Avoid the legalities and carry mace, too
There are plenty of reasons to carry some level of self defense weapons and sometimes it’s better to consider your firearm a secondary weapon and your primary as the less lethal. Recently there was some debate about how well pepper sprays and mace work on animals and it was quite a conversion. A person from the animal control ward came in here an mentioned that the pepper sprays were better on animals while another said that they are not good on dogs. Some animals just become so worked up that it doesn’t really matter if they are blinded or not, they might just start barking and biting when they become blind.
The thing you need to realise about pepper sprays and mace are that it just gives you the opportunity to get away from someone, but doesn’t mean it will get them off of you. I have strongly recommended the Kimber Pepper Blaster devices for self defense because they are shaped like a firearm and can be easily pointed after retrieving from a pocket. The shelf live is amazing and you get what you pay for. No need to worry about flip tops or flip caps when deploying these.