After dog incidents, in my anger I always come up with handgun schemes. However as pointed out several times, the end games when owners are involved are mostly very bad. I continue to carry Halt instead.

In my imaginary "carry" scenario, the ideal setup I have imagined would be a lightweight revolver with specific rounds chambered in sequence: first a blank, then either birdshot or salt pellets, then real bullets. Hopefully you'd never need the third.

But again, any owner with a weaponized dog is going to assume they were all real bullets, and return fire with real bullets.

I feel for the OP, though; my incidents have never resulted in any real damage like his, and I would have a hard time cycling again after what he's gone through.