffuse any potential dog bashing.

Jumped on and barked at, yes. Attacked, no.

una_dogger said:

Attacked?
Approached univited?
Barked at?
Jumped on by over friendly dog?
Circled and avoided by unsocial dog?

Lots of shades of grey here and individual perception/appreciation of dogs may muddy the waters even more.

Maybe breaking it down to distinct variables will provide better data and diffuse any potential dog bashing.

Click to expand...

Nope, I intentionally left it open. I'm confident this group of folks can respond with intelligence and passion without it turning into a bash-fest.

p.s. If physical contact is the only requisite, then being bitten by a blackfly is a worse "attack" than being repeatedly bluff-charged by a grizzly. So, yes, there are shades of grey here. Life isn't black and white.

How about we narrow it right down to "bitten?"

I love dogs (I believe I might have been one in my past life). I've been bitten once on the trail. It was largely my fault. About 1983 I was hiking up Mt. Ellen. My wife and I caught up to another pair of people, and we were hiking together. The other gentleman had a dog ith him (German Shepherd, IIRC). There was a small tree down across the trail, and the other gentleman and I were pushing it off the trail. I stepped between him and the dog, and then stepped up close to him to help push. I think the dog thought I was attacking the man, and it nipped me on the back of the leg. No harm done, everyone apologized, and I petted the dog.

This was a case of a good dog, doing what it was supposed to do. I just didn't pay atention to how the dog would interpret my actions.

As I said, I love dogs. I like to play with them, roll in the dirt with them, and run through the woods with them (Only in my current form, I can't keep up!)

I've seen the full range of dogs on the trail, from great, well controlled, friendly dogs, to terrified, unhappy, snarling dogs (this is fairly rare, because dogs are by and large friendly). The owners of the latter are usually really embarrassed by their dog's behavior. You'd think they'd make other arrangements!

People's reaction to dogs differs greatly, too. I love dogs, and am not afraid of them, even of the nasty ones. I just feel sorry for those, because their owners have put them in a situation where they are afraid or unconfortable. My wife, on the other hand, while she's fine with most dogs, is not quite as comfortable with the rare nasty dog.

TCD

Skyclimber2971w said:

I have witnessed however, a dog, killing a deer on the trail before, at Marcy Dam.

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Yikes ! You saw a domestic dog kill a deer ? I've never heard of that happening.

I had a door-to-door sales job in college. We carried metal clip-boards with our work on them. Using these to block and nose-bop stopped 2 real attack attempts. These were full open mouthed, drooling, growling lunges. Both dogs made 2 full attempts and decided they didn't like the clip-board fighting back.
Barking dogs wagging their tails don't attack, IME. These guys just came out teeth first.

No-I have ever been bit by a dog. But I have bit many dogs.

I've never done door to door sales or delivery. I bet you'll get a lot higher percentage of actual attacks there, because you're entering the dogs territory. Out on the trail, it's neutral ground, so the dog's aren't defending anything except their owners.

Here's another story: About 15 years ago, we were starting up RoosterComb via the old trail from the Garden Road. I had been up that trail many times before, and never met the dog. But this time the dog was out. I believe his home was the first house on the right, but in his mind, his territory included the trail and all the woods on either side of it.

This was a good sized (80 lb) mixed breed. He stood his ground in the middle of the trail and snarled. Now, I use a three step approach with dogs. My first step is to be friendly. I squat down, show my hands, speak softly, avoid the dogs eyes, etc. 90% of barking or growling dogs will play nice, walk up and sniff me, and be my friend. If a dog refuses to be nice, my second step is to take the dominant role. I run straight at the dog, snarling loudly. Almost all "bad dogs" I've encountered will turn and run away when I do that.

This particular dog was one of the rare ones. He wouldn't be my friend, and when I ran at him, he stood his ground. Time for step three: we backed away, and hiked a different trail that day.

The story is not intended to skew the debate here. Almost every dog I've met has been my friend.

TCD

dvbl said:

I don't know Dr Wu (other than the fact that it's one of my top-5 Steely Dan songs ever), but I'm not sure why dogs weren't part of his poll. But, hey, his poll, his rules.

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I didn't put in dogs because my intention was to ask about attacks by wild animals and criminals in the woods. In my mind I was thinking "large wild animals" but wasn't specific. I hadn't thought about terns and grouse and marmots which I ended up getting a lot of responses about.

Dogs fall under the "house pet" in my opinion and seperate thread from what I had in mind. Also, the dog threads can be pretty touchy so I thought by limiting my poll it would reduce the risk of fighting and general explosiveness. I think this thread could stay sane though and I hope it does.

I've never been attacked by a dog on the trail FWIW.

