Eight years ago when I was living in Nebraska with my family and my then Pem, Betsy, a friend and I decided to go out for a walk on Thanksgiving day. I had Betsy on a leash. Ahead of us was a black lab with its owner and the lab was not on a leash. They were probably 50 feet in front of us.
All of a sudden, I remember the black lab stopped and looked at us and approached us very slowly. We stopped and the lab approached and started smelling my dog and all of a sudden just lunged at my poor Betsy and had her neck in his mouth. My Betsy was yelping and we were kicking and hitting/screaming at the black lab and he would not let go. Finally the owner was able to pull that monster off. My dog had a puncture wound the size of a quarter and ran back to our house(with me and my friend behind her) She had blood all over her neck. I made an emergency call to my vet to take her in - resulting in a bill of course, which I took over to the owner of the black lab. I was so thankful that Betsy was okay. Had the owner not been there, I really don't know what would have happened.
The owner did apologize, but admitted that his dog did not like other dogs, yet walked him off leash. How much sense did that make
I also reported it to the police, because the dog should have been on a leash(leash laws) and had I not, what if it attached again.
So in this case, it wasn't the typical dog that you would imagine would attack your dog, nor did the dog come storming after my dog. It happened in a split second. So every time I see a black lab, I can't help but get this weird feeling in my gut.
So Michael, it goes to show anything can happen