So how should I react when someone throws a brick at my (totally non-aggressive) dog?

Life Pets & Domestic Animals
1

So I’m riding my bike down a beach path near my house and my two dogs are running along with me, happy as clams. They see another dog and of course barrel towards it (they’re totally non-aggressive towards dogs too, the greetings when they arrive are always friendly) and a guy near the other dog picks up a brick and forcefully throws it at my dog. You know how some people throw stuff just to scare the dog off? Yeah, THIS was not THAT. He was aiming for my dog, and the brick probably missed her by only 2 or 3 inches.

This is where I want advice. So it’s not my country, my Chinese is not that good and perhaps there is actually a decent way to handle this that is appropriate in this culture, but isn’t submissive or backing down. I’m not going to back down. They need to know that I will defend my dogs.

Anyways, I didn’t handle it well at all. I saw red. Threw my bike down and got in his face. He got right back in mine, my dogs circling and growling, him cocking his hand back like he’s going to hit me (If I was a dude I’m pretty sure he would have). Then he started to go back to where he’d been, and me, thinking this is over, gets back on my bike, and guess what!? Dude goes for another brick. So I hit him with my bike. Not hard, but it did kind of pull his pants down. Then I rode away. In the opposite direction of my house.
I chilled for a while, trying to think of how to pass them again, grabbed a beer bottle off the beach but come on, I’m not really the type of person to smack someone in the face with a beer bottle (although I guess I can see myself doing it if someone hurt my dogs) and I’m riding back home when I see the cops. They are arguing with brick-thrower’s friend. And thinking this might be about me, I proceed to approach and tell my side of the story. Police tell me guys are drunk and stupid and yes my dogs are very nice but I should keep them on a leash. Police give me their number in case I have any further problems.

Long story short, I’ve got douchebags in my neighborhood now who hate me and my dogs.

So I’d love the thoughts of anyone who’s been here a while and/or is Taiwanese (TeacherLin? Teach me!) and can think of a good way to 1) handle people who are aggressive toward my dogs- this isn’t the first time. 2) how do I handle it if I see brickholio again? I hate that asshole but I wouldn’t be opposed to buying him a six pack if it meant he’d leave my dogs and I alone in the future. I wish I could squash the beef in Chinese but it’ll take me another 2 or 3 years to handle that conversation with all of it’s nuances (“Don’t fuck with my dogs. Here’s a six pack. But seriously. Don’t fuck with my dogs” followed by a lesson on canine behavior how brick tossing is neither needed nor effective.)

2

Wait til they’re drunk. Buy beer and some GOOD whiskey (SUNTORY should do it :laughing: ).

Approach and smile. Sorry sorry. I had a bad day. Sorry my dogs scared you. Dumb dogs. Have a beer. My Chinese sucks. I’m really sorry. Have a beer. Me? Smoke? Yes, thanks. I loves the cancer. Sorry sorry. Smile smile.

Then, GTFOOT.

Leash your dogs and this won’t happen. :thumbsup:

3

I’ll certainly leash them down that stretch of beach- I know I ought to leash them all the time but running free brings them (and me) so much joy, and something bad happens like once every 2000 times I take them out. I finally decided that I’ll just have to deal with the consequences if their leashlessness causes something terrible to happen :frowning: But yes this incident definitely motivates me to put the leash on when I’m in more populated areas.

Any other ideas? Also, anyone have any idea if they’re more, or less likely to give me shit in the future after my having talked to the cops? The brickthrower’s friend was screaming at the cops and they were just filming him and yelling back.
(I actually wouldn’t have spoken to the police, had I realized that the guy probably wasn’t talking to them about me in the first place.)

4

Wait.

I missed that. Don’t do anything. You’re a fem. Our rules don’t apply. You don’t need to buy them beers or fake placate. Learn how to say, “Go fuck yourself” in Taiwanese. And chances are, he wouldn’t have hit a dude either. Angry Taiwanese men are notorious pussies. :unamused:

I doubt they’ll say anything to you. But, bring your camera with you when you go out, and leash you dogs when you get close to home.

But, if you REALLY want to freak them out, follow my above advice and tell them you were on your period when you got mad at them. Go into great detail. Their fragile psyches will most likely implode. :laughing:

5

You should have your dogs leashed. I’m not okaying throwing bricks at dogs, but I know how I have felt when people’s dogs run at me and their owners have said to me, “Don’t worry, they’re friendly!” I am a REALLY nice gal, but I have let loose on a few dog owners letting them know how I feel about their dogs not being leashed. I’m NOT a dog lover and the things scare the crap out of me to be honest. People need to leash their dogs and keep control of them, keeping them out of the way of others. Having them unleashed is inconsiderate…no offense to you.

