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Thanks again everyone.. Have been overwhelmed by all of your supportive responses... plus got to have a good giggle at the same time!

too funny!! Thanks for all the 'welcomes' everyone

This topic has taken an interesting turn indeed! Very entertaining... Lol...

Thanks everyone for all your replies! It makes me feel better to know that most of you here would have responded the same way. Hopefully I am never in this situation again, but if I am, I will definitely put myself in front of Lexie and be assertive! I will also be taking Lexie out for a walk this afternoon (without the baby this time), and just make sure things are as 'normal' as possible for her. @ Silent Child - I'm pretty confident that Lexie does not have any internal injuries. She has been pretty acting pretty normal today, has eaten her treats, played with her toys, tried to steal socks from the washing basket (lol). But thank you for being concerned, and I'm still watching her more closely than normal just to make sure she's ok. I did report the incident to domestic animal control who are trying to find out who owns the dog, so that they can be spoken to by a ranger. Hopefully they find the owners because I would hate for this to happen to anyone else. Also this happened right next to a primary school, so would hate for some poor little kids to be scared or hurt by this dog.

Hi Everyone, I am new poster to this forum, although I have browsed these forums several times before. I have a few questions I was hoping to get some answers/opinions for. Yesterday I was out walking my 18mth old dog, Lexie. It was the first time I had walked her whilst also pushing my 6 month old son in his pram, and I had connected her lead to the pram. Everything going really well (happy puppy, happy baby, relieved mum) until another dog came bolting out of nowhere. He had no lead, collar, no owner seemed to be around. He ran straight up to Lexie (who always adopts a submissive position when any dog approaches her) and basically stood over her and was keeping her down. My first thought was to just stand aside and with Lexie being so submissive to him, the dog would sniff her and get bored on and move. But for some reason he started to get more aggressive and started growling and mouthing at her, and Lexie started to whimper and yelp, so I intervened. I didn't really know what to do, but I started yelling and 'growling' at the dog to get away, but that didn't work. So I did the only thing I could think of, which was to kick the dog as hard as I could in the ribs. It took three kicks, and he got off her and ran off. At this point someone came out of their house (not the dogs owners though) and caught the dog and secured it in her garage. Lexie thankfully had no visible injuries, although she was very shook up and scared, and kept trying to jump in the pram with my son (I can only imagine she felt she would be safer there!) When I thoroughly checked her over at home, she seemed tender in a few places, but that was all. So my questions are these: - was this a dog attack? Or was this simply a dog asserting his dominance in a more aggressive manner? - was I justified in kicking this animal? at the time I all I was thinking of was the wellbeing and protection of Lexie, who was visibly distressed. I hate violence against animals, but in the moment I didn't know how else to get this dog off her! - besides never ever attaching the lead to pram ever again (I had visions of it tipping whilst this was all unfolding) - is there anything else I could done differently. - what are the chances that Lexie (who has the most beautiful, lovable, playful personality with both humans and other dogs) may now be a bit timid from this experience and what can I do to make sure this doesn't happen? Apologies for the bombardment of questions, but this has left me extremely shaken up, and a bit scared to take Lexie out again, especially whilst I am also pushing the pram! Thank you all again!