At this very moment, my alarm clock!

I saw a pitbull run across the street in front of my vehicle to chase a tiny dog. The tiny dogs owner picked her dog up and luckily was tall enough that she could keep it out of reach of the pitbull that was jumping up and chomping. The missed chomps sounded exaggerated like a cartoon.

I just stopped my vehicle in the middle of the street, left the door open, and ran over to help. But I mean, what can you really do? This pitbull had to have been every bit of 70 pounds. I kept kneeing the pitbull midair when hed jump to keep him off of her, but both the woman and the pitbull kept turning in fast circles. I tried to grab his collar a few times, but it was just too hectic with the circling, and then it dawned on me that a stranger grabbing an aggressive dog by the collar is probably a bad idea.

The owner and her roughly preteen/young teenage children came over and were absolutely no help -- and they didnt exactly sprint over either. I kept yelling "Grab your dog", and she argued it was her husband's dog, not hers -- like anyone in the world cared about their obvious marital problems at that moment. The young girl kept apologizing and saying "oh my god" and the boy started circling, following the dog.

You'd think the boy would have been more helpful, but he wasn't. He'd half heartedly try to get the dog between jumps, but he mostly just got in my way where I couldn't knee the dog anymore. I think he just didnt know how serious the situation was or how to react. He's a kid, and reacted like a kid, and thats normal and I dont blame him. Then the mother/owner started circling the small-dog-owner, following the pitbull, and bumping into the son, which pushed me to the outside of the "crowd", and it just descended into uncoordinated chaos.

But me kneeing the pitbull as it jumped was what was keeping him away from the small dog. When i got pushed out, that's when the pitbull jumped and sank his teeth into the small dog. The shrieks were indescribable.

My adrenaline spiked and I started punching the pitbull over top of everyone. The pitbull was dangling midair, holding onto the screeching dog, and the woman was holding both dogs in the air screaming for help. Most of my hits weren't landing just because of everyone in the way, but then I got an opening and landed a haymaker on this dog's jaw; and I saw it close his eye and open it looking directly at me. This dog looked at me the way Thanos looked at the Hulk. My world shrank. It let go of the small dog, I think to try to bite me, and that's when the boy pulled him away and wrestled him on the ground.

So today I'm just so frustrated for multiple reasons. One, and least importantly, this dog ate my punch like I was nothing, so my fragile male ego is shattered. Two, I still have no idea what level of violence is the appropriate response? I don't know these people. It's not my dog. I don't even know the neighborhood I was in. I was just suddenly thrust into a situation. I don't know what I could have done differently but I'm so frustrated in knowing my response just wasn't enough. But if I would have done more and the pitbull would have attacked me, then I'd be in a probably life or death situation where I'd be "trying" to kill the dog before he kills me.

Three, I've never been an anti-pitbull person; I love big dogs; I have a big dog. But holy fuck. I just can't describe the way the muscles in this dogs jaws looked as it bit down. I feel guilty for constantly thinking "why are these dogs allowed". And by the look of the pitbull, I mean it was just another Monday.

Four, I'm so fucking frustrated at the woman who owns the pitbull for just being trash, and using the temperament of the pitbull as some kind of "dig" against her husband instead of helping or doing more. I feel so bad for her kids.

TL;DR: Saw a pitbull attack a dog. At the time I felt there was nothing I could do to help. And the owner is trash.

I had a long, drawn out weekend and took some melatonin at 9 to get a solid 9 hours before another long day. Upstairs neighbor woke me up at 10:30pm, 11:30pm, 1:30am, and 5:45am. They are currently running around their apartment, including their bedroom which is over my bedroom, with their dog (it’s 6:30am). I want to cry.

You were a big help..How is the little dog ? And how can a pitbull be off leash ? Wtf?

You can complain to management. It's your right to not be disturbed at nighttime. There is an expectation of peace and quiet.

Does the running around happen often? I doubt only last night

It all happened across the street from the pitbull's house. I didn't see what happened but my assumption is that the dog wasn't being walked off leash. I assume, best case, that the dog bolted through an open door. That would explain the slow reaction time by the owners, at least. For all I know, she was upstairs, a kid opened the door without paying attention, and the dog bolted.

I'm frustrated that it happened, but I'm trying to be as fair as I can in acknowledging accidents happen, especially with kids.

I don't know how the dog is doing. I gave them a ride to get them away from the dog right after it happened, and when they got out, my seat was covered in piss and blood. The whole ride, the little dog was there just locking the air, trying to kiss me I guess in a state of submissive panic/shock. The entire back leg was in the dog's mouth for a minute or longer. It felt like an eternity. I just assume, based on the circumstances, that the leg is shattered.

Our not so mini Schnauzer was attacked when he was a puppy and at age 8. Both times in dog parks

This weather.

