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Misha (my dog) bit the pool guy

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
The pool guy came to the door today and Misha (95# of protective female Akita) greets him by standing up on her hind legs, showing fangs, barking, and jumping onto the glass door.

My wife grabs her collar and Misha immediately drops all 4 paws to the floor and stops barking. The pool guy, in an incredible moment of stupidity steps into the house uninvited and reaches his hand forward abruptly. Misha, thinking he is doing something inappropriate, grabs his hand with her mouth and chomps down.

Being obedient, she releases under command and the pool guy, now free, jumps back to count his fingers. He knows he did something stupid, Indiana laws won't cause me or Misha any real problems. We clean the guy's wound, apologize, blah blah blah. He is apologizing too. He is not seriously injured, but he does have a superficial wound and she did draw some blood.

I've never seen Misha act aggressively toward any human before. She will kill a rabbit or raccoon before you can blink. But this was a nice, if very unfortunate test.

Have you ever wondered if your dog would really protect your house/your family if it felt a threat. I know have my answer. While I wish it wasn't the pool man, I'm glad the dog reacted properly.
 

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We've been through this before with a much larger dog. We've already left a message on the agent's answering machine. But Indiana is pretty good about laws with dogs and people who enter a house before they are invited in. I have no problem paying a medical bill, it is the right thing to do and I expect it.

I didn't post the thread for the purpose of debating or discussing liability.

But I have always been curious, as a dog owner, if my dog will do "its job" of protecting my family from an intruder. Again this was a very unfortunate incident but it did prove that the dog, when sensing a threat from a stranger (we rarely introducer her to people who work on our property because we don't want her to think of them as 'friends' if they do not belong in the house).

I presume that burglars often wonder if they will be attacked. But how many homeowners KNOW that they have a dog that will protect the family?
 
I've had two close calls where service people have had 100 pounds of Weimaraner/Lab flying through the air at them. My otherwise extremely friendly and easy going dog can occasionally get triggered. He doesn't mess around - he leaps for the face. We have to keep a very close eye on him when service people come around.

One UPS guy was very lucky and stepped back into his van as my dog was leaping through the air.

Between my two dogs I think I've got canine protection well covered. I have a smaller female that is hyper vigilant and quick to bark. If the male detects any seriousness in her bark then he will get up (otherwise he will stay asleep). He rarely barks but if he does then you need to beware.

Glad things worked out OK and you seem to be protected under your laws.

PB
 
B_Skurka said:
My wife grabs her collar and Misha immediately drops all 4 paws to the floor and stops barking. The pool guy, in an incredible moment of stupidity steps into the house uninvited and reaches his hand forward abruptly. Misha, thinking he is doing something inappropriate, grabs his hand with her mouth and chomps down.
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[FONT=&quot]Why did the pool guy step into the house uninvited, playing the devils advocate here, he must have felt invited in. If he was not, what are you doing about that?

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Being nice and cleaning up his wound sounds odd to me if he was not invited in. [/FONT]
 
Although my Timba is a very friendly dog, I am sure she would protect me if she felt I was being threatened. As it is, she barks well when anyone comes to the door, and if they don't know her, they are very wary. Good pal to have when you live on your own! I feel quite safe with her with me.
 
Mossberg, Ruger and Colt protect my family. The dogs are just an early-alert system in the overall picture.

Dogs are pack animals. To the dog, you and your family are their pack, and to some extent, all dogs will act protective, depending on breed and trianing. It's nature at work. But, no one can predict with 100% certainty how even a trained dog will act under any circumstances.

Now, try not to be shocked when the sheriff serves you with a civil summons in the next week or two.
 
Cityboy said:
Mossberg, Ruger and Colt protect my family. The dogs are just an early-alert system in the overall picture.

Dogs are pack animals. To the dog, you and your family are their pack, and to some extent, all dogs will act protective, depending on breed and trianing. It's nature at work. But, no one can predict with 100% certainty how even a trained dog will act under any circumstances.
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Ditto,

I don't expect my dog to eat someone, frankly I wouldn't allow my dog to act that way. I have had dogs all my life and never had any dog act that of which Bob described (barking, fangs, jumping....overly aggressive), only barking. Most criminals won't even act on a home or person with a dog and if they do, they're packing.

My concern is will the act become a problem. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the breed but it's a fact that some dogs as they get older they get less tolerant. Obviously Misha isn't professionally trained and I'd be concerned on her acts in the future.

Does the wife have access to a weapon and know how to use it? That would be my first line of defense to convey.
 
I believe our lab would protect especially my wife. He has never been agressive towards me when we are close, but one time she was on the ground and he came to her "aid" immediately.

Uninvited guests would be no problem, but be agressive and I think you may have a problem.

As for the house, a pool man etc is not to me an uninvited guest, I expect them to be there. An intruder on the other hand has a date with his maker due to the handgun I keep near by.
 
B_Skurka said:
I didn't post the thread for the purpose of debating or discussing liability.
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To answer your question, no.

Has you dog ever been given a temperament test?

What I am curious about is why your wife had to grab the collar of the dog to get the dog to sit when the dog was showing aggression, but released the mans hand/arm when she (the dog) "chomped down" per your wifes command.
 
Several people who come around my house think the real Dargo is stupid. They think this because he will attack anything on command. It doesn't matter if it's a box, a basketball, or a person; when I give the command, he attacks. Personally, I think he's pretty smart to follow my command no matter what. I'm sure in his mind he may think his master is pretty stupid...:o

Obviously I'm big on a dog being under the owner's control at all times. Now, having said that, I have had to shout "nine" (the German word for no - I don't know German, but several of Dar's commands are given in German so he does not hear them except when he is expected to follow orders) when some of my oldest son's friends are wrestling around with my son. I don't think they realize that the 90 pound friendly furr ball is watching, watching, watching, and waiting.

Our puppy, Bruno, is still in training. However, he has taken his protectiveness (is that a word?) to the extreme around the pool. If one of my kids is next to the edge of the pool and goes under water, Bruno dips his head in the pool and tries to pull them back up by their head. :eek: No hard biting at all, but my daughter claims that she can't go under water without Bruno pulling her back up by her hair. :pat:

Each dog is different and, I believe, is heavily influenced by their environment. My wife's stupid sister (she has two, one normal and one....well, not so normal) had two Akitas that were absolutely vicious. Her homeowner's insurance gave her the choice to get rid of the dogs or they would be dropped after their dogs bit several people over the course of a few months. That is my only experience with the breed, so Bob's experience gives me an entirely different outlook of the breed. I think Bob's dog was only doing what it thought it was supposed to do.

Oh yeah, my wife's sister's dogs, they both died before she got rid of them. They were chained to a tree in the back yard. She kept their water bowl at the edge of their run so they wouldn't turn the bowl over. After being gone for about a day and a half on one of their weekend trips, both dogs had made a loop or two around the tree and couldn't get to their water. Both died on a day that had temps in the upper 90's.
 
"I've never seen Misha act aggressively toward any human before. She will kill a rabbit or raccoon before you can blink. But this was a nice, if very unfortunate test. "

Dogs sense evil intent long before we mere humans can. I've seen it too many times not to believe it.
Maybe it wasn't directed toward your home/family, but something put your dog into defense mode.
 
Oh yeah, the pool guy... Around here, I am the pool guy! Fortunately the little robot does a great job of cleaning though. I only have to manually clean the pool when I open it for the summer. Otherwise I just have to clean the filter in our 'pool guy' after each time he cleans the pool. Also, our dogs have no interest in our 'pool guy'. :yankchain: :hide:
 
For those who are concerned that this will become a pattern, I am not, but that is because I know the breed. Akitas become very territorial at roughly age 3. This is our 3rd Akita. All have exibited the same traits of protecting the territory. Reading books about the breed, you will read the same things. These dogs are friendly and fun loving with the family, these dogs are territorial and loyal to their family.

As to the question of why the lovely Mrs_B had to grab the collar, it is because Misha was trained that when we put our hand on her collar she comes to your side and stops all agression.

As to why the pool guy stepped in? I think it is because he is a very outgoing friendly sort of guy. Every other time he has come to the door, we have probably put Misha outside into her yard. That is the normal routine when people come over that we know. The normal routine is for people we don't know is for us to have her with us at the door. In this case, I think my wife was just opting for convenience???

While I am unhappy that the pool guy got bit, and while I will deal with any consequences that come up from that regarding medical, etc. I am happy that Misha sensed a threat when he stepped forward and acted to defend my family, even if the threat was illconcieved.
 
Bob,
Are you sure you have the whole story? My wife would like us to have a pool just so a 'pool guy' would have to come around on a regular basis. Any chance of hanky panky going on here. Maybe Misha knows more than you do buddy! :yankchain: :yankchain: :hide:
 
He is older & uglier than me, I suppose if there is more to the story then it will start out by taking her to the eye doctor for new glasses.
 
Wannafish said:
Dogs sense evil intent long before we mere humans can. I've seen it too many times not to believe it.
Maybe it wasn't directed toward your home/family, but something put your dog into defense mode.
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I'll 2nd that as I had a dog that could "sense" evil on someone approaching. When people came to the house he didn't recognize, he would be cautious but not aggressive. On 2 occasions, he went nuts. In both those cases, I too considered them to be evil as well.

A lot has to do with the breed of dog but I never had a dog that would attack again just because it now had a taste of it.

My GSD/Husky mix and my GSD/Samoyed mix were both great at defense and would also attack on command. The St. Bernard/Golden Retriever mix was super at protecting the kids but only to the extent of making sure it was between the kids and the threat. As long as I had it, it's shear size dictated that it was now in control and never had to do anything more. (This dog's bigger brother hit the scales at over 220#).
 
I think I found my answer yesterday. I was out cleaning the pond filter when I saw a car pull in the driveway. Not recognizing the car, I immediately headed that way. I had let the dogs out of their cage/kennel a little bit earlier, played with them and was now letting them run (we have an invisible fence). When they saw the guy they both went running at him and barking visciously. I didn't call them off right away, until the guy introduced himself. I then called both of them off and sent them right away to their cage. Now we have had people come to the house that the dogs didn't know (but we did) and they didn't do that. Now since I didn't recognize this guy, did the dogs sense that I was a little worried? I don't know, thought it was strange....:confused2: I really think they would have given the guy some pressure had I not called them back......

Even with the invisible fence, we usually cage the dogs if we aren't outside with them just so in case "someone" does show up.

BTW, you might ask who was this guy that showed up? He was from the Auditor's Office. He was out re-assessing property. We will be getting nailed on the reappraisel as they didn't have the AC (:confused2: it was there when we built the house), the deck, and now the garage. Should have let the dogs nail him and I could have buried all traces that he was there at the house.:yankchain: :yum:
 
Got him covered there. We bought them, but haven't put them on. Decided it was too cold in January and I put it off. Then we decided to do the invisible fence so I held off. Now just haven't put them on the new collars.

Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow.... or later.:yum:
 
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