So there’s “work with” and “encounter in the street/park/woods.”. Those are different things requiring different strategies. I don’t carry a gun, but I avoid human and other species predators who are loose in my environment using a variety of strategies.
He had a gun and the king doesnt get to run or hide. It’s nice to be in a position to be kind but I think the dogfighting dogs in my hood and the ferals are much closer to the animal in question than what you deal with and shooting one makes perfect sense and is not an “assassination”
It’s like if I say “I will absolutely shoot a car jacker” and you say “my nephew asks for my car all the time I just firmly say no”
I don’t think any of us has enough information to know how similar that particular historic dog was to your ferals or gentle giant mastiffs.
Perhaps but we know that 17th century London had multiple dogfighting and bear baiting rings (there was bear baiting right next to the globe) and that mastiffs were used in combat as terror weapons so….yeah a strange mastiff MIGHT be gentle or it might have killed 30 dogs in the ring