If a dog bites you, are you allowed to fight back? That’s a great comment, and the answer is yes, you are allowed to fight back. You’re allowed to bite back, really, too, if you want to get technical on this. You need to protect yourself. Now, what does this mean? This has to be within reason, right? You can’t fight back and then injure yourself more because you’re being unreasonable.
For example, if you fall on the ground or in fighting back, you jump off a cliff. That’s not reasonable. So if you’re fighting back, that’s a natural reaction. That’s what a reasonable person would do. So you’re allowed to do that. We see that all the time where a dog comes and attacks. A person or another dog and the human that’s with the dog, for example, tries to separate them and then gets bit.
Our clients who tried to separate the dogs have a claim because they’re trying to fight back on behalf of their dog. There is a claim for that kind of injury. The same thing goes if a dog is attacking you and it bites onto your leg. And you grab the dog and try to pull it away with your hands and your hands get bit.
You have a claim for not only the leg, but also your hands because you were fighting back. So that’s a great comment. It’s a great question. And the answer is yes, you are able to fight back and bite back. And that’s why.