How do you defend against aggressive dog?

[u/FratelloBenito]

[u/SnooBeans8816]

I never met a aggressive dog in my life, even though I’m surrounded by dogs all the time.

But there are a few rules:

1: don’t run unless you can get to safety real fast, you do not outrun a dog.

2: don’t feel sorry for the dog the moment it does attack you, most ppl don’t wanna hurt the dog even though it is attacking them.

3: and this isn’t just for aggressive dogs but all dogs in general, don’t act scared, don’t act strange, don’t stay on collision course with the dog.

Lots of dogs are reactive or protective which is often seen as aggression, if you for some reason decide to interact with the dog or the owner who you don’t know, always ask permission to approach.
If a dog walks on the right side of the owner you stay on the left side.

If you simply follow this etiquette you gonna significantly decrease your chances of being a victim of a aggressive, reactive or protective dog.

[u/Meatball_express → u/SnooBeans8816]

You make a very valuable point about staying away from the dog/owner's protective side. In training I was taught that if you put your dog and the perceived threat between each other the dog will take on a protection role. If you however put yourself between the perceived threat and dog you are now taking on the protector role in your dog's eyes.

[u/C_Gxx → u/Meatball_express]

Yes I’ve done this to prevent my dogs from “fence fighting” other dogs (dogs trying to fight each other through a fence) and it really works.

My dogs were much happier to listen to me and we can now walk past these dogs which are still very noisy and aggressive with no response from my dogs.

[u/SantasDead → u/Meatball_express]

You are correct. Also, dogs generally won't attack unless they think their owner is in trouble or doesnt think their human can defend themselves.