Battle Scars

This week Sally the dog got in a fight. My neighbors and I have analyzed this fight from all sides and this is how we see it.

My neighbor has a pittbull/ beagle mix dog named Rajah. She is really a sweet dog and has a cute personality, EXCEPT when she sees my dog. The other day my neighbor and I were going to take the dogs for a walk, and stopped to talk to another neighbor. The owner of Rajah wanted to show the neighbor walking with me the new collar she bought for her dog. I don't know how she didn't see my dog standing next to me on the sidewalk, but she let her dog out of the house without a leash. Rajah came tearing across the street and went straight for sally. She attacked her face and hung from it.

Sally grabbed her by the neck and held her to the ground. The other dog tried to fight, but Sally had her by the throat. My big muscular neighbor ran over and tried to separate the two dogs, but couldn't. I tried to pull my dog away, and he tried to pull the other dog (avoiding their mouths). I still had hold of the leash. He got them both on the ground and held them down, but couldn't get Sally to let go of the other dog. My neighbor had just heard a television program this week talk about how a dog's bite has like 260 pounds of pressure per square inch. A Rottweiler has over 350 pounds of pressure. Just for your random fact for the day, a giant snapping turtle has 1000.

I thought that maybe I could get Sally to let go of the other dog, but I couldn't. I looked at Sally's mouth and could see blood all around her mouth. My muscular neighbor said, "She's going to kill her! We've got to get them apart!" My other neighbor said, "Get the hose and let's spray them." So Mr. Muscles ran off to get the hose, and I took over Sally, and my other neighbor took over Rajah. I turned Sally's head to the side, and I think that made her lose balance or something, because she let go of Rajah's neck. My neighbor K. pulled Rajah away, but Rajah's foot flailed and Sally caught it in her mouth. Again I pulled her head down sideways and she let go, so that K. could pull Rajah away.

When we looked to survey the damage, we found that the only damage done to Rajah was a cut on her leg from when I pulled Sally's head while it was in her mouth. There wasn't a speck of injury on Rajah's neck. Sally, however, had a cut under her eye, on both sides of her lip, and her ear. In addition, I noticed today that the white of one of her eyes is red on the side. She also has problems with her hips, and she has been limping ever since.

As soon as we pulled the dogs apart, we sat there trying to catch our breath, and the dogs layed quietly down on the ground totally calm and acted like they were basking in the sun. They weren't even looking at each other, and it was as if the whole thing had never happened. Mr. Muscles said to me, "You should take your dog home.". I said, "Actually, they are really acting good right now. I kind of want them to experience being this close in a calm state." My other neighbor agreed. We sat there for a couple of minutes letting them sit quietly near each other(we had them both under control, so they couldn't have fought if they wanted to.). It was almost like the parent who makes their kids sit on the same bench after they have fought.

In analyzing this fight, my neighbor K. said that she really felt that Sally's intent wasn't to kill. If she hadn't wanted to kill Rajah, she would have. She was, in essence, saying to Rajah, "Say uncle.....say uncle....". She had her in a submissive hold and wasn't going to let go until Rajah submitted. Rajah was the aggressor in this case, Sally was just trying to end the conflict. I did end up taking Sally home to clean her up. But in hindsight, we all agreed that what we should have done was put them both on leashes and make them walk as a pack (separated by us). We have to get these two dogs to get along before one of them gets seriously injured.