Yeah, I agree: time to talk to the landlord.

[deleted]

You are a hero. Neighbors pit bull escaped and did this exact thing to an elderly neighbor walking her small dog, but sadly the dog did not survive. The blood stains on the sidewalk were haunting.

I got a crack in my windshield. Reviews online say either go with Safelite myself or insurance will outsource to Safelite. Reviews also have a bunch of people saying the sensors in their windshields never quite work the same after, even getting an OEM windshield. Sigh.

Got glutened by the office communal tea kettle yesterday (those rapid boil kettles) because [someone] decided to steep their I don't know what in it rather than their own mug. Fortunately my boss is very understanding and lets me work from home when I get glutened. But ugh, 2+ more weeks of body hell on top of whatever the hell else my body is overreacting to.

[deleted]

Safelite will charge you about $500 to recalibrate the forward looking camera, on top of the $400 or so to replace the windshield.

When mine cracked, I called the dealer I take it to, and they said “we have a guy…” Now, their guy might be from Safelite for all I know, but after two tries (first glass was also cracked, second glass was for the wrong model honda) he installed a new windshield for about half what Safelite wanted, and apparently did it carefully enough not to mess with the camera. The car still sees dead people and yells “BRAKE” when there's nothing there, so I guess it works. (ETA, it also yells when there is something there.)

At least it’s not cold. 😕

Never try to grab the collar - it puts your hand/arm by their face. Instead, the prevailing advice is to grab both back legs and wheelbarrow the dog so that the back legs are both off the ground. It forces them to stop jumping, keeps you away from their head, and makes it so they can’t turn and start on you. Also, it’s a move that can be done on most dog sizes regardless of strength of the person. I’ve done this three times with success in high stress situations like you’ve described (and I’m a fairly small woman).

(I offer this as advice to anyone reading this, not as a criticism. You did a tremendous amount by stopping to try to help to begin with, much less how you kept doing whatever you could think of. You did an amazing thing by helping like that.)

Also, for owners, lifting a dog up is a pretty much guaranteed way to rile an attacking dog up even more (and put yourself at increased risk) because of how dogs react to the confusion of a dog being held aloft above them. So if it’s a situation where someone needs to lift their dog up, they absolutely have to also try to remove themselves in any way possible from the situation. I’ve seen so many times owners of small dogs at dog parks lift their dog up when they felt another dog was playing too hard, and all of a sudden a bunch of dogs would react and start jumping, but the owner would just stand there or shriek around in circles and not even try to leave - like at that point every second they stay, the situation is made worse. Harder to leave the situation when it’s not a fenced-in dog park so the other dog can more easily follow, so that may not have been possible in this situation, but just want to flag this because I think a lot of owners aren’t aware of the effect that lifting a dog up will often have on other dogs.

If there ever is a next time, two options. Wrap arm around neck and choke it out til it passes out. Or grab both hind legs and lift em in the air.

Choke it out is best option esp if it already has mouth engaged.

Around 1:00 AM this morning, a bucket truck pulled into my alley behind my apartment in SW. The guys back up beeping woke me up, and then his wandered around looking at things with his iPad somewhat sketched me out. Probably a lineman out checking for power outages but still, the timing was weird.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Just stopping by to say thank you. My dog was attacked my two pitbulls that got loose in the neighborhood and the only reason he wasn't more seriously hurt or killed was because of the kindness of a stranger who helped control the pitbulls so I could get my dog home.

The very nice crossing guard at 19th and columbia kept saying good morning to people but nobody responded.

We talk a lot about the extreme problems (crime/cars/treason/etc.) on here but I feel like this city just has just gotten casually more rude in the last few years too. It bums me out.

I can't pet the K9 puppies deployed around my work building.

In related news: anyone know what's going on on Freedom Plaza this morning? There's half a dozen motorcycle cops chilling on Pennsylvania Ave on either side, and maybe 2 dozen folks on the plaza itself, including someone with what appears to be a tuba?

Never a dull day in the District!

I came back Saturday evening from an out of town trip and took the bus from fort totten home. It was 9pm so I should have known better and the minute I get on the bus, a man runs on screaming at me, threatening me, saying he’s going to follow me home, poor his drink on me, and kill me because I didn’t want to talk to him. The bus driver laughed the whole time and it’s the first time in this city that I felt like my life was in danger. Still shaken up by it and angry at how how metro employees seem to be enjoying the violence against people.

