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Thursday, May 5, 2016

Encounter of the Furry Kind.

I Jinxed Us.

Remember my post about disaster being avoided? I wrote it a couple weeks ago and I think I jinxed us...


I'm always careful, and super vigilant about watching our surroundings when I'm out with Dante and Ziva off-leash. If I see another dog owner coming I leash up, and watch them to see what they are doing.


But here's the thing...I think my neighbor's dog hates us. Thankfully though for both of us, it will soon be a distant bad memory.

When we first moved into our house Taco (Not his real name) some sort of a tall Hound/German Shepherd mix would bark at me every time I was in my backyard, eventually he got used to me.

Then along came Jack.  For some reason, Jack liked to stare at Taco. Jack wouldn't bark, he'd just look through the fence until Taco was a complete basket case! I would put a stop to it as quickly as possible, but over time it kept escalating despite my best efforts. Pretty soon Taco was attacking our fence which upset Dante and got him to start attacking the fence in return. Thankfully it's a solid 6 foot wood fence. But seriously, these two boys make things move and shake! On a good note none of our dogs live outside so it's a rare occurrence that they are out at the same time, but with the weather getting nicer it's happening more frequently.

The Instigator.
After Jack was adopted things got a bit better. I put a stop to Dante attacking the fence but aside from yelling at Taco and telling his owners what was going on, I couldn't stop him. Thankfully he's mostly an indoor dog so they generally bring him back in their house when he starts barking at us like a maniac.

The First Incident.
A few months ago while I was walking home with Dante and Ziva on leashes, Taco was out in his front yard with his family, he approached us looking kind of friendly and Dante & Ziva were both tired so I wasn't too worried, then his demeanor changed and he attacked Dante in the face.

On a good note Taco is a senior dog with bad teeth so he didn't hurt Dante, but I was tangled up in leashes and three dogs!!  I do carry pepper spray for situations like this but my hands were tangled, I was trying to not get bit, and I couldn't reach it. My neighbors though were outside too and pounced on Taco. We were able to get everyone apart with no injuries, it was mostly I think just noise.

Then this last weekend I had another encounter with him. While out playing in the field - we were on the far side when I saw a dog with a couple kids step onto the field. I called Dante & Ziva to me and leashed them up to check out the situation. They were just far enough away that I couldn't tell it was Taco (he's put on a lot of weight recently), and I couldn't tell if he was on leash or not so we began to casually move away and head for the exit.

That's when he saw us and broke into a fast pace, *at this point some not so nice words came out of my mouth cause the kids with him were screaming his name and I realized who it was*....Taco.



He's not a fast dog so the kids kept up with him, I yelled in a big voice, "TACO NO!" and then it happened. I swiped at him with the chuck-it stick, missed, and he again went straight for Dante who had turned to meet him. 

Ziva amazingly enough stayed out of the fight until Dante had a good grip on Taco's face then she jumped in.

Gotta help my brother!

In this case I made a decision to not use my pepper spray because I would have hit my neighbor's kids (they are young elementary age), so instead I was left with hitting Taco with the chuck-it stick. I yelled, "Drop it!" to my dogs, Dante released, and the kids pounced on Taco while their dad ran up to us apologizing as he sent the kids and Taco away.


Lessons Learned.
Surveying the dogs we were thankful no one was injured. Dante had a scratch on his nose and was bleeding just a bit but that was all. I spoke with our neighbor, hopefully they learned their lesson to keep Taco leashed when outside.

Another reminder to everyone. Pit Bull type dogs DO NOT have locking jaws, and they aren't killers - we didn't ask for this or start it. Dante had gripped Taco but did not puncture Taco's skin, he was simply holding on. Dante also released Taco when I told him to.

I'm so proud of my boy! Training and socializing helped this incident to be manageable and not nearly as bad as it could have been. Ziva for being my fear reactive pup was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing but i'm so glad she kept her head.



7 comments:

  1. A scary situation!

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  2. So glad no one was hurt and the lesson was learned.

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  3. You have 2 awesome dogs, and they have one awesome human!

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  4. Yikes! That's terrifying! One thing I enjoy about having a small dog is I can just scoop Nola up. I had to do that three times a day in our old neighborhood - there was a golden that would kill her if given half a chance!

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  5. Glad no one was hurt. And sorry you had such a dramatic experience. It's going to be great not having to worry about that with your neighbor.... BTW, I love the first photo of Ziva's grin.... just adorable!

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  6. Oh my goodness! How scary. We had a dog like Taco in our old neighborhood--and every time she was out, she was out without a leash. Usually, her kids were out with her and would grab hold of her when they saw us coming, but there were a couple times that she got away and I ended up tangled up unable to get my spray, too. Glad things turned out ok--hope your new neighborhood doesn't have any Tacos!

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  7. Oh my goodness, I'm so glad it turned out with no injuries. This kind of situation upsets me the most, because the dog has already had an issue and they continue to let it off-leash. I hope your new neighborhood is Taco-less. :-)

    good job on managing the situation.

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