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Comment by EL_Loco | Hacker News Reader

I've been around many alsatians, and many pitbulls (never had one, but many friends have). Given equal training, equal education (or whatever you want to call what some people do to their dogs), most pitbulls will be different from alsatians in temperament. When they are in attack mode, they're much more likely to not let go, and to bite much harder. There's a spectrum among breeds regarding the agressiveness of their attacks, and that's something you can't argue, I think. You can abuse the hell out of Yorkshire Terriers, they just won't be as dangerous as pitbulls.

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I was once in a hand to hand struggle with a pit bull that attacked another smaller dog. At least three bystanders took part simultaneously in kicking and punching the pit bull to get it to release the smaller dog.

The only way to dissuade the pit, after what was at least a couple of minutes of this and with the smaller dog being disemboweled, was that I stabbed the pit bull in the neck with my pocket knife.

Their physical power and stubbornness should not be taken for granted.

Both dogs survived the incident.

No respected dog behaviorist would ever advise kicking, punching, or stabbing to break up a dog fight regardless of breed. Y’all made it worse.

We decidedly did not make it worse.

The smaller ~20lbs dog was being courageously held onto by its owner underneath both dogs for the entire ~fight~ mauling to prevent it from being taken away and killed by the ~100lbs pit bull. I didn't see in that situation that I had time to consult with a respected behaviorist and get into the dog's upbringing, give it some positive reinforcement, tummy rubs, and treats, but I did finally get its attention.

Stabbing the pit bull ended the attack within seconds. My intent was to kill it at that point, but I was unsuccessful. That is my only regret in the situation.

Another bystander took the small dog and its owner to the pet hospital in her car where emergency surgery saved its life.

I'm not sure the eventual fate of the pit bull but I know that it was turned over to the custody of the local SPCA and the owner was given some type of citation.

Interesting that you and other comments took mine to mean how to train a dog, which is irrelevant to the situation under consideration. Did any of y'all mean that in good faith?

No, it's about how to de-escalate a severe situation without loss of life. (Good) policemen don't break up a fight between an 18 yr old and 10 yr old by viciously beating and then stabbing the 18 yr old. My point was only that the instincts of those involved made the situation worse before it was made better. And based on the new facts, starting with the owner.

Just as with humans, there's a well understood hierarchy of severity of tools for handling situations such as that one, though only a small minority of dog owners know them. It's incredibly unfortunate that dog lives are more or less toys for humans to play with, otherwise this fight is likely to never have happened if it was a severe as you say before it turned into a five animal brawl.

Bottom line the three of you DID make it worse before it was made better. The punching and kicking won't help in all probability. It's simply not on the spectrum of effective tools. Killing is on the far end, so I'm not begrudging your actions, I'm begrudging the behavior before it: yelling (probably), kicking, and punching instead of forcing the bite, wheelbarrowing, and other environmental tools that may have been available. Y'know, the things that animal behaviorists have figured out, how to cause specific behaviors, like stopping a dog from biting another during a fight.

I'm not sure why I wrote this comment since apparently your only regret is not achieving your intent which was to kill the dog. You managed to stop the fight without causing death, a huge win, but you wish otherwise. I sincerely hope your future is brighter than your past.

I did the wheelbarrowing thing from the start. That only took leverage off of the small dog to try to give the other people who enough time to try to dissuade the pit bull, but as I said, nothing distracted it from its purpose until I stabbed it. It was obvious when I was able to see the intestines of the small dog exposed that it was going to not last long and my resolve was to try to kill the aggressor if one was going to die for sure at that point.

We seem to be talking past each other as at this point I suspect we're in agreement. My initial claim was that punching, kicking, and stabbing were ineffective at breaking up dog fights and make them worse. I back-pedaled slightly to say that stabbing (lethal actions) is effective if it's a scenario where non-lethal tools prove ineffective.

My biggest issue from the start was the socialization of "three bystanders took part simultaneously in kicking and punching the pit bull to get it to release," which failed, predictably, and I didn't want anyone to think that that was a good thing to try in the first place.

Yes I agree about us having some difficulty in properly communicating what's going on. It was a very dynamic situation. It was just a bunch of passers by jumping in to help in whatever way they were able or thought appropriate at the moment.

I don't know what would have been, so to speak, appropriate and would have been effective. The one thing I knew to try was to do the wheelbarrow and that did nothing at leas in attitude of the pit bull. I was totally focused on my not being excessively injured or letting the other dog be torn apart and didn't organize anyone else's interaction, like "I'll hold the legs and you kick it."

If anything it was the opposite of bystander syndrome where everyone thinks someone else will do whatever is needed. Everyone there was doing whatever they could with the tools and knowledge or lack of knowledge that they had.

> your only regret is not achieving your intent which was to kill the dog

You cannot ever know what his intentions were, and to accuse him of that is pretty disgusting.

Except for when someone states their intent?

> "My intent was to kill it at that point, but I was unsuccessful. That is my only regret in the situation."

Their intent was to stop a dog from killing another dog, you are discussing the method of doing so as if it was the only stated goal. "I just wanted to kill a pitbull doing nothing minding it's own business".

Why do you think such a terrible leap of logic would work here?

> between an 18 yr old and 10 yr old

Nope, this was more like a 10 year old being savagely beaten by a 30 year old very strong, very violent, out of his mind MMA fighter who wanted to kill the 10 year old.

What you're saying makes sense for some breeds. The whole point was that pitbulls are more agressive and violent than other breeds.

I believe he was trying to stop the Pit from killing another dog, not train it to be better.

Well, he wasn't a dog behaviorist, and he's not required to know how to adequately deal with vicious dogs trying to tear apart little ones. Stabbing the pitbull saved the other dog's life.

Dog behaviorist? Are you fing kidding me? Why do people on this site post this kind of crap?

Elitist mentality and condescending language common in tech, sadly.

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