I'm pretty sure Mae would defend me if needed, as I'm sure if the situation arose she'd have more bite than bark.

Fortunately when (and there's been a few) someone was a d@mn fool enough to approach a woman (me) walking a 55 or so lb dog who if you look closely obviously has some pit somewhere in her mutt'igree in either a hostile or suspicious manner Mae has known that's the time for her to be extremely well behaved as we just calmly leave.

'cause no, Bad Ju Ju, most people got no sense ;-)