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Offloading incoming attackers (hounds, giants...) onto others sometimes works well, but there are other ways of dealing with them.
Usually hounds announce themselves some time beforehand, so you can do some last-minute preparations to welcome them:
Light your fires up to the maximum
Grab a spear, a football helmet and a log suit
Heal yourself using honey poultice, healing salves, dragonpie, fishsticks, pierogi...
Move to a fighting area if you can (pig village, beefalo herd, tallbirds, panic hallway)
Your fighting area should be well-lit: two permanent fire pits are no unnecessary luxury.
I always advise against a panic room, because you can get yourself trapped in it. An area laden with tooth traps (or bee mines) can be as effective, and if you run arounds, enemy pursuers will often take a shortcut and run straight to you, through the deadly field.
Dealing with hounds becomes quite easy once you got a better weapon (Dark Sword, Ham Bat, Tentacle Spike). A regular spear is an excellent weapon for those non-rushed battles, like killing off 1 beefalo or Werepig, but for hounds at night, don't be afraid to whip out the big guns.
Hounds take 5 hits with a spear. An easy way to kite them is to let them approach, dodge the first bite, deliver two hits, dodge the second bite, deliver three hits, killing it.
This shows why Spikes work better: you only have to dodge the first bite & deliver three consecutive hits (hold F) to kill them. You can usually kill them off one by one this way, dealing with each incoming hound before the next one reaches you.
