Sharp knives save lives

[jwbnyc]

I will never understand people who mistreat animals.

[Sonorum]

I'm always scared about the tip of the knife when using it close to something such as dogs or kids.

Good on you guys for being prepared and acting when the time comes.

[aicolainen]

There was an episode with my fist dog, a very lively and energetic German Shepard, that I often think about and that to a large degree has affected my preferences and habits with regards to what and where/when I carry in company of animals.
What's weird is that this episode is always playing in the back of my head, but now that I'm trying to pull out the specifics and lay out a coherent story for y'all, I suddenly realize that so many of the important details have washed out over the years.

Anyways, one day when we were out on a hike and he was running free in the woods surrounding the path, he got caught in some old, semi overgrown trash. I can't quite remember what it was he got caught in, but I think it was some old, frayed nylon rope intertwined in old rusty wire fence and half way decomposed wooden fence post piled together. Typically something you'll find in abandoned and re-forested pasture from bygone times.
Luckily for him, he was close enough to the path so I could see he was in distress, and I was able to cut him loose before his panicked behavior resulted in him getting injured.
Sadly for the storytelling I don't remember what I used to cut him loose. This was well before I got interested in knives beyond having one that worked. Going by probability it was most likely my OG LM Wave.

I had a similar incident with my army service dog a few years earlier, where he stumbled into some overgrown barbed wire. Luckily he didn't get caught in it and only sustained a few small cuts.

There is some question as to the suitability of a knife for this purpose, and for good reason. It's far from ideal.
Panicked animals are no joke. I can even find it unnerving to use pointy scissors on my dog or cat when something gets stuck in their fur. And these are animals that trust me, being worked on in a very controlled situation.

Having a knife is usually better than not having one. More options is more better. And I'll usually carry a sheepsfoot/modified sheepsfoot or even a hawkbill sometimes if I don't have any specific usage in mind and carry for just in case.
It is a rare incident that these things happen (in literally thousands of hours with free running dogs these are the only two incidents that comes to mind), so I don't want to get too specialized in my tool selection. The broad utility of a knife is what makes it such an appealing carry proposition in the first place.

So while the knife being less than ideal, with the incident interval being so long (low risk), I'm not likely to make further improvements aimed at this specific scenario. But.. this thread did remind me about the barbed wire incident, so I might take a closer look at Fireman's wildland firefighting knife if it comes to fruition. I didn't make this connection back when the discussion was running hot and didn't initially consider it to be a relevant option for me. But maybe it will be. There's not only our dogs that run into trouble sometimes, I've come a cross sheep with their head stuck in fences and buckets on several occasions. Often too late, but the few times I've been able to make a difference non of my current knives would have been able to make a difference.

[Bill1170]

As long as we're telling stories about the benefit of sharp knives and dogs...

About a year ago, a stray dog wandered into my apartment complex. He was old and clearly arthritic, and someone must have just dumped him off. I scooped him up and took him to a friend of mine who does animal rescue, and she could tell he'd been neglected for quite a while. She looked at his collar, and it had started to become embedded in his neck, and by her estimate it hadn't been off of him in years because it was just totally encrusted with grime. She said that she needed to go get some shears to get it off, but before she got even five feet away I'd sliced it off of him. She went, "Wow! How sharp do you keep your knives?!"

He was unfortunately way beyond the point of recovery. We think he may have had some kind of dementia too, because he would just wander around inside of her garage until his paws bled. Sadly, he had to be put down, but at least he lived out his last couple of weeks on a nice farm with other dogs, plenty of food and plenty of grass to roll around in.

Here he is with a proper leash and collar on. We only had a tag for my friend's dog Sophie, but we called him Bear. He was a good boy.

IMG_20230522_100547.jpg

He looks more like a bear than most dogs named Bear. I’m glad his final days were good ones.

