Write the park incident down the same day
Memory of a frightening minute rewrites itself quickly. By the next morning, the order of events blurs, times stretch, and the other dog grows in the telling. A log entry written the same day, ideally within the hour while you are calm enough to be accurate, preserves the version a vet or trainer can actually work with. It need not be long. Five to ten honest lines written promptly outweigh a dramatic page written a week later.
Start with the fixed facts: date, time, which park and which area of it, who was handling your dog, and whether he was on or off the lead. Then write the sequence in order, in plain language: what approached, what signals you saw, what contact happened, how it ended, and how both dogs parted. Write what you saw, and mark clearly anything you did not see and are inferring.
The facts a vet or trainer will ask for
A veterinarian reading the log wants the physical picture. Record your check-over findings: any puncture, scratch, torn nail, limp, swelling, or area your dog flinched away from when touched, and anything that appeared later that evening, because bruising and stiffness often declare themselves hours after the event. Note appetite, thirst, toileting, and sleep that night, and whether he moved and played normally the following day.
A trainer wants the behavioral picture. Record the setting honestly: how crowded the park was, whether balls or food were involved, how long you had been there, and whether your dog had already been aroused by an earlier encounter. Note his recovery: how quickly he settled, whether he could respond to cues afterwards, and whether he has been different with similar dogs since. Those details, not blame, are what a trainer builds a plan from.
What to leave out of the log
Leave out verdicts about the other owner, breed commentary, and predictions about your own dog's character. A log that says "attacked by a dangerous dog, he will never trust spaniels again" tells a professional more about the writer's fright than about the incident, and it quietly biases every later reading. If the other owner's details were exchanged, record them factually in a separate line, along with any witness names, and keep that administrative note distinct from the account of what the dogs did.
Photographs, where they help, belong with the entry: a close picture of any injury with something for scale, taken the same day and again the next morning if it changes. Date them, and store them with the entry rather than in a general camera roll where they will be unfindable by spring.
Using the log at the follow-up conversation
Bring the log to the vet visit or training session rather than summarizing it from memory in the doorway. Hand over the sequence, the check-over findings, and the days since. If there has been more than one incident, the log's real value emerges: patterns across entries, such as always at the gate, always after long sessions, always around guarded toys, are visible on paper in a way they never are in recollection, and they change the advice you will be given.
Keeping incident entries in your KinsLe Pet Passport with the rest of his health history means a new vet or a trainer meeting him for the first time can read what actually happened, in order, before making a single recommendation.