From what I understand, K9 police or military dogs are considered officers? Or at least part of the team. It would be like a dog attacked your partner or brother in arms. So I can also understand why this happened. Plus, apparently these dogs develop a very close relationship witheir handlers.
I believe that this is accurate. The K9 dog was injured, but not badly. The attacking pit bull took three shots to be killed.
I do not like to think what would probably have occurred had not the handler been willing and able to stop the attack in the final manner.