Hi there! I'm not sure if this is the right place for this topic, but it looks close.

I was out walking two of my dogs the other morning. They stay under good control, and we were just cruising along enjoying the morning. I heard a dog get out of a yard as we went past the yard, and turned around to see a HUGE dog charging us. We're talking full-on snarling sprint. This all happened VERY fast, but I remember reading somewhere that when you are threatened by a dog like this, you need to put your dogs behind you, stand up to the threat, and tell it to go away. Which is exactly what I did. My dogs stayed calm, stayed behind me, did not go into attack mode (except for the pekingese for a second, until I got her behind me), I held up the metal baton that I carry with me (for exactly this reason), told the dog to "Get the hell away!!" or something like that, and it stopped! About 10 feet away, as soon as I was facing it and yelling at it, it just stopped running. It turned around and walked away a little bit, and turned back to look at me. I stood up to it again and told it to go away, and it continued walking. Once it was gone, we (calmly) high-taled it the hell out of there.

My question is, I know I've read this advice somewhere (I thought it was Cesar Milan, but now I can't find it to confirm), and really can't find a lot addressing this online. What to do when you are being aggressively charged like this and have about two seconds to handle it or you are for sure going to be in a really bad situation. I feel like I did the right thing, based on the results (both the dog leaving us alone, and also MY dogs accepting my behavior so calmly), but I want to make sure. We have a LOT of stray dogs in my neighborhood, and although this is the first time I've dealt with being actively charged, I have stood up to strays before if they're getting too interested, and yell them off in a similar way (my dogs behind me, facing the dog, authoritatively telling it to get lost).

Is there something different or additional that I need to be doing, or is this exactly right?

I'd say you were right on the mark Way to take control of the situation!

You did exactly what I do. You demonstrated pack leadership. You controlled your dogs. As the pack leader, you don't want your dogs fighting with other dogs. The pack leader determines who will fight and when. You were willing to take a bite for your dogs. 10 cool points for you.

The only other thing you can do is avoid this particular area in the future, or escalate the level of force with pepper spray or something else.

Not sure where you read this particular solution, but it's all over this website between Ed's articles and his podcasts. That's where I learned it.

Good work!

Awesome Thanks I figure if my reactive GSD is calm through something like that, I must have been doing something right.

I've thought about pepper spray, but have wondered how well it's going to work (as opposed to a steel baton in the face). wind factors in - I don't want to hit my dogs too. Also effectiveness: is it going to drop an aggressive dog, or just piss him off worse?

Most pepper spray devices are less of a "spray" and more of a stream. There is a certain amount of marksmanship that needs to be applied, but it's not that difficult. You should familiarize firing the pepper spray before you need to use it in a crisis so you know what you're dealing with. Pepper spray will not "drop" a dog, but it will definately give the animal pause. If you deliver a half way decent dose to the face of the animal, you're definately going to disrupt the attack. If you happen to get your own dogs in the crossfire, they'll get over it. The most important thing is to stop them from getting bit. I'll trade a dog bite for a shot of pepper spray in the face anyday.

Ed sells bear spray on this site.

Thanks Kurt I think I can get bear spray at the Bass Pro shop here. Plus, fun to have an excuse to browse Bass Pro

Thanks for posting your experience. I have been in several situations where a loose dog started stalking us from behind - maybe they just wanted to sniff, maybe not, but I can't risk it because my big dog does not handle unwanted attention from other dogs well. My first reaction is to up our pace and continue moving away with both my dogs on close leads. This has worked twice. In one of those cases, a passerby was going in the opposite direction to us and I asked him to push the little white dog that was stalking us back so the little white dog's owner could catch up to his dog (the owner was about a block behind us). In the second case, the poor owner was being run ragged trying to catch her shiba inu. There was nothing I could do to get away from this dog so I turned to face it with Jethro and Skipper behind me. The Shiba Inu was circling us, so I just kept circling, keeping my body in between. Another passerby shooed the shiba off, and we high tailed it around a corner, only to have the shiba back on our tail. The owner finally caught her dog when the shiba had to stop to take a poop.

Another time, a little chinese crested came charging across the street and once again we took off at a good clip. The owner came running after me shouting, "Will you please stop running so I can catch my dog?" I shouted back, "You do not want my dog to catch your dog." And kept going. Eventually we got out of range and she was able to catch her dog.

Last night, in the dark, we were out walking in a new neighbourhood. I heard the familiar cry of an owner call their dog's name as their dog leaves them behind. Sure enough, I looked back and a big rottweiler was standing across the street with his eye on us. I started moving forward and he was coming up at a good clip. No barking, growling or snarling, but I wasn't going to take a chance. The owner was running up from behind but her dog was evading her and coming after us. As he came up closer I turned to him and gave him a loud, "No!" and verbal corrective, "Uh Uh". This caused him to pause and he actually sat down while his owner caught up and leashed him.

I like the idea of a metal baton.

My experience had been that if you're moving away before you've backed them off verbally, they'll continue to follow. Also, a quiet dog coming purposefully towards me would honestly scare me a lot more than a barking one. Quiet = purposeful. Not good.

I never walk my dogs "unarmed" any more. We live in a higher crime area, and so there are a lot of bad fences, neglected and aggressive dogs, and just itresponsible dog owners. We ran into two (non agressive, thankfully) strays just yesterday. It happens about once a week, and I don't want to risk being unable to defend my dogs and myself.

It's definitely empowering to have a heavy baton (make sure it's legal, some cities outlaw "billy clubs" and similar items), and to know exactly what I am going to do when we come across strange dogs. Be circumspect, be ready, and don't hesitate. I am absolutely confident that if I hadn't faced down that dog last week, it would have been a VERY bad situation.