Woke up (with only maybe 1 hr of sleep) with a horrible headache. Also parents are coming to visit tomorrow for a few weeks so there's that too. Ugh

It’s an old WWII-era building that has unbelievably thin floors, and the upstairs unit was of course cheaply renovated and they removed the carpet and put down laminate flooring. When the couple first moved in, they would wake me up 3-5 times a WEEK for 6 MONTHS. It was insane—they literally only seemed to sleep for 4 hours a night between 1am and 5am. I tried talking to them (they refuse to answer their door), I left pleading notes, I offered to play them vids of how loud it was in my unit, I offered to buy them sound-dampening rug mats for their HOA-required rugs shipped straight to their door—nothing. Finally I went up one night and banged on their door and screamed that I was calling the cops and reporting them (for the 1 millionth time) to the HOA and manager. Then every time they were loud past midnight in their bedroom I would pound on the ceiling for like a full minute. They finally shut the fuck up last year after a week of my crazyass behavior. This was a return to their “normal” (see; psychotic that they don’t sleep) behavior. Triggering.

Wow! You might want to talk to DC office of tenant protection or something Others on here know the name of the office.

Older buildings pre WWII are much better built than anything last 20 years . Mine is 1906 and before that 1888 Townhouse converted to condos . No problems

> Never try to grab the collar - it puts your hand/arm by their face. Instead, the prevailing advice is to grab both back legs and wheelbarrow the dog so that the back legs are both off the ground. It forces them to stop jumping, keeps you away from their head, and makes it so they can’t turn and start on you. Also, it’s a move that can be done on most dog sizes regardless of strength of the person. I’ve done this three times with success in high stress situations like you’ve described (and I’m a fairly small woman).

Wow, I am not sure that I would have thought of this. I have several neighbors with aggressive dogs, one of which has gotten off leash multiple times. I also ran into someone a few weeks ago with a pair of off leash Newfoundlands. One of them left the bank of Rock Creek, climbed up a small hill, and tried to attack one of my dogs. All the while, the real dodo brain of an owner was yelling “he’s friendly! can you catch him for me!” We were yelling and retreating and it still never registered that their bear of a dog was coming to attack and had back up on the way. Only at the last second did the owner appear to take the situation seriously. Very, very fortunately we managed to pull our dogs back and basically run backward while they barely caught their Newfoundlands. I had many crazy thoughts while wondering “am I gonna have to fight off two newfoundlands while my partner runs our dogs away?”

I was in this situation a few months ago. Fortunately, the neighbors in question weren't very good at paying rent, and now they're no longer there.

[deleted]

Thank you for stepping in. Dog fights are terrifying and a lot happens so fast. I'm not sure how it works in DC, but you might be able to report the incident to the police or animal control if you can remember the address

whoa.... badass

Circuit board for my furnace fan has become possessed by devils. Need to get a replacement. $170 just for the diagnosis. I picked the wrong year to be unemployed.

Sitting in traffic between the bus stop before mine and mine for longer than it takes to walk from the stop to the office

how did people endure gluten 100 years ago?

Finally ran into Sissy Grace at the High Heel Race. Shut it down with a "Hi Grace how are you?" Sissy Grace seemed flabbergasted.

A few weeks?! Goddamn, you’re a saint.

My gd intern

Thanks for being such a good person, man. Don’t let your ego be shattered…it’s a sad reality that these fuckin things were bred for combat and now we have them walking around like they’re Golden Doodles. I’m sincerely in favor of municipal-level ordinances that are heavily enforced to keep any large dog (German Shepherd, Pitbull, Rottweiler, so on) on a leash or, frankly, not in the fuckin city. I know it’d never get passed, I know it’s a pipe dream—but my neighbor’s daughter was mauled by a shitbull and ended up with a lifelong limp because of it. Owner just fuckin up and moved. Good for me, but where’s that monster now?

Pitmommies need to get it through their thick fuckin skulls that these animals shouldn’t be owned.

The wheelbarrow option isn’t bad but I vehemently disagree with the choke out option. If I wrestle a pitbull to the ground in a headlock, that thing’s just going to start squirming and freaking out—I have zero confidence I’d actually be able to hold it down for any substantial amount of time. At least with the legs in the air one, it’s incapacitated.

I’m sorry this happened to you. Did you react to his laughter? Did you say anything? If it were me I’d submit a fuckin complaint—don’t laugh at that shit man, your job is to drive the bus and manage it.

??? Do you have Celiac or something? You’re out of commission for two weeks because you drank something that contained gluten??

He laughed when I asked why he didn’t call metropd or something since we were still at the fort totten station and it was just myself, the driver, and this man on the bus. He laughed in my face and said “he didn’t do anything to me (the driver)” and that it wasn’t his job to call metropd or do anything. I made a report on Sunday after I was able to calm down but I doubt anything will be done 🙁

They usually died of malnourishment as children. But there's plenty of cultures who have rice or corn based diets.

Also, gluten in everything as a cheap filler/stabilizer is a fairly recent development.

I'm a day late, but I'm so annoyed at the way the High Heel Race is now the Muriel Bowser show and no longer an event in support of the LGBT+ community.

Yup. Celiac disease sucks.