The short- After having the unfortunate experience of running into neighbor’s loose dog while on a walk for 2 days in a row, I’m considering maybe carrying some kind of deterrent with me. What would be best- pepper/bear spray? I’m not a firearms person, so that’s out.
The long (and a little venty)- The dog is friendly with people but the first day came charging up to me and my leashed dog, my dog got defensive and they got into a fight. I was able to pull my dog back, knee the other dog away and fortunately another neighbor (not the owner) was able to call the other dog off and hold it while I walked away.
The second day, it was out again, no one else was around and I saw him start to stalk towards us, heckles up. I very firmly yelled at him to stay with my hand out while we stood still. After a couple minutes of this, he seemed to get the idea, went to another neighbors porch and we were able to pass without incident. I texted the owner when I got home (as I have no cell service as soon as I leave my house) to tell him the dog was out again and after yesterday’s scuffle I didn’t try to catch him and his response was along the lines of “oh darn, thought the fence was fixed. Kids will go get him. Thanks”. No apology for his dog causing a fight with mine.
These are literally my next door neighbors and I don’t want to cause issues but their animals (they also have goats)get out on a regular basis. I’m a pretty reasonable person and consider loose animals our rural-ish area to be not unexpected occasionally (I mean, sh!t happens to everyone at some point, right?) and have caught their loose animals a handful of times but I don’t want to be scared to take a walk on my own street. What if the dog is loose, gets in a fight with my dog again and there’s no one there to help me? I take my Bernese for walks and the dog in question is a pit bull type dog so it’s not like I’m dealing with a small, easily kickable dog. If it happens a third time, I’m tempted to report it to the police (which in my town is one, part time officer) because I don’t know how else to get them to fix their fence with something other than scrap wire Any suggestions of something I could carry that might stop him if he’s loose and charges us again?