Dog Fight

Bailey got in a fight this morning.
First: she's ok. I'm honestly more shaken up than she was.

I was taking her for a walk this morning and we were crossing paths with another dog walker.
I don't know which dog growled at the other one first. I don't care either. Because they start fighting and as both humans try to yank our dogs away from each other, the other dog gets an iron grip on Bailey's cheek and she starts screeching.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to get in the middle of it because that's dangerous for me. But I can't let my dog get hurt like this. I know there's a way and a place to push or pull to get a dog's mouth to open up, I do this all the time when I give Bailey pills. But I'm not thinking like a rational person at the moment, becasue my dog is crying in pain and I can't stop it. Plus I don't want to stick my hands around a stranger dog's mouth that was clamped to Bailey's cheek, who knows what it would do to my hand.

So I'm just holding onto her for deal life, because by now I've dropped her leash, knees covered in mud from as I was trying to pull her away. Meanwhile, I'm hitting the other dog's face, practically crying, actually begging and yelling at the dog like a human: "just let go! Let go! stop hurting her!"
The other owner eventually shook the dog enough that the jaw loosened and we could pull them apart. He had two dogs with him and I guess it was lucky that other one just looked on and didn't do anything. There was enough noise coming from the dogs and my panicked cries that the neighbors came out to see if they could do anything. As we got them apart and I clutched my dog and checked her face, there was no blood so I figured she was ok enough. The guy asked me if we were ok and apologized. I said I think so, I'm just really scared right now.

It was just her cheek. It wasn't an eye or a tooth or her neck or bionic knees and any combination of those. Just her cheek.
But it's still fucking terrifying.

And here's another thing I hate about the whole thing, besides being scared to death and my dog yelping in pain. The other dog was a pit bull. I'm not against pit bulls, I think they are intense dogs, but I don't think they are bad dogs. It's the owners that encourage them to fight and bring out the malice in them that should be shot, not the dog. I was probably never going to get one myself, but if I adopted another dog at some point I wouldn't have discounted one solely on the fact that it had pit in it. But now, I'm a little scared of them I probably will do that now.