dog attack!

This week has seriously been the most crazy week of my life. Every morning Glen and I take Izzy out on walk in the desert. She loves it. She wakes us up every morning and sits by the door til we take her. She goes out there and chases bunnies and feels free. Well Tuesday we should have thought twice before we decided to let Izzy roam without a leash. After she ran all around we decided to head back to the truck. We we're almost back to the truck and she took off running. We noticed that there was an elderly couple walking. Glen started chasing after her because Izzy can be pretty intimidating. The elderly couple was walking their two small poodles that were not leashed as well. Izzy came running up to them and grabbed one of the dogs (we think she thought it was  a little kitty or bunny cause this is so not like her) she was treating the dog like a rag doll. It was HORRIBLE. I couldn't run to see what was going on be cause uh.. I'm 37 weeks pregnant. All I could hear were the dogs braking and the elderly couple yelling. Glen finally got there and kicked her off. The old man was holding the dog and apparently the dog was bleeding. We felt so horrible. We gave the people our numbers and apologized and told them we would help in anyway. We called to double check to see how there dog was doing through out the day, and made an appointment for them to be seen at the animal hospital. I was so scared that they were going to put Izzy to sleep because the couple kept telling me that I needed to. I know they were upset because there baby was hurt, but Izzy is my baby. I started crying and was so worried.  I called the animal control to see how things like this work. They said that since we were not on private property and both our dogs weren't on leashes we were both at fault, and they couldn't put Izzy to sleep. They said that its common for big dogs to chase little dogs. Since our dog attacked their dog we still feel obligated to pay for the bill. They called me today and told me the bill would be close to $1,900 and they also want us to pay for their gas so its going to be closer to $ 2,000!! Horrible I know! But we're hoping by not causing this elderly couple a hassle and just paying it will make karma be good to up :). Super stressful but.. What can you do? That's life!