[VivDarkbloom]

Thanks for your replies and support. As it happens, fortunately Leeloo and I have several routes that we like to walk and we usually "rotate" between the different walks. I will definitely walk that route again, however, and soon.

While I didn't want to be unsympathetic - knock on wood, I've never broken a bone - the woman's wild screaming made it seem more like she was going off her head than suffering an injury. She wasn't what I'd call elderly - I would have said she was in her mid-fifties at most - and we had had a good rain a couple of days ago, so the lawn where she fell would have been somewhat soft. I suppose it's possible to break a bone under those circumstances, but you'd have to be really unlucky.

As I said, I was very dubious about her claim that "my dog really likes your dog". I'm no expert, but it seems to me that often when a dog gets really excited at the sight of another dog on a walk, and barks and pulls at the leash, it isn't necessarily because they "like" the other dog or "just want to say hi" as some people claim - it's more because they want to assert themselves in some way. It can be this way regardless of the sizes of the dogs involved. There are always exceptions, of course, and some dogs are extraordinarily friendly.