6

NLTC -
JDs advice is good. Especially the details on period time (whether true or not).
Also, be very very watchful of your dogs for the next few weeks. Sneak attacks are SOP for Taiwan.
It is not unheard of for an attempt to poison your dogs to be attempted.

But a direct peace offering may temper this. Strangely enough, you might even make some taike buddies in the deal.

This can be a very weird place at times.

7

Yeah, I have a few questionable pals whose relationship with me initially started with some kind of argument or near-brawl.

I wouldn’t keep a dog leashed all the time, especially on a beach unless there are signs saying so. I understand some people are afraid of dogs, but a beach is a big place where people do all sorts of activities - dog walking included. If you are a responsible dog owner then your dogs should have learned to obey your commands to leash up and you should have learned to recognise whether somebody is showing signs of being afraid of your dog or not. Making your dogs’ presence known to others even before they get near them goes along way to allaying fears and gives other people time to react to them - and by you, I mean people in general, not specifically you.
That being said, I’ve had people attempt to kick my dog when on a leash, minding his own business while waiting for me outside a shop. Most people who do this do this kind of thing for fun. A person who is truly scared of a dog would not approach one to kick it or throw something at it.

8

I have learned to say ‘my dog is good, he won’t bite you’ in Chinese, but as we all know, these things happen very fast. I think it was about 2 seconds from the time my dogs changed direction till the brick was thrown. I was surprised by how quickly this guy reacted in his somewhat intoxicated state!
Anyways, yeah, I prefer leashless on the beach- dogs are SO much happier leashless, it’s just a much more natural experience, and if there are people around I can call them and they will come (unless that person is a foreigner, then all bets are off because my dogs think every foreigner is their best friend. They recognize foreigners long before I do.)
Anyways, if I see the guy again…well, I still haven’t decided. Wish I could speak to him in Chinese but even if my Chinese were better, the nuances and cultural references would be off. It’s one of those times where I miss being in my own country/culture. OF course if I were in America my dogs couldn’t be off leash anyways, so I guess there are pros and cons.

And JD, I’ve been pressing my “I’m a woman so he won’t hit me” luck for a long time. :doh: I’m just waiting till the day I get clocked :blush: I don’t try to get in altercations but for some reason I’ve become more aggressive since living here, maybe because I can’t understand a lot of what’s going on and can’t communicate. Time to get that Chinese study scholarship!

9

Sneak attacks are what I’m afraid of. Luckily my dogs are always indoors unless they’re with me, but they have been known to randomly run off at times, and right now I’ve got a three-legged pup that I rescued so it’s hard herding them all.
Guess I should swallow my pride and buy the guy a 24 of gold medal or something. Okay, a 24 is a bit much. Six pack should do the trick. Wish me luck.

BTW, anyone want an extremely sweet, three year old, black, three legged dog? He’s amazing, has been in my house 4 days and no ‘accidents’, friendly with new dogs and people, well-behaved, grateful, and listens to me… I’ll post photos later, he’s still recovering from his amputation but will be available for adoption as soon as the stitches come out.

10

Do what JD says to patch things up.

Anyways, I didn't handle it well at all. I saw red. Threw my bike down and got in his face. He got right back in mine, my dogs circling and growling, him cocking his hand back like he's going to hit me (If I was a dude I'm pretty sure he would have). Then he started to go back to where he'd been, and me, thinking this is over, gets back on my bike, and guess what!? Dude goes for another brick. So I hit him with my bike. Not hard, but it did kind of pull his pants down. Then I rode away. In the opposite direction of my house.

Ok, you say yourself you didn’t handle it well, so I won’t harp on it. He could have filed a complaint of battery against you and then you would have had all kinds of problems. Or he could get 10 of his friends to stomp you to show you just whose beach this is.

You should have ignored it or reported it the police.

11

Being a woman and having had that problem before -though it was a guy who started beating Toto because his dog, which was NOT on a leash ran away scared from Toto when he barked- my solution was simple, acquired from years of observing the locals do it: Play the Victim. Scream for help, be girly girly and tearfully -if you are a teacher, you got thespian skills somewhere- point to the guy and accuse him of beating you/the dog/hail Mary.

In my case, guy ran away as fast as he could, and people sided with me, poor atoga being bullied by bad silly man. Yes, you have to swallow your anger/pride/feminist code, but it worked. All for doggie, sigh Truthfully, it was scary, you don’t know what kind of wacko is out there, and in any confrontation with locals, mostly the foreigner is going to come out as the baddie. This approach would probably not work as much with another guy, but we girls may have some leeway.

I think locals do not understand dog behaviour that well, and certainly most dogs here, bred in cages and kept in apartments without daily walks, are poorly socialized. Hence, encounters may or may not be “normal”. Mine being of the aggressive sort, I keep them away from other not yet acquainted dogs, even if really friendly, as I try to avoid problems.

