Punching Day: Self-Defense Against a Dog Attack (Patreon)

Hi, I'm the Internet's Seanbaby, and this is me and my best friend:

She's a noisy and insane tube, she might bite your fingers off if you're holding food within leap range, and I want you to keep our love in mind as you read this article. Because we are about to learn how to fuck up a dog. And not a wild dog. This is a book about fighting somebody's dog. Luckily, like most karate books, I don't think it's going to work.

This is Self-Defense Against a Dog Attack (2012) by Loren W. Christensen. You might recognize Loren's name from Fighting the Pain Resistant Attacker, a book about slapping pain-resistant drunks in the ears to distract them with pain. He's a karate maniac and a cop and a military dog handler, so on paper, he should be an expert on this. And yet the first thing he says in the book is, "I have no idea if dog karate is real. All I know is, whatever happens, it won't be my fault, you hereby legally swear, punch dog to agree."

This message is so important it is also the second thing he says in the book:

We haven't even gotten to the copyright information in this dog fighting book and the author has already told us -twice- he wants nothing to do with it. Now doubly legally free from all consequences, maybe, Loren starts teaching us dog self-defense. I know from his other books he likes to tell stories of his terrible losses to set up the power of martial arts. Step one of learning a Loren W. Christensen neck chop is hearing about the time a tiny white belt lady or a sleepy baby knocked him unconscious with it. And things are no different here. He opens with a cute story about the time a German shepherd almost bit his dick off:

As I mentioned, Loren is a police officer and a traditional martial artist. That means he's a liar, and a liar. If he says his own attack dog nearly bit him on the penis, that could mean anything from he has never met a dog to his entire dick is missing. I'm guessing it's the second one here, because he writes like an author with a gaping penis wound. Every move comes with a caveat or a pre-apology for how it's probably useless against dogs, and a lot of dogs will see it coming. He writes like he's afraid the dogs are reading this and needs to keep a lot of stuff secret. The first chapter opens with the thesis, "No one has any idea how to fight a dog, what are we even doing here."

I think I'd like a little more confidence in my dog fighting instructor than this. I'm no expert in the subject, no one is, but this cowardice must smell like raw meat to a dog. Although maybe he's not talking about himself. He might be talking about us, the reader. This could be a little teardown so we don't go into the book thinking we know all this stuff. Certainly he, the author of the dog fighting book, must be a dog fighting expert. Let's see…

… nope!

Before we get to the moves, Loren wants us to know he was really wrong in a different book he wrote about dog bites. Their psi is way, way lower. Probably? It's strange. It sounds like he's releasing patch notes for a porkchop simulator. The point is, Loren didn't and continues to not know what's going on. I have never had less faith in an author than this. He should have called this book Wild Guesses and Hedged Bets From Some Guy Trying to Find Whatever is Left of His Penis in this Poop.

Loren is very much a cop. So much so that he suddenly pictured the reader as an escaped convict and took the side of the dog. "Face down on the ground, criminal! The dog won't attack you if you obey! Or, like I say in every situation, things could be very different and you should maybe do the opposite! I don't know that dog, felon! Or any dog, truly!"

Let's move on to the proper stance for protecting your penis from cunning dogs.

Most dogs use the opening round of a fight to feel out the distance with their jab, Loren thinks, so get in a standard boxing stance and "try to relax." Unless you want to protect your groin. If so, "consider" turning your front foot inward. This will leave you vulnerable to takedowns, but at least you'll get taken down with all of your penis attached. If I was trying to make the case for Loren being an indecisive idiot, and I am, my closing statement would be this page, the time he decided to include two dog fighting stances: normal, and normal (except the dog can eat your dick). And he illustrated them both with a third stance: standing fetal, where you cover all vital targets except the groin.

We are losing the shit out of this dog fight. Let's move on to deciding what part of our body we are going to feed it.

Loren finally knows one thing for certain: this dog is going to eat our something, and he thinks it should be arm. Actually, wait. He hasn't met you. Maybe you'd prefer the groin? He's being sarcastic here, probably, which means in addition to all the contradictory instructions, we now also have to consider the author might be kidding. Anyway, fine, we spent an arm to buy ourselves a few seconds. We still have three limbs left! What's our next move?

We use whatever pointy parts of us the dog isn't eating to rub it, you know, wherever. Throat, legs… all Loren knows is legally you're not allowed to sue him if you massage the wrong spot. You can tell Loren W. Christensen edits his own books because any good editor would have given the note, "I notice on page 43*, you said 'penetrate deeply into the dog's groin.' Let's find a better way to word that."

