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seamusTX wrote:

Thane wrote:My lack of foresight gave me two options that night - kill the dog, or dance with a shopping cart and an aggressive canine and risk getting bitten. Neither option was very appealing.

How about throwing him the cat food?

That's a short-term solution and doesn't eliminate the threat for the next shopper the dog harasses, but you wouldn't have to deal with the police or an emergency room.

Your cat would be annoyed, of course.

- Jim

Honestly, I'm not sure that would have done much. The dog was rather fixated on me, not the bags I was holding.

I've noticed that, when animals are interested in an item you are carrying, their gaze will fixate on that item, deviating to you when you deny them access. The dog may well have been after my purchases, but he didn't act like it. He fixated on my face, and was rather... disconcerting in his unwavering attention towards me, not my bags. If he was after the cat food, he understood that he had to take it from me.

Additionally, his attitude was not as "begging" as most dogs I've run across that were after food. It was more of a territorial behavior. A dog acting territorial on his own turf doesn't bother me. This dog was acting territorial towards one person, on turf that was clearly "neutral ground."

I still have no clue what the dog's problem was.

No, I've never had to display a handgun. There WAS that broadsword I used to run off some burglars who were casing a house I was watching when I was in my early teens, but... Everything turned out all right in the end in that one - they stayed outside the house, cussing up a storm, and I stayed inside, with the sword and all the homeowner's belongings. Nothing got stolen, no one got hacked. Everyone won.

I DID almost have to draw on a dog a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if the animal was owned or just a stray. I was in the supermarket parking lot, returning to my vehicle with some cat food, and this dog zeroed in on me. He totally ignored all the other people in the lot, instead barking and acting aggressive toward me.
Needless to say, discharging a firearm in a parking lot in town at night is NOT on my list of "I wanna do this." Fortunately, the dog backed down from its own aggressive posture after I started responding, using a shopping cart as shield/weapon. My other hand was constantly in my pocket, however, ready to use the revolver I had. That dog was faster than my shopping cart, and had he pushed it, I WOULD have had to shoot him.

I never leave my pepper spray at home anymore. In the same situation now, I'd simply give the dog a shot of pepper, and walk away. My lack of foresight gave me two options that night - kill the dog, or dance with a shopping cart and an aggressive canine and risk getting bitten. Neither option was very appealing.