Sorry you're in SoCal...beautiful weather but the self defense options are...limited.

What are the laws about pepper spray there? I've heard it's quite restrictive. If they don't let you carry some serious pepper (10% oleoresin content vs. 0.5% or 1% in Halt) you *might* consider a Taser device...yup, it's expensive, but works on both humans and canines (like the 10% pepper). Nice thing about Taser is that the civvie model is the same voltage and effectiveness as what the cops carry (except for the aiming device). 50k volts is 50k volts.

Of course, in my case, I'm always going to have one more level of defense in case things *really* go south. But SoCal...darn.