Just kidding.
The neighbor up the street from us has a dog. The dog roams free about once or twice a week (that I know of) and usually picks a fight with my dog. My dog is always leashed, this dog however is not. The neighbor's dog is also a good 2 or 3 times the size of my toy rat terrier. Don't get me wrong, everytime my dog has kicked it's ass, but that's because we caught on to them fighting a little late.

NO, we don't do dog fighting, we stop it as soon as we see it. Also remember that this dog will run up to us during the daily walks around the neighborhood and start growling.

The neighbors have been warned by my mom that she will call animal control if he's in our yard again, but she now has a full time job and hasn't seen it.

Well tonight I was walking my dog and on the way home, this dog was sitting in the middle of the street. Seemed to have been waiting since he wasn't there when we started to walk. Anyways, the dog starts growling as we walk towards the driveway, which pisses my dog off so he also starts to growl. The dog lunges at us, so I jerk my dog back and lunge at the free dog. This dog has balls and never backs down. After a few attempts of lunging and this dog not budging, he tries to get towards my dog more. I raise my leg to kick him but he won't come any further. I'm fed up by this time and start yelling at this ugly ass dog to go home. I guess I scared the **** out of him, because he takes off up the street.

But the question is, would I get in trouble if the owners saw me kick their dog? Animal abuse is a felony, but wouldn't this just be protecting myself and dog? How about if I punch him in the nose as hard as I can?