The title should have more aptly read "Attacked by a pit bull", but that wouldn't have been fair to the dog since it was the owner who was a complete idiot.

Just need to vent after being traumatized at our local beach the other day by a completely out of control pit bull that I had to be forcibly pulled off Chewey's neck...  Talk about scary ;-/p>

I saw that the dog was a potential problem  as soon as it came down onto the beach.  Mostly because it was very over-excited and had no sense of "personal dog space".   Chewey absolutely does not do well with bigger dogs who come charging up to him and will warn them off (which as you can imagine doesn't work out so well if the other dog is reactive), so I made a note to keep an eye on the dog.    The beach isn't huge but there's usually enough room to stay  away from a potential situation there just by staying on one side of the beach or the other.

In any case, sure enough within 5 minutes that dog had a small black and white dog pinned, although I didn't see what started it.  The fight was split up and the dog was unharmed - but the owner still left her dog off-leash (!)    Once that happened I immediately put Chewey on his leash to keep him away (with the intent of leaving or moving if the dog came over to our side).   Unfortunately I clearly didn't take it seriously enough or move fast enough...   I was talking to some of the locals about the antics of one of the dogs (who had just found a nice pile of dog crap to chow down, ick) and in the process didn't notice that the dog had run over towards our group.  The next thing I knew he had charged right into the middle of us and I wasn't fast enough to  keep him away from Chewey.  Sure enough they got into it and he had Chewey down on the ground and was clamped onto his neck within seconds.  It took 2-3 of us to get the dog off - I actually ended up having to pry the dog's jaws open with my hands because nothing else was working.   In hind-sight not the smartest move but at that point Chewey was shrieking so my brain shut down and instinct took over.  In some sense it wasn't as bad as if it had been a "real" fight, since the dog was stationary, I just wanted it off him before it was able to regrip or start shaking him. 

Thank goodness there were a bunch of fellow dog owners who knew Chewey. and jumped in to help.  I wouldn't have been able to get the dog off on my own and the owner was completely useless.   I vaguely remember her saying in the background that her dog "had never done that".  I guess she had already forgotten it had happened < 5 minutes earlier.  At any rate, we were both very very fortunate - it could have been so much worse.   It turned out that the dog mostly had Chewey by his neck ruff (thank goodness for that thick Corgi fur!!!) so the only damage was some scrapes to his ear.     I had a couple of minor puncture wounds which could have been from either dog.

To add insult to injury the woman gave one of the witnesses a bogus phone number after it happened (I was occupied keeping Chewey down and away from the dog), so I couldn't even follow up with her to find out if her dog was up to date on rabies!  Chewey is so I'm not worried about him, but I would have been much more comfortable to know that the dog was up to date.     Arggh...   I couldn't believe it.  It would never even have occurred to me to lie about something like that.   Since then I've heard from multiple sources that it's all too common ;-<  Hopefully there won't be a next time but if there is we'll just have to make sure to follow the person to their car and get ID, take a pic, or whatever.  

If you've gotten this far, thanks for letting me ramble ;->   I've had nightmares the past couple nights about it and I'm hoping this will be cathartic!   I learned lots of lessons from this one.   The sad part is that in the long run it will be her dog who will probably pay for this owner's irresponsibility.