The Blog of Author David Allen

  Two weeks back, I was watching Worst-Case Scenario with Bear Grylls. Bear’s last show was basically “I’m gonna eat one disgusting bug”, from every rough patch of the earth.

This time, he turned his focus to more commonplace dangers, and one was: Surviving a dog attack.

Little did I know that 5 days later, I would face this same situation.

I was running a new route that connects to the interstate through a broken-down suburban neighborhood. I had ran the same path once already, and didn’t think anything of it.

Halfway to the interstate, two dogs burst from a trash-ridden driveway, snarling and barking.

One was a Pitbull, and he was the nicer one.

First rule: Don’t run.

I slowed down to a walk, and edged further from the driveway. Perhaps the dogs were territorial, and they wouldn’t follow me.

Wrong. They kept a-coming.

Next: Stay Calm.

Everybody knows animals can smell fear. I don’t know the biological reason for that, but simply knowing made things easier. When you have no other choice, becoming calm is easier than you think.

Bear’s further rules: Look for a collar, put obstacles between yourself and the dogs, and try to find a high place to climb up out of their reach.

The collar one is simple: dogs who are used to receiving commands may listen to you. I told them “Heel, Stop, Go.” they responded with such rebuttals as “Woof. Arf. and Grrrrr.” Not good. They wouldn’t know what ‘heel’ means. I don’t even know what ‘heel’ means.

As for obstacles and high places: I’m not a fast runner, and there wasn’t anything to climb on for a quarter mile. The dogs would bite me before I got there. While I saw sharp pieces of wood, glass bottles, and all manner of post-apocalypse weaponry on my way there, suddenly none of it could be found. These rules weren’t going to help.

One dog lunged at me as I continued to move away. I realized that as this dog was going to bite me if I kept doing what I was doing.

Last rule: Shove something down it’s throat so it can’t bite you, and use your arms to appear larger while protecting your neck and groin.I got big. I got mean. And I started yelling at them. Nothing I said back then will be repeated on this blog, but I gave them threats as if I really was going to die and I had to say something terrifying and memorable.

They circled, stunned but not backing down.Finally I made to rush at them whenever they started advancing on me. As soon as I did that, they’d jump back.

This back and forth continued for about 20 seconds before an SUV drove by, horn blaring. That caused the dogs to back off, and me to get away.

The surprising thing about the whole experience

When I got away, I felt really good. I don’t get a rush from many things, but evading a dog attack is now one of those things. Just don’t catch me running back there for a good buzz. Not gonna happen.

What I learned about all survival situations:

Some survival rules won’t apply to your emergency scenario. Most of Bear’s rules didn’t for me. Despite that, I was calm enough to keep the dogs guessing, and that was what needed to happen.

Not every step is going to go according to plan. Sometimes this can hurt you, but if you took the time to prepare, and stay calm, you can handle it better than if you hadn’t prepared at all.