Suddenly Scout burst into action and launched himself like a spring load fury of fur and teeth...but silently until the moment he was flying straight for the man's face, then he let out a growling bark. But Scout had made a mistake, he misjudged the length of his leash an missed the guy by no more than a foot or two. The man fell backwards on his ass, and Scout was in a rage, snapping teeth, flying saliva etc. The man quickly started, without a word, to make his way back to the bus. I called Scout back and petted him.
sounds like a great way to be on the wrong end of a lawsuit. you can count yourself lucky that the end of the leash stopped him - simply approaching your camp is not grounds for your dog mauling someone. drunk or not thats a court case you would have lost.
say what you will about dogs - they are great for making you
aware of danger (then again you can also get used to the 10,000 false alarms they will raise) - but a firearm is far more reliable. a dog should not be your only line of defense, not should it be looked at as 'defense' but more as a deterrent and early warning system. if you have to choose ONE thing, get a gun and learn how to use it.
where i grew up many people kept dogs for protection - mainly protection of property. but they werent 100% reliable - i know of many cases of criminals just poisoning the dog or killing it easily -- and this is just to steal smalltime stuff, not life-threatening or drug related stuff. you can have a highly trained guard dog, but good luck getting it to not to eat a piece of bacon chucked into your yard.
my absolute favorite is people who think their dogs will protect them in the bush. a dog is 10x more likely
(yes i just made that statistic up) to get you killed in the bush than it is to save your life. its a huge liability and nothing more than a tasty, fatty snack to real wild animals that actually look at it as prey, not a threat.
and btw i am not talking about highly trained guard dogs here -- 99% of people are not going to spend thousands of dollars getting a dog bred for it with the proper temperament and intelligence and then investing thousands of dollars into its training. even if they do, good luck training your dog not to take a nice juicy piece of bacon from strangers. so most of the time youre talking about the average Joe's chubby lab that will most likely either tuck its tail when it receives its first boot to the face, or just going to run off totally out of control and leave your wife cowering alone in the bedroom defenseless.
a dog is basically a large, nasty, hairy 3 year old kid with sharp teeth. would you entrust your life to a 3 year old's brain and nothing else? dont get me wrong i love dogs, but they are
animals and not 100% predictable, nor are they a 'universal solution' to defense. if all you are relying on is a dog to
protect you you might end up in a situation where you are severely outmatched and then it will be too late.
dog+gun = good.
dog-gun = good luck.
So to clarify, I had to listen to the Proarms "home defense shotguns" podcast again to affirm what I thought I recalled. With a fresher take on it here are some of the highlights:
