Fighting against dogs is frustrating, are they bugged?

[William]

I can easily take down a lot of enemies at once till dogs appear with their infinite bite combo. Are they bugged? Sometimes, They just start biting me infinitely till I die, and there's nothing I can do about it, if I attack them, they grab my arm. If I run, they kill me, there is nothing you can do against them. and sometimes they get stuck in an infinite combo, killing me at once.

[FullOfLife]

They're pretty obnoxious. There is a perk that makes dogs friendly

[Apocalypse]

If they charge you have to strike at them a moment before they are at your feet or you are too late and they'll grab you. using the bow against them also works well.
Don't find them hard to kill tbh

[Mr.I]

Not bugged, just bad designs. The design is that you're supposed to fight enemy dogs with your own dog. Otherwise, stay on your horse or:

Originally posted by Apocalypse:

If they charge you have to strike at them a moment before they are at your feet or you are too late and they'll grab you. using the bow against them also works well.
Don't find them hard to kill tbh

[DargonBlak]

i agree that dogs are designed poorly in the context of the game, imo - they are extremely OP (they aggressively drain your stamina)

When dogs come, i switch to the bow to avoid the lock to the dogs that prevents you from moving away. And moving away is important since you need to kill any dogs first.

The dogs glitch (become immobile) for a few seconds once they attack you, and this is your chance to take a few steps back and put an arrows between their shoulder blades (or in their face).

With a melee weapon equipped, you can spam-attack them, punching them with your fist or shield, but using the bow give you more mobility.

And use Dollmaker poison on your arrows or weapons to help slow the enemy down.

[William]

Thanks for the comments. I'm really hating this game due to the dogs. I've lost several times a lot of progress because I've been caught by a group of enemies with a dog. It's hard to kill the dog while you are surrounded by enemies, especially the huge stamina drain dogs have. I hate that you are not even able to flee fights due to dogs. In a game where you are restricted with the saves, you should always have the chance of fleeing fights but with dogs is impossible, you are forced to fight every fight and at least kill the dog which is hard if you are surrounded. I even tried throwing meat and the combat dogs just ignored it.
at least if they wanted realism dogs should not drain all your stamina per attack or also you should be able to stab or stun the dog while it's biting you, with some sort of counterattack animation so you have chances to escape.

[AfLIcTeD]

Once you have good equipment they are more of a nuisance than a threat.

[Icedfate]

the dogs are pretty unfair when you get a ambushed at midnight during fast travel by 4 fully armored top tier max level bandits and they have 2 dogs with them.

i noticed that it is possible to perfect block the dog, not sure if master strike is possible, but when the dog attacks, a green shield appears.

i always end up killing them when get grabbed and i start mashing the attack button. doesn't seem to push them off any quicker, the dog can still hold on for practically forever, but it usually dies while i'm doing this.

i would love to see someone fight 4 top tier armored guys and a dog while "holding S and spamming Q", but then, i promised i would drop that subject. . .

[Icedfate]

the worst part about dying to these guys is when i reload the save and try to get that same encounter again, it's gone, so i never get asecond chance to "do better" at it