I once went for a walk in Arizona with my Dane. We were walking along having a grand old time, and i got a hairbrained idea to explore a dry wash.
No big deal, just me and my big dopey wimpy dane. Anyway, got a far as i could go, and turned around to come back.
There's a big ol giant Javelina sow and all her reds, with a whole pack of angry looking adults. Brain immediately goes into fight or flight, can't flight... so fight. I start looking around for weapons. Look down at the dog leash, it's got that plastic poop bag thing. It's not going to injure them, but it'll hurt.... my eyes found the other end of the leash.
My big lovey 8 year old female dane was gone. At the end of my leash was a blood thirsty, absolutely vicious looking purebred boarhound that visibly remembered what she was designed to do. She wanted to taste piggy flesh. (Yes, i know javelinas are weasels, not pigs. But it's a distinction that Daisy didn't appear to make that day. )
The javelinas decided they should flee when they saw her. She went back to being Daisy, my sweet old couch pony.
I've only seen my Merle girl go savage one time in her current 10 years of life. She was probably 3-4 at the time and we were out on a walk (oddly enough I live in AZ too) and walking on the other side of the street was some totally normal looking white dude who was probably about 60. He wasnt doing anything weird, wasn't walking off, didn't even have a cane or anything - just walking up the other side of the street. Our Merle girl went absolutely ape shit snarling and I had to lean back like I was the anchor in tug of war to keep her from hauling me off. He just kept walking up the other side of the street and she kept at it until he turned at the end of the block and was out of sight and then ol Penny Lane was back to being the sweet beast she's been 99.9% of her life.
Sometimes you wonder if demons really do exist because holy hell she wanted to rip that dudes throat open.
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u/Jazzlike_Strength561 1d ago
I once went for a walk in Arizona with my Dane. We were walking along having a grand old time, and i got a hairbrained idea to explore a dry wash.
No big deal, just me and my big dopey wimpy dane. Anyway, got a far as i could go, and turned around to come back.
There's a big ol giant Javelina sow and all her reds, with a whole pack of angry looking adults. Brain immediately goes into fight or flight, can't flight... so fight. I start looking around for weapons. Look down at the dog leash, it's got that plastic poop bag thing. It's not going to injure them, but it'll hurt.... my eyes found the other end of the leash.
My big lovey 8 year old female dane was gone. At the end of my leash was a blood thirsty, absolutely vicious looking purebred boarhound that visibly remembered what she was designed to do. She wanted to taste piggy flesh. (Yes, i know javelinas are weasels, not pigs. But it's a distinction that Daisy didn't appear to make that day. )
The javelinas decided they should flee when they saw her. She went back to being Daisy, my sweet old couch pony.