I do a lot of walking and have had several encounters with agressive dogs. First thing I'd say is that I love dogs and have had dogs for most of my 55 years. I REALY believe that there are no bad dogs , only bad owners . Every bad encounter I've had , the owner of the dog was there . The first one that comes to mind is when I was about 14 yrs. old. I was walking home after going for a swim in the pond down the street from my house. I was walking barefoot and had my sneakers in my hand. I was walking in the street about 25 yards from a woman who was doing some gardening with her dog standing next to her. There were no leash laws then and I new most of the dogs in the neighborhood. I had seen this dog around before and never had any reason to believe it would act the way it did. I think the dog picked up some sort of signal from the woman and all of a sudden it came charging at me with its teeth showing .I new it was going to bite me. I calmly stood my ground and when the dog was going to bite I stuck out my sneaker. It bit the sneaker once and then ran back to its owner. The ignorant woman didn't apologise , she didn't even look up from her gardening. Dogs are very perceptive at picking up on body language . Its one of the ways they use to comunicate with each other. If a dog attacks you should try to stay calm and stand your ground , face the dog , dont turn sideways and of course never ever turn your back or run. Don't make agresive moves towards the dog , just stand your ground and try to look like you are the bigger badder dog. Carrying a stick or something is a good idea but I wouldn't try to hit the dog with it . That might make the dog more agessive. If the dog is going to bite just put the stick near his face and it will bight the stick instead of you. . I would never use pepper spray on a dog . I think its cruel and not necessary. As for leash laws , in my town they are a joke. When my dog , a German Shepard , was a puppy I would take her for long walks around my neighborhood , always on a leash. A neighbors dog , that was a very large mixed brred , was always running free around the neighborhood even though there are leash laws. The dog attacked my dog at least 12 times . I did my best to protect her or go the other way when I spotted the dog but it didn't always work. I called the local dog officer after every attack but nothing was ever done . I called the police but they told me they weren't the dog police. The dogs owner saw several of the attacks but made no attempt to restrain his dog. I think he even encouraged it. I wanted to kick the jerks ass but I was worried about getting sued or maybe he'd lie and say my dog bit him. To make the story a little shorter , my dog became old enough to take care of herself and when the next attack came I gave her some slack on the leash and she beat up the dog. Chewed him up pretty good. When the jerk neighbors dog went home all bloody he called the cops and told them I had beaten his dog with a stick. The cops came right over to my house and gave me a real bad time . So I had to go see the cheif of police to straighten things out. The dog never attacked my dog again. My point of this story is that , as usual, you can't depend on the authorities to help you out and that the criminals and law breakers will get off with a slap on the wrist while the honest law abiding citizen gets the [censored] end of the stick.