Story time! I'm extremely non confrontational and expert conflict avoiders (to the point where I actually went to therapy for it). But this one time was an exception and of course it was for my dog.

Me and Lady were waiting for the bus to take us home one evening. It was dark, completely silent, the bus station was pretty much empty and we were alone. Until a drunk who was literally around twice my size (tall fat man vs short thin woman) stumbled up to us. Lady growled. That is the only time she has ever growled at a human. She's gentle and lazy and does 't even bark when guests come over. But it was this really deep dark growl where you barely hear it but you feel the vibrations in your stomach. I apologized of course and asked him to please keep his distance. He loudly slurred that all dogs love him and that I'm making her insecure.

To prove he was right he then fucking threw himself at my growling dog to give her a hug or whatever, (which is a really dumb thing to do at any dog, let alone a 85 lb Rottweiler/AmStaff mix). Lady snarled and growled like I have never heard before, I swear it echoed across the entire town, it sounded like a sound effect from a werewolf movie, while backing away from him, hunched down, tail between legs, ears back, to avoid him. She reached the end of the leash and he tried to approach her again, despite me telling him no and trying to push him back which he didn't even notice. Nope, he seemed determined to get his face chewed off.

So I womaned up and stepped in front of him and slapped him as hard as I could with the back of my hand across his cheek. Lucky for me he fell over, mostly from surprise and drunkenness I think, and I ran to my friends apt and had my dad come pick me up. I had no idea what just happened and I felt so bad for slapping that poor confused old man and just leaving him there without even apologizing.

And so goes the story of that one time in my life I used violence and the felt super bad even though I did nothing wrong.