12

So there’s an official “feminist code”?

If I may add, bring your smartphone with you at all times. That camera and its video function can be pretty handy and will help in deterring insensitive jerkoffs from starting anything serious. Sense anything funny? Whip that phone out.

13

Honestly, if you either trained or had someone else train your dogs better this would not have happened. There is no “of course” that they barreled towards the other dog, they can be trained to listen to you and not to do that.

This situation is over (I am not pontificating) but if you want to have them off leash, you better get them trained better. Its not necessarily an off vs on leash life, its a trained vs untrained one. Maybe you should invest in some obedience training and then you can have the best of both worlds.

14

I’m not interested in the leash/off-leash, trained/untrained discussion. I just want an excuse to post a video and here’s as good a place as any.

15

any excuse for that Benny Hill theme music…

16

I am a dog lover, and as one i have to tell you that it was your fault… you should always have your dogs on a leash unless you are in a dog park where its expected that dogs run “free”.
here is a story of my own for you to see the other side of the coin…
i have done exactly what the guy said but under a different situation, i have an American Pitbull back home, he is now around 12 years old but he is a huge dog full of muscles and with a huge head… i trained him with weights and extreme exercise that he loved for many years as it would help him release all his energy… as i said he is 12 but he looks like he only has 8 hahahaha and he is a sweet dog with humans, and he wont ever bark or pull to attack any other dog, but if any other dog, big or small comes close to him running, he will attack… not because i trained him but because its his way of taking care of the situation… i always walk him with a leash or even if i go for bicycle ride with him it would be on a leash and he would never ever try to attack any other dog or human or animal… i always tried to work his temper but it didnt work… at that time i didnt know everything i know now so maybe things would have been different… but the story is this… i am walking my dog on a sunday morning, a 1 hour walk in the mountains in a dirt road next to farms and so on… the kind of place where you see a car every 5 hours… and when i was in my walk a saw a dog coming towards me and my dog running… i knew what would happen for sure so i picked a rock(small size) and tried to aim at the other dog not to injure him but to get him to run away… at that point i didnt see any human with him… as soon as i raised my hand to throw i heard someone telling me “are you crazy, why would you hit my dog” then i answered back, do you love your dog? if so please get him on a leash because my dog doesnt like other dogs coming at him like that and he will most likely end up killing your dog… so do yourself a favor and control your dog…
i know my case is a bit extreme, but the idea is that you need to respect others people space… you love your dogs but not everyone else does…

now i have a 8 month old french bulldog, he is super happy when playing with other dogs, and i always keep him on a leash… when another dog owner comes i ask if the dogs can play and i let them play with the leash to make sure they are safe and then if the place is right i let them play lose for a couple of minutes, but that ends when i see other dogs approaching, at least until i make sure they are ok to play with…

well i hope my boring story helps someone to understand a different point of view about dogs off leash…

17

When thinking about training, I have a lot of questions. Some more philosophical than others.
1.) How much time would it take to train them to be that obedient? I spend massive amounts of time with my dogs. We are together much of the day, because a lot of my work is editing and writing, and I do it at home. I also spend over an hour a day walking with them on the beach. So it’s not like I’m negligent of my dogs- it’s more like I just want to enjoy my time with them. I think training can certainly be enjoyable, but am I that committed to training them so well. I ask this question because:
2.) Do I really want dogs that are so well ‘trained’ that they’ve lost their autonomy/personality? Let’s review the situation. Location: a beach path, perhaps 3 meters wide, quite long. Me: riding my bike. My dogs: about a meter behind me, to my right. The brickman: About a meter ahead of me, to the left. The dog my dogs wanted to greet: about a meter behind the man.
My dogs will stay close to me for long bike rides, generally within a yard of my bike, but yes, if they see something interesting, want to relieve themselves, or want to sniff something, they will pause, run slightly ahead, etc. They aren’t ‘trained’ per se, but they listen to me. The other day my pup grabbed a chicken bone, which I don’t want him eating. I called him sternly (mistake on my part, I should call enthusiastically, even if I’m reprimanding him) but despite my tone, he came straight to me, knowing I was going to take the bone from him. He let me take it (rather than snorking it down, which he easily could have done), and didn’t try to get it back when I threw it in the water. I think that’s pretty damn good.
I like that my dogs greet other dogs. That’s natural doggy etiquette. That’s what dogs do. I think it’s fine that they approach people. They keep a respectful distance and don’t beg (too much) if they people have some tasty food. They’re great dogs, and without me having done much training, 90% of the time, they’re naturally in tune with what I want them to do, 7% of the time they listen to me when I tell them not to do something, and 3% of the time they just do whatever the hell they want because they are dogs they areautonomous and I don’t want them to cease to be either of those things.

