One thing that makes a crisis situation all that much worse is the not knowing what to do. When we’re thrown out of our comfort zones, we often struggle just to get our bearings, let alone know how to get ourselves out of that crisis. But as the saying goes, knowledge is power.
Here’s hoping nobody ever needs this, though.
It’s hard to imagine, because they’re usually just lovable goofs, but sometimes, dogs attack humans.
It’s not often, but it’s also not as rare as you might expect, with about five million dog bite cases each year in the U.S. — 30 to 40 people die from injuries from a dog, and 100,000 are bad enough to require plastic surgery or suturing, according to animal behavior expert Richard Polsky.
There are a few reasons why a dog might attack.
It might be a case of redirected aggression , where a dog maybe gets a scent of prey, has their aggression towards that prey thwarted for some reason, and then lashes out at a different target.
More often, dogs attack out of fear or pain . And usually, there are signals that dogs provide before an attack that, unfortunately, are often missed.
Dogs obviously can’t speak, but their body language can say a lot if you know what to look for.
Dogs show anxiety through behaviors like licking their lips, adopting a low posture, putting their ears back, and possibly having their tails under their legs.
And, of course, a dog baring its teeth probably shouldn’t be messed with.
So what do you do if you’ve missed those signs and a dog does attack?
Navy SEAL Clint Emerson (not pictured above) knows. He’s written a book called 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation .
If anybody would know that sort of stuff, it’s a Navy SEAL, right?
Clint has a few tips, starting with giving the dog a target that’s not you.
“Guard yourself,” he says. “Take your shirt, your jacket, whatever you have, maybe even a messenger bag or a purse — give that dog something to go after so that it’s not going after any other vital areas of your body.”
And if that’s not feasible for one reason or another, protect your vital areas.
“Take off your shirt, put it around your arm. You want to protect mainly where the ulnar and radius flow, ’cause that’s where your major arteries are. So if you’re going to give a dog your arm, give it the forearm, not the inner wrist ’cause that’s where all your vital arteries are.”
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If it gets to a point where you’re having to fight back, don’t get fancy.
“Punch it in the nose, in the muzzle,” Clint says. “Reason being is the muzzle and nose is going to be right front and center — it’s a big target. You can go for the eyes and some other areas of the body, but the reality is those are small targets. You want to go for big targets.
“When you’re under stress, gross motor skills are about the only things that are going to work.”
And whatever you do, don’t hold back.
“Kicking it behind the arms, near the rib cage is also another alternative because it’s very sensitive underneath their armpits, just like it is for us. If you’re going to fight, fight with vengeance, and try to make that dog understand that you are the alpha.”
Watch Clint break it down in a video below.
h/t Business Insider