[Bill1170]

There was an episode with my fist dog, a very lively and energetic German Shepard, that I often think about and that to a large degree has affected my preferences and habits with regards to what and where/when I carry in company of animals.
What's weird is that this episode is always playing in the back of my head, but now that I'm trying to pull out the specifics and lay out a coherent story for y'all, I suddenly realize that so many of the important details have washed out over the years.

Anyways, one day when we were out on a hike and he was running free in the woods surrounding the path, he got caught in some old, semi overgrown trash. I can't quite remember what it was he got caught in, but I think it was some old, frayed nylon rope intertwined in old rusty wire fence and half way decomposed wooden fence post piled together. Typically something you'll find in abandoned and re-forested pasture from bygone times.
Luckily for him, he was close enough to the path so I could see he was in distress, and I was able to cut him loose before his panicked behavior resulted in him getting injured.
Sadly for the storytelling I don't remember what I used to cut him loose. This was well before I got interested in knives beyond having one that worked. Going by probability it was most likely my OG LM Wave.

I had a similar incident with my army service dog a few years earlier, where he stumbled into some overgrown barbed wire. Luckily he didn't get caught in it and only sustained a few small cuts.

There is some question as to the suitability of a knife for this purpose, and for good reason. It's far from ideal.
Panicked animals are no joke. I can even find it unnerving to use pointy scissors on my dog or cat when something gets stuck in their fur. And these are animals that trust me, being worked on in a very controlled situation.

Having a knife is usually better than not having one. More options is more better. And I'll usually carry a sheepsfoot/modified sheepsfoot or even a hawkbill sometimes if I don't have any specific usage in mind and carry for just in case.
It is a rare incident that these things happen (in literally thousands of hours with free running dogs these are the only two incidents that comes to mind), so I don't want to get too specialized in my tool selection. The broad utility of a knife is what makes it such an appealing carry proposition in the first place.

So while the knife being less than ideal, with the incident interval being so long (low risk), I'm not likely to make further improvements aimed at this specific scenario. But.. this thread did remind me about the barbed wire incident, so I might take a closer look at Fireman's wildland firefighting knife if it comes to fruition. I didn't make this connection back when the discussion was running hot and didn't initially consider it to be a relevant option for me. But maybe it will be. There's not only our dogs that run into trouble sometimes, I've come a cross sheep with their head stuck in fences and buckets on several occasions. Often too late, but the few times I've been able to make a difference non of my current knives would have been able to make a difference.

Carrying side cutters makes good sense when out where old barbed wire lurks in the weeds, even without dogs. Once rusty, the stuff is difficult to spot. Back in the 80’s I spent several days combing our 3.5 acres in Colorado for old barbed wire and removing everything I found. It was a good feeling to know that our own land, at least, was clean.

[UkSpydie]

This is why I carry my UKPK serrated. I live near the harbour and there’s all sorts of nets and line everywhere. If my dogs get caught up in it, I want to be able to cut them free before anything happens. Same with their leads too.

It’s why I also really would love a UKPK Rescue. Or just one with a rounded tip. I would love to carry a proper rescue knife, but uk knife laws mean I haven’t found any that are available.

[Sonorum]

Having a knife is usually better than not having one. More options is more better. And I'll usually carry a sheepsfoot/modified sheepsfoot or even a hawkbill sometimes if I don't have any specific usage in mind and carry for just in case.

Carrying side cutters makes good sense when out where old barbed wire lurks in the weeds, even without dogs. Once rusty, the stuff is difficult to spot. Back in the 80’s I spent several days combing our 3.5 acres in Colorado for old barbed wire and removing everything I found. It was a good feeling to know that our own land, at least, was clean.

@Aicolainen: Having a knife at least gives you the option of acting. Sometimes in the edc-hobby we get stuck in the though-loop of "having the right tool" when the question firstly should be "do I have a tool?".

A talkin' story about old barbed wire: When I was young I was out running through the woods (as one does) and when passing through a shady patch I was suddenly hit across the chest, bouncing back, hitting the ground. I had at full speed been clotheslined by a rusty barbed wire and had to go home and show my mother a nice stripe of pin pricks across my chest. Old barbed wire is nasty.