Almost shot my neighbor's dog - still feel bad about it, still don't think I was wrong

This happened sometime last year.My wife and I were out taking our two dogs for a walk - she with our Shibe and me with our pit bull. As we passed by a house where new neighbors recently moved in on the other side of the street, their German Shepherd took to barking and snarling at us from inside her fenced in yard. She sounded pretty aggressive, but she was fenced in, so no worries, right?Well, obviously if it weren't a worry, I wouldn't have a story to post here. After we passed the house, I heard a scrambling sound, chainlink fence rattling, and rapid pawsteps. I turned and here comes this furry missile, barking and sprinting towards my pitty at full speed from our 4 o'clock. By the time my eyes were on her, she was already more than halfway across the street towards us.It's weird how time does that slowdown thing in a moment of "holy shit!" I was certain that this bigass Shepherd was going to kill my dog - she was locked on like an AMRAAM and moving about as fast, a flying ball of snarling fur and teeth. There was absolutely no time for anything else - I drew and fired, but she was already on him, and...there was no more snarling, no more barking, and - this is what stood out to me - no yelping of a dog with a new hole in her. "Shoot until the threat is stopped" has always and ever will be my mindset as it pertains to using a firearm for self defense, and in that split second right after I squeezed the trigger, I took in what I considered to be an impressive amount of information.First, I missed, just high of her spine, the .40 S&W round ricocheting off the sidewalk just beyond her. Second, she wasn't attacking my dog - she was saying hello, sniffing under his crotch and wagging her tail. Third, I'd limp-wristed in the moment, and the Glock was now stuck out of battery with a stovepipe.Weapon still in hand and pointed at the Shepherd, I decided against racking the slide like every fiber of my training was urging me to and looked over my shoulder to see her owner just emerging from his house, looking worried. I quickly cleared the jam and reholstered before he made it over - and he introduced himself to me, apologized for his dog, and promised to sure up his fence that day. He either had no idea that I'd almost shot his dog, or simply chose to be happy that I'd missed. Then I saw his wife - and their two young daughters, both under six years old - now standing in the front door and watching us.For a few days after this incident, I couldn't stop thinking about those little girls. I almost killed their family pet, and the guilt I felt for that left a knife in my chest for a while. However, I also didn't feel like my actions were unjustified - right up until that surprisingly clear moment following my shot, I was certain that my pitty was going to get mauled if I didn't stop it. In the end, our families are now friends and we help each other with home improvement projects and stuff. To this day I'm not sure if he knows I shot at his dog, and any time I go by their house without my own pups, I stop to say hello to Ziva if she's in the yard. She's the sweetest dog you can imagine when interacting with people - she just sounds like she wants to kill other dogs because of how she expresses her enthusiasm for wanting to say hello and play.Anyway, that's the first and only time I've discharged my weapon outside of a firing range. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/3aETMlg