Fear of the dark (dogs)

One of the most peculiar things in my opinion I deal with in the doggy world is how often people try to find excuses for themselves and blame it on the dog. Today on my morning walk I again experienced such a case when a doggy friend and I where chatting for a few minutes before we parted after a walk together. While we were talking two women approached us, walking along the path with a small mix off leash (our dogs were off leash as well). Sambo was seating next to me, already bored to death because of the lack of action and I saw that he wanted to go and sniff the little doggy when he saw him. But I saw the look on both the women's faces, so I told him to stay seated and held him next to me. At that moment the two women started to call the doggy anxiously, and the doggy couldn't care less, he didn't even twitch with an ear or something, he calmly headed towards us, so I let Sambo go because I don't want him to meet any unknown dogs without having enough manoeuvre space due to many bad experiences (not to complicate, he was attacked and jumped at numerous times by small and big annoying dogs when he was on leash or close to me, so he didn't even have any room to move away and avoid them). The ogs sniffed each other calmly, Sambo was even wagging his tail and the little one was (surprisingly!) cool, totally relaxed and didn't show any signs of uneasiness, aggression or fear. And then, one of the women comes running to the dogs (great), calling her Gizmo and saying that he can't do that, that he has to go away, that he fears dark dogs very much because he was attacked by one. Doing that, she leans over Sambo (awesome, what better thing to do to an unknown dog than to lean over hs back) and reaches towards Gizmo, who obviously wanted to do a bit more sniffing and moved away from her. So I said to her 'Lady, everything is ok. (No, you see, my dog is terribly afraid of dark dogs.) He isn't afraid, he's completely happy and unconcerned.' At that moment, the second woman comes running, goes between both dogs with her hands, grabs poor Gizmo by the harness and lifts him into her lap (brilliant). I actually felt sorry for the little guy, he was one of the very few smally dogs that behaved more than exemplary, without a trace of panic, aggression or fear, and that two women interrupted an interaction with two normal dogs (the thing he needs most if he really has a problem with big dark dogs, which I wouldn't say, judging by what I saw…). I can only hope that a) they don't REALLY impart a fear towards big dogs, so that he becomes one of the endless small annoying dogs, dashing at every dog they meet, and b) that one of the women doesn't get half of her face bitten off by a dog that hasn't got Sambo's socialization or character if they keep leaning over unknown dogs like that or getting their hands in between two dogs that are meeting for the first time. Yeah, I really wonder which of the three of them has a problem with big black dogs…