-Dr. Wu

I got attacked by a few dogs in the suburbs as paperboy when I was much younger, but never on the trail. I learned from my experiences as a paperboy.... Since then I've had a few dogs try to indimidate me on the trail from time to time, but now I have a way with them and can generally defuse the situation before it gets out of hand......

Most of the time when a dog barks or growls at you they are testing you and informing you of their presence, etc..... Their subsequent behaviour is cued by your response. Animal behaviour has its own kind of logic, the exceptions of course being rabid animals or animals that were raised poorly or in an environment of cruelty..... kind of like humans, isn't it?

Another interesting thing I've noticed is how differently dogs behave in the backcountry as opposed to the environments they are used to....I used to hike and camp with a large Black Labrador who was the sweetest dog in the city and suburbs but got very territorial when camping in the backcountry. He didn't attack anyone but got right in this thruhikers face one time when we were camping near the AT. I was very surprised by how much more aggressive he was in the BC and had to apologise profusely to the thruhikers as he scared the hell out of them when they passed by our campsite on their way to get water......

Dogs will behave very differently when taken to an environment they are not accustomed to, something owners should be aware of.......

Chip said:

Yikes ! You saw a domestic dog kill a deer ? I've never heard of that happening.

.

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Yes a domestic dog. In the Winter 1993. It broke the deer's neck, right in the middle of the trail, about a 100 yards from us.

While on trails in the Whites and Acadia, I haven't been threatened by dogs and, save for a minor snarl or two, my dogs haven't been threatened either. (To the best of my knowledge, my dogs have not done any threatening either - but that's probably better judged by others.) From my experience most hikers with dogs on serious hikes are pretty aware of their dogs' specific behavior issues.

On the other hand, I have had several incidences with aggressive dogs much closer to home on walks in the local conservation areas. These usually involved an unattended neighborhood dog coming out of its back yard onto the trail as we would walk by. While these incidences never drew blood I certainly felt obliged to change direction.

Hiking, barked at, jumped on never bitten, sometimes barking is more than playful in defense of the owner I'm sure.

Having lived next to two Pitbulls previously who often roamed & bluffed charged, I can't say I'm really afraid of anyones dog.

Bitten once post biking. While out on a country route, dog came out tried to bit my leg, when I hit brakes, his angle of attack changed & he ended up in front where I struck him causing me to go over the handle bars. Dog then went back up to where his owners were. When I went over to bitch & moan about his dog, the dog then took a bite. How he only got the bike shorts & not me I'll never know. This was years ago & I don't recall having gotten any satisfaction from complaining either. Went home & made sure fence for our two dogs was in good condition so they never chased anything.

Good Owners make for good dogs, Good does not always mean letting them roam all over as I would say the dog at Marcy dam was doing mentioned in skyclimber's post.

Never attacked on the trail. But once while waiting in line at DQ a rottweiler that was leashed to a post lunged at me barking and snarling.
This is the snippy answer that I got from the owner:
"You don't own any dogs, do you? He could sense that you are afraid of dogs that's why he jumped at you"

No apologies or anything, I was stunned. At the time I was working at an animal hospital... oh, I wanted to smack her so bad.

TCD said:

How about we narrow it right down to "bitten?"
TCD

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Nope. Nope. Nope. As I said earlier, I intentionally left it open. Let's consider two hypotheticals.

1-- A 30 year old man comes across a nasty dog on the trail. The man is not the least bit afraid of this dog. As the man walks by the dog (toward the dog's owner), the dog bites the man on the calf. The man still isn't afraid or hurt, just a little ticked off, and he continues on his way.

2-- Same dog, but this time with the dog barking and snarling very close to your 7-year-old daughter. She encountered the dog by surprise while she was walking along a flat wooded trail 15 feet ahead of you (so she could feel "like a big girl"). It's a few seconds before you can catch up to pick up your crying daughter and scare off the dog.

Who was attacked worse, the man or the girl?

Nop, never been attacked by a dog, but I must say that I'm always very scared of this eventuality. I don't hate dogs, I'm just kinda insecure when they're around. Any big animals make me feel insecure, even the sweet big horn sheep that I didn't want to approach while hiking in Jasper. Oups ! Out of topic, please reprimand me.

Who was attacked worse, the man or the girl?

Define attack??

Mike P. said:

Good Owners make for good dogs, Good does not always mean letting them roam all over as I would say the dog at Marcy dam was doing mentioned in skyclimber's post.

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Totally agree. Just like good parents make for good children.

Although this does not only entail how much you have trained your dog, but how you work with a certain breed in order to keep it in control. A good owner will not only train but know their breed's tendencies and work with them so their are always in control of their dog (ie. You are able to call your Lab back, but don't unleash your Husky).