Oh, Boy....Dog Fight On The Front Porch.....

WELL..........

We were going to take the dogs for a walk tonight, but as my wife was walking out with Pebbles, the little dog, and I was standing on the front porch with Swisher, the big dog, just as I was about to lock the door, another Pit came running up from across the street, and pandemonium ensued.

I was holding Swisher back, actually getting him to sit, and wondering where in the heck this other dog came from. The other dog was wagging his tail, and looked like he wanted to play, but Swisher was having none of it, sitting there trembling, and looking like a Saturn V at T minus 5 seconds.

Then the other dog came up, ON the porch, and close to me, and Swisher let him have it.

He grabbed him by the ear, and held on, and the other dog immediately started yelping and trying to get away. Yelling "DROP IT", "LET GO", and "NO" had zero effect, and at this point the other dog was acting like it was his worst day ever, and trying to leave, but by this time Swisher had him by the scruff of the neck, and was just holding him, still sitting there trembling, but growling loudly.

Our next door neighbors (good people), being Pit owners, heard the commotion and came out, just about the time I started yelling "GET SOME WATER!", and the neighbor promptly turned his garden hose on full blast.

By this time the other dog's owner showed up, grabbed the hose, and blasted both of the dogs (and me) with it, prompting Swisher to instantly let go, and the other dog streaked across the street to his home at something approaching Mach 6.

I swear I could see the shock waves off his nose and tail......

We got the dogs back inside (the little one was about dragging my wife off her feet so she could "help" our big dog) without further incident, and a few seconds later the neighbor with the "loose dog" came over apologizing profusely.

He was on his way to a night school class, and the dog blasted out through the door when he was leaving. He says the dog is OK, but shaken up pretty badly, and asked if ours was OK. Swisher is fine, and acting like he should be rewarded for protecting me, but I'm trying to act like nothing happened. I can't yell at him for doing something that 100,000 years of living with people has bred in to him, and I sure can't praise him for "defending" me.

SO....my wife now has Combat Fatigue, or something similar, and never having been in a violent situation like this, was retching and coughing for about 20 minutes. She's fine now, but going through a major adrenaline rush/crash response, so I've got her resting, and drinking some liquids.

The dogs are acting like "something" happened, but are otherwise behaving normally.

What to do? Well, even if it were legal to carry here in Kaliforniastan, I would NOT have drawn and fired, as my life was not in danger, and things would have had to have gotten extremely bad before I'd even have considered it.

I'm now looking for some pepper spray that I can carry, but not sure what strength I should get. I have NO problems with using it on my own dog if that's what it takes to break up a fight, so I'm hoping to find something strong enough to do the job, but not so potent that an after-hours trip to the vet would be required.

I have a little pocket air horn that's painfully loud, but I don't think that would have any effect on two large dogs in a situation like this.

Both dogs involved had collars, shots, and tags, so rabies isn't an issue.

And my own pulse is finally returning to normal.............