Attack Dog

Question
QUESTION: I am writing a story about a young girl that is trying to escape from a Nazi attack dog. She crawled under a barbed wire fence at the border and the dog just caught her foot. He is on the other side of the fence. How can she get the dog to release? If she shoves a stick at it's gums? Do you have any suggestions?

I will be happy to give you credit when the book is published for any information you can give me.

Thanks so much. Christy Monson

ANSWER: It seems to me that the attack dog would have a handler RIGHT behind him; moot point, the girl will get shot.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: The handler has been detained by a stab wound. He is coming, but not RIGHT behind. If the girl reached down to untie her shoe lace, would the dog release her foot and grab her hand, or would he continue to hold her foot until his handler came?

Answer
A dog trained for defense (that's what an 'attack' dog is) will perform the behaviors he was trained for.  These dogs are trained to latch on and hold on; there's no "kill" involved (in a properly trained dog, anyway! any dog with a very strong prey drive and no bite inhibition wouldn't qualify as a "defense" dog.)  The dog will hold on to whatever part of the person is available; this inflicts injury, of course.  The only thing that would interrupt this behavior would be something STARTLING that the dog was not prepared for, such as a sudden loud noise (gunshot is possible, although most of these dogs have been trained to ignore that.)  It's possible the handler could inadvertently call the dog off by confusing it with his own pain response.