* I'm guessing 43. Loren forgot to number the pages.

Ah, perhaps the true secret to fighting a dog is not to fight at all. Or maybe it's conking the dog on the head until your arm stops working:

This is fucked up. When Loren W. Christensen dies, Satan is going to run up to him and scream, "Oh my God, you're finally here! We've waited so long; we started work on this the second we saw you do it! Am I babbling? I can't help it, I'm too excited! Okay, okay, I'm just going to show it to you. Here it is! The Corner of Hell for People Who Got Their Dog to Pose for Dog Punching Instructional Photos!"

Chapter Nose: Punch the fucking dog in the nose, The End. Wait, no, sorry. Loren has some more nose tips.

If "smash your fist into the dog's nose" didn't work, you can also try "strike down on the nose with your hammerfist." Keep in mind that while these attacks are very different, they both run the risk of being eaten, so only try them when the dog is distracted. Hold on, distracted? Does this dog not know it's in a fist fight? Is this a book for people instigating dog attacks? "Wait, wait, no, what THE FUCK did you just say?" shrieked an ecstatic Satan, now reading over my shoulder.

Of all the things about this I don't like, I especially don't like how sad this dog looks. Its owner has tried so many stupid nose attacks that it figured out what was happening. If my dog looked up at me like this during dog nose ripping practice I think I would look around me, at my life, and realize I'd made a series of bad decisions. And when I realized this, the last thing anyone would ever know was that I started work on a dog punching book. "You're right to do this! I could never have kept this a secret!" the book's photographer would be shouting from a burning coffin.

For those of you lucky enough to have a stick, Loren's wife shows us the proper bashing technique to use on dogs. Don't draw it back too far. Keep your swing tight, like the author's stern and busty wife.

You're going to hate it, and it's not a finishing technique, but since the author is just saying shit, maybe stick your fingers in the dog's ears? This is unspeakable and worthless and too vacillating to be combat advice. It's becoming more clear this book was hastily written while the FBI searched the author's house to explain any insane collections of dog photos they might find.

If you're trying to twist a dog's ears, I'll tell you the same thing "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan told me when I showed him the Arkansas Daddy Mouth Kiss: "That's not a finishing move, but it will possibly expose other options for you." Except he pronounced it, "USA! USA!" Oh no, have I already lost my mind? I'm only 1500 words into this.

An ear punch "might daze some dogs," the author guesses, but only if it's "somehow distracted." I don't know, it sounds like a lot of things have to go exactly right for me to get out of this. It might as well say, "Take a second look! You may have mistaken a beautiful lady wearing the finest of furs for a dog attack!" Either way, grab the nearest eye and pull it out the side of the head like so:

"Life is about choices," says the man choosing to publish an aggressively worthless book to twelve psychopaths who died as dog food. I don't know the exact number, but according to Amazon, Self-Defense Against a Dog Attack sold almost as many copies as the 4538th most popular martial arts book.

Speaking of #4539, if this man handed you a business card that said DOG KICKBOXER, "what a surprise" would be the #4,539th most likely thing you'd say. Let's move on to Mouth.

Loren knows two people who tried to kick a dog, but they both fucked it up severely, so he asked someone who hadn't tried to kick a dog how to kick a dog, and that man said, "Thank heavens you asked. There is a secret known only to me, and it's to always kick dogs quickly because dogs are fast." Then he added, "You can never forget that," rather than "So out of us four dog experts it didn't occur to any of us to throw this idea in the trash?"

Now that he's killed dozens and dozens of dogs in his imagination, Loren is getting a bit more confident. He's not complaining about how dogs are too fast for feet or telling us to wait for distractions. He's telling us which specific dog uppercuts are safest for our hand. These are the awesome and unlikely tips you want in a karate book. Look at these photos. One of them is a crafty opponent throwing a come-from-behind knockout shot into his dog's jaw. And the other is a cop mocking the very concept of violence with a pudgy little forearm shiver. That's not an attack. That's how Ariana Grande rings a bell when she's sick and wants another carrot. And Loren says that's the dog punch you want! To protect your delicate little hand bones! I don't know how many more ways the author can say it: you're going to die in your first dog fight, you fragile bitch ass idiot.

And almost immediately, the certainty is gone. "Smashing the dog's head into stuff could work! Unless it's a big dog, or you're some kind of pussy. Those are all my thoughts for the Slam the dog's jaw into something section!" Loren says, from the safest place for dogs on the planet– his dog fighting gym.

