Man rescues seagull - looses eye (you thought the gentleman's sausage was bad)

[Moot]

You can get an artificial eye nowadays...but you still can't get a functioning artificial (ahem) gentlemen's sausage.

I'm sure in the near future people will be growing spare ones on their forehead grown from stem cells.
It was predicted long ago by school kids in the playground, a term was attributed to it.

 

[DK]

^ I almost forgot about that South Park episode "Eek, A Penis!" when I was typing that.

 

[F1 fan]

Carry a screwdriver, I doubt a kick will discourage a angry dog.

It does when you have a good kick and mostly wear steel toe cap boots. It's discouraged plenty of humans in the past, it will work against a vicious dog.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Being barked at even from the other side of a homes fence is aggressive action.

That's not an aggressive dog, that's a territorial dog. Who teaches the dog to be territorial? The owner.

 

[Famine]

Who teaches the dog to be territorial? The owner.

Nope. Dogs do that one all by themselves through instinct and if you want them not to do it you have to train it out of them - but it's a useful trait to not train out of them.

Our dog dog (not a tautology, see below) has stopped barking at the other dogs out back now as we've taught her that she doesn't own outside, even the outside of our house, but she will bark at unfamiliar people if she finds them in the house when she gets back (though not people we let in while she's present). She'll growl at unfamiliar cars and people through the front window if they encroach onto our driveway, and excitedly bark at familiar ones - useful when we've got visitors or post.

Our other dog had spent four years in a 6' x 6' x 6' concrete cell with hay on the floor being bred from and has no concept of most normal dog instincts. She just doesn't care who is where, unless they have food.

I recently adopted the same policy with dogs. Big or small, I'm terrified of them and they know it. Occasionally, I'll see a dog so peaceful that I can pet it and not feel scared, but I've had many encounters over the years with vicious/aggressive dogs.

As of March, I've finally decided that the next dog that goes for me and has a chance of genuinely hurting me is getting kicked.

Let's hope their owner isn't nearby then.

Dogs aren't complicated creatures and almost all of them will react to certain cues instinctively. This can be for the worse - in your case they react to things you probably don't even realise you're doing (ours, when we were first training her, chased a jogger down. Not out of aggression but because everything he was doing suggested he was playing - he was petrified, of a 28 inch long labrador puppy) - or you can exploit them. Training dogs requires you to exploit them a lot and you can adopt the same tactics when dealing with others' dogs, without needing to lash out.

There are exceptions - badly abused dogs won't always react as they should - but you can usually tell this right off the bat.