I had a bad experience today, my labrador started playing with an otter hound malethen progressed to play fighting and then otter hound went into attack mode.  The dogs bumped into me and the otter hound bit my leg, not sure if this was intentional or not.  Had to have a tetanus injection at local hospital as although I was wearing thick jeans the dog's teeth grazed and bruised my leg badly.  Any advice would be welcome.  The otter hound's owner seemed to think this was normal boy dog behaviour but I had never seen such a big dog fight before.  My labrador has been castrated so is very playful.

Hmm very difficult to judge exactly what was going on via the ether.   Normal boisterous rough play can appear extremely frightening to the uninitiated and look like real fighting when it is just role play.

Dogs are equipped with lethal weapons and so the majority of the time it is just all mouth and no trousers.

I very much doubt if the bite was intentional, particularly in this breed.

If your lab is very playful as he may have been castrated early this can annoy other male dogs and he may have had enough......................

I would chalk it up to experience.

I always find it helps to come to decision by thinking what would your reaction have been if the positions had been reversed and your labrador had done the same thing to the other owner..........

I would also reccomend reading about Dino the GSD that recently was repreived ffrom a death sentance. (Yippeeee!)

Same scenario, dogs fighting, owner gets bitten splitting them up and then contacts the police. Dino was then ordered to be PTS but thankfuly the owners fought. (It took approx 3 years and they had to move house etc to finance the court costs.)

I am sure you wouldnt wish that upon anyone?

It could have as easily have been your dog biting the other owner (unintentionaly of course).