Loren W. Christensen called his vet to ask the best way to kick a dog in the chest. I feel like hanging up on that phone call is the first thing they teach you in dog medical school, but let's say it really happened. The expert advice Loren took away from their conversation was you should only ever kick a dog for two reasons: to fuck its shit up, or to beat its ass.

I don't know why Loren mentioned this guy was a veterinarian. I think any disgraced mailman or child-of-interest in a missing hamster case would have known this.

Loren has been thinking about it, and he's changed his mind about dog uppercuts. Throw that shit. Dog! Uppercut!!

Loren loves a good brachial plexus stun, or as it's known in the martial arts, "brachial plexus stun." Humans keep our brachial plexus stuns on our neck, but dogs hide theirs "deep in the armpit." And as it already has many times during the writing of this book, it occurs to Loren, "I shouldn't have brought this up, this whole thing is dumb, forget I said anything. Anyway, what's next. Oh, right: fifty asterisks and the words Don't straddle a dog."

Obviously, the section called Don't straddle a dog is about how maybe you should straddle that dog. Get right on that dog, dog cowboy. And this might not mean anything, but it's here, in the dog straddling section, where the author finally chooses to brag about his skill. He went from "I'm pretty sure nothing would work in a dog fight" to "I've straddled at least three dogs in real life; I'm so lusciously strong and lucky." What the hell is he doing? Because it's something disgusting, and it sure -as fuck- is not teaching us how to win a dog fight.

"Do you think readers will notice my vague language and uncertain techniques get real precise when I talk about strangling dogs?" - Loren W. Christensen

"Yep!" - Readers

I know we're twisting off ears and pulling out eyes in this deadly clash of tooth and claw, but something about stomping on a dog's foot seems ungentlemanly. It's like we're going out of our way to fight dirty. If I saw you fighting a dog and you stomped on its foot, I would instantly know which one of you to shoot. "And which one of us to straddle," you would say. But you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Speaking of sturdy gals in cargo pants, Loren calls his wife over to demonstrate the proper way to stomp on a dog.

Great stomp! I don't find it suspicious at all that Loren has focused so much on stomp training, the one karate move you can only do on someone who is no longer a threat. He had good instincts to let his wife take these pictures because being good at stomps is like being good at knowing which states you can drive into with a 15-year-old. No good can come from it. It's like being good at analogies for explaining why dog stomping is bad when it's already dog stomping.

Forget all this foot-to-foot combat. According to some experts, over nearly many of all dog attacks happen on your bike. Turn to page something; it's time for SIX: Attacked on your Bike.

Um, here's something maybe you bicycling dog victims haven't tried yet… being nice? And if kind words don't work, no problem. You can still find success in bicycle groveling. Yes, you are a being beyond a dog's understanding with thumbs, wheels and art, but it doesn't have to know that. Give your dignity over to the beast the way a pervert might order a jar of fart.

Let's pause here and see if we can turn this into a teaching moment for our descendents. Skip ahead unless you're reading this in the far future. People of the stars, if you're ever writing a book about dog karate moves you can do from your bike and one of your sections is Acknowledge the dog's dominance, fuck you. You learned nothing from our most pathetic coward's mistakes! Drive your fart jar ship into the nearest sun!

If you're in the present, start reading again now: Don't do this. This is the act of a worm. Loren's wife, get in here and show us some bike moves that will let us die with a little self-respect.

Yes! Clobber the dog with your air pump and lock, Lisa! The book even switches to the dog's POV here so we can see what its last moments will look like. This bike, and its hardy ginger owner, will be the last thing you see, dog!

Loren's wife does what Loren could never do: she teaches us a dog finishing maneuver. Loren is such a craven fool he can't recognize victory when he's married to it and it's bringing a bicycle down on a dog's skull. "No! DON'T do THIS! Anything but THIS!" types the blubbering weakling. "BITCH FATALITY!!!" his wife counters.

There's nothing like this book. We met a dog on our bike, here in our universe with our universe's rules, we begged it to be our master, and then we lost 3 out of 4 falls to it in a bicycles, bike locks, and air pumps match. And the author thought he was helping! He put this book up for sale.

And I'm still not done showing you the crazy shit.

Ha ha ha, okay, Loren.

Loren has proven, more than most people killed by dogs, that he has no idea how to fight a dog. And he still wrote a section about defeating a pack of them? A pack of them pulling velociraptor maneuvers? Nonsense. He tells us to "quickly" identify the Alpha (insiders say this is the Dog word for "boss"), but instead of groveling before it like a bicyclist, he wants us to lunge at it and hope the pack gives us a job as mayor (the Human word for dog boss)? I thought Loren was a dipshit before; now I think a dog ate him and took over writing his book in a prank we will never understand.

