Help! Opinion on aggressive neighborhood dog

Hi, I need opinions from fellow animal lovers. My husband and I were just walking my dog along with my son in a stroller, like we do every night. We were almost home and a (known to be aggressive) dog jumped over his fenced and charged my dog. He immediately bit his neck while growling....

Luckily my husband was there and grabbed the dog by the neck and pulled him off. The owner came running out and grabbed the dog- apologizing profusely.

Thankfully my dog is fine, no blood, just shaken up a bit. I'm a huge animal lover (adopt my animals, donate to aspca, etc) but my gut is to call and have them checked out. I would never ever want to be the reason an animal is killed or taken away but I just keep thinking what would've I have done if I were by myself. What if the dog turned on my very young son?! My husband keeps saying the dog didn't break skin and easily could've, but I'm so upset by this!

What's the right thing to do here?

Re: Help! Opinion on aggressive neighborhood dog

Message edited 7/13/2015 11:09:46 AM.

Re: Help! Opinion on aggressive neighborhood dog

I've been this person. I have a pit bull who is very dominant and while she doesn't start out aggressive, if any dog challenges her dominance, she'll fight to put them in their place. I have TWO gates separating my dogs (yes, I have two. they get along great) from the sidewalk. With the snow this year, the gates didn't close properly- they closed, but the "lock" didn't catch. I let my dogs out in the yard to play in the snow because they absolutely LOVE it. Someone passed by with their dog and my dogs were able to push the lock up (since the gate wasn't closed properly) and open the gates. I was at the back door and was out like a shot, barefoot, through the snow, and intervened, but not before the other dog got spooked and ran off. I got my dogs back in the house, threw on shoes, and ran to help the other dog owner find his dog. After walking the neighborhood for 10 minutes with no sign of them, I went back home. The dog owner rang my doorbell and was really about to let me have it when I burst into tears and told him how sorry I was and that in 7 years of living there this had never ever happened before. I don't think he even knew what to do. By the end, he was comforting me. I still feel horrible about it and make doubly, triply sure to shut the gates properly and don't let them out without me physically being out there with them. But the thing is, you don't know. I consider myself a VERY responsible dog owner, but accidents happen. I would absolutely go and speak to the owner before going to any authority. If you're received badly or get a bad vibe or, god forbid, it's happened before, that's a different story. But accidents unfortunately happen. Glad you're all okay.

Message edited 7/13/2015 1:31:40 PM.