Ugh just returned from afternoon walk and want to know if I overreacted...
To disclose the full story, at the start of this walk a woman walking a terrier told me that a dog had just 'bitten' hers, and pointed to another woman walking a fox red lab. I could see that her terrier was uninjured so obviously nothing too serious, but still I was put on my guard.
20mins later this same lab out of nowhere runs up to my spaniel. The owner is a speck in the distance. The dog's body language is immediately off. My dog is usually relaxed and friendly, but now he looked tense and timid. I called my dog to me and sure enough, as soon as he moved, the lab jumped on his back with a dominence grab to the back of his neck. My poor dog really hates this, and I wasn't sure where it would lead so I yelled at her to call her dog off and keep it on a lead, which she did and in fairness the dog ran straight back to her. She yelled back at me that my dog wasn't on a lead, and I yelled that my dog was't aggressive. She carried on yelling but I was walking off at this point and didn't hear anymore.
I thought that was an end to it, but she cut across a field to catch up with me so she could have a right go at me for saying her dog was aggressive and that he was just a bouncy puppy. I retracted my statement about aggressiveness, but said that my dog didn't appreciate being jumped on like that and it wasn't play. But she wasn't having any of it, and put all the blame on me saying if my dog didn't like being approached he's the one that should be on a lead etc.
I'm now doing my usual post-confrontation thing of overanalysing it. What would you have done?