An incident occurred this morning while walking my 13 month old female GSD.

We were attacked by a large mixed breed and extemely mean dog. He came running at us with no intention of stopping and no hesitation. He attempted to bite my dog and as I was using my leg to keep distance between them, he got a hold of my leg (didn't draw blood). He also ripped the sleave on my shirt.

Kicking him and screaming, I was able to get a few feet of distance between him and my dog. I gave my GSD a "sit/stay" command. She sat and I dropped the leash and went to "deal" with the attacking dog.

Five minutes of what can only be termed "violence" erupted. I ran at the dog screaming and he backed off. THen he came back at me. This repeated itself for a few minutes, all the while he was growling and spitting, head down, ears back.

At one point, I thought I was going to have to choke the dog out, and probably end up with many scars to document the incident.

Eventually, I broke a small branch off a tree and swung it at the dog. At that point, he turned tail and ran away.

My GSD maintained her "sit/stay" throughout the incident...thank God! She did lift her butt a few times as if she was about to take some action, but a fast, "no..sit" during the comotion was all she needed. Frankly, I think she deserves an award. If I was the dog, I would have blown off the command.

GOOD dog!

That's why I ALWAYS carry my pepper mace with me on a walk. There is one dog in particular that I have had to use it on in the past, that I think would still try to come at me, and he means business. The first time, I was proud of my dog too, because she remained at heel, hackles down, with not so much as a growl at him - and she's the one that I've been dealing with dominance issues towards other dogs. She's gotten really obedient the last week or so. My husband has been gone for 3 weeks to MP training, so it's just been me at the house. During this past week, she's almost been a pest because she won't leave my side, but that's a good thing on our walks because she hasn't been pulling or acting out either, and I used to have to use a prong on her when we walked. Now, I have her Dogtra collar on, but the leash is attached to her regular flat collar and it's like I'm not even holding it, there's so much slack. The e-collar is just in case I need to correct or reinforce her. So far I haven't had to. Also, when I give a command, she's following it almost before I finish saying the command word. I don't know if it's because my husband is gone, or just because I've been able to pay more attention to her, but I like it!

Kristen

Hey GOOD DOG!! I hope you gave her a special treat for that ... a nice raw Ostrich neck comes to mind <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Last time I did that with my dog a couple of years ago when an annoying Pitbull was jumping all over us, she sat through part of it and then took off into the darkness ... :rolleyes: (not a GSD, very much Dobe -- and you know how much they love to run) I think I had inadvertantly swung at her though (was the same year some jerk had beaten her) AND there WAS a deer carcass about quarter mile away and she got a good wif of it while sitting there. Sighh.

I need a medal after that for NOT killing the pitbull and for actually finding my black dog in the black of dawn on a winter's morning after walking through the bush and fields that were covered with paw prints from all sorts of animals .... Have no idea how I did it and would defintely rather have given it to my dog for not breaking her sit/stay...

Top it all off, the deer was on the side of a busy highway with morning rush hour traffic and it was my birthday -- what a present!

(Sorry for taking your post off on a tangent :rolleyes: ...)