Defending postal worker in a dog attack?

So I had a had a bit of a situation unfold as I was arriving home yesterday.To set up the situation, these folks that live diagonally across the street from me have two dogs, a white one and a black one, that they are always leaving off leash. It seems like a weekly occurrence of them having to wrangle one of them back into their yard. Just a few weeks ago, the white one came running over to me when I was returning from a run. I stopped and pet it while the owner came and got it.I’ve never noticed either being aggressive, though I recall during quarantine last year they had them outside constantly and they barked the entire time. The white one seems to be a bit more mellow. The black one will bark at a car driving by 🙄.Yesterday I arrive home to see the black one attacking our mailman. Obviously my first instinct is to help. These folks have a couple of young children, maybe 6 or 7 years old that were outside on the trampoline and no adult outside. The mailman was shouting for them to help and get the dog. It eventually knocked him down. It seemed like an eternity, but someone finally came out of the house to restrain the dog.As I’m assessing the situation I’m thinking “Do I run over and tackle the dog and risk getting bit? Do I pull my knife out to attempt to subdue the animal? Do I shoot it?”I ultimately didn’t need to do anything, but it got me thinking what would be the appropriate thing to do if someone hadn’t come out to restrain the dog quickly enough? Not to sound like a douche, but I’m a pretty strong guy and was afraid if I went over to intervene that I may have killed or injured the dog. That’s the last thing I’d want to happen, especially in front of kids. I did realize after the fact that my wife has pepper spray, and maybe that is something I should start carrying regularly also. I asked the mailman if he was ok, and also suggested to the neighbor to tie their animals up. Hopefully he reports the attack.I also have two young kids myself, and now I know at least one of these dogs is aggressive. I don’t find it necessary to wait and see what it’s intentions are if it approaches when I have my children outside.Ultimately after thinking about it, pepper spray seems to be the safest option for this scenario.It got me thinking though about the legality of defending yourself or others from an animal attack. I was reading an article from a few years back in a neighboring city when a woman was in her yard with her pit on a leash when the neighbors pit came into her yard and attacked her dog. She attacked the dog with a box cutter in self defense, yet was sentenced to 180 days in jail. Reading the Ohio law, it would seem she would be in her right to defend herself/her pet in this situation.I’d love to hear other accounts of a similar situation and how it was handled. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/3zrVa3U