Sigh...........hate to clutter the board up, but am asking advice from everyone out there. My problem is: unleashed, aggressive, pit type dogs. In this case, specifically: staffordshire terriers. We were walking our little LEASHED dogs on the beach, when we saw 3 unleashed staffies accost a lab type. Pretty major scuffle, so we picked up our little dogs. Then, they swarmed around us. I repeatly requested that the owners control their dogs, to which they laughed and made jokes about puppy chow. One staffie held my gaze, was in a clearly aggressive posture, so i wound up using pepper. This was not my choice, i felt that i was in danger. The dog is simply stronger, and has far better reflexes than i do. Sure was..........the dog left, then we had the owner to deal with.
So, there is the scenario..........how to better handle that kind of situation in the future? How to defuse? Have advice from some dog trainers but am pretty shook. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
(apologies in advance to my "pit type" phrase. Was the only descriptive thing i could think of for that class of dog. corrections appreciated)