I have two Beagles - girls - one is 18 months old and the other is 3. The three year can be a nervous and reactive when we take the dogs out together but she had never ever shown signs of biting anyone or wanting to.
Now my dogs do bark when we take them out together - the older dog barks when she sees a reflective jacket and in the dark she barks at people with torches and those lights runners wear on their heads.
They are always on a lead because they are Beagles - we give them a free run once a week in a dog field, they have at least an hour's walk a day and lots of play - normally with each other.
Last night I took them out and - something I've not done on my own with them before - took them into a narrow cut through near our house. It has a lamppost but it wasn't lit. Now the cut through backs onto a wood where my dogs can smell foxes, people feed them there. Anyway as we are walking through the cutthrough my dogs get excited and at the other end I can a woman has started to enter the cut through. My dogs are barking a bit - she has a torch on her head. Some fireworks go off in the distance - quite loud but not scary loud. I shout out to her 'my dogs are friendly but they can smell foxes and they get a funny about torches' she carries on walking towards me - this cutrhough is narrow. I pull my dogs back on their leads but somehow - I think it's the older one, jumps up at her. She says 'your dog bit me'. At that point I turn round and say can you follow me out. We go out into the woods which are well lit and I get her number and tell her to send me a picture of the wound.
I mention my profession and she tells me she's in sinurance. She sends a bit, I can't tell whether it's a bite or whether it's my dog's claw. I feel terrible. She says she's called the NHS and was told to wait 12 hours. My Beagles are not aggressive - although maybe they are now. What can I do? Do I have to have them put down - I don't want them hurting anyone ever!!