Hope the other half or the duo is soon recovered John, has the perpetraitors owner OFFERED to pay the vet's bill?? Hmmm, brought up and training, that one is always going to be a pile of worms, and I can speak as an owner of Ally's for over 40 years, and no, I don't think they give me enlarged Testes, I also drive a Fiat Punto.
Just to relate, and I'm not suggesting that you were in any way in error, one of the best dogs we had was one I bought for the Missis to try to replace one that had been stolen. Looks were enough to stop her in her tracks, (the DOG, not the Missis) Ace round kids and the whole gamut, untill she was pregnant and the grandson managed to "Fall" on her. T'only thing she did was show her teeth, and that was fine untill the grandson was told to apologise to the dog by the daughter in law and she bared her teeth again. At this point I went apesh7t with the D.I.L cos last time the child got anywhere near her it hurt so was a natural reaction. We had a litter of 12 pups, Oh what fun, and everything was fine for months untill other son came with his two daughters who then proceeded to get too close for the dogs comfort and she showed this by baring her teeth again, no bites at ANY time. The following day, with an extremely heavy heart, my next best pal for six years was at the vets and killed, but that was our choice as resposible owners as if she'd actually bitten anyone elses kids, that would have been devastating.
It's surprising how large some dogs "Territories" are, and yes I know it was a public access area,but dogs don't understand this. In another life, I used to compete in toy RC thermal competitions and we used to load the gliders and our kids into the car with one of our Scotties (now THEY are tenacious little bu**ers). He would religeously "Guard" my gliders where they were parked well behind the flight lines and once let off after a kid on the other side of the field, he didn't bite him, but certainly improved his school sports day times and luckily his father found this rather amusing. "A dog that don't like kids can't be ALL bad".
Anyroad, best wishes to bandit and give him a bonio or a piece of Wenslydale from me.
Best regards Ian.