It is odd that you can be playing “correctly” and still be punished because a hound is randomly running towards another player and they just bump you doing a few points of damage straight to your health bar. If for example you were a zealot and your “Until Death” passive proc’d and were left with a single health point, any hound that remotely touches (targeting you or not) you insta kills you.
Even as the targeted player, if you push them and they still barely touched you, you will still take a few points of damage straight to your health bar.