Chapter Nine is all about the pros and cons of human pepper spray vs. dog pepper spray. Like most of the book, reports say they might not work, yet can be effective, some say. While Loren is trying to decide, he has a rare moment of foresight. He realizes after he maces a dog, he may have to mace its owner next. And with full sincerity, that's the reason this cop suggests going with the human pepper spray. More importantly, here's what that would look like for the dog:

Why set up this photo shoot? Is there a second way to do this? Why would anyone need a picture of th– damn it, it always takes me so long to figure out when something is a sex thing.

The rest of the book is sexy pin-up shots of Loren's wife brandishing pepper spray in different and stupid ways. I understand why he finds these interesting, but I can't imagine how these could help you in a dog fight. In fact, this entire book might have made me worse at fighting dogs. I'm fine with that as a person, but as a journalist? Absolutely not. I had to know whether or not Loren W. Christensen was the world's worst dog fighter, or the world's only dog fighter.

And yet how? No sane person would have a dog fighting section in their library. Such a thing would be absurd. Preposterous.

BITE BUSTERS: How to deal with dog attacks is a 1997 book by Sylvia Wilson, and it focuses more on the dog's martial arts techniques than the humans. For instance, many breeds of dogs punch, a thing I must not be reading correctly.

No, I read that right. Dogs, awesome ones, may punch you, and when they do, your best move is to stand there and get punched. In fact, a lot of this book is about standing very still and waiting for dogs to do whatever they want.

Sylvia uses a strange writing technique where she writes something, and then says the exact thing again immediately afterward. I've never seen it before. Maybe this is how everyone types after being punched by enough dogs. I've never seen anything like it, I think this must be how you type after taking too many dog punches.

If the dog has moved on from punching you and is actively ripping you apart with its teeth, try a harsh 'Bah.' Don't kick or push it. Shout a 'Bah' harshly, and whatever you do, don't push or kick it.

I don't like where I'm going with this, but where did Sylvia learn this technique? Because saying 'Bah' and doing nothing is precisely how a baby would show someone how to fight a dog.

Here's a dog battle move I wouldn't have considered. Keep your pockets full of dry dog food at all times. Sure, it might technically make you bait for more dog attacks, but it also gives you the option to pay dogs not to kill you. Dobermans, cattle dogs… many breeds extort their quarry. Keep your pockets full of dog food to bribe dog bandits. I seriously cannot fucking believe there is a dog fighting book worse than Loren's. End of article, I guess! Unless there's another dog karate book around here!

Methods of protection against aggressive dog attacks: Learn how to protect yourself is a 2019 book by Samuel Greenberg who has, no bullshit, 578 other books available on Amazon. Good ones. Three of them are about nunchucks and one of them is about double nunchucks:

Certainly this robot or team of Bangladeshi click farmers, "Samuel Greenberg," will know how to defeat a dog.

What the shit is this? Samuel lists the ten weak spots on a dog and none of them are "groin?" I can't use this. If I could hit a dog's ischial tubercle with nunchucks, would I be reading? No, I'd be in a Mexican bar telling two cat villagers my dog killing days are behind me. I'd be watching them leave to their sad destiny. God damn it. I'd be following them outside and tell them I'm in, but we're going to do it my way, and I say this is a seven dog-killer job.

"Señor, we do not have enough cat food to pay seven dog killers," they would be meowing. "Let me worry about tha– sorry, I forgot what I was doing. This lunatic, "Samuel Greenberg," somehow found a bunch of drawings of a man brawling with a dog and called it a book. Fig. 4 isn't accompanied by any useful text. It is just this brutal, silent dog battle. Please enjoy.

Fig. 5 is the same thing! What a battle! What a book! I obviously don't have a fourth MMA manual for dogs, which is great, because no ending could be better than this.

Unfortunately, I do have Dog Bites: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, a 2017 academic study on the lingering emotional effects of dog battles.

I'll be honest, I don't know what this is. I don't know who would want this, I don't know who would want to publish it. I don't think the authors themselves know what this is. They are on page 151 and they are still trying to work out, conceptually, what they mean by 'dog bite.' It's when a dog bites you (as shown in Fig. 4), you fucking (see Fig. 5) nerds!

This is more depressing than the other three books, and if you remember, those were about kicking dogs. Slow dogs, because if you remember, fast ones can't be kicked. They did interviews and peer-reviewed studies to learn survivors of dog battles suffer from shame and embarrassment. No shit, nerds! You think I needed an academic survey to tell me the life of a dog strangler sucks! I only wish I had a fifth dog fighting book so I didn't have to end the article on such a downer.

