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Comment by rainbowzootsuit | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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