I walked right up, right up near the porch

I was right up near that porch on the left side. Trying to get a photo of light streaming down through the roof onto the sidewalk. A couple of dogs in a nearby yard were barking. There was a big dog in the back yard of these row houses. I saw him from the alley and thought nothing of it. All of a sudden he bounded through the buildings, as there are no doors on these. Running over loose boards and whatever else is in there, probably shards of glass, nails you name it. And he arrived on the front porch looking down at me and started barking. The front fence is only a foot or so from the porch, he could have jumped it as it's only as high as the porch and been on me in a second. Fortunately he was just being territorial, but not in the mood to come out on the sidewalk. I wondered at that time, how smart I was thinking about two legged problems, but kind of ignoring four legged ones. Needless to say, I didn't get my photo of the light streaming down or the dog. I just walked away keeping an eye and wondering if I'd have enough time to even react had he jumped onto the sidewalk. I drove my car by the front area with my video camera and yelled a bit to see if I could get him to stir and come back out to get the dog on video. It would have made good utube video, but he apparently wasn't interested in running out 5 minutes later, so I continued my journey back toward the Fisher 21 plant. We often think about some bum being in a building or inside a dark hallway. What about a pit bull? If one came at you while shooting photos would you have something for defense against him? It's probably not a good idea to shoot photos like this on foot or alone.