Well it was bound to happen sooner or later - yesterday morning while my pup Nickie & I were doing our daily walk thru the neighborhood, we passed a house where there was a pitbull standing in the garage with a couple of men. We were on the other side of the street so hoped that we could get by without a problem.

However, just as I feared, the pitbull spotted us and dashed across the street at us. I yelled "go home!" and swung my club at him (a 2-foot long metal flashlight). He kept circling us and I yelled over at the two guys "get your dog!". They said, "ain't our dog" and walked back in the house!

The pitbull looked to be maybe a year old (male) and had that goofy pitbull grin on his face like he just wanted to check us out. But I couldn't get him to leave us alone. Nickie of course was pulling very hard to get to him and I kept trying to keep myself between him and the other dog. (Nickie had his prong collar on).

That dog followed us all the way to our front door! So for about 3 blocks I kept trying to get a swing at him, yelled at him every so often to "go home", and just basically tried to keep from being tangled up and falling!

Of course no one in the neighborhood came out to help me (it was around 6:30 AM). When we got home, I shoved Nickie into the house and then charged at the dog and he ran off. No idea where he lives - no collar or anything. I also had mace clipped to my belt but hesitated to use it unless an actual fight broke out.

Not once did either dog bark or growl. Nickie never barks at other dogs behind chain link fences when we are walking. He actually acted like it was no big deal when I came back in the house to get him a drink of water and put him in the crate before leaving for work.

Guess my question is what is a person supposed to do when they are alone with their dog like this? One thing I realized is that the two-foot metal club is way too short to be effective. This morning I got out a heavy wooden walking stick and will take that on our walks from now on.

Sounds like you did OK. Sounds like your pup knew who was in charge. :> Sounds like a non-aggressive dog; I imagine Nickie did not consider it a big deal.

I've run across dogs who wanted to come with us a couple of times.

Unless.... did I miss something? There was no threatening or aggressive action?

Sounds like you did OK.

So is that OK to let them "come with us"? To tell you the truth, the main reason that I didn't "mace" him was that he reminded me so much of our pitbull Buster who died last November. I can just imagine him getting loose and wanting to walk down the street with another dog. In fact, he did jump our 6 foot block wall a couple of times before we got a single-strand electric wire around the perimeter.

Guess I over reacted - I just wanted Nickie to see that I was in charge of the situation.

 Quote: diane joslin

So is that OK to let them "come with us"? To tell you the truth, the main reason that I didn't "mace" him was that he reminded me so much of our pitbull Buster who died last November. I can just imagine him getting loose and wanting to walk down the street with another dog. In fact, he did jump our 6 foot block wall a couple of times before we got a single-strand electric wire around the perimeter.

Guess I over reacted - I just wanted Nickie to see that I was in charge of the situation.

You did what I would've done.... told the loose dog to leave and make sure my own dog knows who's in charge and that he is protected.