h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Contary to popular opinion I haven't actually posted any opinion about the main subject, just posted a question of why human selfdefence is legal, but not against animals.
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This is not an opinion, nor recomendation, and although I thought I had no experience to add to conversation I am reminded about something that happened more than 30 years ago. I was in Goa which despite what some think is not an island and is infact part of mainlnd India. Now it is important to understand that India has/had a lot of rabies and rabies is indeed fatal most of time.
Anyway I was walking through a village and a dog came up barking so walked away. It followed me jumping up and scratched back of my bare legs with claws and was biting, not particulary hard, the back of my legs/ankles and felt wet saliva on them.
As I said rabies is mainly fatal and in rabies country and I had a dog spreading saliva on my legs, biting me and scratching me with claws breaking skin slightly. Well I don't know what you would do but I turned and kicked dog several times which had no effect so lowered myself slightly and whacked dog straight on nose averagely hard which didn't stop it so realising seriousness of situation wacked it with all my might as hard as I could on its nose again and it stopped and ran off.
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It is easy to say what a horrid thing to do but we are talking about a dog in rabies country that could very likely have a dose of fatal rabies. I ran away as quick as I could before it came back!
Thos not a recomendation of what to do, but what happend to me.

swl. dogs, like all hunters, are excited by movement, especially when frenzied. while standing still is nowhere near a guarantee you will not be attacked by a wrong dog, threatening or fleeing movements near enough are a guarantee that you will be.

as with any advice in a public forum, one needs to be mindful it will be read by people of differing ages, sizes and abilities and its usefulness or potential risk measured against that knowledge.

sweat of the brow. any self defence needs to be proportional to the threat to be legal. gouging a small dog's eyes or kicking it in the ribs doesn't seem to me to be reasonable nor proportional, and like other normal people, including the eds, accepted that is was too close to the legal margins to be allowed unfettered expansion. arguing the toss repeatedly won't change that.

A SYDNEY tradesman has saved the lives of two women being attacked by a pitbull - by shooting it between the eyes with a nail gun.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23250192-5006301,00.html

note that the dog appears to have been attacking family members, and that once frenzied was attacking anyone present.

Which seems like an obvious thing to do if you have a nail gun on you. I´m more interested in what to do all those times I don´t have one though.

the point is that you are NEVER going to subdue a pit bull by yourself with your hands or feet. nor indeed any large aggressive dog. the 'advice' in the header thread was near enough to useless. i'd personally gangstaslap anyone i caught giving such foolish advice to a young person.

i wasn't suggesting nail guns as a tool to deal with dogs. the article demonstrates that two men and two women armed with a large piece of wood were unable to break off the dog's attack. the nail gun shows how extreme one needs to be with powerful dogs.

Eeek!
According to a 2002 Edited Guide entry on rabies 50,000 people die every year from rabies.
It seems that rabies can be passed from dog saliva of an infected dog to cuts and scrapes in humans. Once the symptoms start to show in humans it is too late and the person always dies. It seems that dogs are one of the major passers of rabies to humans and dogs with rabies can actually appear calm and more friendly to humans than normal sometimes and not always the slavering rabid dog one expects.

i am 2 degrees of separation from a man killed by a rabid squirrel in a london park in the early 70s.

so keep your eyes to the skies my friend...

Ah but since I have 3 or 4 squirells that live in my garden, if one should be foaming at the mouth when I throw my rubbish out am I allowed to legally punch it on the nose in self defence?
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The way I look at it Mr Tuffty, their well known lawyer, might have me up in court!

i've never tried to punch a squirrel. i'm guessing you would need faster than average hands.

Well this thread has started of in traditional hootoo style and looks to be trailing off in traditional hootoo style..

Another storm in a

It is how the dog is brought up in the first place i blame the people who own the dog of its bad temper.

Yes only if dog just stands there waiting on you taking it off .

I'm interested in the rabid squirrel in London.

Any evidence to show that there has been any incidence of rabies in the UK where the person wasn't infected elsewhere?

Not that i know off.

well, I've just been looking at the Defra webbie and there seem to have been no incidences of rabies outside of a chap who was bitten by a rabid bat in 1992.

I'm interested because I know that there is this HUGE thing about rabies in the UK, as though every other country in the world is just teeming with rabid dogs, foxes and other creatures.

I live in an area which regularly has warnings of rabies, and I've never seen so much as a mouse foaming at the mouth.

The point, which is only adjacent to the topic of the thread is that in the UK probably the least of your worries when confronted by a dog (slavering or otherwise) is going to be rabies.

my belt comes of in about 2 seconds. if you can't get your belt off quickly, dogs are the least of your worries.

as i say, two degrees of separation. a guy i knew knew someone else. happened in the 70s, maybe late 60s. when the story was told to me, the teller got very upset with me when i larfed out loud. little bit about it on my journal http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/U1300304

I just have this picture of a muzzled foaming mouthed squirrel held down by four burly policemen pleading it isn't a fair cop with a tube of toothpaste and toothbrush in its little furry paws, all in an accent straight out of Eastenders!

"Floss goin' on?"

Well from the look of the 2 squirrels in the bush in my garden grooming each other little squirrels will be going on soon!
I sincerley hope their dentist will start them on a regular flossing and cleaning routine as soon as young squirrels can hold a brush, 'cause not to do so would be nuts.....