Yes, they were in harms way, but that’s my bad, not theirs. In the future, I’ll keep them on leash on the beach path, though we’ve made that journey, oh, say, 100 times without a major incident, and despite the fact that a leash kills like 80% of the joy in the activity. But I’m not sure if I’d ever want to train them as well as you’re saying.
In the same way I wouldn’t want 100% obedient children, I don’t want 100% obedient dogs. And I don’t actually think a 100% obedient dog exists, so even with a well trained dog there’s going to be that 1% of things that will have them disobeying just because the thing is so damn appealing.
I’d love to hear people’s arguments for and against this, though I’m not sure I’d change my mind.

Icon, I did, out of frustration, shed some tears when I was talking to the cops, and though it is somewhat against my feminist code, it seemed to have an effect. Sigh. Now I’m looking forward to watching this Jesus Christ video.

18

Its not extreme at all! You’re absolutely correct. It needn’t be that your dog is a pit, either. My dog could be sick and have something contagious. My dog could be a wimp, and to deal with his wimpiness, he may pretend to be aggressive, at which time the other, intruding dog, running at mine, might take exception to the challenge and attack my wimpy dog.

I have asked many people why in the world they would allow their dog to run toward my dog, when they know nothing about my dog… The usual reply is, but, my dog just wants to be friends. Well, guess what? My dog doesn’t want to be friends and may react in a way that your dog does not expect, which may result in an unexpected situation.

I’m not unsympathetic to the OP. I know… I love leaving my wimpy boy off leash. But, he’s so wimpy that he stays by my side and I have control of him. I really do not appreciate, and neither does he, when other dogs come jaunting over to us to make friends. My dog doesn’t like anyone or any other animal but my family. Its reasonable, I suspect, to believe that there are other dogs and people who hold similar attitudes.

19

Personality and autonomy are not the same thing. First, your dogs are not autonomous, if they are, god help you. Does you dog crap and pee wherever it wants? Does it just eat whatever it wants to? Does it just roam freely, everywhere? That is what an autonomous dog does.

Personality, is another thing. There is NOOOOOOOOOOOOO reason your dog cannot be obedient and still have its personality. My dog is obedient (lets say, 95%…gotto fuss at him sometimes…but he will not run after other dogs…he stops…looks at them, then I tell him “NO, COME HERE” and he does) but his personality is SO large and SO remarkable! Sweet, happy, needy, playful, curious little thing.

You evidently do not have enough control over your dogs to say “stop/come here” etc when they are running after a dog. That is really bad!!!

Lets say you dog is playing with another dog (the other not being yours). That dog runs out into the street amidst scooters, cars, etc. if you do not have enough control over your dog to say “come” then you are really being a bad pet owner/life partner/whatever pc term you wanna use because from the sound of it, your dog would run after them and there would be little you could do to stop him!! You are seriously doing your dogs a disserivce and putting them in harms way so they can be “autonomous”.

This is a perfect example of you dog philosophy putting your dog in danger! He almost got knocked upside the head with a brick. You really need to get them trained.

Dogs do all sorts of things. Some dogs will eat rocks if you let them. And you should DEFINITELY not let them greet other dogs without some sort of supervision or safety perimeters in place. What if your dog just walks up to another dog, and the other dog is a little shit and starts attacking your dog? That’s really not smart. What if the other dog has some sort of virus (not rabies here, luckily) what if the owner is an asshole?

Unfortunately, you are not the only person in the world. And even more unfortunately, not everyone likes dogs! Just letting your dogs walk up to whomever they wish is a good way of getting them kicked (or HAVING A BRICK THROWN AT THEM). At the very least, respect other people’s wishes and do not just think “oh, my doggie likes to meet that person, I really do not care if that person wants to meet my dog, since my dog is so ‘autonomous’.”

If they’re so good, then it should not be too much of a hassle to get them more obedient and responsive to commands.

You evidently have a false dichotomy setup in your doggy philosophy:

personality VS obedience

A dog can be responsive to commands, obedient and still have a strong personality. For the sake of your dogs, for their safety and happiness (especially ifya wanna let them off leash. which do you think is more ‘autonomous’- a dog on a leash who will do its own thing when off, or a dog who gets to go off leash and will respond to your verbal commands?).

I know your heart is in the right place and you CLEARLY love your little fluffy friends, but they need some ‘tough love’ so to speak. Just like a child, you can’t just let them do what they want; there has to be rules.

In terms of the time to train them, I cannot say. I have had my dog on a “tight leach” so to speak since we adopted him from the shelter (he was only 8 weeks old then). If you do not feel up to it (which says nothing about you…some people say it is better to have the dog trained by someone else) then just find a good trainer.

20

I feel you, and the people you are dealing with probably deserve a proper beating, but if I was a lawyer, I’d say put your dog on a leash, dogs ‘barreling’ towards anything can be perceived as a threat.