Neighbor’s muscular pitbull sits on their front porch all day and roams the block on its own. Scared to walk down my own street again after it approached us.

I work with dogs and I will say that majority of dog “fights” are not serious immediately. Usually they start off by “arguing” as I call it. It’s really noisy and they are likely lunging/snapping at each other but neither is latching onto the other yet. It’s easiest to break a dog fight up in these first few seconds because they haven’t latched. Usually a loud yell/noise is enough to snap them out of it. You could also try to stop moving and face the dog off and yell a loud “No!!” to get him to leave you alone, but it’s not guaranteed how the dog will react. Lastly, you may want to think about walking with a easy to carry but hefty stick of some sort or even pepper spray. Yes, the pepper spray will also affect your dog and probably you if you ever have to use it, but being pepper sprayed is a hell of a lot better than getting mauled.

/r/dogs Thread