Defend Yourself: Secrets to Protect Yourself from a Hostile Dog Attack is a 2008 dog kung fu book by Melvin McKenzie. If nothing else, I will prove today that no man has ever typed "strike the dog in its groin or anus" more times than Melvin McKenzie.

This is not some sheepish cop wondering which surrender techniques work against dogs. Melvin uses ancient Oriental fighting secrets, adapted for dog crotch.

"There are no rules against including this much detail in your instructions for slapping dog genitals!"

- Air Bud 14: Budsport 2

The book was meant to be illustrated, but they ran into some problems. First, the illustrator Melvin hired ran out of time, and second, he didn't know how to draw dogs. All the dogs are an animal-like blur around a dick punch. It only makes me love the book more.

Most times there's no dog at all. Or attacks. A huge portion of this book is nothing more than sweet poses you can do at dogs, should any turn up.

This is the best. These look like tributes to the world's coolest six-year-olds who died in dog fights.

Loren Christensen told us to protect our groin by gently rotating our foot. But look here. Melvin has built a kung fu fortress around his dong called Hidden Palm. With a full charge of Qi, use your right hand as bait to lure the dog into a left hand grab to set up a full-faced intimidation trap. Die from hubris, dog! The good boy will instantly think, "I've underestimated this wiggling food monster." And if it doesn't work, if the dog still attacks, who gives a fuck? What a rad way to die. What a fun thing to try.

If you're not magical, there are some pretty good normal guy moves as well, like jamming a pencil into the dog's asshole.

This book is relentless. Melvin will circle around to land a groin and anus dog combo, drop in a story about the time his bully, Garbo, kicked him in his own anus, not unlike that of a dog's, and then casually share a move called Double Ghosts where you conjure a dog decoy to open it up to a groin and anus attack. It's the best book I've ever seen, and I recently read 72 pictures of a man ripping a dog apart with his bare hands.

YOU MAY WANT TO USE AN AXE KICK TO BREAK THE DOG'S BACK!? This book fucking rules. It was written by a full madman, but you have to respect his commitment to explore every last, dark corner of dog murder.

Are you still recovering from a dog fight you lost? No problem! Hit this current dog in the dick with one of your crutches!

When you find the perfect move, there's no shame in using it again. Smash this other dog in the genitals with one of your crutches.

Stay cool, dog fighter! If you take too big a swing, it won't be a dog's groin that gets mangled, but your own! I know this dog fighting technique works, because Loren's wife used the same one and dogs hate her.

You know what? Forget staying cool. Dance and twirl in a beautiful death ballet. Let the rain falling on your umbrella be only the blood of your dog enemies (not pictured).

This one is for mail carriers who have a small dog in their way.

…

Am I getting too used to dog kung fu, or are these becoming a little less magical?

"Nggh! Poke! Poooke!" Beware, Melvin's local dogs. You face a short umbrella! Okay, dogs, sorry. I guess not all of these are glorious deaths. Is Melvin done doing fun ones? Let's check the next one. Oh no.

Melvin includes two moves for the ladies. One of them is hitting a dog with your purse, and the other is moving your purse out of the way so you can kick a dog. "I didn't want this, I think there has been some kind of a mistake," say the ladies.

Don't worry, boys and girls. Dog kung fu comes in kid size too. "It made sense at the time," Melvin will one day say to the prosecutor asking him, "Did you, Mr. McKenzie, tell children how to get off their skateboard and use it to kill a dog?"

What happened? We were ax kicking Rottweilers out of the air less than 20 dogless drawings ago, and now we're a nine-year-old asking our mom to get the dog remains out of our wheels? This book is falling apart so hard. Gasp. I just realized I'm about to type this is the Ready Player One of animal beating books.

Melvin calls this one I Don't Fucking Know, Hit The Dog With Rock.. Why did it get so pragmatic and sad? I'm starting to think innumerable dog slayings might damage a man's soul.

"Pbpbpbpbp… nudge them with your cane? It could work; a lot of dogs don't even know kung fu," moans Melvin from the lifeless hole he once called a mouth. This guy used to shout move names as he air-juggled dogs into meat gravel. Now look at him.

What the fuck am I looking at, Melvin? Are you offering the dog your hat? I never thought I'd say this, but please tell me I have more dog karate books.

Oh no. Oh no, we're ending on that? The weird fucking hat bullshit!? No!

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