The poster who said 'don't own a dog you can't control' is dead-on.
Odin wears this when out:
So, I don't worry much about something grabbing him by the throat and few dogs ever try and break bad on him, anyway.
*But*, even though I'd hate it like poison, if some dog attacked one of my "defenseless" Ibizans, I'm afraid I'd have no choice but to save my dog, whatever it takes.
I know how to end a dog fight, even if I'm the only person there but whoever owns the attacking dog is going to wish they'd never been born.
If I, as a puny old 100 pound dame can manage to keep *my* dogs under control, so should everyone else.
I would not seek revenge on the dumb, untrained dog but I would make the irresponsible owner's life a living hell.
Just last week in PetSmart I was talking to a man with a beautiful little Golden pup he was out socializing/training.
Some guy with a Husky came down the aisle and that dog went berserk, lunging and "for real" snarling and snapping.
The guy with the pup immediately dropped down to shield his dog ["weakness behavior" to an already-aggressive red-zoned dog] and the guy with the Husky just sort of feebly "tried to pull him back" [crap owner who was getting off on his "savage dog"/out of control dog] and I did the appropriate thing...I stood upright between them, blocking the Husky's way and displayed dominant body posture to the Husky who then STFU and backed down.
The guy with the Husky even had the gall to tell the other guy to get out of his way before his dog attacked.
[insert multiple expletives, here]
I have no idea what would have happened, had I not been there.
I *do* know what my Odin would've gotten had *he* tried to savagely attack some other harmless dog.
Bad behavior is *not* tolerated here.
We had a black lab. He was well socialized with both people and other animals. Other that one time when a homeless man threw a punch at my brother, I never saw him display any signs of aggression towards a human and then, he only growled and got between the man and my brother. He was especially submissive and careful with kids.
However, after about the age of 5, he suddenly became intollerant to any other dog. Literally, he used to be the center of the pack playing on the beach to trying to take on any and all comers. We had to seclude him from any dog contact.
I never could figure out what happened, literally overnight he went from loving dog company to hating every dog in the world. We considered putting him down but he was fine around people and lived out the rest of his life without incident.
He even loved the mailman!